Connecting

In my 10 years of private practice, I became persuaded that the community of God’s people was meant to be the place where the deepest healing takes place. I came to the conclusion that real healing has less to do with technical intervention and more to do with profound relational engagement. I realized that the   context for this engagement needs to be in the community of God’s people—and that’s the church. I thought that if healing belongs in church, then I’d like to be involved in somehow strengthening churches.   I began to ponder what the Trinity and community have to do with sanctification in counseling. I discovered the transforming power that is released when people learn to enter the kind of community that God has enjoyed in the Trinity. And I realized we can develop that kind of community with the resources provided by the New Covenant. What needs to happen to people happens in community. When I began to understand that, I thought, I’ll begin to focus on the resources that are inherent in the community of people who are in “new covenant” relationship with God. My journey has led to the conclusion that real community happens when the energy of Christ within believers pours out into another person with the wisdom that the Bible provides, with the wisdom that only suffering can teach, and with the wisdom of the Spirit working through the resources He has given us through the New Covenant. Larry Crabb