goodhope - Focus on the Family Canada

recommended
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coming up next
Engaging Today’s Prodigal: Clear Thinking,
New Approaches, and Reasons for Hope by Carol Barnier
Carol Barnier left the faith of her pastor father, became an
active atheist, debated Christians, and explored a variety of
worldviews before she found the truth in a relationship with
Jesus. But far more than her personal story, Engaging Today’s
Prodigal equips readers with a better understanding of a
prodigal’s motivation, useful responses that won’t prevent
reconciliation, clear boundaries to protect themselves
and other children, actions to take when you know you
have contributed to the problem, and the value of realistic
expectations.
When: Friday, April 12, 2013 Where: Calgary, AB
Cost: $49 per person
The Connected ChilD
We highly recommend this one-day workshop with Dr.
Karyn Purvis, founder and director of Texas Christian
University’s Institute of Child Development and a leading
child psychologist in the field of fostered and adopted
children. Dr. Purvis will draw on information from her
book The Connected Child to help counsellors, social
workers and adoptive parents understand the needs of
children from hard places.
goodhope
A QUARTERLY NEWSLET TER FOR FOCUS ON THE FAMILY
CANADA’S REFERRAL COUNSELLORS
Winter 2013: Volume 10, Issue 1
For information and registration visit Waitingtobelong.ca.
Co-Parenting Works! by Tammy G. Daughtry
Author, counsellor and co-parent Tammy Daughtry helps
readers develop understanding in several key areas: how
today’s actions will affect their child in five, ten, and twenty
years; how to team with their child’s co-parent to develop
strategies in their child’s best interest; how to help their
child feel at ease in both homes and increase their child’s
self-esteem; and how to integrate step-parents into their coparenting team.
To order these resources, visit our online bookstore at Shop.focusonthefamily.ca.
Please note: A listing of conferences and workshops here does not necessarily imply
endorsement of the event by either the Counsellor Referral Network or Focus on
the Family Canada. They are listed as a service to CRN counsellors to inform and
encourage continued learning.
PACCC 2013 Annual Conference When: May 24-26, 2013 Where: Winnipeg, MB
For registration information visit Paccc.ca
a little reminder: It’s a new year, and for many
professional associations, that means membership and
registry renewals are due for 2013! Similarly, if you have
been contemplating taking in a conference this year, be
sure to check the “early bird” deadline – it may be sooner
than you realize. And remember to keep your contact
information up to date with us for referrals!
GET IN TOUCH
© 2013 Focus on the Family Canada
TEL: 1.888.5.CLERGY
EMAIL: [email protected]
WEB: Clergycare.ca | FocusHelps.ca
MAIL: 19946 80A Avenue,
Langley, BC V2Y 0J8
HAPPY NEW YEAR from the
counselling team at Focus on the Family
Canada! As always, we are thankful
for you and your work. As the new
year begins and the phone calls to our
counselling team ramp up, we have all
been struck by the intensity of the issues
people are calling about. There is a great
deal of pain out there and people are
tired of carrying it alone. Families are a
wonderful gift, and yet can also be the
source of much of our pain.
I am sure you see that daily.
family stories - the
joy and the drama
Hopefully this year will
include some time for
you to unplug from the
intensity that sometimes
characterizes our work, so you can take advantage
of opportunities that
recharge you. We are offering one such
event this spring.
I N THI S I S S U E
We are always interested in hearing about new resources for counsellors,
referrals for potential new members of our Counsellor Referral Network and
ideas for upcoming issues of goodhope. Please contact us anytime!
Wendy Kittlitz
VP of Counselling and
Care Ministries
604.455.7930
[email protected]
WORDS FROM WENDY
Karin Gregory
Counsellor Supervisor
604.455.7986
[email protected]
•
•
•
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Engaging today’s prodigal
Unlocking your family patterns
Family stories
Resources & professional
development
Contact Us!
1.888.5.CLERGY
I so want to encourage you, if you live
anywhere remotely close to Calgary,
to come and spend a day with us and
Dr. Karyn Purvis in April. Her work is
amazing and so helpful – especially so
for those parenting or working with
children who have experienced trauma,
though I find her insights are golden for
any type of parenting.
Through the generosity of our donors,
we are able to offer this day of training
at an incredibly low cost of $49, which
includes a copy of Dr. Purvis’ book,
lunch and coffee breaks. You can earn
professional development credits as well.
I have been invited to attend some
training with Dr. Purvis in Texas this
spring. As part of that, I will be the subject
of an “adult attachment interview.” As
counsellors, we have all undoubtedly
done our own family-of-origin work, but
it was a great experience for me this week
to spend a couple of hours reflecting
again on how my own family and
upbringing have impacted my choices,
behaviours, parenting, marriage and
relationships – indeed, every facet of my
life. It was affirming, yet also humbling,
to be reminded about when my buttons
get pushed and why.
I hope you find a nugget in this
newsletter that encourages, equips or
stimulates you in your ministry. God’s
blessings to you as you use your gifts in
His service in 2013! Wendy Kittlitz
VP of Counselling and Care Ministries
Focus on the Family Canada
chapters may be painful. A pastoral
counsellor may be in a difficult, conflictladen marriage; a therapist specializing
in marriage and family work may
be struggling with a rebellious child
of their own; the clinical counsellor
helping others find the way toward lifechanging hope may have had to contend
with a parent’s addiction.
COMMENTS FROM KARIN
engaging
today’s prodigal
this issue’s theme of family
stories will resonate with counsellors
because, aside from dedicating our
best therapeutic efforts to the people
we walk alongside, we obviously have
our own stories in life, and some of the
RECOMMENDED READ
unlocking your
family patterns
While many good books, both
secular and faith based, are available on
topics of family systems and therapies,
Unlocking is exceptional. Combining
Here, in an excerpt from Engaging
Today’s Prodigal: Clear Thinking, New
Approaches, and Reasons for Hope
(Moody, 2012), Carol Barnier is candid
about her moment of insight regarding
the limits of our ability to author other
people’s stories:
It had never even occurred to me that
my son had the capacity to make a bad
choice in opposition to good parenting.
Up to that point I had believed that
good parenting was compelling. If he’s
chosen poorly, it must be due to an
error on my part. But here was Josh
McDowell saying it wasn’t necessarily
years of experience, research and
wisdom by four counsellors who are
professionally recognized and Biblically
grounded, this book belongs on the
“must have” lists of counsellors and
pastors. As well, it is will be easily
understood by the lay-person seeking a
personal resource. Helpful reflection/
assessment questions conclude each
chapter. Christian readers will appreciate
the topics “Guilt-ridden Baggage: The
Role of Religious Shame” and “Blest Be
the Tie That Binds: Local Church Family
Patterns.” Originally published as Secrets
of Your Family Tree (1991).
Unlocking Your Family Patterns: Finding
Freedom From a Hurtful Past by Dave
Carder, Henry Cloud, Earl Henslin and
John Townsend. Moody Publishers, 2011.
To order this resource, visit our online bookstore at Shop.focusonthefamily.ca.
so. And over time, after searching the
Bible, I found example after example
that it was not necessarily so. There
it was. Freedom of choice. Alive and
well, even in my child. Did I make
mistakes in parenting my child? Sure.
Were these mistakes so grave as to be
a valid excuse for some of the poor
decisions he was now making? In the
end, to my surprise, the answer I came
up with was no, I really don’t think so.
(p. 26-27)
Astonished by this, given that her own
story includes a childhood of rebellion
against her parents and the Lord, Bernier
concentrates on the truths that emerged
out of her long prodigal years. Her book
speaks truth and hope, without making
pie-in-the-sky promises to parents,
counsellors and all who love a spiritually
wandering family member.
Engaging Today’s Prodigal can be ordered through our bookstore at
Shop.focusonthefamily.ca.
May our Lord Jesus
Christ Himself and
God our Father, who
loved us and by His
grace gave us eternal
encouragement
and good hope,
encourage your
hearts and strengthen
you in every good
deed and word.
2 Thessalonians 2: 16-17
it’s okay, you’re home now.” Three
little girls shrieked “Daddy’s here!”
and launched themselves
at a very well dressed
gentleman, abandoning
their backpacks and their
very tired-looking mother.
He opened his arms
wide to her, daughters
clinging to his knees like
barnacles.
family stories
No doubt, among
those hundreds
of people, some
by karin gregory
were not met by
loving, excited family
members, either at
the airport or anywhere else. And no
recently i had the happy task of
doubt some had left their families, or
meeting a couple of friends at the
been left – prodigal sons and daughters,
airport following their Christmas
spouses and parents. Anger. Addiction.
vacation. I was early; their flight was
Abandonment. Grudges. Indifference.
late. Practiced in this, I staked out my
Abuse. Grief. Bitterness. Fears. Lost
favourite seat – the one with a perfectly
trust. Wasted efforts. Emotional chasms
balanced view of the flight screen, clock
too deep and wide to hold onto faith
and gargantuan flat screen TV, together
that they’ll ever be bridged. Painful
with an unobstructed view of the “Do
family stories, whether or not Christian
Not Enter” doors from whence all
faith is part of their lives.
returning travellers emerge. Sitting in
the international arrivals area, I was
Chuck Swindoll, in his forward to
entertained by a steady stream of people
Unlocking Your Family Patterns writes
passing before me.
“we have [finally] acknowledged that
dysfunctional families are often in the
In front of me paraded countless family
church, that recovery takes time and
stories. I was waiting for friends, but
is a painful process, and, in fact, that
on that night most cries of recognition
the process cannot be accelerated by
seemed to be exchanged between
cramming more and more convicting
parents and children or grandchildren.
Siblings and in-laws were there in large
Scriptures down the throat of the
contingents too. And lovers, bearing
abandoned or the abused. Guilt and
shame are not friends of grace that
flowers, balloons and dreams. One had
prompt inner healing.”
something small and sparkly; he kept
fidgeting with the box.
As counsellors, we are often the first to
understand that a particular family story
A few people got right down to business,
might be more a work of fiction than a
passing souvenirs and small gifts to
biography – that the storyteller is more
their welcome-home committee while
biased than they realize, regardless of his
they were still behind the barriers. One
or her efforts “to be fair.” Fantasy seems
couple introduced each other to waiting
to be a favourite genre in the writing
families, a live version of De Niro’s
of family stories, though among us it’s
comic movie Meet the Parents. Another
more commonly called denial.
family embraced a daughter, all in tears,
all in black. Wisps of their conversation
Many people seek counselling because
floated above the commotion: “I’m
of their belief that someone else is
so glad I saw her before I left”; “I can’t
broken and needs fixing. They press the
believe she’s gone!”; “Shh, shh, it’s okay,
counsellor or pastor for “Biblical advice,”
for the 1-2-3 steps that will make a
family member behave better, for a
guarantee that they will not have an
unhappy ending to their family story.
Dave Ortis, pastor and registered
clinical counsellor with Focus on the
Family Canada, recently shared, in a
seminar, about a mother who finally
realized she could not be the author of
her son’s story or faith. As she explained
it, “I had to let go of all my efforts to get
him to return to his faith. I had to hand
him over to God.”
“What efforts did she stop?” Ortis asked.
“She stopped cajoling. She stopped
nagging. She stopped preaching. She
stopped bribing. She learned patience.
She learned to listen and see life through
his eyes. She loved him enough to allow
him to experience the consequences
of his decisions. He had to find his own
pigpen. Though she disagreed with his
choice, she respected his decision.”
Perhaps it was the influence of a new
year, but witnessing the joy and sorrow
of so many family stories passing
through that one airport, on one
night of the year, has caused me much
reflection. How do we as counsellors
contribute to the family stories our
clients tell themselves? How do we read
our own life story, and with what do we
illustrate it?
Do we wrestle through the difficult
work of understanding ourselves
through understanding our family of
origin? Do we look back on choices we
have made and consider how they may
direct our future? Are we aware of our
story’s influence on the partner we
choose (or don’t), and the healing work
we are drawn to? Have we encountered
that place of truly relinquishing to the
Lord a beloved but prodigal one? Do
we truly, willingly and faithfully make
it a priority to seek God’s authorship in
writing our own family story, even as we
speak to others of theirs?
© 2013 Focus on the Family (Canada)
Association. All rights reserved