Spiritual Care Teams

Lance and I attended a fantastic workshop Saturday on Creating Spiritual Care Teams. We came across this idea about 8 months ago after reading a book called "Restoring the Fallen". It tells the story of a couple whose relationship was rocked by the discovery that the husband had been in an affair and living a double life for 10 years. The book gives an overview of the journey this couple went through as the husband was restored over a period of many years back into a healthy relationship with God, friends and eventually his wife. This happened by way of pulling together a team of people around the person in need of restoration--the team committed to hold him accountable, to challenge him, to help him learn how to be honest, to pray and encourage him and to essentially make decisions for him that would help him move towards rebuilding the trust of those he had hurt.

The couple who wrote the book taught the class we attended. Initially, I was a bit nervous about going to the workshop, because although I like the concept of a spiritual care team I thought the book was somewhat clinical and idealistic. I felt like there were lots of questions that I had after reading it--specifically about the emotional journey and decisions of Sandy, the wife. So I had my skeptic glasses on when we walked into the workshop... but quickly I saw that Earl and Sandy Wilson were an authentic and honest people. They shared their story and used it as an catalyst to talk about how to form and utilize a spiritual care team around hurting people within the church. They were candid and eager to answer questions. It was refreshing to be sitting in a church and hear people asking real questions of the Wilsons like, "Did you have sex with him even when you had no feelings towards him?". I was encouraged by the Wilson's honesty--Sandy described an evening sometime in the first year after the discovery of the affair when Earl told her he loved her and she said back to him, "I feel less like throwing up when I look at you today". Crazy... brutal, but real...

The majority of people who attended the workshop seemed to be women in their 40's and 50's. I could tell from questions asked that some of them were there because they were in similar shoes to Sandy. The 10 or less men in attendance were almost all acquaintances of mine... and I was struck by the fact that all of them were in some kind of ministry role or had a counseling practice. And of the 30 or so people there, I don't think more than 4 (including Lance and I) were under 30. What does that say about my peers? Don't we have marriages and families dealing with addiction and heartache? YES. I just wish there had been more people around my age, because I think hearing the Wilson's story is amazingly sobering and all married couples benefit from talking honestly about the state of their marriage, their communication... and how they are growing in authenticity and love as a couple.

If you have any interest in a model for counseling and caring for people dealing with addictions, severe health problems, or family issues... I'd definitely recommend reading the book "Restoring the Fallen".

You can check out the website of Earl and Sandy Wilson at www.tuffstuffministries.com

Another great site on the topic of men and the topic of authentic brotherhood: www.samsonsociety.org

If you have interest in how other people have picked up the pieces after affairs and other sexual addictive behaviors of spouses have come out in the open, I'd recommend the book "Samson and the Pirate Monks". I haven't read it through entirely... but my dad has and he said it is amazing. Wendy also read it and said it is a great book too.