Counseling

Grief can make you feel as if there is no way out. But before you give in, know that that is not true. Your loss and pain do not have the last word, Jesus does.

In Getting Through Grief: Eight Biblical Gifts for Living with Loss, look to the Word to wrestle and watch as God's promise to make all things new and His promise of life transform hope. While heartbreak will always be a part of our lives, God pursues, draws near, and gives us gifts to get through it.

When a low-income person asks your church for help, what do you do next?

God is extraordinarily generous, and our churches should be, too. Because poverty is complex, however, helping low-income people often requires going beyond meeting their material needs to holistically addressing the roots of their poverty.

But on a practical level, how do you move forward in walking with someone who approaches your church for financial help?

From the authors of When Helping Hurts comes Helping Without Hurting in Church Benevolence, a guidebook for church staff, deacons, or volunteers who work with low-income people.

Short and to the point, this tool provides foundational principles for poverty alleviation and then addresses practical matters, like:

With practical stories, forms, and tools for churches to use, Helping Without Hurting in Church Benevolence is an all-in-one guide for church leaders and laypeople who want to help the poor in ways that lead to lasting change.

Many Christian counselors and pastors want to bring Christ's Gospel and forgiveness into their soul care, but don't know how. Luther's very Christ-centered theology, based in his desire for care of souls, can provide us with that foundation. Various techniques flowing from that foundation are shared.

"Martin Luther formulated his proclamation of the message of Scripture for his contemporaries between the poles of God's voice in the pages of the Bible and the needs and afflictions of his hearers and readers. Marrs brings twenty-first century readers into that exchange and demonstrates how Luther's insights into the gospel of Jesus Christ help bring healing and comfort to those struggling with guilt, shame, fear, loneliness, and other spiritual afflictions in our day. This volume provides those who are engaged in conversation with the troubled and distressed rich resources for fostering peace and joy in the midst of such trouble and distress."

Robert Kolb, PhD, professor of systematic theology emeritus, Concordia Seminary, Saint Louis USA

"If all good theology is pastoral in its orientation, then this groundbreaking, practical, biblical study is well worth careful consideration by any pastor or Christian counsellor. In it Marrs engages in a conversation with the teaching of Luther as a Christ-centered pastoral theologian and the practical insights of psychologists on the personal care of their clients, with a special emphasis on Luther's insistence on the need to distinguish between law and gospel in the proper application of God's gracious word with the delivery of soul care to God's people."

John W. Kleinig, PhD Professor Emeritus, Australian Lutheran College University of Divinity, Adelaide, South Australia

The expanded edition features:

A variety of common pastoral situations

Christian responses to medical/ethical questions

Resources for pastoral care of those suffering from difficulties of body or mind

The Problem of Suffering is a superb resource to share and to use with anyone suffering any form of loss. It is honest, straightforward, expressive, evocative of much reflection and insight, and linked closely to the suffering Savior. Author Gregory Schulz speaks as a Christian father, sharing the very personal, difficult struggle of dealing with years of pain, suffering, and questions. As he shares his struggle, he bares his soul with a jarring honesty seldom heard in the church. His protest is against "God's abusive actions," and it rings true to anyone who's suffering of body or spirit.

Also included is an epilogue of prayers and poems written by sufferers.

From the Foreword

Warning: After you've read this book you'll never be the same again. You will be challenged by its intellectual depth, encouraged by its spiritual consolation, and blown away by its honesty. Like a roller-coaster, it will lift you to dizzying heights of insight, plunge you down into the deepest imaginable human pain, then lift you out again into hope.

Pain and suffering come in different sizes and intensities for different people, but they come inevitably to us all. A lot of ink has been spilled over the centuries on the so-called "problem of evil," but there's not much help in that. Anyone who has personally experienced the mind-numbing and gut-wrenching impact of suffering, pain, or loss can tell you the last thing anyone needs in the midst of that mess is intellectual reflection and explanation. What you need is the honest truth. And such honesty is rarely pleasant.