Thanks for the great post!

Drs. Cloud & Townsend wrote this in their “Boundaries” book:

“Many of us live in two worlds when it comes to relationships. In one world we have friendly conversations in which we avoid all disagreements; in the other we have major conflict-type conversations that tear everybody and everything up. In the first world we have connection without truth, and in the second we have truth without connection.

God did not design us to live in these two worlds … He wants us to live in the one world, where he lives and where truth and love coexist as allies, not adversaries. Our connections are best when they are truthful, and our truth is best when we are connected.”

I think that one of the reasons that people turn to this kind of stuff in the first place is because they are not getting the responses that they need from the church. so I think that this reveals an opportunity that the church has to get the “right message” out there, but we need to be careful to not send the “message that we are right” instead.

I’ve read somewhere recently that the church has left behind the “gospel of love” for the “gospel of being right”. I believe that as Christians we need to live out the intent of the gospel, and be careful to not alienate people like we often do. It is because of this desire to be right that we push people away to look for answers such as “the secret”.

Great post… it makes me think about how I am acting and treating people at work today!

Dan

Often their only contribution to society is introducing some exotic sounding, new age philosophy. However, they often cleverly form an incestuous group of like-minded “experts” who cross-promote each other by swearing their success is due to following the beliefs of another member of their “cult!” All the while, they ply the airwaves jockeying for an ever-larger audience by appearing in the national media to garner third-party endorsements.

The Self-Help Movement has become the Self-Destruct Movement by diminishing or destroying our critical thinking skills to choose and evolve on our own. We have given up the freedom to build healthy lives, marriages and families based on our unique history and life experience. Instead many victims, blinded to the value of their own life experiences, are attracted to the latest secret in self-help, in an attempt to find out what they should think, feel and how they should act… this is the definition of a cult.

The solution is a return to our (common) senses! The best way out of this learned “self-helplessness” is to go cold turkey. Stop following ALL self-help gurus now. Begin, instead, to reclaim your natural, God-given ability to think for yourself. The common sense that was once readily available to all of us is still there free of charge and waiting to be applied to just about any challenge we might face in life… all you have to do is use it.

Please, let’s all work together to stop the flock of “sheepeople” who blindly move from one UNPROVEN concept to the next, looking for the answers to life’s challenges that you already possess and that is the OBVIOUS!