Church : Helping or Hurting?

Why Do People Keep Doing the Very thing Don't Want to Do? The goal of this book is to provide the understanding for individuals, churches, and agencies to help people who want to change actually be able to change. I think we can agree that almost every statistic is getting worse, crime, divorce, and addiction of every kind, especially food, drugs and sex. Government efforts have been marginally e¬ffective at alleviating these kinds of problems. I believe that the local church is the only place that has the recourses to stem the tide of self-destructive behaviors that is destroying our families and bankrupting our society. So the question is: how can we assist the church at being safe and effective in helping hurting people heal? This is book is a synopsis of what I have learned over the past 45 years in my efforts to help wounded and addicted people. If you have a heart to help hurting people, this book will aid you in understanding, "what helps and what hurts". 2nd Edition Upon getting feedback from the 1st edition I realized that some of the concepts needed future amplification and clarification. So I rewrote many of the key points and added a few clarifying stories. Also several people who know me ask why I didn't include my speech about the "Fear of God" as they felt it would be an important understanding for the church. So it is now Chapter 10. The goal of this book is to help individuals and churches look at how effective our practices and theologies are at helping or hindering our ability and willingness to see broken people heal. This book is now pretty much the best of what I have learned over the past 45 years as to helping wounded and addicted people heal. It is my hope that it will encourage you and your church/agency to be more effective conduits for change and healing.