Spiritual Emergency Health Care

When we pattern spiritual health care after physical procedures, we gain great insight into soulwinning. Just as physical urgent care does not include major surgery, long lectures, sudden and radical movements or launching into an aftercare program, neither can we effectively win souls this way. Tragic spirit­ual deaths often occur while well-meaning people perform sudden spiritual sur­gery with no prepara­tion or without understan­ding the impact of their own actions. Some are obliv­ious to the real needs of the victim. Others say the same thing to everyone they meet, reasoning that if it worked once, it ought to work every time. Let’s look at several aspects of providing urgent care for those with spiritual needs.

Timing.

Always perform spiritual emergency care with respect to time and sequence. The new birth mes­sage, while it will always remain the ul­timate objective in saving a soul, may not be the first thing to do. This is not heresy. It is scripturally sound and can be seen in almost every conversion incident related in the Bible.

For example, let’s look at Acts 2:38:

“Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

The first phrase, “Then Peter said…” is highly significant. It indicates that Peter introduced his instructions only after he had prepared his hearers with a vital message about Jesus Christ. We actually pick up the story earlier in the chapter.

“But Peter, standing up with the ele­ven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.”  Acts 2:14-16.

The Apostle Peter proceeded to explain the phenomenon that the travelers to Jerusalem had just witnessed—-the out­pouring of the Holy Spirit. Then, with skillful use of the Hebrew scrip­tures, he turned the sermon towards the death, bur­ial, resurrec­tion and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. Having been thor­oughly prepared, both by Peter’s sermon and by the Spirit of God, the hearers asked what they should do. They were ready for the new birth experience. Thus, timing is as critical as the application of the message itself.

This event also illustrates an impor­tant difference between kinds of soulwin­ning. God often bursts upon the scene with a spiritual explosion, like He did at Pen­tecost, in a sovereign move of His Spirit. Through mighty revivals, miracles or moving events, many people are attracted to the Lord. All of us long for this kind of occur­rence because it is so exciting, so sudden and so com­paratively “easy.” Why does it happen? Explosive revivals happen when people actively seek God, or search for relief from their inner pain. God has dealt with them long before the event that finally draws them takes place. Their change may happen instan­taneously, but the ground­work for the change takes place over a long period of time.

But another kind of soulwinning occurs in every church. It too has prece­dent in the Bible. It is repre­sented in the para­bles of the lost coin, the one lost sheep, and the lost son. We see it in Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, Aquila and Pricilla and their witness to Apollos, and Paul and the Philip­pian jailer and many other Bible incidents. In each case, the soulwinner went to the person in need, met him/her in a one-on-one situa­tion, and established a bond of friendship.

Jesus demon­strated this principle with Zaccheus, with the demon­iac of Ga­dara, the woman with five hus­bands, Bar­timaeus and Simon, the tanner. He iden­tified with each person’s pain, initiated his personal ministry ­to him or her and created an opening for a response from them. Rather than offending them, he delib­erately reac­hed out to them in love and under­standing.

To succeed in any personal relationship, one person must first under­stand others. Jesus knew that people who feel under­stood and ap­preci­ated tend to follow leaders who make them feel that way. People absorbed in their own pain cannot receive anything until they feel understood and affirmed. This gives them the basis for faith, and faith paves the way for the real miracle of change and sal­vation.

Assessing the Need.

Before you help someone, you must find out where he/she is. People and situations differ from each other, and the same process, which helps one person, will have no effect on another. A spiritual caregiver must determine what the real needs are, specific to the life of the lost person. Here are a few ques­tions, which need to be answered before you proceed with spiritual emergen­cy steps.

1. Is the victim going through an im­med­iate personal crisis?

A personal crisis usually causes noticeable pain. Psycholo­gists have dis­covered that the death of a spouse and a divorce lead the list of events, which cause stress. Marital separation, a jail term, death of a close family member, injury, marriage, loss of job, etc., also cause great stress. You must pay atten­tion to this person’s crisis. To brush this pain aside by saying that it’s not as important as salvation, or rebuke a person for thinking negative thou­ghts, you are making a huge mistake. Pain must be expressed.

People in crisis cannot think clearly. Their pain shapes their reactions. Often, they just want God to put things back like they were before the crisis. If they do come forward at an invitation, or pray, or seek out pastoral coun­seling, their objective will probably be to fix their prob­lem, not to surrender their lives to Christ. For them, all of life is defined in terms of the im­med­iate crisis.

2. To what extent are you qual­ified to deal with this crisis?

We are not talking about profes­sional credentials here. Rather, it is pa­tience, understanding and time that is need­ed most. Even though you may have a lot of compas­sion, you may not be up to some situa­tions. For example, if you have no experience with the death of a loved one, you may not have a deep understan­ding of a per­son’s grief. This may not mean you cannot help, but you should keep from making claims of under­standing that are not true.

3. What is this person’s religious back­g­round?

Unless you have a specific reason, it does more harm than good to ask a person what church or denomination they belong to. Once a person claims a particular per­suasion, they have defined themselves. Think about it. If someone tells you, “I’m a ——————,” he/she is really of­fering you an entire set of values and beliefs to analyze. Going further will only waste your time comparing churches and beliefs. If a person volun­teers that information, simply say, “Oh, this has no­thing to do with being a ———————. This is far dif­ferent.”

What you really want to know is the extent of the person’s faith in Christ. Does he/she know how to pray? What about basic scripture? Has this person ever experienced true, genuine repen­tance? Your questions are not for the sake of argument, but so you may know where to begin. You cannot start at the point of one’s need unless you know where that point is.

4. Is this a normally stable in­dividual?

Everyone goes through an occasional bout with depression, anger, fear, confusion, etc. Stable people have a good grip on themselves, and will return to a normal state. An unstable person, however, has a history of problems, which never seem to get re­solved. His/her employment record, marriage background, finan­cial history and other criteria will be spora­dic. People with chronic problems resulting from per­sonality disorders need help, but not by novices or those easily swayed by dra­matic shows of emotion, dis­tress or panic.

5. Can you generally relate to this person?

Similar backgrounds often equip a caregiver to reach a person in a way that all the textbook training in the world will never do. If you can under­stand a person’s language (including slang, accent, and code words), if you can relate to a person’s trou­bled past, if you can feel a person’s deep hurt because you’ve suffered the same thing before, then you can exert a powerful influ­ence over him/her. Cultural barriers offer stub­born resistance to soulwinners. Those who don’t have to cross these barriers should recognize their advantage in this area.

6. What does the Spirit tell you about this person?

God will speak to you about a per­son’s need if you pray and remain sensitive to the Spirit. He will give you the word of know­ledge and the word of wisdom by His Spirit, even as He did to Philip, Ananias, the Apostle Paul and many others in the Bible. It is crucial to seek direction from God in administering spirit­ual care to peo­ple. We can be easily mislead by human wisdom and natural senses if we depend solely upon ourselves and not upon God.

7. What do other involved per­sons tell you about this person or situation?

Find out whatever you can about this person. The Bible teaches us that there is safety in the multitude of counsel. Others who know the person you are trying to help may have some insight or warning for you. Do not dismiss their words in a spirit of arrogance and believe that you will succeed where others have failed. If you feel stro­ngly to go ahead with your mission, you may, but go only with great caution and much prayer. God will not help you simply because He wants to prove that you were right and the others were wrong. If you rescue the person, it will be because God honored His own timing and man’s faith.