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| From the Executive
Director |
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May 2008
One of the most challenging tasks for
any organization is to explain why it exists and what it
does. The second challenge is to live faithfully and
strategically according to that mission. I can report
with great enthusiasm and confidence that CCEF has taken
significant strides in both of these critical areas in
the past twelve months. We are living within our means,
implementing a strategic plan that keeps us focused, and
strengthening our development efforts so that CCEF can
continue to flourish.
So, what is our mission and how do we
accomplish it? Attached to this Enews you will find our
new corporate brochure, which succinctly answers those
questions. Please download it to learn
precisely why we exist and what we do to accomplish our
mission. After reading it, would you consider making an
online contribution to CCEF? You can help us continue to
thrive as we serve the body of Christ all over the
world.
Thank you for your interest and
commitment to CCEF!
Click here to Make a Donation to
CCEF
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Rape Recovery
By David Powlison, CCEF
Faculty
Rape is an invasive event of traumatic
evil. You were victimized, and now you are suffering.
Before we talk about anything else, you
need to know that God is extremely tender to
victims. Many psalms are the heart cries of those
who have suffered at the hands of others. They pour
forth words describing the experiences of the afflicted,
the poor, the needy, the broken, the innocent, and the
helpless. This is your experience. You are
afflicted. And the God and Father of Jesus Christ
cares.
He cares about your experience of
grave stress and evil. His own Son, although he didn't
experience violence in a sexual form, was a victim of
violent assault. No matter how awful your attack, no
matter how long and slow your recovery, God is your
Redeemer. He is able to redeem terrible wrongs and
make them right. "He heals the brokenhearted and binds
up their wounds" (Psalm 147:3). He is able to make
broken things whole. He is able to redeem
you.
What Is
Rape?
Rape is a crime of power, domination,
and control that uses sex. If you haven't already
reported your assault to the police and sought medical
help, please do so immediately. This article is written
to help you after you have received the legal and
medical help you need. Rape is not only a crime in the
legal sense, but an evil before the face of God.
It is an act of extreme violence and aggression in which
the strong overpower the weak.
Click here
to read the whole article
David Powlison, M.Div., Ph.D.,
is a faculty member at CCEF and a counselor
with over thirty years of experience. He has written
many counseling articles, booklets, and books including
Speaking Truth in Love; Seeing With New Eyes; Power Encounters: Reclaiming Spiritual
Warfare; and Competent to Counsel?: The History
of a Conservative Protestant Biblical Counseling
Movement.
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Counseling With Suffering
People
By JOHN PIPER
The Journal of Biblical
Counseling · Winter 2003
I begin with five assumptions. Without them, what I
have to say about counseling and suffering will not
stand.
1. Counseling is conversational exultation
in the manifold mercies of God.
2. Mutual counseling is a normative event in
the conversations and relationships of the body of
Christ.
3. The aim of true counseling is the glory of
God through Jesus Christ.
4. God is most glorified in our lives when we
are most satisfied in Him.
5. Suffering is a universal human experience,
designed by God for His glory, but endangering every
Christian's faith.
If the aim of wise counseling is the glory of
God through Jesus Christ, and if God is most glorified
in our people when they are most satisfied in Him, and
if the universal human experience of suffering threatens
to undermine their faith in the goodness of God, and
thus their satisfaction in His glory, then our
conversations with each other must aim, day in and day
out, to help us become satisfied in God while suffering.
Indeed, we must help each other count suffering as part
of why we should be satisfied in God.
We must build into our minds and hearts a vision of
God and His ways that help us see suffering not merely
as a threat to our satisfaction in God (which it is),
but also as a means to our satisfaction in God (which it
is).
Click Here
to Read the Whole
Article
John Piper is Senior Pastor of
Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis,
MN. | |
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