Christian Counseling Wa
|
|
The Church and Healing: Echoes from Africa (African Pastoral Studies/Etudes Pastorales Africaines,Vol. 2) $34.95 … |
A Healthy Risk Counseling Center
Pioneers in Christian Counseling: An Interview with Paul Meier
Paul Meier, M.D., is cofounder and Medical Director of New Life Clinics, one of the largest nationwide providers of Christian mental health care. He is also co-host of “New Life Live!a national radio program. Author of more than 50 books, he is a well-known teacher and speaker who has appeared on shows hosted by Oprah Winfrey,
Tom Snyder, and Norman Vincent Peale. In addition, he currently serves on Focus on the Familys Physicians Resource Council and treats patients at the Paul Meier New Life Day Hospital and Outpatient Clinic in Richardson, Texas. In September 1999, AACC honored Dr. Meier with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in the field of Christian counseling. Join me for an intimate conversation with this pioneer who has powerfully influenced the Christian communitys perception of counseling, psychology, and psychiatry.
Tell me a little bit about your roots, your childhood, and how you came to know Christ.
PM:I recently found out that my ancestors on both sides of my family were Jewish. I never knew that. I always had a love for the Jews and went to Israel five years in a row to train counselors. Im working on my fifth Bible prophecy novel that has to do with Israel. So Ive always had a love for the Jews, and so did my family, even though they were German. In 1998, my 90-year-old mother told me that one of our family secrets was that we were Jewish. In the 1790s my ancestors moved from Germany to Russia. In the 1860s, two missionaries came to their town of about 8,000 people in Russia. The two missionaries were shoe repairmen, so they went door to door, mending shoes, mending soles, and saving souls. They witnessed to people and led Bible studies.
There was a revival and about a third of the city became Christians, including my ancestors on my moms side and my dads side. In fact, on my dads side, one of my ancestors became pastor of a new church that sprang up. Those missionaries left and were never heard from again. My mom and dad were born around 1908 and grew up in Jewish Christian homes in Russia. Then the Bolshevik Revolution took place in 1917, and my ancestors were persecuted. They saw some family members shot. My parents families escaped Russia and ended up going back to Germany.
They changed the spelling of their last names so that they would be more German and less Jewish. My mom and dad were friends when they grew up, but they didnt see each other after the age of 9 or 10 when their families left Russia and went to Germany. In fact, they didnt see each other again until they were about 27 years old in the United States. They ran into each other and they were both still single, so they got married. So I grew up in a Christian home where we had family devotions at the supper table every night. I trusted Christ at age 6 at a Sunday school class at church. When I was 10, my mom taught me Psalm 1 and the importance of meditating on Scripture. I began reading the Bible for myself everyday when I was 10. Im 54 now and I still do that every day.
Did you always want to be a psychiatrist?
PM:My mom told me that when I was about five or six years old, I was outdoors in the snow and the neighborhood bully pushed me down and walked off. My brother, who became a Golden Gloves boxer, would have knocked his block off. But my mom said I got up, brushed myself off, walked over to her, and said, “I wonder why he did that.Even at that young age I was analyzing and trying to figure people out. I didnt decide on psychiatry until two weeks before I finished medical school.Take help from telephone psychologist.
My dad was a carpenter and my mom was a maid, so I planned to be a carpenter like my dad. I wasnt even planning on going to college. But when I was 16 years old, I had two intense dreams one night. Jesus was in both of those dreams. In one of them, he said, “I want you to be a doctor.I woke up and thought, OK, Ill be a doctor. In the other dream, I felt myself being an older adult, working with people in other countries, teaching and having an impact for Christ. I woke up from that dream and thought, Oh, you want me to be some sort of missionary doctor!
About the Author
eCounseling.com is the only Online Counseling help website that allows clients and counselors to connect online – with no software to download or cumbersome technology! It seeks to be an excellent information resource for consumers, and to connect prospective counseling clients to counseling professionals 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. Its director is himself trained professional Dr. Anthony Centore.
Whether a marriage survives and thrives, or not, depends on how well the participants have mastered the knowledge, learned the skills, and acquired the attitudes it takes to make a relationship work. One has only to look at the epidemic of divorce and see that marriage illiteracy runs rampant! Click Here For Assistance. Save Your Marriage
