Free Ebook Download

Hi everyone, I'm excited to announce I'm giving away a free ebook that includes my six most popular lay counseling articles Such as: Dealing with Fear, Grief and Loss, Discontentment, Disappointment, Worry and Stress and Un-Forgiveness and Bitterness.

Don't hesitate to drop by my website and get your free copy as a gift to you from me!

Download by Clicking Here: Filoiann Wiedenhoff.Com

Within each article I include practical and biblical steps on how to deal with these all too common real life issues. Here is a sample:

"Dealing with Grief and Loss"
Allow Yourself to Grieve and Give Yourself Time


There is a great confusion about what is considered grief and loss these days, unfortunately the miss-understanding of grief and loss leaves people feeling depressed, anxiety filled and alone and they don’t understand what’s happening to them.

I remember when I lost my father six years ago, a month later I thought something was wrong with me because I couldn’t think straight, my thoughts were all jumbled and didn’t know what was going on. A friend of mine who also counsels explained to me that it was part of the grieving process and I was comforted to know I wasn’t losing my mind, at least not yet

Hopefully this article will help give you more insight to this very common issue. Experiencing grief and loss can cover a gamut of situations such as; loss of a loved one, loss of a family pet, loss of a job, loss of a friendship, loss of a marriage through divorce, loss of a limb or health problems or illnesses, loss of trust in your spouse through infidelity.

As a society I don’t believe we realize how common experiencing grief and loss is and that it happens more often than people understand. I put together some basics on how to deal with grief and loss practically.

Here they are as follows:

Sit at the Lord’s Feet: As a Christian, we need to keep in mind that apart from Him we can do nothing. God is our physician, our healer, our comforter, our provider and He is faithful. Stay near to God and allow Him to minister to you through his Word, His love, His Spirit and His people.

Talk to Someone: As I said earlier, talking it out sometimes is the best medicine. It helps you to get out what you are feeling inside , helps your mind to process what happened or what you are feeling and it is also a form of release for your feelings and emotions. Talking about your situation or your feelings will help you to heal healthier and in most cases quicker.

Allow Yourself to Grieve: Don’t try to shut out the grief, but allow yourself permission to grieve and remember that it is not only okay but necessary for healing to take place. Shutting it off or out only hinders the process and can cause internal problems physically and spiritually if left not dealt with.

Don’t Fight the Process: Look online for the list of the grieving process and allow yourself to go through each process. Educate yourself. Fighting it or trying to “make” yourself okay doesn’t help you but hurts you in the end and can also prolong the healing. Your body goes through this process for a reason and you need to work through it.

Don’t Rush It: Trying to rush the grieving process doesn’t work so don’t rush yourself or give yourself a day and time for it to be over. It takes time to heal so allow your self that time. Also the other extreme is not healthy either when you take too long and can’t let go. If you think you are taking too long or trying to rush it, seek counsel about where you are and get professional counsel on your progress.

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Why is Discipleship and Mentorship So Important?

Matt 28:18-20Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in a the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

The greatest example Jesus left us when he was here was discipleship. Discipleship wasn’t a one hour class of info and then that’s it. He spent quality time with His disciples, taught them, ate with them, loved them and treated them as His family.

In His efforts to disciple men, Jesus was raising them up to be leaders and they eventually became leaders. It wasn’t about one man having 100,000 people coming and listening to him but teaching and equipping a group of men to go out and do the same to others.

I personally was discipled by a young woman when I was a teenage born again Christian and I can honestly say that if she had not spent that time with me I don’t know if I would be a Christian today. Her spending that time mentoring me and teaching me made all the difference in the world and now I have a heart to do the same for others. It’s a natural trickle down affect that makes lasting changes in a person’s life.

If you haven’t been discipled or mentored I encourage you to seek out someone who is mature in the Word and faithful. What it does is solidify your walk by setting it on a firm foundation built on the truth. It also eliminates opportunity to be misled or deceived by false doctrine and false teachers because you will have been well trained in the Word, rightly dividing the Word of God a worker who is not ashamed.

Here is some food for thought!

The whole pyramid money scheme wasn’t meant to be used for money, I believe it was an intelligent concept that could have been meant in multiplying the church. For example: If you were discipled and you turned around and discipled three people and those three people discipled three people and so on and so forth, by the sixth set you would have a total of 243 that were discipled.

Think about this for a moment 243 people? Large outreaches don’t get that many first time believer’s and even if they did, are they discipled once they become a Christian? The example of discipleship was laid by Jesus Himself by spending time with them, eating with them, teaching them and taking them with Him to minister and outreach.

Are You Feeding Yourself?

I wanted to share a piece of an article I read this morning. My heart was broken by it and saddened.

Here is a shocking confession by one of the largest well known churches, Willow Creek Community Church. Please read this and be motivated and challenged to know the Word and know God through His Word today and I encourage you to seek out a mentor and discipler to teach you and guide you in understanding His Word.

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Shocking Confession by Willow Creek Community Church
A Piece from article written by Bob Burney

Willow Creek has released the results of a multi-year study on the effectiveness of their programs and philosophy of ministry. The study’s findings are in a new book titled Reveal: Where Are You?, co-authored by Cally Parkinson and Greg Hawkins, executive pastor of Willow Creek Community Church. Hybels himself called the findings “earth shaking,” “ground breaking” and “mind blowing.” And no wonder: it seems that the “experts” were wrong.
The report reveals that most of what they have been doing for these many years and what they have taught millions of others to do is not producing solid disciples of Jesus Christ. Numbers yes, but not disciples. It gets worse. Hybels laments:

Bill Hybels Own Words
Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn’t put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for.

If you simply want a crowd, the “seeker sensitive” model produces results. If you want solid, sincere, mature followers of Christ, it’s a bust. In a shocking confession, Hybels states:
Bill Hybels Own Words

We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between services, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.

Incredibly, the guru of church growth now tells us that people need to be reading their bibles and taking responsibility for their spiritual growth.

You can view the full article Here!

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There’s an old saying:
Feed a man a fish and feed him for a day but teach a man how to fish and feed him for a lifetime!

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I pray that this article has motivated you to have a passion for God's Word. To spend time daily, feeding yourself and allowing God to speak to you. Don't be deceived but be Bereans who studied and tested everything they heard to the Word of God. Knowing God's Word is knowing God. God is the Word so please go to the source; no imitation will do.

Blessings, Filoiann Wiedenhoff

Leadership Series: How to Become a More Effective Minister by Learning to Listen

People say that listening is an art form, that not anyone can do it or that it takes a “special” person to be a good listener. Although I will say that some people are better at listening than others I disagree that it is a gift.

I believe everyone has the ability to listen if they wanted to; even Jesus speaks it many times to the churches that “All who have an ear let him hear what the spirit is saying.” Well, we all have ears and that was Jesus point. He gave us two ears and one mouth .and that alone should tell us something.

The bible says be swift to hear and slow to speak. The word “swift” means to be capable of moving at a quick speed. In other words, be quick to listen and hear what’s being said to you. There are many times we want to rush to say something, rush to give our opinion or rush to make a point and the entire time we’re not listening to the other person and furthermore in reality we are preparing in our mind what we want to say next, so we really didn’t hear everything the other person said.

If people knew that half of the time people aren’t listening to them, they probably would never want to speak to us again. It’s a good thing people can’t read minds or we would never have any friends. The point is, listening is something we have to be willing to learn how to do and practice.

Listening does not come naturally to most of us and if it did I believe there would be more lay counselors and ministers reaching out. I say this because sometimes the best medicine you could ever give someone is your ear to listen and your shoulder to cry on.

They don’t want you to fix their problem as much as they need someone to talk to and someone to care. So how can we become better listeners?

I put together some helpful tips to become a better listener:

Pray: Ask God to help you to listen and hear what the person is saying and ask God to give you wisdom and discernment. By saying a silent prayer to God at that moment you are doing three things. You are asking God to help you listen, you are inviting the Holy Spirit into your conversation and you are also listening to what the spirit wants to say to them through you through the wisdom that God gives you.

Eliminate Distractions: If someone approaches you while you are among a group of people, tell them to hold their thought as you take them five or ten steps away from everyone else. This not only will help you to listen more intently without distractions but it will also send a message to others around you that you are having a private conversation.

Stay Focused: Try to restrain from interrupting the other person but stay focused on listening to what they are saying. The most common occurrence is after someone speaks two or three words we automatically want to chime in with a solution or opinion. This is where you practice restraint and allow the person to finish their thought or what they want to say. By doing this you will get the full picture of what is going on or see the bigger picture and can then be able to minister effectively because you have listened intently focusing on what was said and even noticing what wasn’t said but the Holy Spirit gives you wisdom.

Find the Purpose: As you are listening; also listen for clues to why they are talking to you and what they need from you. Do they need prayer? Are they coming to you for comfort? Are they just venting and need a sounding board? Do they need assurance about something they are struggling with? Do they just need someone to listen? Do they need encouragement? By understanding what their purpose is coming to you, you can then respond appropriately.

Don’t Make Assumptions: I can’t stress this enough, DO NOT ASSUME ANYTING. Making assumptions or having pre-conceived ideas about someone or their situation is bringing in your own thoughts, ideas and opinions into their situation and can lead you off track spiritually. Biblically, our thoughts, opinions and ideas mean nothing and amount to nothing. The bible says that wisdom comes from above, it comes from God and it is God that gives us His divine wisdom through the Holy Spirit and His Word. By jumping to conclusions, we short circuit what God wants to speak or do for the other person through His Word and at the same time, we stop listening to the Holy Spirit because we are then drawing from our own conclusions on the matter and not God’s.

Listen with Compassion: Having compassion with humility of heart will help you to relax and help you listen patiently. We are in a tyranny of the urgent society and if someone is taking longer than a minute to finish their thought our minds start wondering and we try to cut the conversation short. Remember that people matter to God more than your time. We all have places to go and things to do, but your five or ten minutes of your time to listen and talk to someone could make all the difference in the world in that person’s life and could actually change their life. Not because you are that good but that God’s ministering power is at work through you to them.

Respond Biblically: If you follow all the steps prior you will be able to respond in the spirit and biblically. Not hyper-spiritually but biblically and practically. Encourage them, offer comfort and hope for their situation or if they just wanted someone to listen offer to pray for them. Sometimes that’s all they really want is someone to listen and pray for them.

Be Honest: After you have listened and you have a situation where you don’t know what to say, be honest with them and offer to pray for them, comfort them and direct them to someone that can help them. Being a good listener sometimes is all they need. They will appreciate your time more than anything else and your honesty.

Know God’s Voice: One of the most important parts of ministering is hearing God’s voice because you want to minister His Words and not your own. So how do you do this? Jesus said that the sheep know His voice. They know His voice because they know Him. They have been cared for by Him, fed by Him and loved by Him and they know Him intimately. Just as a child knows their father’s voice so the sheep know the Shepherds voice. It comes by knowing God through His Word and spending intimate time with Him daily. When you hear a voice speak in your heart and it not only matches with God’s Word, it is pure, it is love, and it is un-selfish, it usually is God. What does the bible say about wisdom from above? It is first of all pure. You have to test everything especially if you are not used to hearing His voice. The most important thing is to know God’s Word and know God intimately and begin to listen to His still small voice and He is faithful. Pray and ask God to help you discern between your voice and His.

Practice: Continue to practice listening every chance you get. You will find that as you practice focusing and listening patiently and prayerfully that you will become a good listener before you know it. It will not only make you more effective in ministering but also more selfless and compassionate because listening is more about doing for others and less about you.

I hope these tools will help you becoming a better listener and more effective minister.

Blessings,

Dealing with Disappointment

I can share a personal experience with you to help you understand what disappointment can mean and also how it can affect you personally deeper than you know.

A couple years ago when we were starting our new church plant in San Diego we promoted it, invited all of our family and friends and on that day we had over 100 people in attendance for our opening day church service. It was wonderful and turned out better than we could have expected.

My husband and I were definitely on a spiritual high feeling victory that our church plant was going to go smooth with no problems. NOT!!! The following Sunday our church attendance was nine people and all of them were part of our team that came with us.

Needless to say, my husband seemed fine but I was disappointed. I felt defeated and it was only the second Sunday of our church plant. At that moment you don’t know how to feel and you are left with two choices, give up or move on. We chose to move forward by faith because we believe that God has called us there and regardless if there is one person or 1000, if God has called us we need to be obedient to Him.

Our Faith kept us going and I am happy to report that our church is growing and thriving. Praise the Lord. Had we of quit we would not be seeing the blessings we are now and we have learned some valuable lesson through it.

You see my problem was I had expectations that weren't realistic. I thought it would be a peace of cake to start a church plant and that it would just grow magically. I learned a valuable lesson, which was that my expectations were not based on fact or reality but my own thoughts and opinions and it was a hard lesson but it opened my eyes.

I put together some tips on how to deal with disappointment and hope it helps you as it did me. The definition of disappointment is, “The state of having a feeling or emotion of being defeated in an expectation or a hope.” In looking at this definition helps us to learn how to deal with disappointment.

Re-Evaluate your Expectations: Are your expectations realistic? Or do they set you up for disappointment? Having un-realistic expectations will disappoint you every time.

Be willing to Drop Some Expectations: There are some expectations that are not worth having at all. As you look again at your situation be honest and ask yourself if you are having an expectation that is selfish, petty or unrealistic. If so, you are only hurting yourself by keeping them and should let them go.

Be Flexible: Learn from your mistakes and be willing to change your point of view about your situation that is realistic and considers the good as well as the bad and keep in mind what matters most.

One of the first exercises my husband and I give to couples in pre-marital counseling is to write down all of their expectations about the other person and then we have them read their list out loud and then tear it up and throw the list away. People don’t like this exercise very much because we are forcing them to get rid of their expectations of the other person, but it is an important one to learn and could save them a lot of grief after they get married..

We do this because it is normal for every person to have an ideal spouse in their mind of what they will be like and how they will act. It can come from their up bringing or what they have learned along the way, television or by what they have read of what a spouse is supposed to be like and act like. They then naturally bring those expectations into their marriage and right away they become immediately disappointed that their expectations are not being met.

Unfortunately it happens a lot in marriages and is more common than people realize and people wonder why they are having arguments and problems the first year of their marriage.

Sometimes when I counsel women who go through similar issues, I tell them to not be so hard on themselves and they won’t be hard on others. It’s a trickle down affect that occurs when people place hard or un-realistic expectations on themselves and then will naturally place those same expectations on others.

The worst part of this scenario is that when the person is working extra hard to fulfill these un-realistic expectations for themselves they expect others to do it too and they are constantly disappointed that others are not fulfilling their part. So in this scenario re-evaluate your own expectations of your self and see if you need to let go of them so that you can be freed from your own disappointment and not place that same expectations on others.

We encourage couples to not go into their marriage with expectations on their spouse but to get to know and accept their spouse for who they are and work together in accomplishing their goals and dreams together using their gifts and talents they both have.

Don’t get me wrong we also go over the roles of the husband and the roles of the wife with these couples but roles are responsibilities that are given to fulfill their role as the husband or the wife and not “personal” expectations. It’s important to know the difference.

My husband always says, “If you don’t have expectations you won’t be disappointed.” It’s true. We deal with our ministry the same way. It is what it is and we have to be willing to work with what we have to make it better and not focus on what it isn’t or what we don’t have but enjoy and be blessed with what God is doing.

The only expectation we have now is that God is faithful and He will do it. It may not happen how we expect Him to or when we expect Him to but He does it in His perfect way and in His perfect time. His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways!

So if you are dealing with disappointment take a moment to evaluate your expectations and be willing to make the necessary changes that will lift anything that may be keeping you down or others down. Sometimes our worst enemy is our own self. I hope these helps will give you something to work with when dealing with disappointment.

Blessings,