Living Waters has just produced another culturally relevant movie: Exit: The Appeal of Suicide. “Before you finish reading this, one individual will have ended their life by suicide—because they think they have no other choice. According to the World Health Organization, a massive 800,000 people take their lives every year—one death every 40 seconds. That’s 3,000 a day. For millions who suffer from depression and despair, “EXIT” points to a better way. This compelling movie shines a powerful light in the darkness and offers true hope to those who think they have none. Someone you know may be secretly considering their final exit. Watch “EXIT,” and share it with those you love.” View the trailer here: www.theexitmovie.com

A book that addresses this traumatic topic from an Exchanged Life perspective is Suicide: An Illict Lover. The author identifies the strangle hold of despair and then shows how claiming our co-death and co-resurrection with Christ is an exit that protects life–now and eternally. See ordering information at the GFI online bookstore here.

(Global Leadership Summit)

Comment: Empathy is an important counseling skill. Whereas sympathy denotes feeling sorry for someone, empathy is to feel with someone.

In non directive counseling, skills–such as using empathy–can become the primary content and model of counseling. However, biblical counseling is different; it is directive. Exchanged Life Counseling has a distinctive message (the Christ-centered life), and methodology.

Yet, in directive counseling empathy is still important. A counselor who is eager to facilitate discovery and progress may forget to empathize. In a therapeutic context, the helper talks with the counselee in a caring way rather than talking at him/her. We are to be quick to listen, and slow to speak…(James 1:19), and we then speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15). – JBW