Self Assessments
Helping Relationships: Week 1/Part 1 Self Assessment
Question 1: Do you initiative? Do you move toward people?
I think this is one of the giftings that God has given me. I do believe that I initiate and move toward people. One of my favourite things is asking questions and listening to people’s answers and stories. I genuinely think that one of the best parts about being human is finding those human connections. I work hard at trying to ask good questions and finding a topic that someone can talk about. With new people I have to be careful because sometimes the reason I do this has been driven by wanting/needing their approval in the past. However, I am learning to battle this idol. The best way I have found to battle the idol of approval with new people is by being prepared and praying for the conversation (the night before if I can), or in the car on the way to the meeting. If I am not prepared, I will often be journaling later that night and realize that I slipped into wanting their approval, and I will have to repent of it that evening. With friends/believers/members of our small group, I still try to ask good questions and enjoy the answers. The only problem in these relationships is that I often don’t leave a lot of space for them to ask me questions. So by the end of the conversation, they have talked the whole time, and it looked more like a counselling session rather than a friendship. This is also something I would like to keep working on.
Question 2: Do you draw out what is meaningful to the other person?
I hope so. I really do try hard to do this. I have two tools that I like to use in conversations. One I learned from my time at Bodenseehof Torchbearer Bible School by a lecturer named Derek Burnside. He called it the FORD model. When you are in a conversation with someone new, or someone you know, but perhaps you aren’t that close with, you can think of the acronym FORD. It stands for Family, Occupation, Recreation and Dreams. Basically you start by asking about their family, and then working through the rest of the acronym as the conversation moves forward. It gives practical topics to ask about, and usually those 4 topics show, at least on the surface level, what is meaningful to someone. If I know the person well, then I like to check in on them holistically and ask how they are doing physically, intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and socially. This is a tool I use to try to disciple the women around me, as I find that it often reveals struggles they are going through or successes we can celebrate together. When checking in on them physically, I ask about sleep, eating, exercise. When asking about intellectual, I ask if they are reading anything interesting or listening to any podcasts. For spiritual, we talk about Bible reading and if there is anything they feel like God is teaching them. If I have a close friend who is not a believer, this is usually a place where I can ask them how they are doing spiritually, and wherever they are at, I pray that God can use those conversations to open their heart to Jesus and truth. When checking in on their emotions, I will ask if they have had any good laughs or any good cries lately. And then with social, I usually just check in on who they are hanging out with these days, and if they are getting time out of the house/to spend with others. Now that I write this down, I feel like I am a parent giving their teenager the third degree, but I really don’t feel like the conversations go that way. I do genuinely love hearing their answers, and I hope that most of my friends know that I care for their heart, and that this is a way I can check in on them as a person. I do have one friend that every time we get together, we actually go through the Wellness Wheel and fill it out. The only difference with the Wellness Wheel is that it includes financial.
Question 3: Are you alert to the balance between knowing a person and being known by them?
No. I am terrible at this. As I alluded to before, I am often the person asking the questions, and not usually answering any. I will definitely throw in my own thoughts, stories, and experiences as I am in conversation, but it is usually controlled by me. I also find that people love talking about themselves, so people are usually good at filling the space, and I genuinely enjoy listening to them. But there have been many a conversation where a friend and I are leaving the conversation, and my friend will say, “Sorry! I feel like I talked the whole time and we didn’t talk about you at all.” I usually tell them that it’s totally ok, because it is! However, they may not realize that I likely manipulated the conversation that way without them knowing. Now, as I am writing this, it is blatantly obvious that this isn’t healthy either, and so I will take a quick minute to think through/pray through what is going on. My guesses are that 1: Not everyone is great at asking questions. I know this is a gifting of mine, and not everyone is good at throwing the ball back. But this is also troublesome, because if I believe that this is a good and godly skill to have as a believer, then I also need to disciple people in this area. And if I am the only one asking questions, there is a good chance that these women are not going to develop this skill to use with others either. This obviously applies more to friendship than formal counselling. If I do head down the formal counselling route, I know the expectation is that I would be asking questions and not answering them 2: I don’t love silence. I am an extravert by nature. I love conversation, I love “connecting.” But I know I am not good at empty conversation space. I find it awkward and uncomfortable. It is likely rooted in a desire to control the conversation, and as I confess that, I need to repent of that desire. Fruit comes when the Holy Spirit has a chance to move. When I don’t leave space for a conversation to switch gears, I am acting as God… and I am not. Sticking to my FORD or Wellness Wheel formula without space for change is not honouring the Spirit’s work. 3: I don’t feel like I have many true mentors/friends. I am currently struggling with the idea of Christian community and what it should look like. Should people be checking in on me? What does a friend look like? As a church leader and a small group leader, I know I am called to disciple others, and it is the Lord who will fill me so I can pour into others, but where does my growth/a friend for me come in? I genuinely don’t know.
Question 4: Do you enjoy your conversations with people? What do you enjoy?
I think I mostly answered this already. I love the connection part. I love hearing from people’s hearts. I love anything that moves past small talk!
Question 5: Do you actually pray for the hard things that you hear from others?
A few years ago I got better at this because of one reason; I have learned to type out my prayer through text! If I am texting with someone and they have shared something in a text that is difficult for them, I try right then and there to text pray with them. I just write out my prayer to God in the text for them to read too. It was a bit weird at first, but now I am so used to it, and I haven’t got any negative feedback from people. Even non believers have usually been pretty open to my text prayers! If I am in person, out in public, I am almost 0/100. This likely stems from my battle with the idol of approval. I care too much about what people think, and so I don’t want to pray for someone in a coffee shop because it’s possibly awkward for the other person and then what would others think? This is something I will try to be more aware of. If we are in a house setting, I would say I am a “pray for them in the moment” around 25% of the time. This is also something I would like to work on. I feel like in a more formal Biblical counselling setting, this will be easier for me as it will become part of the counselling process. (At least it was for us when my husband and I went through some biblical counselling).
Question 6: Do you follow up?
I’m not really sure. I usually try and reach out to others, but come to think of it, I’m not sure I follow up on any specifics. I think this will be something I will practice with my conversation partner this semester. Because the conversations will be so consistent, I think it will help to practice following up on specific things mentioned. I also love that Ed Welch, in one of his lectures, mentioned how we can ask, “is there something I said last time that stuck with you?” If God is using us to speak to others, then it makes sense that the stuff from God would stick with them, and the stuff from our own mouth and heart would be forgotten.
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