Prayer that heals the heart

Everybody needs healing prayer. But if you’re a pastor or church leader so many others depend on for therapy and support, where do you turn for help?

Dr. Karl Lehman, a clinical psychiatrist, and his wife Charlotte, lead pastor at Reba Place Church in Evanston, Ill., will share the Immanuel Approach, a new and effective approach to the practice of healing prayer, with leadership at Mennonite Church Canada’s Ministers Conference, “Prayer that heals the heart,” on July 3 prior to the opening service of Assembly 2014 in Winnipeg.

The core of emotional healing prayer, in which participants invite God to help them find a painful memory and then to heal it, has been around since the 1950s, Karl says. However, some memories are too painful to aggressively dig into, permitting surface examination only. While that can be helpful for gleaning insight into the problem, it doesn’t rework the neurology associated with the memory.

“The toxic content is still in that memory,” he explains. “To resolve it, you have to open the file, not talk about it from a distance. To undergo that process means experiencing some pain. But if you connect with God in the beginning, it’s less painful, less traumatic.”

Current behaviour and attitudes are often rooted in the past, Karl says, citing his childhood experiences with playground bullies. His fear and frustration with their behaviour, the unwillingness of responsible adults to respond and his inability to fight back carried into his adulthood. It gave him the tendency to overreact to the inconsiderate behaviour of others.

In his book Outsmarting Yourself—available from the MC Canada Resource Centre at bit.ly/1jDLOHF—he elaborates on the experience: “[T]he toxic content carried in those unresolved playground memories would come forward and I would become both very miserable and very unpleasant to be with.” When he was able to work with God to process the previously unresolved painful pieces in these childhood memories, however, his response moderated.

The Immanuel Approach is the culmination of his 25 years of experience as a clinical psychiatrist, approaching mental healthcare and healing from a faith perspective.

“What Karl discovered is that healing doesn’t have to be as painful as we thought,” Charlotte says. “You can still be present to the reality of pain and past experience while being connected to Jesus.”

The Lehmans have found the Immanuel Approach to be effective in groups as well, having tested it in India, Asia and Uganda, where large numbers of people have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of natural disasters, violence or war. Within larger groups, they lead clusters of three to five people through positive memories and connections with God, and into painful memories. They are training lay leaders and others to lead such sessions, with strategies in place for those who cannot make positive memory connections or those who become stuck in a painful memory.

Charlotte hopes “Prayer that heals the heart” will teach pastors to recognize signs of distress when they arise, and what to do about them. And that’s important. Without the healing and growth she has experienced through the Immanuel Approach, she says, “I would not have made it as a pastor. I would have burned out quickly.”

Register for “Prayer that heals the heart” at bit.ly/1nzWgmn. 

--Posted June 4, 2014

More about Assembly 2014:

Let your hopes run wild! (general information)

Registration information (deadline June 15)