No More Diapers in the Dark
by Andy Perry

I’ve been changing a lot of diapers lately. Well, not as many as my wife—but a lot more than I was changing this time last month! I’ve realized in the past three plus weeks how important sufficient light is to a good diaper change. Let me explain. Though it’s slowly growing less frequent, my newborn son’s ability for filling a diaper at least every two hours has been more than apparent since we brought him home from the hospital. That means we changed a lot of diapers at night. So she can try to get some sleep, my wife keeps the light in the room in which she nurses and changes Evan turned down low. Some nights I’ve tried to keep the light low for her sake while changing him. Predictably, the results have not often been the best. I’ve learned the lesson the hard way that a good diaper change requires sufficient light.

A few years ago I had a revelation of sorts showing me that pastorally helping people works much the same way. I’d been trying to help people in the church for a long time, even though I had only recently been given an office and the title ‘pastor,’ moving me into the category of ‘official’ or ‘professional’ helper. I saw myself as an indispensable human resource to the church, especially in my counseling role. After all, I’d taken classes in seminary teaching me how to be an effective listener and emotional/relational/spiritual practitioner. “When people in the church have problems,” I thought, “They should come to me because I can help them. I’m trained and qualified!” Those beyond my abilities I simply referred to a professional Christian counselor in town. In short, that was largely the extent of my framework for helping Christians with problems: talk to me, or if I can’t help you, talk to a professional counselor.

Before I describe how my perspective changed, I want to make clear how much I enjoy pastoral counseling. In fact it may be the part of my job I love most. I also want to clearly state that I believe professional counselors do play an important role in society and, when their counsel is grounded in Scripture, in the life of the church. That is true. Yet a number of years ago I experienced what I would describe as the revelation that I was ‘changing diapers in the dark’ in terms of helping people, all the time ignorant of the light switch within arm’s reach.

The fact that we all from time to time have spiritually ‘dirty diapers’ (i.e. sin and sinful life-patterns) which require the help of others should go without saying. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us (I John 1:8).” But how to change them? How to help? As I’ve explained, my assumption was that God had divinely placed professionals at the spiritual ‘changing table’ to do all the work, assuming we could do it best. We do have our place in helping other Christians, but I have become increasingly convinced from Scripture that God’s primary design for helping believers face the truth of their sin and embrace the cleansing of God’s grace and strengthening of His sanctification is other believers growing together in ever-deepening relationships of trust, accountability, mutual love and care.

It is telling that Paul was not talking to fellow pastors or elders when he wrote to the Ephesians, “...speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him Who is the Head, into Christ. From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” Sanctification (the process of us becoming more like Jesus) is a group project, and God’s appointed group for its accomplishment is the church. Not the church in some amorphous sense, but the church in miniature as small groups of Christians spend regular time together praying, sharing, learning, calling each other on the carpet for sinful patterns of thinking and living and celebrating evidences of God’s grace in their lives. Christians in the first century met as small groups in homes (Acts 2:42-47, Philemon 1:2, etc.). They spent time together, learned together, prayed together, ministered together—and ministered to one another. It only makes sense since they had developed relationships of trust and care.

I believe a church where its people are actively involved regularly in small groups where grace and truth are nurtured will find most of their problems helped by those God designed as the primary helpers of Christians—other Christians in community. Larry Crabb says it well in his book Connecting, “I am now working toward the day when communities of God’s people, ordinary Christians whose lives regularly intersect, will accomplish most of the good that we now depend on mental health professionals to provide. And they will do it by connecting with each other in ways that only the gospel makes possible (p. xii).”

So, let me ask you, “Do you ever have spiritually ‘dirty diapers’ that you need help changing?” Of course you do. I know I do! We all face problems from time to time and we need help from others. I love helping people understand God’s solutions to their problems. Perhaps you’re going through some dark valley right now and want to cry out for help. Call me. Talk to me. At the same time don’t be surprised if I probe a little bit to try to discover how well you’re connected and connecting with other believers who know the Bible and have the Holy Spirit as much as I do. In January an entire network of small groups meeting weekly in homes is beginning for our Trinity family. Do you plan on getting connected? I hope and pray so. Continuing to try to fix your problems on your own or thinking only professionals like me can help you may find you trying to change ‘diapers’ in the dark. The light-switch of Christian community is well within reach. Turn it on!