Your book is primarily about equipping Christians to defend their weaknesses from the enemy in spiritual warfare, and to walk with God to overcome life’s many challenges; what made you decide that this type of book is needed, and why now?
The book of Ephesians tells us all Christians are involved in spiritual battle, even if they don’t recognise it! I believe all of us hope to hear Jesus say “Well done, good and faithful servant”, but like many, I often lived below my hopes. This began to change as Jesus taught me the biggest obstacle was me. I was unaware of the psychodynamic concepts concerning cognitive and emotional development, and the way the brain works. Particularly my ignorance about how early experiences had established in my subconscious a way of living, an operating system for life. There is good in that operating system but a great deal that prefers the world’s way to God’s. The Holy Spirit led me to become aware that my subconscious was working against my conscious godly desires. He taught me how to update that operating system through the cross so that I stopped sabotaging myself. Intimacy and faithfulness increased wonderfully. Our ignorance about “how we tick” gives the enemy open doorways to defeat us, but developments in neuroscience mean we no longer need to be ignorant.
Would you say that Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant incorporates important material which has been left out by other books with a similar theme?
I’m sure aspects of this understanding are in other books but I’m told Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant is unique in bringing together a conviction that God will give specific answers to specific questions; an understanding of the four Heart Areas Foundations, Cognitions, Emotions, Spirituality; concepts such as the Belief Behaviour Cycle, Cognitive Development, Emotional Literacy; our spiritual authority, and a number of other linking concepts.
How have your own experiences, and particularly your work within your ministry Bespoke Growth in God, which offers counselling and coaching with God’s guidance, help form the writing of this book?
Having lived through an abusive background for which I received both good and bad secular therapy and prayer ministry combined with thirty years of church leadership it has been a journey of learning. This was necessary preparation for starting Bespoke Growth in God in 2009. Ten years of ministering to individuals, couples and churches have refined our paradigm, which is presented in Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant.
How might potential readers be feeling when they decide to pick up this book?
I think many will be keen to be faithful to Jesus and so excited to receive the help this book can give. Some may see an opportunity to give a resource to a friend, enabling them to receive Jesus’ commendation. Others may empathise with Paul Harcourt, National Leader of New Wine England, when in the foreword he refers to the tension in worship of singing words that for “many areas of our life remains manifestly not the case”. Some readers may be leaders aware that many others have fallen into sin causing damage to them, their families, their ministry and the wider church, and this book could help them remain faithful. Others may be leaders who have fallen, but having repented are keen to safeguard against falling again.
You really drive home the importance and significance of pursuing a relationship of intimacy with God, rather than a commitment of faith which is based predominantly on religious concepts and doctrinal rules. What makes you feel that believers may be missing this central aspect of Christianity?
Why do you think the Christian faith is often viewed in this way? I am sure that the vast majority of believers do not miss this central aspect. The joy at their salvation was in their experience that, despite their having nothing to offer Him, Jesus died for them and offered salvation as a gift which they gladly received. Our faith has been a conscious choice for Jesus, but we have not been aware of our subconscious operating system which is still working by the natal values that we have to follow to be safe and comforted. When the church is full of people who are subconsciously living out of insecurity, those churches become characterised by the rules, the forms, the prohibitions that keep us safe. So different from our God who creates variety.
Steve Pollard served as an officer in the Royal Navy, he studied Law and developed a Medical Negligence and High Court practice. Pollard has been involved in church leadership and helped establish a counselling charity
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