Healing a Broken Nation

Preface

Utilizing a paradigm of appropriation is the model that has evolved as this work has been done. This model creates a parallel between the biblical context, the preacher’s or teacher’s context, and the context of the community. Using this model is how the gospel becomes relevant for listeners.

With the main theme being The Past: Face It, Embrace It, and Kiss It Goodbye, this work uses this theme to create a parallel for preaching and teaching forgiveness and reconciliation to bring about transformation. These three elements are what ultimately lead to healing and wholeness.

The Past: Face It is preaching forgiveness; The Past: Embrace It is preaching reconciliation; and The Past: Kiss It Goodbye is preaching transformation. This thread has been woven throughout reaching into the cognitive, emotive, and intuitive areas of the people involved.

This work, as God’s Word is intended to, has not returned void. Areas of heartache and pain have been sought out, reached into, and drawn out. As a result, those involved in this process will never be the same. Through the gospel, people have been allowed the opportunity to acknowledge their hurt or loss, grieve, and ultimately move on.

To achieve forgiveness, the past must be recognized. Those things that have hurt, wounded, and caused deep scars are buried in the past. Dredging them up requires engagement that reaches into the depths of the cognitive and the emotive areas of the people involved and pulling those things to the surface so the grief process can take place. Whether it be grief over a broken relationship or some other disappointment or loss, recognizing that the pain is there is key in the process of letting go.

When preaching forgiveness, the lesson that is to be learned is that once we have faced the pain of the past, it has to be accepted for what it is, processed, and then released. Holding onto that pain and bitterness only hinders us from being able to live in the now and to prepare to step into our future. This work has led to a model that has been tried and tested and proves to be transformative when the work is done with honesty and sincerity.

If people are going to live their lives in fullness and wholeness, allowing themselves to let go of past hurts and disappointments is imperative. Embodied in this work are four models that address forgiveness and reconciliation: the theory of change, the grief model, and the teaching model wrapped up in and driven by the homiletical model, which is outlined in the beginning of this preface. The other three are as follows.