You Don’t Need Another Seminar: How Practical Techniques Can Lose Sight of God

I recently saw a church advertising an upcoming family ministry conference. That is hardly surprising. Hundreds of churches host parenting or marriage conferences every year. Many large churches across the country organize conferences for people inside and outside their congregations that focus on a particular practical issue. I would guess that a significant portion of the literature purchased by Christians similarly focuses on practical steps for marriage, parenting, finances, leadership, or some other area of life.

Many of these churches also tend to preach topical sermon series centered on practical issues. The reasoning is understandable. People need help in these areas. Yet sermons can slowly begin to resemble talk-show segments designed to help a live audience solve the problems of everyday life. Now, with livestreaming, a worship service can become something like a weekly self-help program that dispenses counsel to both a studio and digital audience with a live band providing the music.

I believe one of the key issues behind this tendency is an overemphasis on the horizontal dimension of human existence. Let me explain what I mean.

Genesis introduces us to two fundamental dimensions of human relationships. First, God creates Adam and Eve in his image. Their purpose in everything is to reflect the nature and glory of God within the world. They are placed in the garden, where God provides for them and relates to them. God commands Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As Adam and Eve live in the garden, eat from its other trees, cultivate the ground, and exercise dominion over the animals, they do all these things as creatures living under the authority of their Creator.

Adam’s obedience to God’s command is therefore pivotal to this relationship. Humanity must live under God’s authority as Creator and Ruler. This relationship describes what we might call the vertical dimension of human existence. It is vertical because humanity does not relate to God as an equal. God possesses absolute authority over humanity. He gives life, defines what is good, establishes humanity’s purpose, and determines the proper ordering of the relationship. Humanity, in turn, lives before God as his image-bearer, reflecting his nature within creation.

The second relationship is Adam and Eve’s relationship with one another. They are both created in the image of God. Although Eve is created from Adam’s side, God gives life to both of them. Adam and Eve are different from one another, but they share the dignity of creatures made in God’s image. Genesis 2 tells us that they were naked and unashamed. They became one flesh and lived together as fellow image-bearers commissioned by God to work and keep the land. One result of this relationship is that God’s relational character is reflected through human relationships within the world.

We can describe this as the horizontal dimension of human existence. Adam and Eve relate to one another not as Creator and creature but as fellow human beings made in God’s image. Yet this horizontal relationship exists within the larger vertical relationship. Adam and Eve do not create their own purpose and then invite God into it. God creates them, defines their purpose, and then gives them to one another. The vertical relationship with God gives meaning, purpose, and order to the horizontal relationship with one another.

When Adam sins against God, resulting in humanity’s exile from the garden, God describes the relational consequences Adam and Eve will experience. They become alienated from one another. Shame and conflict flood their marriage. The intimacy of Genesis 2 gives way to hiding, accusation, blame, and struggle. Even raising children becomes marked by pain and sorrow.

Yet the primary concern presented in the early chapters of Genesis is the rupture between God and humanity. The alienation between God and humanity becomes the source of horizontal disorder. We see this pattern continue in the next generation. The violence between Cain and Abel is unmistakable, but Cain’s murderous anger toward his brother emerges in the context of his disordered relationship with God. Cain fails to honor God rightly, and his vertical disorder erupts into horizontal violence. The problem between brother and brother cannot be separated from the problem between humanity and God.

This distinction is important because we have become confused about the purpose of human life. No one was created primarily to produce a flourishing marriage, raise successful children, enjoy satisfying friendships, or build a happy family. We were created to glorify God by reflecting his nature within the world. God, in his grace, may give us healthy marriages, deep friendships, and godly children, and these are wonderful gifts for which we should give thanks. But the gifts themselves are not the ultimate goal. When we make them the goal, gifts become idols. We begin worshiping the creation rather than the Creator.

This is where I believe an overemphasis on the horizontal dimension becomes particularly dangerous. The problem is not that relationships are unimportant. Scripture places enormous importance on marriage, family, friendship, church, and neighbor love. The problem arises when these relationships are detached from their Godward purpose and asked to bear the weight of our ultimate meaning, identity, and flourishing. The means becomes the end.

Consider the way we often approach marriage. Marriage counseling, books, and conferences understandably address practical issues between husbands and wives. We offer seminars on communication, finances, sex, conflict resolution, and parenting. All these subjects matter. However, as I have observed, many Christian resources can be surprisingly weak on the theological truths that should undergird these practical matters. If the substance of Christian parenting becomes a collection of practical tips for becoming a better parent, then we may simply be handing people a how-to manual with little power and little grace. Pastors and ministry leaders can become little more than subjective gurus offering their preferred methods for successful living.

We often hear people dismiss theology or doctrine because they want something “practical.” They seek inspiring methods that promise a better marriage, better children, or a better life. New methods and goals allow them to address visible problems while avoiding the deeper issues of the heart. Their methods may change while their view of God remains untouched. Eventually, they may discover that their fundamental situation remains unchanged as well. They attended the marriage conference, but their marriage remains lifeless. They bought the book recommended by the experts, but their children remain stubborn and undisciplined. They learned new communication techniques, but they still cannot forgive one another.

The problem is that new methods can modify behavior without transforming worship. A husband can learn better communication skills while remaining profoundly selfish. A wife can learn conflict-resolution techniques while continuing to harbor bitterness. Parents can adopt a better disciplinary strategy while making an idol of their children’s success. A family can establish healthier rhythms while remaining consumed by anxiety because they have never learned to trust the providence and goodness of God. Horizontal techniques cannot heal fundamentally vertical disorders.

I am not suggesting that Christians should ignore practical issues. Scripture certainly does not. Rather, I believe we sometimes prescribe small dietary changes when what is required is an entirely different way of life. Marriages often struggle because the people within them have distorted views of God, themselves, and his Word. One spouse may consider himself righteous and believe the other person is the problem. The other spouse may have reached precisely the same conclusion. Both stand as judges over the other.

But what happens when both are confronted with the holiness of God? Before an infinitely holy God, neither spouse can comfortably maintain the position of righteous judge. Both are creatures. Both are sinners. Both fall short of God’s glory. Both stand in need of grace. Both must seek reconciliation with God through Christ, and from that position of received grace, they can begin seeking reconciliation with one another. The vertical begins to reorder the horizontal.

This is why theology is not the enemy of practical Christianity. Theology is intensely practical because theology tells us what is ultimately real. The holiness of God exposes our self-righteousness. The grace of God makes forgiveness possible. The sovereignty of God confronts our anxiety. The patience of God exposes our impatience. The incarnation gives shape to sacrificial service. The cross redefines love through self-giving. The resurrection gives hope in the midst of suffering. These doctrines are not abstractions detached from ordinary life. They are the realities that give Christian obedience its shape and power.

Perhaps, then, we would see healthier marriages and families if we taught more theology and then carefully articulated the implications of those truths for everyday life. The order matters. We begin with God, who he is, what he has done, what he commands, and what he has accomplished for us in Christ, and then ask how those realities reshape our marriages, families, friendships, work, and churches. The vertical gives purpose and shape to the horizontal.

So maybe struggling couples do not primarily need another family conference featuring a few guest speakers presenting their proven methods. Maybe they need a theology conference on the attributes of God. Teach them about God’s holiness until their self-righteousness becomes difficult to maintain. Teach them about God’s grace until forgiveness becomes imaginable. Teach them about God’s sovereignty until anxiety begins to loosen its grip. Teach them about God’s patience until impatience with a spouse becomes harder to justify. Teach them about Christ’s incarnation until sacrificial service becomes beautiful. Teach them about the cross until self-denial begins to make sense.

And then, by all means, teach them about communication, finances, sex, parenting, and conflict resolution. But teach these things as implications of theology rather than substitutes for it. The church does not need to choose between the vertical and horizontal dimensions of human existence. Scripture gives us both. But Scripture also gives them to us in their proper order.

The vertical gives purpose, power, and shape to the horizontal.