The following suggestions are not meant to be prescriptive for the professional educator but are merely a few suggestions which are meant as a help to those of us who are not professional educators but have teaching responsibilities.

Biblical EQ can be used as a text book on emotional development and I suggest the book be taught in 24 one hour lectures as follows – one hour introduction, six hours on the first six chapters in the theological section, ten hours on the five chapters in the ontological section and finally eight hours of lectures on the six chapters in the practical section (2 hrs each on the chapters on first and last chapters in the section.) However the book is taught I think 20 hours of lectures would be a minimum for most undergraduate students to grasp and digest the topic.

For in-service courses and extension learning I would recommend pre-reading the book and discussing it chapter by chapter by teleconference or in email discussion groups. The book can be also easily be broken down into three one-day workshops, one for each section, and taught as an intensive over a long weekend. I also am preparing a one day seminar for church groups which just gives a very basic coverage of the topics in the book.

Small group discussion in groups of three or four is absolutely essential for this sort of material. The aim of this book will be largely defeated if you teach it in a large classroom and use assignments and exams alone as the assessment tool. A bright student could go through such a course largely unchanged. Students should interact face to face about the issues and to stretch each other, as gently as possible, so that real change and real growth occurs. Considerable guidance and facilitation by the lecturer may be needed to ensure these discussion groups achieve their aims. The section on private and public emotion should perhaps be briefly reviewed in class at the commencement of the small groups as some vulnerable students may share too much emotionally while others share very little.

I would encourage students to keep a personal journal of their reflections on the course (if this is considered an acceptable form of assessment) and encourage discussion of case studies that they meet in their ministry experience. The book raises many deep and provocative questions such as the mind-brain problem and the nature of the human spirit. If a class is prone to wandering off into less than edifying arguments over these issues they might be channeled into 15-minute formal class debates with a definite conclusion. These debates could be made part of the ‘participation” mark that most lecturers give.

While the book has an objective to achieve emotional transformation it also has an informational purpose and is content rich. Assessing understanding of the content and the grasp of the concepts involved is very important so I would encourage some academic form of assessment, such as a two hour exam at the end of the course worth around half the marks. If assignments are to be used instead of an exam I would suggest three separate assignments – one on each section as I think it would be very difficult to cover the course content with a single term paper. Even in the case of in-services and courses where formal assessment is not used the academic content still needs a little emphasis because it is the concepts that will stay with the learner, perhaps popping into relevance many years in the future.

May the Lord lead you as you teach both the academic and experiential aspects of Biblical EQ.

Further References

Addictions
Alcoholic Anonymous World Services; Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Sydney 1952 ( authors are anonymous of course!)

Anderson, Neil T. Set Free, London 1998, Monarch

Anderson, Neil T. & Quarles M& J Freedom From Addiction, Ventura 1996, Regal

Agoraphobia
Weekes, Claire; Peace From Nervous Suffering, Sydney 1973, Angus and Robertson

Weekes, Claire; Simple Effective Treatment of Agoraphobia, Sydney 1977, Angus and Robertson

Weekes, Claire; The Latest help For Your Nerves, Sydney 1989, Angus and Robertson

Behavioral Medicine
Melamed, Barbara G. & Siegel, Lawrence J. Behavioral Medicine, New York 1980, Spinger

Boundaries (Personal)

Cloud, Henry; & Townsend John; Safe People, Grand Rapids 1995, Zondervan

Cloud, Henry; & Townsend John; Boundaries, Sydney 1992, Strand Publishing

Community Building

Banks, Robert; Life In The New Testament Church (or a similar title)

Crabb, Larry; Connecting, Nashville 1997, Word

Holpp, Lawrence; Managing Teams, 1999 McGraw Hill, “A Briefcase Book” imprint.

Limerick, David; & Cunnington, Bert; & Crowther, Frank; Managing the New Organisation 2nd Edition, Warriewood 1998, Business and Professional Publishing

Peters, Tom The Circle of Innovation, London 1997, Hodder & Stoughton

Senge Peter et. al The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook , London 1994, Nicholas Brealey

Cognitive Psychotherapy and Depression
Burns, David M. Feeling Good A New Mood Therapy

Seligman, Martin E.P.; Learned Optimism, Sydney 1998, Random House

Winter, Richard; The Roots of Sorrow, Westchester Illinois 1986 Crossway Books

Emotions and Emotional Intelligence
Cava, Roberta; Dealing With Difficult People, Sydney 2000, Pan Macmillan

Cooper, Robert; & Sawaf, Ayman; Executive EQ, London 1997, Orion Business

Dobson, James; Emotions Can You Trust Them, Ventura 1980, Regal

Goleman, Daniel; Emotional Intelligence, London 1996, Bloomsbury

Goleman, Daniel; Working With Emotional Intelligence, London 1998, Bloomsbury

Weisenger, Hendrie; Emotional Intelligence At Work, San Francisco 1998, Jossey-Bass

Family Therapy (not directly quoted but behind a lot of my ideas on community)
Minuchin, Salvador; Familes and Family Therapy, London 1974, Tavistock Publications

Minuchin, Salvador; & Fishman, Charles; Family Therapy Techniques, 1981, Harvard College

Inner Child/ Trauma Counselling
Bradshaw, John; Homecoming, New York 1990, Bantam Books

Pellaur, Mary D. Chester, Barbara; Boyajian, Jane; (Eds) Sexual Assault And Abuse, A Handbook For Clergy and Religious Professionals, San Francisco 1991, Harper

Smith, Ed; Theophostics – Beyond Tolerable Recovery (workshop manuals)

Mid-Life Crisis & Dream Therapy
Kelsey, Morton; Dreams A Way To Listen To God, New York 1978, Paulist

Langs, Robert; Decoding Your Dreams, New York 1988, Ballantine Books

O’Connor, Peter ; Understanding The Mid-Life Crisis, Melbourne 1981, Sun Books

O’Connor, Peter ; Dreams and The Search For Meaning, Sydney 1986, Methuen Haynes

Mind Power
Hill, Napoleon; & Keown, E. Harold; Succeed And Grow Rich Through Persuasion, New York 1989, Signet

Nouthetic Counseling (based on biblical exhortation and repentance)

Adams, Jay E. Competent To Counsel, Phillipsburg 1970, Presbyterian and Reformed

Adams, Jay E.; The Christian Counselor’s Casebook, Phillipsburg 1974, Presbyterian and Reformed

Pastoral Counseling (General approaches to)
Collins, Gary R. Christian Counseling, Waco 1980, Word

Oates, Wayne E. The Presence of God In Pastoral Counseling, Dallas 1986, Word

Southard, Samuel; Theology and Therapy, Dallas 1989, Word

Tournier, Paul; The Strong and The Weak, 1984, Highland

Tournier, Paul; Guilt and Grace, New York 1973, Harper & Row

Tournier, Paul; The Meaning of Persons

(anything by Paul Tournier is deep, thoughtful and worth reading)

Solution-Focused Thinking
O’Hanlon, William Hudson; & Weiner-Davis, Michele; In Search of Solutions, London & New York 1989, W.W Norton & Co.

Spiritual Discernment
Israel, Martin; The Spirit of Counsel , London 1983, Mowbray

Spiritual Experiences
Wesley, John; Wesley, Charles; Whitfield, George; (abr, by Weakley, Clare G.) The Nature of Revival, Minneapolis 1987, Bethany House

Spiritual Warfare, Power Ministry, Healing Ministry
Murphy, Ed; The Handbook For Spiritual Warfare, Nashville 1992, Thomas Nelson

Taylor, Harold; Sent To Heal, Ringwood Victoria 1997, Order of St. Luke The Physician

Wimber, John; Power Healing, London 1986, Hodder and Stoughton

Stress

Wilkie, Dr. William; Understanding Psychiatry , Melbourne, 1987 , Hill of Content Publishing Company.

Temperaments
Kiersey and Davis , Please Understand Me

La Haye, Tim; Transformed Temperaments, Wheaton, Illinois 1971, Tyndale House

Transactional Analysis (Games, Life Scripts for section on Thoughts and Intents of the Heart)

Berne, Eric; Games People Play, London 1976, Penguin

James, Muriel; Jongeward, Dorothy; Born To Win: Transactional Analysis With Gestatalt Experiments, Reading Massachusetts 1973, Addison-Wesley

Note: Where references are missing some publishing details, these are books I have lent and lost but which I have found very useful and which I recommend. Most of the above works are secular and some are even a bit anti-Christian but if you read them with discernment and in the framework Biblical EQ places them in I am sure you will find them very profitable and useful.

About The Author

John Edmiston B.Sc. Adv. Dip. Min. B.D. is Field Director of Frontier Servants missionary society in the Philippines and the Executive Director of the Asian Internet Bible Institute. He has also served as a missionary in Papua New Guinea. Before becoming a missionary John worked as a career guidance and workplace-counseling consultant, mainly for the public sector. His passion is to see revival come to God’s church through the spiritual and emotional renewal of Christian workers and the structures that they work in. John is married to Minda, who is a university lecturer in Botany. John can be contacted by email on [email protected]