A pastor urged his congregation to win the war in the mind through God's word, prayer, praise, and submitting our anxiety to him as anxiety has become a major issue for all of modern society, including Christians.
On 25 Jul, Pastor Brad of Suzhou International Fellowship (SIF) spoke to his congregation on calming anxiety based on Romans 12:2, as a part of the sermon series “Winning the War in Your Mind”.
In his series, Pastor Brad took a neuroscientific approach to explain how humans’ brains respond to feelings following established pathways which can be trained and strengthened by repetition.
“A positive neural pathway is one that when stress and worry enter our life, our automatic response is to go pray. And a negative neural pathway is when we turn to food bingeing, alcohol and other crazy things, to try and deal with the worry and stress,” he said.
Through a process of repeatedly turning to God and reframing what we see according to what God sees, our neural pathways and our minds can be renewed and transformed.
After giving a simplified explanation on the functions of the prefrontal cortex (responsible for logical thinking) and amygdala (responsible for controlling our emotional responses such as fear, anxiety, and aggression), the pastor explained how Philippians 4:6-8 teaches us to use the prefrontal cortex more than the amygdala by feasting on God’s word, praying and giving praise, and submitting our anxiety to God. As a result, we will have our hearts and minds guarded in Christ Jesus and we shall receive His peace.
He quoted the Christian neuroscientist, Dr. Caroline Leaf, “it has been found that 12 minutes of daily focused prayer over an 8-week period can change the brain to such an extent that it can be measured on a brain scan.”
In the end, Pastor Brad concluded with three points, “The Bible teaches us to be responsible, so we need to do our part... as best as we can. Secondly, we need to give to God what we cannot do. And lastly, we need to trust God.”
