We are formed in relationship,
framed in bodies,
fashioned in mind,
and filled with Spirit.

I believe humankind, made in the image of God, was designed for a kind of wholeness that bridges Heaven and Earth. We are physical: biological, physiological, materially built of the dust of the earth. But that is not all we are. We are psychological: feeling, learning, wondering, creating. We are relational: humans cannot come into existence or survive independently of other humans. We are spiritual: transcendent, awed, empowered, shaped with capacity for awareness of, encounter with, indwelling by Spirit.

While human suffering is ubiquitous, our pursuit of explanation, hope, recovery, and resilience amidst it is often fragmented between these different domains. We go to the doctor hoping to heal the body. We go to therapy to heal the mind. We go to houses of worship or faith communities to heal the spirit. We to go strong relationships trying to sort out struggling relationships.

Treating one domain while dismissing or excluding another will not bring healing and wholeness.

The human body is magnificent, astonishing in complexity, interdependency, adaptability, and vulnerability. The nervous system connects its many components intricately, receiving and communicating feedback from both the body itself and the environment it lives in to the brain. The brain first subconsciously, then consciously, interprets the data and responds to both the body itself and the environment. If this system is unwell, a human is unable to perceive, understand, and respond to life accurately and appropriately. Our brains and bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made; they are designed with specificity and we must operate them accordingly.

The human mind is demonstrably separate from the brain as an organ, able to direct neural networks, thought patterns, emotional responses, environmental adaptation. It is remarkable. Raw data transmitted by the peripheral nervous system is assigned meaning by the brain, based on past and present experiences. We develop patterns of thought and feeling. These patterns become defaults and shade perception of future experiences. We are learning from infancy, and while it is more difficult to re-train a brain, neuroscience clearly shows it is possible. We can be continually transformed by the renewing of the mind.

Human relationship is unique among all creation. It takes an entire one-to-two decades for humans to reach reproductive maturity, but two and a half decades before the brain is fully developed! Humans are not only conceived in some form of relationship, they require sustained relationship to survive as individual creatures, much less as a species. Social psychology, attachment theory, and interpersonal neurobiology all reveal how a person’s identity, personality, mental and emotional health, resilience, and vulnerability are formed by relationships. This occurs most profoundly in the first 3 years of life, but the presence or absence of strong social support is one of the strongest predictors of health and wellness.
It is not good for humans to be alone.

The spiritual form of the human is the imago Dei. Our brains, our minds, our relationships all embody, enable, expect, and ache for the birth, growth, and rulership of a child of God walking the earth. We are endowed with capacity to work specific good for the time and space we are born into, and the incarnation of Yeshua reveals to us what it means to be a child of God: filled with and led by the Holy Spirit, living in utter freedom, implicit trust, absolute security, and perfect peace. He showed us how to restore the presence of Heaven on Earth. Humans have the power and agency to advance evil or good. Jesus unmasked and disarmed the work of evil, overcoming it with good, and calls us to do the same.

Jesus realigned bodies, minds, and relationships, bringing them back into the order they were created for, by the power of the Spirit that also raised Him from the dead and is alive and at work in us today.

At Integra, our goal is to do as He did in these lives entrusted to us and those we serve.