Created By

M IK E FOSTE R
VERSION 1.0/ FEB 2016

2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED/MIKE FOSTER

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted

in any form without prior written permission. Rescue Academy charts,

diagrams and concepts are exclusive to this course and proper citation

should be used. Please encourage and participate in being an outstanding

person of integrity.

Design by Ashton Owens: Wheelhouse Studios

Sketches And Charts: Mike Foster

Typography Quotes: Rachel Mayo

For the One who makes
all things new.
A NOTE FROM MIKE
Dear Fellow Rescuers,

I am so honored that you decided to go through Rescue Academy.

The content of this course is based on the over 10,000 hours Ive

personally spent coaching, counseling and walking with hurting

people. It also flows from my own struggles that I have battled

through in my own life. The content is not perfect but it is everything

I know so far and everything I believe about entering into peoples

suffering.

I truly believe that God wants to use you in a powerful way to impact

lives. He is unleashing a new generation of wounded healers. Rescu-

ers who do not operate from strength or heroic gestures but from a

place of tears and their own beautifully broken stories.

Now lets begin.

RESCUE
ACADEMY
SESSIONS
+ Session 1: Discover Your Unfair Advantage

+ Session 2: I Am A Shamebreaker

+ Session 3: Stupid Things To Stop Saying

+ Session 4: The Myth Of Heroic Sacrifice

+ Session 5: Turn Blah Meetings Into Miracle Moments

+ Session 6: Addiction Boot Camp

+ Session 7: Making Sense Of Depression

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Session Two

I AM A
SHAME-
BREAKER
The place God calls you to is the place where your deep
gladness and the worlds deep hunger meet.
- F REDERI C K BUECHN E R

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Imagine for a moment that the Story of Your Life is lined

up on a shelf as though it was captured in those large,

old school encyclopedia collections. You know, the ones

that door-to-door salesmen used to sell for extraordinary

amounts of money. Beautifully thick, heavily bound,

professionally presented and brimming with knowledge.

Instead of the first book holding information from A

through C, it holds all of the information and happenings

and thoughts and feelings collected in the first year of

your life. After that, each individual book holds the next

year and the following years after that. Age 7 age 12

age 25 age 39....and so on.

Perhaps you even have titles for each book that describe

that specific year. Best Year of My Life when you first

fell in love. Or Worst Year Ever when that same person

broke your heart. There are probably some years of your

life you would happily relive over and over because of

how precious, amazing, or good it felt. There were big

highs and positive emotions.

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Then, there are others we might like to forget. The ones

filled with hurt, mistakes, wrongs, darkness, loss. It would

be hard to look at the full collection of our story and see

some of those more difficult sections.

Perhaps we are tempted to take the unfavorable books,

those years of hardship, those reminders of pain, off of

the shelf and stuff them away deep in our collect-all hall

closet. Or maybe we just wanted to hit the delete button

and have it be gone forever. But if we are actively trying

to live in the full grace of God, we begin to learn how

to accept all of it; even the chapters we dont like. And

when we expose them, we develop an ability to actually

see it all as part of the Gods cosmic redemption story

He is writing in each of us.

In the simplest form, God provides us with the permission

to embrace it all. And we mean all of it! We start to

see our hurts and hang-ups on par with the bright and

beautiful, not as better or worse. Its human to run

from our hardship and our feelings. It takes recognizing

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Gods grace to stop running and turn around to face the

lion that is chasing us. And the lion is our own self. Our

perceptions, our stories, our fears. Our ugly cracks and

breaks. And as we do we live out the words of Leonard

Cohen when he sings, Ring the bells that still can ring,

forget your perfect offering, there is a crack, a crack in

everything, thats how the light gets in.

We dont focus on fixing, we focus on embracing. We

dont encourage running, we inspire sitting in it. We dont

talk about the problems, we seek truth thats underneath

it. We create space for other peoples lives. We give

dignity to their story. And it starts with us. Accepting

every part of our life emboldens others to start accepting

theirs. When we live out of the completeness of our own

life, we inspire others to embrace theirs. We remind

them they arent alone and we encourage them to

put the missing chapters back on the shelf. We are

the hope bringers, because it all matters. We are

the reminders, the accepters, embodying that every

person is worthy of love.

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23
 TOUGH LOVE IS A POPULAR

S T R A T E G Y . U N F O R T U N A T E LY ,

WE TEND TO BE MORE TOUGH

THAN LOVING. WHENEVER

TWO OPPOSITE WORDS LIKE

THIS COME TOGETHER, WE

SHOULD BE AWARE OF THE

POTENTIAL DANGER. IVE

F O U N D P O P U L A R S T R AT E G I E S

LIKE TOUGH LOVE CAN OFTEN

CAUSE CONFUSION AND DO

MORE DAMAGE THAN GOOD.

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25
VIDEO
OUTLINE
Session Two: I Am A Shamebreaker

1 in _____Americans are currently clinically depressed.

1 in _____has an addiction.

1 in _____people engage in self-injury.

1 in _____have actually attempted suicide.

Shame is the belief that we are inherently ___________and

unworthy of ______________.

You can beat guilt through _______________, but shame must be

healed through __________________.

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Ineffective, Yet Common Strategies To Heal Shame:

1.___________________________

2.___________________________

3.___________________________

Shame does not have a self _______________. It only has an others

__________________.

Treat people not as they are but _________________.

God wants to write the word _______-_______ on your name tag.

You become a shamebreaker by:

You ______________accept people without ________________.

Remind people of their ______________and ________________.

Treat people not ________________but ___________________.

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 GUILT
THE NEGATIVE DISCOMFORT WE FEEL

FOR DOING SOMETHING AGAINST OUR

VALUES AND CAN CREATE LEARNING

FROM THE EXPERIENCE.

SHAME
AN INTENSE AND FALSE BELIEF THAT WE

ARE FLAWED AND UNWORTHY OF LOVING

CONNECTION. IT DESTROYS
GROWTH AND FREEDOM.

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 WHEN WE FORGIVE

O U R S E LV E S , W E H E A L

O U R G U I LT.

WHEN WE ACCEPT

O U R S E LV E S , W E H E A L

O U R S H A M E .

LEWIS B. SMEDES

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DISCUSS
1. What concept or idea stood out to you in this session? What
resonated with you the most? Did anything surprise you?

2. Why do you think it is so easy to cover up the holes and the

areas that we feel ashamed of? Do you think a lot of people
struggle with shame and feeling unworthy?

3. Why is it so hard to radically accept people? Do you believe

this is important in being an effective rescuer?

4. Mike shared several strategies that he considers to be inef-

fective ways to deal with shame. What other strategies dont
work well?

5. How can you make sure that you dont add to the shame that
someone feels? What are some things that you do to let them
know they are loved and accepted by you?

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 REAL LIFE RESCUE

While having coffee with a friend you notice in the

conversation that they are constantly beating themselves up
and highly critical of their life. It is obvious that they feel a
sense of not-enough-ness and like they will never
measure up to their high standards. How could you
help them rethink some of their conclusions about who
they are and their value?

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32
PUSHED TO THE WALL, I CALLED

TO GOD; FROM THE WIDE

O P E N S PA C E S , H E A N S W E R E D .

PSALM 118:5 MSG

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NOTES

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