Week 3 Teaching Notes
Troubleshooting
&
Setting Up an IP Ministry
It’s okay – in fact, it’s GREAT! - to hit disconnect. This is where the real
exploration and healing comes!
In fact, those very moments in prayer where we hit disconnection are exactly
the places we want to be. Those are the entrances to uncharted territory - an
invitation to explore new territory with the Lord, to watch him bring light and
life into the darkness. That’s the cutting edge of our spiritual growth and the
forward movement of the kingdom. This is where we get to see God doing
some of his best work! :0)
Disconnect happens when capacity is exceeded.
Our brains, like electrical circuits in a house, shuts down when capacity is
exceeded. Also like a house electrical system, this keeps us from “starting on
fire.” Thank God for disconnect!
Disconnect always tied to being or feeling alone. Shut down can keep us from
being relational. If nobody else comes alongside to help us, attune, augment
our capacity, we can’t handle it and are unable to process. If someone does
come along, often we’re able to process and it doesn’t become trauma.
Trauma is not how bad something is or seems on some absolute scale of
horribleness, but rather whether we have the capacity to fully process the
event. If we are unable to fully process it, it becomes trauma, no matter how
small it may seem.
Remember there are two types of trauma:
○ A Trauma = absence of good things (neglect, lack of joy in home, no
secure attachments built, no return-to-joy, etc.)
○ B Trauma = presence of bad things (what we usually think of as
traumatic experiences - abuse, accident, violence, natural disaster, etc.)
○ Generally, “A” means one didn’t have the resources needed to develop
a healthily functioning brain, and “B” interrupts the healthy functioning.
So if you already have A and then get B, you can see it would be much
harder to deal with.
When trauma happens, processing is stuck at one or more brain levels:
○ Misinterpretation (lies), vows, confusion at level 5
Ex: “It’s my fault that Mommy & Daddy got divorced.” (No adult
discovering the lie or correcting it.)
○ Lack of skills/self-awareness at level 4
Ex: Jessie constantly fighting with brother when playing
basketball together. Stuck in situation and unable to step out of
it enough to think about alternative responses or solutions. (No
adult stepping in to model a better way forward.)
○ Lack of joy bridges or relational connection at level 3
Ex: Isolating when in pain (No adult there to attune and bring
child back to joy, so as they grow up there’s no experience or
trust that connecting to others while in pain could be helpful.)
○ Dissociation at level 2 - Unable to really connect with their own
emotions, body sensations, memories, etc.
Ex: Person can think of images from an abuse memory without
feeling anything, or the emotions and body sensations come but
there are no memory images or thoughts that come along with
them. (Pain exceeded capacity at some time and nobody helped
process it by augmenting capacity.)
○ Lack of secure attachment at level 1
Ex: Always trying to perform, sense of identity comes from doing
well rather than being oneself. (Never felt secure in or loved for
who they were. Mother, father or other caregiver was unable to
provide secure attachment.)
* * * Notice one major theme here is that trauma is tied to being alone. This
is why we always start with connection and check the connection regularly.
Returning to trauma without connection is re-traumatizing. * * *
Sometimes it’s tempting to get frustrated or angry or despairing that our
brains shut down and disconnect from the situation, or from God, or from
relationship. It can be painful and lonely, especially if it extends over a long
period of time and/or seems like it will never change. It can take a lot of
patience to deal with shut-down, especially when it is pervasive and longlasting. It’s easy to feel like this prayer thing isn’t working for me, that God
and/or other significant people in life have abandoned me, or that there’s
something I’m doing wrong - or that I am fundamentally wrong.
But here’s the good news we’re discovering: The parts of our brain that
process pain are not fixed. They’re changeable. God can always change
anything, of course - but in this case, we’re finding that there are things we
can do to help with this process. We can cultivate connection, because God
made our brains to grow in relationship. He made our brains so that this
relational part can keep growing even when the other parts of our brain have
stopped growing. As we find that we’re not alone, that God and others
augment our capacity, then wherever we’re stuck on the pain processing
pathway, we can get unstuck. And it all happens by staying in relationship.
Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that GOOD? Isn’t that just like God? :0)
Basic Reconnection Process
See Connection Process handout, step IX
○ Pain is totally okay as long as they are connected!
○ Once reconnected,

Look at pain/disconnect from place of connection
and/or

(If able) be present to pain & connection at the same time
What if can’t get a connection at all in the first place?
Work on helping recipient identify connection experiences in life:
○ Describe what connection is like, possibly sharing one of your own
experiences
○ Consider favorite things, like food, activities, vacation, pets, significant
people
○ Get RCs on – do RC Exercises, practice appreciation, attune
○ Practice basic brain skills – use THRIVE skills
○ Practice noticing emotions & moments of gratitude during the week
○ Have recipient imagine what kind of situation would help them feel
connected (and see if it’s like any real experiences from their life).
Perhaps offer photos/images (magazine cuttings) for them to choose
from.
○ Offer lists of emotion words, body sensations, or even cartoon faces
showing emotions to help them identify what they’re experiencing
Pernicious Block (What, why, how)
PB Definition: Pernicious Immanuel Blockage – trauma-based beliefs, choices
or vows that stand in the way of perceiving the Lord’s presence, experiencing
being with him & receiving from him. Often involves transferring early
childhood traumatic experiences and beliefs (whether A or B trauma) onto
God. Transference = putting someone else’s face on me, your pastor, your
therapist, your boss, God. You’re looking at God but you’re seeing someone
else. Doug (Karl Lehman demo video) put his mom’s face on God. “My mom
and dad, I couldn’t get connected with ‘em. I’m not gonna get it from Mom
and Dad. I never got it.” “Mom making me go upstairs, go to bed at 7:00.
I’ve always felt that she just wanted to get rid of me - ‘I don’t want you,
you’re just a pain. I want you to go to bed so I can do what I wanna do.’”
The place where the PB pops up is a hopeless, helpless, dependent child place.
The recipient has no experiential sense that it’s their problem but truly
believes it’s about God. Result is that the painful emotion & the beliefs feel
absolutely true about God & that it’s his responsibility to fix it. The ball is in
his court.
The result is a catch-22 ~ we’re unable to accept the very things we need:
God’s presence and his truth.
Look at list of beliefs, etc. from page 1 of handout. (Read through some -
may have been true in our own experience of people, may have been
misinterpretation of experience - truth-based OR lie-based.)
Why would I want God to be with me if I thought that he ___________? Do
you see the problem?

See Pernicious Block handout

Also note how essential appreciation connection can be in addressing
the PB, since interaction directly with God can trigger the disconnect
Other troubleshooting issues
○ Lies, vows, unforgiveness & repentance in a session
Lies & vows often underlie PB. See first page of PB handout.
Repentance, forgiveness, renouncing vows, discovering lies/truth, etc. is
important but doesn’t always need to be addressed explicitly or sought
out. Often we don’t need to say an official prayer of repentance or
forgiveness because those things just happen as the Lord brings his
presence, light, love, security, and truth – and as the person works
through the 5 brain levels to process the experience.
With bitterness/anger, it may be helpful to say:

Do you want to keep that? Do you want it to stay in place?

Feel around and see if there’s a more vulnerable emotion
under the anger
○ Demonic presence or manifestation
Satan is real & demons are real. The Bible is clear about that. Any time
there is something not from God, Satan is probably at work, whether
it’s level 5 lies or level 1 fear bonds/insecure attachment.
Immanuel is not deliverance ministry or training. That’s valuable and a
separate thing. Here we want to keep the focus on connection and
being with Jesus.
Demons can be great lie detectors and help us identify the
disconnection and pain. In our experience, however, addressing these
issues using connection and brain levels has resolved pain, wounds and
blockages even without directly addressing the demonic. Generally
when the garbage is removed, the rats go away. In AW training and
our own (Margaret’s and Jessie’s) experience, we’ve never had a
demonic manifestation happen in a session.
For your own ministry, we encourage you to first learn Immanuel really
well without mixing in deliverance ministry. Once you know how to use
Immanuel effectively in blockages and disconnections, then when you
take it out into your own ministry, you’ll have a better sense of when
and how to bring in other things like deliverance. We believe Immanuel
is most effective if used purely b/c other elements sometimes take the
focus off the main point of Immanuel, connection with the Lord.
Feel free to download and use Karl Lehman’s opening prayers for an
Immanuel session, which include addressing the demonic at the outset.
Additional comments about troubleshooting:
○ Facilitator’s peace and lack of anxiety helps the recipient discover that
the disconnect is okay, allows exploration, provides security and
augmentation: This is not too big. Capacity is not exceeded. I’m with
you. God is with you. (Another reason to keep receiving ministry for
ourselves!)
○ It’s okay to stay in higher brain levels if someone’s not ready to go
deeper. Your job is to help recip discover (with the Lord) why they
aren’t ready to go deeper, and/or bridge the disconnection back to
connection. (Ex: Binita) In some cases, it may help to call this to their
attention during or after a session.
SETTING UP AN IP SESSION OR MINISTRY
● Facilitator Preparation
○ ESSENTIAL to both facilitate and receive – join or
create a Practice Group!
○ THRIVE, Thriving, Lifestyle, other IP ministries –
additional tools & understanding, potential referrals
(interested in hosting a Lifestyle class at your church?)
■ See Immanuel Resources Bibliography
○ Don’t be a lone wolf! – Share with your pastor, network,
seek oversight and feedback.
■ See Referral List & Immanuel Network Directory
at immanuelapproach.com (Referrals tab)
● Recipient Intake
○ Different ways to approach intake
● Whole session; beginning of first session
○ Explain what IP is and what to expect
○ Check recipient’s support system!
○ Working with someone new vs. someone experienced
● Don’t assume what people know or don’t
know
● Safety
○ Hold Harmless & Confidentiality
○ Third person observer/note-taker, especially if working
with someone of opposite sex
○ Know people to whom you feel comfortable referring
recipients, and whom you can ask for help if you need
it (pastors, therapists)
■ See Referral Guidelines & Referral List
● Finances:
○ Tax & donation considerations
○ Difference between a lay minister and a professional