Counseling
Providing Counseling that is Theologically-centered, Clinically-attentive, Grace-based, Holistically-minded, Missions-aware, and Trauma-informed
We define counseling as an attempt to love someone wisely by engaging in an intentional conversation through which we seek to know the person and understand their struggle from a biblical perspective in order to respond with compassion, speak the truth with grace, and help them take wise steps to address their suffering and sin.
We live in a broken world. This is evidenced by the suffering we see or experience each day. We struggle in our understanding who we are. We struggle to navigate our relationships. We struggle to make sense of our circumstances. And we struggle in our knowledge and experience of God.
This part of the world has seen great atrocities. The experience of trauma seems to permeate every corner. The words of Diane Langberg come to mind: “If we think carefully about the extensive natural disasters in our time such as earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis and combine those victims with the many manmade disasters – the violent inner cities, wars, genocides, trafficking, rapes, and child abuse we would have a staggering number. I believe that if we would stop and look out on suffering humanity we would begin to realize that trauma is perhaps the greatest mission field of the 21st century.”
Our goal is to provide counseling that is theologically-centered, clinically-attentive, grace-based, holistically-minded, missions-aware, and trauma-informed
Our counseling services are offered to anyone regardless of their background or way of life. No one is immune to life’s struggles. We live in the same broken world and experience the same heartaches. We are more alike than we are different. Our desire is to meet people where they are and offer wise and compassionate counseling. We want to help connect the riches of Christ to the realities of life by showing how God’s Word speaks into our suffering, our sin, and our confusion and gives real comfort, lasting change, and practical clarity for our lives. We don’t have to suffer in silence. We don’t have to walk alone.
Our Counseling Philosophy
We align ourselves with the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation’s (CCEF) model of care. We believe that life works best when we take to heart the words of God and seek to apply them. There are many different counseling modalities. We do not adhere to any particular model exclusively. The care we give largely depends on the individual’s needs. Our goal is to know you as a person, understand your struggle, speak wisely and compassionately, and help you take the necessary steps of change. Counseling theories inform how we understand people, how we seek to care for them, and what we hope to accomplish. Every counseling model has values that determine what they say or do not say. The values that we hold to are shaped by our faith in God. We believe that he is our creator and he has revealed the best path that promotes human flourishing. He reveals what it truly means to be human. Because we are embodied souls and situationally and relationally embedded our counsel is holistic. We acknowledge the complexity of human experience. We are spiritual and physical beings. We are a mixture of dignity and depravity, beauty and brokenness. We are individual personalities but live in the context of relationships. We are victims of sin and perpetrators of sin. We are impacted by the forces around us and we impact the world we live in. Because we take the whole person seriously we don’t try to offer easy answers. We we approach each individual knowing that they are a unique image bearer of God and are a part of a bigger system made up of their environment, relationships, spiritual forces, and physical conditions. Therefore, our counseling could include resolving past issues, addressing trauma, changing cognitive distortions, emotional regulation, seeking medical attention, learning relational skills, reading scripture, developing healthy routines, prayer, teaching coping skills, repentance, faith, love, pycho-social-spiritual education, exposing idols, and so on. In the end, we desire to help people grow in personal awareness, relational health, circumstantial perspective, and spiritual maturity as they come to know that their individual and collective stories are embedded in a larger story of redemption and hope. We do all of this with great humility
Counseling Values
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God is the ultimate reality that orients us to what is true and good. We believe that God has spoken through his word, therefore, we take it to heart and trust what it has to say about who we are and how we operate. It is ancient wisdom that provides us with the grid through which to evaluate, understand, and address information, problems, and people. It puts us in the right context with the right description. God’s voice is the primary voice that we listen to. We believe Jesus is central to redemption, therefore, we view life with him in mind. In his word, we see an unfolding story—creation, fall, redemption, and consummation—that tells us who we are and how Jesus meets us right where we are. We believe that the universe was created in a way that centers around its creator. Therefore, to understand our purpose and to experience human flourishing we must have God at the center of our lives. It is in the context of his grand story that our individual and collective stories make sense.
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We believe in God’s common grace to all humanity. Therefore, we seek to apply modern day insights in our counseling practice even if those insights come from outside the Christian faith. We believe that all truth is God’s truth and we desire to give God glory for his truth no matter where it is found. As we engage other forms of therapy who do so with a hermeneutic of openness and suspicion. We take seriously their observations, techniques, and explanations and strive to bring them in line with a Biblical framework. This may involve critiquing, reinterpreting, evaluating, discarding, converting, or applying those observations, techniques, and explanations. We approach this endeavor with much humility and a willingness to learn from, be challenged by, question, and consider other views of care.
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The Gospel of grace is our hope. In this life we need more than what this life can offer us. We need more than practical steps and helpful techniques. We need more than a list of rules or good examples. Change is not simply accomplished by trying harder or believing more. It is fundamentally connected to God’s grace—a grace that melts our hearts and reshapes them into something new and beautiful. Because the gospel is the good news about all that Jesus is and all that Jesus has done, it applies to our entire life, not just our conversion. We never outgrow our need for Jesus, and therefore we never outgrow our need for the message of grace that is presented in the gospel. Because the gospel assures us that we are God’s beloved children, united to Christ, it motivates and sustains us to wholeheartedly pursue a life of mission and mercy. This gospel of grace is at the heart of every counseling conversation. We desire our posture, words, and interventions to be filled with grace and point to the God of grace. As counselors we, too, drink deeply from this life-giving grace. We seek to take it to heart before we attempt to export it to others. We recognize our inherent weaknesses and look to the sovereign God who has chosen to use vessels of clay as means to accomplish his purposes and to display his treasure.
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Item descriptionEvery person comes to us with a complex history and a unique personality so we don’t try to offer easy answers. We are embodied souls and situationally and relationally embedded, therefore, our counsel is holistic. We recognize the relational, emotional, spiritual, mental, volitional, and physical dimensions of a person and the dynamic interplay between them all. We acknowledge that all of these dimensions fundamentally relate to God in some shape or fashion. Because we are holistically minded, our counseling could include resolving past issues, addressing trauma, changing cognitive distortions, emotional regulation, seeking medical attention, learning relational skills, reading scripture, developing healthy routines, prayer, teaching coping skills, repentance, faith, love, pycho-social-spiritual education, exposing idols, and so on. In the end, we desire to help people grow and change in an holistic manner.
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Item descriptionWe know the unique challenges of living and ministering cross-culturally. We ourselves have lived that life so we get it. Issues like team conflict, securing visas, threats of death, political turmoil, language learning (and re-learning), sickness and poor medical systems, providing education for children, raising and maintaining support, helping children navigate the challenges of being a TCK, evacuations, culture shock, and living in two worlds, can weigh heavenly on our hearts. As we hear your story we hear it through the lens of your experience as a global worker.
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To say that we are trauma informed is one way of saying that we take suffering very seriously. Our world is broken in so many ways and we are victim to that. Trauma is a specific form of suffering that impacts us in profound ways. It affects our view of life, God, self, and others. It impacts us physically, relationally, spiritually, and personally. It fragments us. In understanding the complexity of trauma we seek to be informed by clinicians who specialize in this area while at the same time mining God’s word for his wisdom. The road to healing is often slow and hard. But we have a God who speaks into our trauma and names the evils within and and the evils without.
Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched, Weak and wounded, sick and sore; Jesus, ready, stands to save you, Full of pity, joined with power. He is able, He is able; He is willing; doubt no more.
Come ye needy, come, and welcome, God's free bounty glorify; True belief and true repentance, Every grace that brings you nigh. Without money, without money Come to Jesus Christ and buy.
Come, ye weary, heavy laden, Bruised and broken by the fall; If you tarry 'til you're better, You will never come at all. Not the righteous, not the righteous; Sinners Jesus came to call.
Joseph Hart