I recently spent a week at one of the largest pastor’s conferences in the United States to share how BCC seeks to help churches. As I talked with many pastors, a few themes stood out to me about care and counseling in the local church.
Most churches and pastors are overwhelmed and don’t know what steps to take to improve how they care for their people. Here are some of the main concerns I heard:
“I’m not a professional counselor”
Many pastors feel like they don’t know how to counsel their people because they didn’t receive much training in seminary.
“People don’t open up or share”
Some pastors think their people don’t have enough trust to share their personal problems and prefer some separation from the church.
“Nobody else is qualified”
Many pastors assume they need a professional counselor in their congregation to develop or lead a quality care and counseling ministry.
“We can’t address the deeper issues”
Some pastors think they should only do spiritual counseling, and they outsource the serious cases after a meeting or two.
We have discussed these objections in previous articles, but here’s the bottom line:
Effective care is required by the Great Commission and modeled for us by Christ, so no church can be fully effective without care and counseling.
You can also think about it this way, good care and counseling is about “restorative discipleship.” Restoration from sin, suffering, broken relationships, and lost purpose are some of the most important conversations every healthy church should be having.
Your church can become stronger in providing care and counsel if it equips people to use their stories and biblical tools to address common struggles.
When I first started at BCC, I had lunch with a pastor who seemed apologetic that his church didn’t send anyone for counseling with us any longer. This would have been disappointing if he hadn’t also told me, “We decided to train our leaders with your care and counseling training. We handle basically all counseling with our own people now, and it is working well.” I recognize that this approach might not be the best business model for us as a counseling center, but it is a great Kingdom model.
We want to see churches care so well for their people that they equip their leadership to engage with the hurting and consider counseling part of their discipleship calling. We want that for you too!
Here are three easy steps you can take today:
- Register for our webinar, Moving Your Church Forward With Christlike Care, on Friday, June 27 at 12pm CST.
- Get access to our free video series, Caring Like Christ, that introduces Christians to the need for biblical care. It’s a great starting place for church groups or individuals!
- If you’re interested in hearing how we help churches create a plan for Christ-centered care, then visit our Launch web page and schedule a free consultation call.
