Disordered eating is a significant issue in the church. No matter how many people you have in your congregation, you have people who are struggling in some way with destructive eating habits. About 8 million people in the United States struggle with eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia or any of the iterations of those behaviors.1 Those numbers get even higher when … [Read more...]
Exposing depression’s false gospel
“I’m stuck, and I feel like God’s nowhere to be found.” “I can’t get over how they treated me—like I’m something less than human.” “There’s no hope for me. I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time.” “This is just God’s will for me. There’s no use in praying.” These types of emotionally charged sentiments come from counselees who are experiencing a season of depression. On … [Read more...]
8 best practices for your church’s counseling ministry
Should I insist that this counselee attend a local church? How much time should our church invest in a counseling ministry? Should we counsel members of other churches? If your church has a counseling ministry, you’ve likely faced similar questions when counselees and other people attend your church’s care ministries but are not connected to the church body. The … [Read more...]
Conflict resolution: When you only have part of the story
As Proverbs 18:17b says, “The first to speak seems right, until someone comes forward and cross-examines.” Or as my friend Daniel likes to say, “There’s no pancake so thin that it doesn’t have two sides.” For example, you’ve probably counseled: A parent whose teenage son refuses to come in to meet with you A church member who has conflict with out-of-state … [Read more...]
4 ways to prevent hurting people from giving up on God
God is like an elevator; He lets people down—at least that’s what many people I’ve met would say. In my work for Church Initiative, building curricula to help suffering people, I’ve interviewed a number of people who’ve lost loved ones, have been betrayed by lovers, misunderstood, misrepresented, and mistreated in dozens of ways. And I’ve noticed that quite a few of them have … [Read more...]