The mission of Church Therapy Associates is to help the church provide quality mental health care and to train Christian counselors to work in church settings. Why does this matter? There are several reasons why the church needs the Church Therapy model of Christian counseling:
Our History Requires a Better Approach
Since the 1960s and 1970s, the church has had a tenuous relationship with psychology and mental illness. During that time, many in the church were making critically important statements about the church’s mission and the inerrancy of Scripture in the face of a rising field of humanistic psychology. The push-back of biblical counselors on the early Christian psychologists was necessary to bring the conversation forward. The integration of psychology and theology was the positive by-product of this debate, and I wish I could say that we all continued to move forward and advance in our research and approach. However, decades-old debates continue to rage in our churches, with parishioners caught in the crosshairs. Some are still discouraged by their pastors from seeking mental health treatment, while others find pastors and churches who are very friendly to mental health care. Church Therapy is a bridge and hopefully an answer to bring us away from debate and help us focus on those who need help from multiple sources of support. We must not remain in old conversations when new approaches are developing around us. Church Therapy is a model that seeks to bring all of the best counseling research and careful theological discourse together and align it with the work and mission of the local church. This approach also serves as a means of healing within the church for those who have been stigmatized and harmed by poor theology and ineffective counseling tools.
The Numbers Aren’t Good Enough
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, only about 40% of American adults with symptoms of a mental illness actually get treatment. As Christians, we cannot rely entirely on worldly systems to solve problems. Broken health care models and inaccessible services as well as stigma about getting treatment must not hold the church back from creating real solutions. We know from many studies that people turn to their pastors when they experience mental health challenges. The Church Therapy model is a call to professionally trained and licensed counselors to serve and work within the mission of the local church. Pastors and counselors can work together to provide short- and long-term mental health care treatment within the walls of the church. Mental health services located where people already go create accessibility and help decrease the stigma associated with getting help. Creative payment structures are also possible when churches help decrease the overhead costs for professional counselors.
The Church is a Place for Spiritual and Emotional Healing
Larry Crabb wrote a book titled “The Safest Place on Earth,” describing a vision of what the church can and should be. Imagine if church was more than a place to go on a Sunday morning. Imagine if you could be loved and accepted and helped in all the areas that the Holy Spirit is seeking to heal and transform you. The Church Therapy model provides a higher level of care than pastors are trained to provide. Licensed mental health counselors provide mental health treatment for more complicated issues like trauma, addiction, clinical depression, or social anxiety. Some churches do not know what to do with someone who has a chronic mental illness, and this lack of skill inadvertently marginalizes those who need help. Church can’t just be a place for upper-middle class people who have generally stable lives. The kinds of people that followed Jesus around are ones that don’t think ahead about packing a lunch and need a miracle meal. They are the ones that have been cast aside and forgotten in the graveyards of society. Instead of sending all the “complicated” people somewhere else, Church Therapy provides care in and for the church.
More times than I can count, my clients have said to me, “I would never have gone to counseling if it weren’t part of the church.” Others have expressed comfort in the fact that they can share every part of their story and still be accepted and valued by the church. I hope to do more extensive research on this model and on mental illness within the church so that we can more clearly understand the scope of the problem and find new strategies that work uniquely in church settings. Comment below if you are a pastor or counselor who would like to be a part of this model!