Pastoral & Biblical Counseling
Spiritual Direction
Pastoral Counseling
Pastoral Counseling is an integrated approach to healing.
We are whole beings, made of one cloth. By nature, we are physical, cognitive, emotional, relational, and spiritual beings.
Pastoral Counseling combines a variety of tools from psychology, counseling, theology, medical chaplaincy, and pastoral care to provide integrated treatment that brings healing to the entire person.
As we come to experience good health in each of these areas of our lives, we find true, meaningful, and lasting peace!
Pastoral Counseling is open to all.
I respect everyone’s right to believe as they choose and am grateful for the many freedoms we share, such as freedom of religion and expression. As such, I never talk to anyone about anything they do not wish to discuss.
You are safe with me. That comes from my many years serving as a case manager and a chaplain in mental health, hospitals, and hospice settings.
I have worked with persons from a wide variety of faith backgrounds and none at all. I deeply respect your right to privacy.
I will not judge you. That is not my role.
For those who desire it, I can integrate your unique worldview and faith into the process of counseling. That means acceptance, compassion, and treating others as I would like to be treated.
I enjoy working with persons from all faiths and non-faith backgrounds alike. Atheists and agnostics, doubters and skeptics are all welcome at my door.
Biblical Counseling
What is Biblical Counseling?
Biblical Counseling follows the ancient traditions of the Judeo-Christian faith and the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments in seeking to apply them to our lives on a consistent daily basis through applied readings and prayer within the counseling setting and during the week.
It is rooted in the realities of relationships, that God is personal, that He seeks us out, that He reveals Himself to us, and that He calls us into loving relationships with others.
Deus Abscondis
If God had chosen to do so, He could have remained hidden or disappeared altogether; to abscond. Instead, He lovingly created us to be in relationship with Himself. Today, He still chooses not to remain hidden but to reveal Himself.
God, in three persons, shares the same essential being and, yet, is one God.
As we join in the shared community of the Trinity, we find true rest, deep peace, lasting hope, abiding joy, gladness of heart, and enduring freedom.
We love because he first loved us!
We also are called into relationship with others.
We are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:30-31).
This means that healing occurs in the context of relationships when we are able to experience peace (shalom) with God (vertically), and, as a result, with ourselves (inwardly) and with others (horizontally).
Spiritual Direction
What is Spiritual Direction?
Spiritual Direction as a specific discipline is an ancient art dating back to the first centuries of the early church.
Its focus is on the development of both the inward and outward aspects of one’s spiritual life and relationship with God.
It seeks to cultivate a wide variety of spiritual disciplines as a means of receiving and participating in the grace of God.
Spiritual direction requires practice, practice!
Spiritual Direction utilizes practices related to self-examination and reflection, not for the purpose of morbidly obsessive introspection but to prayerfully and accurately assess one’s past spiritual history and biography with a design toward renewed growth and development.
By its very nature, this will lead to increased physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
We will read, study, and apply a variety of classical writings from church history and the Sacred Scriptures.
The goal of spiritual direction is Christ Himself, to be more like Him in our character, homes, places of work, and all of our relationships as we learn to walk with God in greater intimacy and listening prayer.
Call me today to learn more about how you might move forward in your journey home. (770) 750-5077