Gap #2: Counseling/Peer Counseling

In a former post, I briefly mentioned something about "all this counseling/peer counseling stuff." Well...here's the explanation. :)

Basically, it's short and sweet. Believing that we are a "therapied-out" culture and that most of life's problems can be sorted out within the context of community, we're aiming to provide a space within our church where people can process their pain and past, receive prayer and be given helpful advice next steps to move from "victim" to active participant and conqueror of their own lives.

This past summer, we began the peer counseling ministry by doing a 12-week class for relational and sexual brokenness. We had about 20 participants and it could not have gone better. It was so humbling to watch people (begin to) get freedom from past pain, woundings, relationships and situations. We had a time of worship, a teaching and then broke up into gender-specific small groups for prayer and sharing. Topics we'd teach/discuss included understanding the Father's love, mother/father wounds, true feminine and true masculine.

We're going to continue to offer this class semi-regularly at our church. And, we're also setting up a peer-counseling program. We have a team of "lay" (ie - not professionally trained) counselors that will guide participants through a curriculum over a number of weeks. We've found that after most people go through this curriculum, they're end up not needing the services of a professional counselor. (It's not that we're against professional counseling....buy why pay someone who doesn't know you and/or has no context for your life when you can learn life/coping skills from someone for free and with whom you share normal life?)

So....anyway, that's the short, basic description. I get to oversee the folks who are running the counseling/peer counseling stuff day-to-day. We're building this ministry together - building the team, training them, gathering resources and setting up processes...not to mention, actually getting to participate in the peer counseling of others.

It's among the most amazing, life-changing things I've ever gotten the priviledge to be a part of.