I have a dear friend who recently took a position at a new church. It’s always this odd blend of fear and excitement when you start somewhere new, so we were talking through all the ups and downs that come with that season. There’s the grind of getting oriented to new policies and procedures, figuring out how this particular church “does things.” There’s getting settled into a new office and department, learning where everything is and how everyone communicates. There’s the joy and awkwardness of meeting new people in the church, and at the same time feeling the very real care and kindness of the body of Christ in a fresh context.
At one point my friend was talking with one of his new staff co‑workers, and the topic of counseling came up. This staff member said, almost off‑handedly, “Yeah… we don’t really do counseling around here.”
My friend and I half chuckled and half groaned. Say what??? To blanketly dismiss counseling in ministry feels to me like running a BBQ restaurant and deciding to do without pepper. You can technically do it… but it sure isn’t optimal, and you are absolutely going to miss it.
So let me say this early and loud: at Fellowship, we believe in counseling around here. We see it as one of the ways God cares for His people, not as some optional extra for the “really messed‑up” folks.
Several years back, I began seeing a counselor here in Murfreesboro. Life is hard. Ministry is hard. The combination can feel like a double‑weight on your shoulders. Deciding to see a counselor was one of the best things I have ever done for my own soul, my family, and, honestly, for my ministry.
For many years now, Alicia and I have felt the crunch of being in the “sandwich generation.” I know many of you reading this are in the exact same boat. That phrase refers to adults who are “sandwiched” between the responsibilities of raising dependent children and caring for aging parents, both at the same time. On one side, my father was in the steep decline of advanced dementia, and on the other side my mother was in the steep decline of advanced Parkinson’s. Even at that point two years ago, I had lost track of how many times they had been in and out of the hospital, or how many times an ambulance had been called to their home. The phone ringing became a dread of “what has happened now?”
And then there was the church and ministry front. Every vocation has trials and pitfalls, and church ministry surely does too. It was one of those seasons in ministry that felt like walking through knee deep mud in boots that don’t fit and keep sliding right off your feet. I remember praying quite often first thing in the shower, “Lord, what am I doing? And what are YOU doing?”
I reached a point where all of that—ailing parents, family responsibilities, ministry pressure, —was swirling around at once, and I felt like I had too many emotional plates spinning in the air. My insides felt stretched thin. I remember standing in the kitchen, trying to talk through everything all that was going on, when Alicia gently said, “Maybe you should go see someone.” And something in me melted right in that moment, because I knew she was right. I had resisted the thought. Self-dependence tries to dress up in a cheap clown-suit of nobility and strength sometimes.
I ended up connecting with a counselor here in Murfreesboro. I won’t say his name here, but if you reach out to me, I’m happy to pass along his information in case he might be a good fit to help you too. He is a former church pastor himself, so right away it felt like we were speaking the same language when it came to church life, expectations, and pressures. I didn’t have to explain why certain things hit so hard; he already understood that terrain.
Most importantly, with this particular counselor, I very quickly sensed that he was genuinely gifted. Not just a listener who let me have my turn talking before jumping in with the answer- but a person enabled by the Spirit to jump into the fray and help bear another’s burden with skill and compassion.
God has absolutely gifted people in the body of Christ to be of particular help in the area of counseling. Romans 12:4–8 describes one body with many members and “gifts that differ according to the grace given to us,” and among those gifts are teaching, exhortation, and mercy—core counseling functions aimed at strengthening and stabilizing others. 1 Corinthians 12 emphasizes that “God has arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose,” and that each part is necessary for the health of the whole. Ephesians 4:11–16 shows Christ giving gifted people to the church “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,” so that the whole body “builds itself up in love.” When you sit across from someone who carries those particular gifts, you feel the difference.
By all accounts, mental and emotional health needs are at drought‑status in our slice of the world right now. Ignoring that reality doesn’t make it disappear; it just drives it underground where it can do even more damage. This is the confession of a once lonely plate-spinner: my counselor has been a real vessel of God’s kindness to me. We pray for help, for strength, for sustaining power from God in tough seasons. There are many ways He may choose to provide but be mindful that the miracle He works might come through a member of the body of Christ uniquely gifted and wired for such a time as this.