Mobilizing Church-Based Counseling

Models for Sustainable Church-Based Care

Brad Hambrick

• Publisher: New Growth Press
• Year: 2023
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781645073307
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Many churches would like to start a counseling ministry, but they don't know where to start. Mobilizing Church-Based Counseling offers direction to churches for creating a ministry built around lay-led counseling groups and mentoring. Based on proven models used in his own congregation, Brad Hambrick lays out a clear plan to launch a sustainable soul-care ministry that can be replicated in churches of any size.

Hambrick brings clarity to common points of confusion about church-based counseling and provides guidance on how to provide oversight for lay-led counseling groups and mentoring relationships. Your church can minister the hope of the gospel to the struggles of life—both sin and suffering—without incurring unwise liability or going beyond the capacity of your members.

• The first book in the Church-Based Counseling series is designed to help churches mobilize and utilize levels of care from friendship to mentoring to counseling groups.
• Discover two flexible models of church-based counseling ministry. One addresses common life struggles (the G4 model) and the other focuses on premarital and marital enrichment.
• Designed to fit within a local church and to be implemented by volunteers.
• Acknowledges and addresses questions and concerns of liability and ethics of lay counseling as well as the care and well-being of the mentors and leaders.
• Includes foreword by J. D. Greear

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Preface: How to Read and Implement Mobilizing
• An Introduction to Church-Based Counseling
• 1. You Want to Do a Good Thing: Let’s Do It Well!
• 2. Who Are You: Who Was Mobilizing Written to Equip?
• 3. What Is G4?
• 4. A Grassroots Launch Story for G4
• 5. What Is GCM?
• 6. A Grassroots Launch Story for GCM
• Section One: Navigating Common Points of Confusion
• 7. Parable of the Dark Room: The Fear of Liability
• 8. The Challenge of Sustainability: HR Stewardship and Burnout
• 9. Staying in Our Chosen Lane: What Is Counseling?
• 10. Where Is the Pastor in This Model?
• 11. Ten Challenges: Why Wouldn’t We Want a Counseling Ministry?
• 12. Problems in Living, Meaning of Life, and Mental Health
• Section Two: Three Spectrums of Counseling Ethics in Church-Based Care
• 13. Introducing the Spectrum of Formality
• 14. Introducing the Spectrum of Expertise
• 15. Introducing the Spectrum of Jurisdiction
• Section Three: How Would We Start a Counseling Ministry?
• 16. An Intentional Six-Phase Approach to Launching G4 or GCM
• 17. From Referral List to Counseling Consultant
• 18. When Do We Put a “Counseling” Tab on the Church Website?
• 19. Five Conversations with Your Senior Pastor
• Appendix A. Triage: Where to Begin in Complex Situations
• Appendix B. G4 Series Nine-Step Curriculums