Recovering The Church’s Call to Counsel: Five Pillars for a Christ-Centered Approach
By Jeff S. Kennedy, Ph.D., D.Min.
Introduction: When the Church Outsources the Soul
In recent years the church has been too quick to outsource various counseling needs that are matters of discipleship. Too often, the issues of the soul have been handed over to clinical systems that view human suffering through a natural lens, focused only on brain and behavior. When someone struggles with fear, depression, or trauma, the church’s first instinct is often to refer out, rather than to walk with them as a Spirit-filled community of healing.
We want to be clear that clinical models are not the enemy any more than a Christian engineer would be at odds with the Church. Many professionals provide real help, especially in cases involving chemical-neurological, or physiological disorders. A man recovering from a brain injury due to an auto accident, or a woman experiencing involuntary postpartum anxiety and severe depression, needs competent medical care alongside spiritual support. Christian clinicians and counselors who serve in these roles offer a gift of God’s common grace, and their work should be honored. We want to reiterate that the Church views all the sciences as God’s domain and we are happy to operate within the domain He’s given us as pastors and church leaders.
Yet clinical approaches, by design, reach only part of the person. They can stabilize the body, calm the mind, or help the person regulate behavioral patterns, but they cannot speak to guilt, forgiveness, or the longing for redemption in the deepest part of the human heart. They cannot provide Spirit-filled community, Christian purpose-mission, nor accountability that disciples so often need. That is the church’s sacred calling. If we rely entirely on secular methods, we risk losing confidence in the Word and Spirit that make true restoration possible.
The purpose of this paper is not to reject clinical care but to rebuild trust in the spiritual means God has already given to His people. What follows are five biblical pillars for counseling within the church: truths that shape a Spirit-led community of care and call the church to again become a place where Christ restores the soul.
Pillar 1: Spirit-Filled Community: The Fellowship of the Broken
Galatians 6:2 says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Romans 12:15 adds, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” Deep level healing happens inside the fellowship of believers who share one another’s pain. Sin, suffering, and sorrow isolate us, but the Spirit gathers us back into the body where we can find healing and consolation.
The church is a family of broken, saved, and sanctified people who can walk arm in arm through the tough seasons of life. Satan’s first tactic is to isolate us so that we begin to believe that we are not loved nor cared for.
Pillar 2: Christian Identity: Learning to See Ourselves as God Sees Us
Colossians 3:1-4 reminds us that our lives are “hidden with Christ in God.” Ephesians 1:3-14 tells us that God chose us, redeemed us, and sealed us with His Spirit. Yet trauma and sin distort what we believe about ourselves. People who have suffered deeply often live under lies of the enemy: “I am unworthy. I am forgotten. I am defined by my trauma or by what happened to me.”
The Word of God confronts those lies with truth. Through union with Christ, the believer receives a new identity that cannot be taken away. Counseling that is truly Christian helps people see themselves as God sees them. Healing begins when a person starts to live out of that reality instead of the old story of shame, past trauma, or self-reliance.
Pillar 3: Beholding the Face of Christ: Transformation by Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus
Second Corinthians 3:18 says, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” The secret of change is not looking deeper inside ourselves. We have no answers “within” ourselves. The truth is, we’re just not that resourceful or interesting. We begin to heal when we look beyond ourselves and into the face of the Beloved Son of God, who is the express image and likeness of God’s glory.
The believer who experiences healing faces enormous odds—the world’s system, the devil who stalks us and seeks to devour us, and people in the world who do not have our best at heart—all of these are draining-life-sucking-forces of nature. We are tempted daily to refocus on the emergencies in front of us, and that’s certainly understandable. But the challenge of Scripture is to refocus our eyes—to fix them on the author and finisher/perfector of our faith: Christ Jesus. As we learn to gaze long we will in turn develop a godly gaze and disposition. As we behold the one who is our Blessed Hope, the one whom we’re living for, the suffering, losses, and tragedies of this life become “light and momentary afflictions” that aren’t comparable to the glory. The key to personal transformation of our thinking, our behavior, and our mindset is to regularly behold the face of Christ through Word, in prayer and worship.
Principle 4. Daily Practices: Learning to Becoming a Psalmist
The Psalms are the Bible’s model for emotional honesty before God. They give us language for lament, remembrance, and hope. They provide a means of sacred katharsis for the soul in anguishing circumstances. Psalm 42 asks, “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” Psalm 56 says, “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle.” Psalm 73 ends with faith: “God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
In a culture that numbs pain, the psalmist teaches us to turn pain into prayer. Lament is not complaining; it is worship in the key of sorrow. When we help people learn to pray their pain rather than suppress it, we disciple them in faith. This is why it’s so important to keep a prayer journal, perhaps through the Psalms, mimicking the biblical authors’ rhythm of complaint, remembrance, petition, thanksgiving and praise. Or keeping a journal through the teachings of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew or John—noting every command, every encouragement, every promise. These prayerful practices can have a profound effect on the soul.
Pillar 5: Redeemed for Purpose: Pouring Out to Be Filled
Healing is never meant to stop with us. Second Corinthians 1:3-7 says that God “comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction.” Philippians 2:17 speaks of being “poured out as a drink offering.” The person who has tasted God’s comfort becomes a vessel through which that comfort flows to others.
Counseling that ends with self-care alone can become ingrown and unproductive. Ministry is the overflow of healing. When a sufferer begins to serve again, they discover that the same Spirit who comforted them now works through them. Pain becomes a gift offered back to God for the good of others. When we learn the art of identifying ways to comfort those in suffering from our own experience, and encouraging the hurting with the same comfort we ourselves received in the throes of pain—we not only fulfill our God given purpose, we find greater personal healing in it.
Summary: The Wisdom Not of This Age
Paul wrote in First Corinthians 2 that the wisdom of this world cannot grasp the things of God. The church must remember that the cross defines all true wisdom. Biblical counseling begins not with pathology but with theology. The human problem is not only pain but sin; it’s not only personal hardship but discipleship. And the cure is ultimately found in the principles of biblical wisdom which encourage believers to gather around the Word, depend on the Spirit, walk in the truth, and fulfill their God-given purpose in the healing of others. When we do this we become participants in God’s healing work. The goal is not simply recovery but transformation—becoming more like Christ through every trial so that we can comfort those who find themselves suddenly thrust into loss, betrayal or pain.