What We Mean by Christian Counseling
At Restore & Rebuild Counseling, we advertise that we provide Christian counseling.
However you might not be sure exactly what we mean by that.
- Is Christian counseling just for Christians?
- Does it mean my therapist will sit there and quote the Bible at me?
- What can I expect Christian counseling to be like?
Those are all good questions – and ones that we’ve heard!
What do we at Restore & Rebuild mean by Christian Counseling?
1) We are all Christians.
At its most basic, we provide Christian counseling because we, the counselors, are Christians.
We have all put our faith in Jesus to make us right with God. We believe what the Bible teaches is true. We attend church, we pray, we seek to grow in our faith every day.
2) We have a Christian view of suffering.
We believe that God designed people to live in a close relationship with him and in close relationships with other people. We all have God-given longings to know and be known, to love and be loved. We long for the ideal because we were created for the ideal.
But we don’t live in an ideal world. We believe that we are broken, fallen people who live in a broken, fallen world with other broken, fallen people. We don’t have the ideal relationships with God and other people that we long for. We suffer as a result. Life is hard. Evil is real.
But we also believe that redemption is real. God can bring real good out of real evil. We see this all around us – people who grow through suffering, positives that come out of negatives, blessings that sprout from brokenness.
And we look forward to restoration -- when God will "make all things new." There will be an end to suffering. The ideal we have longed for will be realized.
This is why we love doing what we do! We love helping people through difficult times because no matter what you’re going through, we believe you can have a positive future, by God’s grace.
What else do we mean by Christian counseling?
3) We treat everyone with respect.
We believe everyone is made by God and worthy of respect.
This is why we work with people of any faith or no faith. We respect people’s right to make their own choices. We do not impose our beliefs on others. We do not pressure people.
While our Christian perspective doesn’t change, we are comfortable adapting how much we talk about our Christian perspective depending on the needs of the client we’re meeting with.
If you want to hear the Christian perspective, we can dial that up and talk with you about what the Bible says and how that can be applied in your life.
If you don’t want to hear the Christian perspective, we can dial down how much we bring that up in sessions. Over the years, we’ve worked with people from a huge variety of faith perspectives or of no religious faith. We want to hear you and respect you.
4) We treat everyone with compassion.
Not only does our Christian faith inform us that everyone is worthy of respect, it also tells us that everyone is worthy of compassion.
We want to know what it’s like in your shoes. We believe God has called us to help people. When we demonstrate care for others in tangible ways, it’s like we’re being Jesus’s “hands and feet.”
We see our work as a ministry. We seek to work the Gospel down into the cracks of people’s lives.
5) We are always learning and growing.
We believe that to help people, we need to be good at the craft of counseling. We study, read, practice, consult, get trained – we strive for excellence in what we do. We take seriously the Biblical instruction to do everything we do “to the glory of God.”
To summarize: Christian counseling is quality counseling – done by therapists with a deep Christian faith and a biblical worldview.
Who is it for?
Who can benefit from Christian counseling?
- Christians whose faith is important to them and who want a counselor who understands where they’re coming from.
- People (Christians or not) who are struggling spiritually and would like a therapist to walk alongside them.
- Those of any faith or no religious faith who want their therapist to treat them with deep compassion and respect.
- Anyone who has a desire to grow through hard times – and who wants a therapist who believes no matter how dark things seem, there is always hope.