Mike: 00:08

Welcome to Speak the Truth, a podcast devoted to giving biblical truth for educating, equipping and encouraging the individual and local church in counseling and discipleship. Hello. Hello. Hello. I'm back in the studio.

Mike: 00:22

I don't have my wife with me to say yo yo yo. But, however, we are still at the May to Minister conference. We have a couple more things to do today as actually, we have a whole day today. We have a very full day today. It is, like, 8:15 in the morning right now when we're recording this, and we'll be here until probably well after 9 PM.

Mike: 00:40

So it's gonna be a full day. And with that full day, I'm continuing with our special guest, and this episode is a quite fun one for me. I have 2 friends and 2 people that have been on our podcast in different capacities. I've got Jonathan Holmes, and I've got Andrew Daley. And these 2 have been on.

Mike: 00:59

Andrew, I think last time we've done a couple of counseling through. And Jonathan, mister author, we have had a couple podcasts where you have come on and went through some of your books that were super helpful. We got some good feedback on that. So, gentlemen, how are we doing?

Andrew: 01:13

Doing great. Glad to be here.

Jonathan: 01:14

Very glad to be here. Yeah.

Mike: 01:15

I'm glad you guys are here. And through the miniseries, we've been capturing the idea of what does it look like for the local church to have biblical counseling in different capacities. And throughout these episodes, we've had different people in varying context. We've got people obviously, we're here in the Pacific Northwest, and so we've had people in Portland. We're here in Salem Heights.

Mike: 01:34

And these 2, Anderson, my home state, Texas.

Andrew: 01:38

That's right.

Mike: 01:38

And Jonathan is in Ohio. The great state of Ohio. Yes. The great state of Ohio. And if you look up his organization, the Fieldstone Counseling, they are in a little town.

Mike: 01:49

At least they got a couple different locations, but one is in Uniontown. Uniontown.

Jonathan: 01:53

Our main office is there, and then we have another one up on the west side of Cleveland.

Mike: 01:57

Yes. Yeah. I saw the little snapshot of the welcoming doors. It looks very welcoming, Jonathan.

Jonathan: 02:02

We try to be welcoming.

Mike: 02:03

Yeah. Alright. So, yeah, we're excited for this podcast. Thank you guys for being with us. And, again, we wanna focus on what does it look like in the local church for both of you and being different context but similar context.

Mike: 02:16

There's some nuances there. And that's really what I wanted to capture in this podcast today. And so Jonathan is the executive director of Fieldstone Counseling as well as a counselor. And then Andrew Daley is the executive director and also a counselor at the Austin Stone Counseling Center. Yeah.

Mike: 02:34

Awesome. So, Andrew, we'll start with you because, apparently, you do things the right way. So why don't we start? Right. Why don't we start with you?

Mike: 02:41

Just kinda share a little bit about yourself, just maybe a a couple minute context of your journey and then how you ended up in this seat that you are and just, man, how you minister. And then what does that look like for Austin Stone to have the counseling center and just your model and how you practice? And then we'll finish out with how do you care for those who care.

Andrew: 02:59

Yeah. Sounds great.

Mike: 03:00

Okay.

Andrew: 03:01

So middle child and a broken and dysfunctional family, which meant I love trying to make everybody feel at peace. And so from an early age, the some sort of helping occupation, whether it was pastor, counselor, or something like that, was always on my heart. Got my master's degree at Texas Women's University, Go Pioneers, where I was in group therapy with 14 women, at which point I started to hate men as much as they did, and was fully formed in a very interesting way.

Mike: 03:24

And the Lord decided to keep that going by giving you a daughter, boy, daughter.

Andrew: 03:28

Oh, yeah. Totally. That's how the Lord works. And so I came out of that master's degree and really had a passion for counseling in the church. I I did not wanna go into private practice.

Andrew: 03:38

I did not wanna develop my own thing. I wanted, counseling to be integrated within the church. And so it's around about that time I got connected to Austin Stone and Jason Kovacs out there. Yeah. We love Jason Kovacs.

Andrew: 03:48

And they had a model of an integrated counseling, ministry or a counseling center within the church with elder oversight integrated into what the ministry of the church does with a primary focus that the counseling center itself would be a secondary layer of care for members or partners of the church. And then secondary to that would also serve the city of Austin. So when I got connected with him, we're kindred spirits, think the same way, have the same or similar vision, and so I jumped in there with this idea of how how can we help develop over time clinically sound, clinically excellent counselors who are gospel centered in their approach to care. And so our model over the years has really turned into that where we get master's level students from local and some out of state universities that come in. We provide supervision.

Andrew: 04:30

Usually, I'm supervising our practicum and internship counselors. They They come in clinically trained because that's where they get their master's degree and then we reshape how they view and do counseling through material like Equipped to Counsel, our group supervision, staff trainings, and things like that. And then when they jump into their licensure, we have licensed professional counselor supervisors who provide supervision through their entire licensure hours. So usually, we've got our counselors for 4 to 7 years, where we're actively developing, training, and growing them to be clinically sound, clinically excellent, and yet gospel centric, thoroughly biblical in the way that they approach care. And so at this point, we're a team of 32 counselors, 4 different offices, and our counselors range from LPCSs, LCSWs, licensed social workers.

Andrew: 05:11

We have people who do EMDR. We have clinical psychologists. And then we also just have biblical counselors. So people that have a master's degree in a biblical counseling related field, they've been through our equipped to counsel class and we feel like they are well equipped and well trained to jump in with us. And we do that to have as many open doors as possible to serve as many people who are gonna come our way.

Andrew: 05:29

In other words, we have clients who come in who are like, hey. I don't trust professional counselors. They've given themselves to the world and so I don't trust their theories. I want a biblical counselor. I'm like, great.

Andrew: 05:37

We have those people on our team. They're over here. And on the other side of it, we have people who are like, no. Biblical counselors don't have enough. I need some special expertise clinical training.

Andrew: 05:43

We're like, okay. Great. We have those over here. Of course, the irony is, as a team, our counseling philosophy is the same. They're gonna receive the same gospel centered, clinically sound counseling, whether they meet with an LPCS or they meet with our associates or they meet with a biblical counselor.

Andrew: 05:58

And so that's our general model. I'd say our model is abundantly messy. We're under the oversight of the eldership of Austin Stone Church. We're technically a ministry, of Austin Stone. Although we have the look or the appearance of a a a counseling center, we function in many ways as a counseling center, yet we are a ministry of the Austin Stone.

Andrew: 06:16

And so we also consult and collaborate with elders on care cases and things like that, which means we've got all kinds of confidentiality. Our informed consent's like 16 pages at this point. Nice. So there's a there's a lot of features to it. But our hope is is just faithful to what scripture has called us to do.

Andrew: 06:31

We're trying to thread that needle of being clinically sound, ethically sound, and also, by all means, faithful to what scripture would say is the best means and method of caring for people.

Mike: 06:40

That's right. But when you say because that's a newer one, clinically sound. And then, obviously, the one that is most used or people are familiar with is clinically informed. So could you just maybe elaborate a little bit more on just maybe some distinctions within those 2? Because, obviously, our our Christian culture understands like, they come in knowing, like, I want this or I want that.

Mike: 06:59

I want a or I want b. And you guys offer both a and b. So just for those listeners who are just maybe thinking through what does that look like in terms of maybe what they wanna pursue, how would you capture the difference and distinctions in those two things?

Andrew: 07:11

Yeah. I so I think in short term, it's a somebody who's well trained to understand the effects of trauma or abuse or responses that the body is gonna have to different environmental situations and how to handle that. Now, that's traditionally connected to, like, master's degree counseling and training. I'd say the Bible is thoroughly filled with it. So even when I use the term clinically sound, I'm primarily thinking of how scripture frames up, this is how the human body works.

Andrew: 07:36

This is how Romans 7, this wrestle internal to the human being that I can argue with myself and fight with myself and I can lose that argument. The scripture actually nuances that out for us in very beautiful ways. And so we do have counselors who come in just let's say they got their THM or something like that, who have not been trained more in the pastoral care and shepherding. We will call it clinical because that speaks to our students and counselors who are going through their master's degree. They know what that means.

Andrew: 08:03

And we'll try and develop our counselors coming in with just that baseline of, hey, here are things to think about. Here's how trauma can affect the body. Here's what are the different flight or flight responses and how that might manifest in the room. Here are different techniques that will help ground an individual while you help to apply what scripture says is good and beautiful. All those things, I'd still say, you can find in scripture quite clearly.

Andrew: 08:22

That the way Jesus interacts with different people, he stabilizes them in many ways and he destabilizes them in others. And so, that's what I mean by clinically sound and gospel centered is we hope for both for all. That whether you're a licensed counselor or not, I think being a faithful person doing one another ministry will include consideration of the physical body, the environment, social relationships, how those dynamics impact an individual.

Mike: 08:45

That was really great, Andrew. I appreciate that. Alright, Jonathan. If we could talk a little bit about Fieldstone and then, you know, you starting Fieldstone Counseling and just the work that went into that Yeah. And then where you are now with that process and then working in tandem with the local church, but not necessarily part of the local church.

Jonathan: 09:04

So In 2016, all of our elders at Parkside got together. Every year, we do a little bit of an annual elder day away retreat, and it's a really neat story. Our elders just committed themselves to prayer and said, hey. Are there ways as a church that we could better impact our community? Are there better ways that we could serve our community?

Jonathan: 09:23

And, a few different initiatives came out of that, and one of them was, hey. What would it look like to start a counseling center that is either inside the church, outside the church, adjacent to the church? What would that look like? We had a pretty large lay counseling ministry that was meeting primarily the needs of the people, at Parkside and our various campuses, but we didn't really have anything external facing. So over the period of about 6 to 8 months, we did a little bit of r and d trying to, I think, really interview and look at different models.

Jonathan: 09:51

Andrew and Jason Kovacs and so many others were so kind in helping us in that process. So in many ways, I tell people Fieldstone really is a a group endeavor because so many kind and thoughtful and generous people helped pour into us in those early stages. But, eventually, what came out of it in 2017 was a stand alone counseling center. So, Fieldstone is connected to local church, is committed to the local church, but, legally, we're a separate 501c3. And in many ways, it's just in the Midwest in particular, we wanted to serve a variety of people who came to us from nondenominational backgrounds, Southern Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and then obviously, unbelievers.

Jonathan: 10:27

We wanted to provide an excellent clinically on on the west side of Cleveland, and then we do a lot of remote counseling. We have 42 counselors, 2 thirds of which are remote and then the other third who are primarily in Northeast Ohio. We love the local church. I tell people when I'm talking to pastors, we would love for the local church to put us out of business. If we could get to a spot where the local church was able to train up and raise caregivers within their church to meet all of the need, that would be phenomenal.

Jonathan: 11:03

Put us out of business, that'd be great. But until then, or until the lord returns, we're happy to come alongside, pastors, elders, ministry teams to help resource and to care for people in their congregation. We don't like referrals or handoffs. We like partnerships.

Andrew: 11:18

So

Jonathan: 11:18

we don't There

Mike: 11:19

is a difference.

Jonathan: 11:19

There there is a big difference. I tell pastors that we don't wanna just be a spot where you refer someone. We wanna be a spot where you feel that the counseling that is given is going to be a part and parcel and an extension of your care. And, we try to hammer that home. It doesn't always happen perfectly for sure.

Jonathan: 11:36

We get people who just wanna refer to us. But I think the the situations where I see the most change positive change taking place is when there is a robust partnership between a pastor, a deaconess, a pastor's wife coming with a counselee. And those are just really wonderful sights to behold.

Mike: 11:54

So it sounds like you also integrate some advocacy in that as far as

Jonathan: 11:58

We we do. Unfortunately, we would love to have more advocacy, more mentors come into our counseling sessions. But a lot of times, people come and they don't have anyone in their life. We'll put on the intake paperwork. Hey.

Jonathan: 12:09

Is there someone that you want to be a part? And I can't tell you how many times that space is left blank, which, again, is part of the reason why people are in counseling. They are disconnected from any sort of meaningful relationship or friendship.

Mike: 12:22

Yeah. That's good. So in other words, Jonathan, with all that to say, you want and you want Andrew in his counseling ministry to come in and put you out of business. Right? Because Austin Stone is a total in house operation.

Jonathan: 12:36

I'm I'm basically just trying to get hired at Austin Stone, essentially. This is my this is my story.

Andrew: 12:41

Hired really right now. You can have my job right now.

Mike: 12:46

That's really good. Just a couple of things, just observations. The podcast that we had recorded previously to this one just here at the Made to Minister Conference, that's really again, there's 48 churches represented here in the Pacific Northwest that are here being educated and growing and trying to look at man, what does it look like, going back to what you said, Jonathan, for a moment is, what does it look like for us to get this in our in our context? And I think something that you said, Jonathan, also too is just one of those observations that I've I've experienced in my context where we become that referral source to the church. Like, the church loves us.

Mike: 13:21

That's great if that's where the relationship starts because we know that we're not sending our people out back to the wolves as it were with the with the worldview that's gonna take them further from Christ. Definitely not Christ centered. It might be clinically informed, but it's not Christ centered. Right? So we send them out.

Mike: 13:37

And so at least on the front end, that's great. Right? We wanna make sure they're getting proper appropriate biblical care in that sense. But if that's the extent of the relationship Right. That's a problem.

Mike: 13:47

I would argue that it's unbelievably stagnant. And at that point, I would challenge the partnership. Yeah. Mhmm. Thoughts on that?

Mike: 13:54

Just maybe in y'all's experience, just to keep that going. Because I think that that again, those are inquiries that we get and just the rub within that dynamic and partnership.

Andrew: 14:02

Yeah. I absolutely agree. I think the Bible is abundantly clear. It's in the body of Christ that we grow with with all the different parts and all the different gifts being used together for the sake of growing into maturity into Christ. And so an isolated one off is not likely gonna produce much fruit.

Andrew: 14:18

Again, I think in terms of triage care, it might be able to provide some insight and get some tracks to run on.

Mike: 14:22

Yeah. Sorry. Really. When you say triage again, some of our listeners may not be familiar with

Jonathan: 14:26

So just

Andrew: 14:27

Emergency care. You got a crisis situation. Let's say the discovery of an affair, and you're right at the front end of that that I think specialized care can help stabilize that environment and provide a platform to start doing the work. But inevitably, everybody's gotta return back into some form of godly community that's gonna be broken and busted up and also, hopefully, healthy to grow together. We're not supposed to have these experts in the field that are the the just healers.

Andrew: 14:52

We're we're all meant to be burden sharers and burden carriers in the body of Christ. And if that's not happening, then I I think long term health and growth isn't is not gonna happen. It's one of the secrets of counseling we've known for forever that if somebody in their suffering has someone along with them that knows their pain and just endures with them, whether it's a pastor or a doctor or a friend or a

Mike: 15:09

spouse or whatever it

Andrew: 15:10

might be, those people tend to get better. Yeah.

Mike: 15:11

In other words, if you've got

Andrew: 15:11

stable community where people understand and know you and are patient with you, healing tends to occur over time. So I think matches up with the way the way scripture talks about change. It's this slow tilling the soil, planting process that takes time. It's not gonna be in a 1 hour a week meeting with a specialist. Although, that'll still maybe serve its purpose.

Andrew: 15:33

It's gonna be in the just the grind of everyday living in community.

Mike: 15:37

No. It's good. It's, I know it's the edge many hands make light work. I know that's more physical labor, but, soulfully speaking, that's true. Yeah.

Mike: 15:44

Yeah. That's good. And just something with that, Jonathan, do you have any thoughts on that?

Jonathan: 15:48

No. I'd I'd echo what Andrew said. Sometimes the illustration I'll use is every summer, my family goes on a road trip, and, it's about 8 to 10 hours long. Couple times along the way, we'll stop at a rest stop, and I view Fieldstone and Austin Stone. We're like a rest stop.

Jonathan: 16:03

Yeah. You you don't wanna stay at the rest stop. You wanna get to your vacation destination. You wanna get back on the road with everybody else. And sometimes I think people do view counseling as, hey.

Jonathan: 16:11

I'm just gonna stop here and disconnect from relationships, not go back into the care of the local church, but we really don't want that to happen. You don't wanna spend your vacation at a rest stop. It's not good. It's helpful for a period of time, but we gotta get you back on that road. And a lot of times, some people might spend 6 months there, some people might spend 6 weeks there, but the goal is we want you growing in community in the local church.

Mike: 16:34

Yeah. We're not pitching a tenant to rest out. The goal is rest and go. Yeah. Would

Andrew: 16:39

not advise

Jonathan: 16:39

would not advise that at all.

Andrew: 16:40

Yeah. Which I I think also speaks because we talk primarily on the client side of it, but the counselor as well. I think the counselor bears a responsibility to understand that if you create a relationship where you have people who are dependent on you, I don't think that's healthy. That's not the model that God has given us. And so counselors need to hold also this responsibility to know.

Andrew: 17:00

Now I'm meant to shepherd them back into community.

Mike: 17:03

Yeah. Yeah. No. That's good. Any other thoughts on that, Jonathan?

Mike: 17:06

Keep that analogy going all day. I you were thinking about that. I was like, yeah. Peter, James, and John at the Mount of Transfiguration. They're like, let's pitch

Andrew: 17:13

a tent.

Mike: 17:13

Yeah. And, no, like, all the conflict, all the trouble that we experience every day so that we're gonna go and we're gonna we're gonna work through that, and we're gonna be ministers of reconciliation. And that is a hard place to be. But going back to the local church and, speaking of that triage is just a lot of churches and pastors, they don't it's bifurcated. It's it's it's siloed.

Mike: 17:32

It's different. It's okay. We'll do our piece. And then when they get to a particular state of brokenness, that's your job. That's your specialization.

Mike: 17:38

No. It's and so the church, unfortunately, has not grown, at least collectively, grown really well in the idea of just crisis. Like, they don't the gospel's great, but how does it serve you in those crisis moments? And, unfortunately, that's where the world has tried to arrive before the church. And, unfortunately, to a great degree, they've shown up.

Andrew: 17:58

Yeah. Mhmm.

Mike: 17:59

Now here, locally in Oregon, we know that they're promising more that they can actually deliver, but that also makes for an opportunity for the church. And then going back to the point of getting care and having care gospel care, that gospel centeredness back in the church. And when I was talking with with Justin Green and kinda our our episode was focusing on biblical counseling as a means of evangelism. And in in their particular context here where it very much is, man, those conversations, it's like your theology, you can get into those secondary and tertiary theological discussions. But at at that point of care and need in those crisis moments, it's hope and it's love and it's grace and then showing up in those moments and then just continuing that care.

Mike: 18:40

And then so just the church being able to grow in the in sort of those crisis moments huge. Yeah. Any thoughts on that?

Andrew: 18:47

I think the main passage for the conference fits well in with what you're talking about. 2nd Corinthians 1334, the god of all comfort who comforts us any affliction, that we might be able to comfort those in any affliction with the comfort he has given us. This idea that I think at a baseline, if we understand what the apostle Paul is saying, and he's kind of soaring rhetoric here. But the God of all comfort who comforts us in our affliction, that we find that God is able to comfort us in our mess, no matter what the mess is. His comfort is bigger than the mess and so we can trust him with that.

Andrew: 19:12

And then once we've received that comfort, the rest of the passage is, I think, what the church needs to hear more of, which is once you've received the comfort of God, that you've tasted and seen, that he is able to comfort you in the middle of affliction, in the middle of the storm. The Apostle Paul says, then you can comfort anyone in any affliction. That's the whole shebang. Because what you offer them is not your story, your ideas, your skills, your ability. But what you offer them is the very comfort that you've received which

Mike: 19:38

is the most necessary thing that anyone is gonna have in their moment of difficulty and hardship.

Andrew: 19:48

Triage or expertise care can have its place. But for us to have a certain swagger and confidence when we walk into the brokenness of the world knowing we actually have what is most necessary for someone in this moment And it's the comfort of God that can enter into their pain and provide a peace that surpasses understanding. So we don't have to be afraid of those situations situations. And this is where I think the church gets a little leery as we see a certain level of brokenness and somehow we allow it to surpass, oh, the comfort of God can't reach that. And we wouldn't say that out loud, but our behavior in what we do seems to communicate, oh, there's a certain level the comfort of God can go to, but after that, we need something extra.

Andrew: 20:24

And I just don't believe that.

Mike: 20:25

And that's where that referral transaction becomes unbelievably annoying. Yeah. Because they're not really a lot of times, unfortunately, they're not really willing to hear that in tandem care that we're really trying to offer and get them to think through a little bit more. Yeah. That's yeah.

Mike: 20:38

So I I just appreciate in in both of y'all's context, it is happening. Right? And and even we see here in the Pacific Northwest, the lord is is raising people up as his bride is always being reformed until we're sitting at that dinner table. It may or may not be Taco Bell, Andrew. I don't know.

Andrew: 20:54

It's going to be Taco Bell. We know it.

Mike: 20:58

That is decided. But but, again, it's just yeah. It's and and I think that's what's exciting about us being in this sort of next generation or iteration of biblical counseling and and then in that next generation where I think we're in the 5th generation of biblical counselors and just trying to bring that back into the church. Like, the reformers and those before them, they understood those things. And it's it's really awesome to see and hear that.

Mike: 21:23

Lastly, just to to wrap up here, I want to just ask, as this conversation has obviously largely been about care, how do y'all care for your caregivers, your counselors? Andrew, again, we'll start with you, buddy.

Andrew: 21:36

Yeah. So we've got a a schedule and a rhythm with our team. We have basically a lot of contact points is is our focus. So from our weekly staff meeting, which is hour long, usually we're into round training and stuff like that, to our group supervision which runs an hour and a half right after our staff meeting. And then we just recently finished our what I'm calling our mega office.

Andrew: 21:54

So it's a 16 office connected to the church office's counseling center, and we tried to draw in most of our counselors back into one location. Because originally, our vision was put a counseling center with every congregation. So, Austin Stone's got 6 congregations. They were trying to build out those offices, and what we found is the distance for those counselors led to less, serendipitous growth, less connection. And so we decided to go ahead and build the big old thing, and now we're drawing everybody back in and the blessings have been, preeminent.

Andrew: 22:22

It's been amazing as they've been around each other to sharpen each other, encourage each other. They've got seasoned counselors, in offices as well. So the younger counselors who come out and they'll just have the worst session of their life can just walk over to the seasoned counselors. We get to tell them, me too. I had a terrible day as well.

Andrew: 22:36

And then we just have yeah. My my leadership team has a lot of contact points with our counselors because most of them a large part of our team is, Licensed Professional Counselor Associates. So people working on their licensure. And so they're in hourly supervision with one of my leaders every week, and then they're in group supervision, then they're at staff meeting. We have staff meetings quarterly that are just check ins.

Andrew: 22:57

We spend 2 and a half hours just opening the floor and saying, hey, let's check-in and see how everybody's doing. It usually takes about 3 seconds before everybody's crying because Yeah. You know this about counselors. We're not great at owning our own stuff and be like, no. I'm tired and weird.

Andrew: 23:09

Yeah.

Mike: 23:10

And as soon as we crack

Andrew: 23:11

that open, good Lord, a lot comes out. And so

Mike: 23:13

Yeah.

Andrew: 23:13

We built that rhythm into what we do to try and help people pace themselves out, because it's it's heavy work.

Mike: 23:20

No. That's good. Actually, I was able to record with Tara and Dave from Salem Heights. And and one of the things because they're they're caregivers too to the to the counselors, and they call it E and E, encourage and equip. So it sounds like you essentially have an E and E, set up too.

Mike: 23:37

That's awesome. Jonathan, what about you, man?

Jonathan: 23:39

Yeah. Here in Andrew's story, I'd say very similar. Parkside has 6 different campuses. We originally thought, yeah, having counselors at every site would make sense when we launched. We had 4 of the 6.

Jonathan: 23:51

And since then, we've actually condensed and consolidated similar to him. So our 2 main office locations is where our in person counselors can gather. And the water cooler moments, the organic touch points, the, hey. Let's grab lunch together in between sessions is just of inestimable value. We fly in all of our remote team one time a year.

Jonathan: 24:09

We do a 2 day retreat. It's actually coming up next weekend. In our annual reviews with our counselors, we ask them, what is the number one thing that we do for you as a team? And every year, at top of the list, is the team retreat. So we just bring them in for 2 days and try to love on them, give stuff to them, good food, put them up in a hotel, and it's just a wonderful time for us of what we call enculturation.

Jonathan: 24:31

We want them to pick up our cultural values at Fieldstone. We don't want counselors to be siloed off from one another. Our board of directors is also really helpful. We have an entire committee on our board that's called the counselor care committee, and, it's 4 board members whose sole purpose is to directly care for the team and to assess the care culture to actually provide accountability for me so they can directly check-in with our counseling team and say, hey. How's Jonathan doing in terms of leading the culture and caring for you?

Jonathan: 24:59

All the things that Andrew mentioned as well, those are so helpful. We do do those too, the team meetings, case consultation. I I think the power of a a free meal for a counselor is is also should not go unnoticed. A free book, a resource, or, hey. Let's help you get that, professional development, or we wanna help sign you up for that webinar that's being presented by ABC or CTHN or someone.

Jonathan: 25:20

We, I think, like most people in our world, we realize that our counselors are the heart and soul of our ministry, not be a good look on us if we didn't seek to bring that same level of care out of the people who God's brought to us.

Mike: 25:41

No. That's really good. That's really good. Gentlemen, again, as always, every time I do podcast with y'all, it's it's always it goes it goes by so fast. It's a short time.

Mike: 25:50

But I appreciate it. Really do sincerely. Again, guys, I would encourage you guys and I'll and I'll have all these things in the show notes, but I would encourage you guys to check out the previous podcast with these 2 really beneficial podcasts. Some of them will be equipping as far as some of the books and resources. That's really where both of them came on the podcast to help with that.

Mike: 26:08

But we appreciate you guys. It's early in 2020 4 so any topics or anything that you'd like to hear, please email us at topics at speak the truth dot org. We appreciate y'all. Love you and we'll see you next time.