Mike: 00:07

Welcome to Speak the Truth, a podcast devoted to giving biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the individual and local church and counseling and discipleship.

Mike: 00:18

Hello. Hello. Hello. We are back in studio. Like I've been saying, my studio is mobile.

Mike: 00:24

I'm at the Salem Heights made to minister conference in Salem, Oregon. 20 20 5, we have this year, as I've been saying, I would encourage you guys to check it out because if you missed it, of course, this episode, if you're hearing it, the conference has already passed. But the train has passed, but there is gonna be another train in November that there'll be another made to minister conference this year. So we're excited about that. At any rate, as we've been going here, I've got some special guests that I've been interviewing.

Mike: 00:54

And this, I keep saying that about this particular person. But at this point, I think this is her third podcast on Speak the Truth. But I'm joined with Beth Clays. Beth, how are doing?

Beth: 01:03

I'm great. Thanks for having me.

Mike: 01:05

Yeah. So in talking with Beth, there was a lot of different things that we could talk about. And for those of you who have heard her previous podcasts before, we talked initially in the first podcast, which I think was 2024 was the last year? Yeah, was last year. Yeah.

Mike: 01:19

And then we did our second one later in the year. That's right. Yep. And any rate, the first episode, and I'll put links to those previous episodes, but Beth has had a very interesting story, and we won't rehash all of that. But the nature of this particular podcast might lend itself in that direction.

Mike: 01:34

At any rate, Beth wanted to just talk about because now she's in the context of the church where she's at, which is?

Beth: 01:41

Van it's New Heights Church in Vancouver, Washington.

Mike: 01:44

Yeah. And you've been there two and a half years?

Beth: 01:45

Two and a half years.

Mike: 01:46

Alright. Two and a half years. But like her and many of us in biblical counseling and in the church context, we get a lot of inquiries of people who just wanna know, alright. Here's my situation. What should I pursue?

Mike: 01:58

So, Beth, you wanna just share a little bit of the inquiries that you've been getting and how you can answer those questions to encourage those who are inquiring? Because, again, they're in varying context, but what have what have you heard?

Beth: 02:10

Well, basically, I think mostly inquiries come to me from an article I wrote that was published in the Gospel Coalition where I talked about transitioning from being a psychologist into biblical counseling. And from that, people read that, and then they send me notes and say, hey. Here's my story. I'm trying to figure out what my next step is. And usually, it could be a variety of things, but it could be people that are they're trying to decide what to get their master's degree in.

Beth: 02:37

Should they get a biblical counseling master's degree or go a traditional secular counseling program? They're wondering, should they get ABC certified or should they go a different route for training? Just lots of trying to figure out, sometimes I get, I would say maybe half of the inquiries come from people who are already in a master's degree program partway through and are thinking, I don't know if this is right for me. I don't know if I wanna stay here. And so I felt, yeah, I'm repeating a lot of the same ideas in those conversations, and it'd be helpful to be able to elaborate more fully on some of the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to training and be able to share that more widely with people since it seems like it's something a lot of people are wrestling with.

Mike: 03:22

Yeah, that's that's good because, again, coming out of the context where you were and entering into the church context and in your position and now what are you on your third class? Yes. ETC?

Beth: 03:34

And yes.

Mike: 03:36

So how many are in this class? Is it currently going?

Beth: 03:38

It's currently going and about 70 registered for the class. Yeah.

Mike: 03:42

Are they all certification or enrichment? Half and half?

Beth: 03:45

Half roughly. Yep. Half are there for certification. And we have 10 or 11 churches represented this year, which is

Mike: 03:51

all in Washington or?

Beth: 03:52

Yeah, all Washington churches. So that's exciting for a couple of churches, there are multiple people who have come who so those churches seem to be more interested in figuring out what does a biblical counseling ministry look like in our church, which is so exciting. So excited to have those people participating.

Mike: 04:11

Yeah, that is awesome. And I think another reason why Beth was mentioning doing the podcast on this is because again, just like her, I myself get a lot of inquiries on what they should do. Because I think what's happening as a result, obviously, if people go into the ABC conference, and people are trying to figure out their context, they realize that I actually am more gifted in the personal ministry of the word, which is where counseling find itself, right? And different variations within the church. How should they approach that?

Mike: 04:40

I think one of the questions, because what we get is people that maybe have, or they've been LPC's and they're wanting to grow more informed with the word and grow more in that and being able to rightly apply Scripture. But I do think it really just depends on people's context, because I get quite a few inquiries from Southern. And some of these inquiries are women and the church context that they serve in, obviously that there's no, there's no staff positions, because those positions, given the conviction, the theological conviction of the church, that those positions are held by men. And so they're trying to figure out the church budget doesn't have space for a director of ministry or something like that. And so they're really trying to sort out, man, what's my pathway?

Beth: 05:26

Yes.

Mike: 05:27

So what have you heard? Like, some specific examples that you've experienced that you could encourage those.

Beth: 05:34

Yeah. I do think that there are increasing numbers of organizations that are providing biblical counseling apart from the church. So we have places like Anchored Hope or Fieldstone or just different organizations that are doing either locally or remotely biblical counseling. So when I've had that conversation, actually, there's someone right in my church context now who's, do I wanna go into biblical counseling? But how limiting is it going to be?

Beth: 06:02

What if I can't find a job at a church? What do I do? And have just shared, I do think that there will will be opportunities in churches for sure, especially larger churches. But apart from that, there are more organizations that are starting to recognize there is a real need for this and not every church can hire their own counseling ministry director, but there is a need. And so I some might say overly optimistic, but I am optimistic that those types of opportunities will grow.

Beth: 06:34

I don't think that the mental health crisis that we feel in our country is going to go away anytime soon. And I think believers are increasingly recognizing that we need to have resources that are are rooted in a biblical worldview that we can help people with. So I I agree that there's a riskiness to it for sure. But I also think you have to know what god is calling you to.

Mike: 06:58

I would argue it's probably riskier not to do that. Yeah. Because to some degree, I think we're abdicating that shepherding piece.

Beth: 07:04

Yeah.

Mike: 07:04

Sorry for you pastors out there. I know you're trying to you're pressing into that. But I'm just saying the evangelical church at large, unfortunately, has a a public ministry of the word model.

Beth: 07:15

Yes.

Mike: 07:15

Where it's Sunday driven. Everything's Sunday driven. Yes. From its leadership development to its staff development, everything, most of it, I'm not saying every church, but by and large, the dominating evangelical model, I would argue is more of a consumer driven model. And I don't say that to point my finger at the local church, because I am in the local church.

Mike: 07:35

And we're like, I would argue that's why like we, I don't want to speak for you, Beth. But I think to that extent where I just I see that in in it needs to be a both end in the model. It needs to be the public ministry of the word and the personal ministry of the word. And I think we've elevated the public ministry of the word. And as a consequence of that elevation, we have abdicated the shepherding piece.

Mike: 07:58

And I also understand we're not in the reformation time where you've got Richard Baxter and these Puritans that would have their parish of sixty, seventy, 80 people, and they their itinerary was preaching, and then they would visit all

Beth: 08:10

of Sure.

Mike: 08:10

We don't have that model because I just don't think culturally that's where we are, and that's fine. But not every church has a church budget of $3.04, $5,000,000. Some churches that are significantly larger than those churches with that with that population in budget have they're trying to do more, but they don't have the financial means. And so like the pastors teaching and lead pastors aren't gonna be able to do that. And so they want to hire more people.

Mike: 08:36

But at least what I see is the hiring that happens, usually functionally speaking, is serving Sunday, because that's where the population of the church is gathered in one space. But I think there is a reforming happening in the local church for that care, to your point. That's obviously here you are saying third class, would you say 70 participants? Yeah. But I think that's the other part of that.

Mike: 09:01

And so if we continually have these conferences and we've got seminaries having biblical counseling degrees, like, naturally, where are they gonna go? What are they gonna do? Yep. They've put this money in this time and this effort wanting to serve the local church and, okay, how are they gonna do that? Are we just gonna have a bunch of nonprofit organizations or for profit organizations because the church isn't willing to be the place where they're developing that.

Mike: 09:27

Yeah. On that side. So, like, when I think to the inquiry level, like, I'm zooming out and that's what I'm looking at is, alright. From a process perspective, for the sake of the local church, where's our priorities? Yeah.

Mike: 09:39

Any thoughts on that, Beth?

Beth: 09:40

Yeah. It's interesting because I was just having a conversation this week with someone who is doing counseling with another individual, and they're new to it. And they were saying, it's just it's hard for me because I know I'm not saying anything that they don't already know. Like, this is the person they're counseling has been in the church. They're they have an understanding of the gospel and all that stuff.

Beth: 10:01

And I said, yeah. But that's what counseling is all about. And, like, when you're counseling a new believer, that's fun. And, you know, you're doing some teaching while walking with them. But many times we are counseling people who are true believers who have walked with the Lord, but it's not that we just need new knowledge.

Beth: 10:19

We don't just need new illustrations. We don't just need the weekend service, which is important. It is necessary, but we need someone to sit with us and say, and this is how it applies to your life, because that's what we miss, all of us. That's why we need friends, we need mentors, we need people who help us connect those dots. Yeah, I think if we could, as a culture, have more of that expectation, appreciation for this is a central part of ministry.

Beth: 10:48

Yes, it's teaching that's so necessary, but it's also then in a very personal way helping people to understand what the implications of the gospel are for their suffering, for their trials. And so I agree. We've got to figure out what does that look like? How can we help people prioritize that piece?

Mike: 11:11

So to that prioritization, Beth, I don't know, some just to be a little more concrete with some of these examples of, so I've had recently some inquiries where they've been pursuing level one certification, or maybe they just finished their some not MDiv, but just a master's in biblical counseling. And they're trying to figure out what to do with it, that they've gone to their pastors or they've gone to church staff. And the church staff, maybe they're supportive, but there's not necessary that support doesn't necessarily lend itself to having space in the church, or it doesn't lend itself to, okay, let's try to develop a ministry and then let's offer that in house. It's more of a referral. It's still a referral process.

Mike: 11:49

Yeah. And I'm hoping, as Beth and I are sharing these thoughts, just on these things that I would encourage those of you who were speaking directly to you in that sense. If that's you, I would encourage you to maybe have your pastor or elders or staff, whatever staff would potentially be over to this ministry that could listen to this podcast. And then also go to websites and that they could reach out. I don't want to put Beth on the spot.

Mike: 12:13

She can speak for herself. But you can certainly reach out to me at truth renewed. And this is honestly what a lot of what truth renewed is helping the local church do is helping the church develop that culture of biblical care. We were a training center in 2019. So Truth Renewed became a training center for ABC in 2019.

Mike: 12:30

And we started going to churches and in God's kindness and grace, there was churches that were coming to us and we helped them launch counseling ministries in their church. But what we realized is it became another siloed ministry that that there that we're still not closing the gap. So we offered them a pathway to offer the highest level of care when there's a huge cliff between the highest level of care and the mutual one anothering that's supposed to happen. Ephesians four. And so how does Ephesians four really develop a church's pathway for developing its leaders and offering that level of care in the church around not just the public ministry of the word, but the personal ministry of the word.

Mike: 13:11

Any thoughts on that?

Beth: 13:12

Yeah. I think that one of the things that we did at New Heights that I think was helpful, and I would urge other churches who are trying to figure out what a counseling ministry might look like is for as much as possible, the entire staff to go through. Like, not the entire staff took the ETC class, but the entire staff went through the book. And we went through lesson by lesson, module by module as a way of just even helping us.

Mike: 13:39

Sorry. Not to interrupt you really quick, Beth, but y'all took actual staff time, like staff meeting time Yes. To walk through

Beth: 13:44

this material. Yes.

Mike: 13:46

I hope you guys are hearing that. The challenge like, if you're on staff at a church like that, thank you. Sorry. Go ahead.

Beth: 13:52

Yeah. And since then, even in the we've run this class for three years. This is the third year. And most of our pastoral staff has now gone through the actual class. Our kids ministry staff went through the entire class.

Beth: 14:04

Our it and it's not being forced or anything, but it's just, this is something we're doing and people are getting excited about it and they're jumping in. So I think that helps people understand what it's about and helps with the silo piece. I was worried about that, honestly, coming onto staff as a brand new person and a large staff and doing counseling and it felt, man, there's gonna be a lot of opportunity for me to just live on an island doing what I'm what we're trying to do with counseling. And having those opportunities to interact as a staff with the biblical counseling material, I think helped create some of those spaces where collaboration became more natural. So that's one thing I would say.

Beth: 14:43

Another is at the small churches, I do think there are creative ways to move forward. It could be linking arms with multiple like minded churches. Maybe your own particular church isn't going to hire a counseling director, but together with several churches, there's a way to resource that they all would say, Yeah, we all could send people to a counseling ministry and benefit from that without all of us independently coming up with our own ministry. There are different paths forward. So I think some of it could take creativity, but I think the most important piece is getting everyone at least spending some time interacting with what could this look like?

Beth: 15:26

What is biblical counseling? Why could it be helpful to the ministry that we're already doing in our church? And if people are having those conversations, they're more likely to start to feel like, oh, this is a step we want to take.

Mike: 15:39

Now that's good. So in some of that so when you were walking with the staff through some of that, did you have, like, a let's say, a small groups pastor? Like, I don't know how many staff are there in the personal ministry of the word. But with those small group leaders going through that, did you have any feedback, or do you remember anything that was shared on, like, how that could be impactful in their ministry?

Beth: 16:02

Yeah, so New Heights is a multi site church. We have four different campuses. And I think of our campus pastors, most of our campus pastors have gone through the class. We do a lot of collaboration now at this point, myself or other people on the counseling team with them because of things that come up that they're not fully a counseling issue. They're not fully a church issue.

Beth: 16:25

They're a combination of a pastoral and a counseling issue. And so we can link arms. And I think that gives both of us, whoever it is that's working together, it gives more confidence of, okay, we can do this together. And New Heights used to be a church that very much would send people out. If they had a mental health issue, it was go find a counselor and they were supportive of that, but they were not, they did not have the resources to help people in the church with counseling kinds of issues on a consistent basis.

Beth: 16:56

And I think many of them probably would have said they didn't really feel equipped necessarily to do that either. And so we are seeing that no longer is that the answer, Oh, you're having an issue, go find a counselor. It's okay, we're gonna figure this out together as much as possible here at New Heights.

Mike: 17:15

It does help close that gap between discipleship care and counseling. It's all discipleship, But there's varying levels. Think of discipleship in two categories: the instruction of the word, and then the relational application of that word. So in the instruction of the word, we're thinking competency and character. And then the relational context is compassion, deployed compassion.

Mike: 17:37

How are we taking the reality of the word and applying it as the one another's of scripture? So if a church's model is dominated with Bible studies, so that's hitting the first category, and that's great. But if that's the extent of your discipleship, we're just, we're producing educated consumers. We're producing people that know God's Word, but they don't, they still aren't applying it relationally. So therefore, there's a huge gap that the Word of God isn't hitting the deepest level of their hearts.

Mike: 18:06

It's just head knowledge. It's just intellectual prowess of just being able to articulate a position on something. But then they're the ones that are actually coming to counseling, because, you know, their marriage, they need, they're having communication problems, because they haven't had the, that sort of training to help really bring about the one another's of Scripture.

Beth: 18:26

Sure.

Mike: 18:26

To show how practical that is, and how it relates to conflict resolution and all these other things that we talk about in the biblical counseling realm. But there seems to be this gap between just the practicality of that and living that out in the day to day versus I go to church on Sunday, I'm in my small group and I do life and I'm still operating in this compartmentalized life.

Beth: 18:46

Yes. And I think adding to that, I think because of how our culture is so oriented towards additional degrees and training, pastors actually are often well equipped to walk with people through hard things that they're facing in life. But sometimes it feels like people are coming with counseling problems and pastors may feel, I'm not a counselor. I can't help you with that. So it's really just trying to break down that wall of we all can help.

Mike: 19:17

Specializations.

Beth: 19:18

Yes. We can help even if you're not a pastor, even if you're not a counselor. Like, you can learn things about walking with people through trials and suffering that equips you to figure out how to do that.

Mike: 19:30

That's second Corinthians one. Right?

Beth: 19:31

Yeah.

Mike: 19:32

That was last year's topic. Right? Yes. The God of all comfort. And so I think to that point, just just wrapping up here, Beth, is just with the inquiries that we get, how would you encourage maybe just to maybe, like, land that and articulate that a little bit more specific to those who might be LPCs who wanna grow towards the word or those who are like, I just feel the Lord's, you know, really leading me towards being involved in counseling ministry or just one another ministry or one on one discipleship.

Mike: 20:02

How would you encourage their pathways?

Beth: 20:03

Yeah. I'd actually add a third one. I think I get a fair number of inquiries from people who are already in a, like, LPC training program, a master's degree program, and they reach out and say, I'm not sure if this is the right thing for me. I'm trying to figure out or people who haven't started their education process yet. They're looking at schools.

Beth: 20:24

They're trying to decide what to do. And I think there are multiple pathways that can lead you to a place of being a good, effective biblical counselor. Getting your master's degree in a more secular traditional counseling program, I would say with additional biblical counseling training through ABC or a similar type of certificate program would be one way to do that. I often will caution people when they go if they're making the decision about what kind of educational program to go into, I will caution them about secular programs, not because I think they're bad or they can't learn anything important. They certainly can.

Beth: 21:04

But I do think a secular program is trying to teach you how to view problems and people from a secular worldview, and it's really hard to take all that in and not have it reshape parts of your own personal worldview. I speak from experience on that as well as someone who who has taught at a university.

Mike: 21:26

It's a different podcast.

Beth: 21:27

I know. But I just have to say it.

Mike: 21:30

No. I appreciate it.

Beth: 21:31

Because Appreciate it. I feel like it it is something to consider that there there could be good in going down that route, but it also can reshape the way that you think about things. If you're already an LPC and you're trying to figure out how to I think I wanna do biblical counseling, I would encourage you to look at a program like ABC's ETC class and take that nine month class and learn what it looks like to counsel based on the word of God. That could be a great pathway to go from there. And if you're just someone who wants to get into counseling ministry, I think that maybe you're not sure you want to do something at a highly trained master's degree level, but you're like, I wanna walk with people through things.

Beth: 22:17

Again, doing something like the ETC class is a great first step in figuring out what could that look like, how could I do this in informal ways at my church or as a volunteer, And then you can see where the Lord takes you from there. There's lots of different ways forward after that.

Mike: 22:33

No. That's really good. I just wanna make a distinction from something that you said, Beth, is you mentioned in passing a moment ago, informal. And arguably, most of church life and ministry is informal. Yes.

Mike: 22:45

Discipleship is extremely informal.

Beth: 22:47

Yes.

Mike: 22:48

And outside of that's really, I would say, the distinction between informal and formal, where formal like biblical counseling is more formalized because it's set to a specific purpose or specific time, where discipleship is just as you're going. Yeah. And so those are helpful distinctions. But both are true. And both are necessary.

Mike: 23:09

But the formal should inform the informal.

Beth: 23:11

Yes.

Mike: 23:12

If I could say it that way. I appreciate that. Thank you, Beth, for that. I appreciate those thoughts. And again, for those of you who this episode is really speaking to, if you have any further questions, because obviously, your situation probably wasn't completely exhausted in this twenty eight minute podcast.

Mike: 23:29

At any rate, feel free to email Truth Renewed. You can email me personally. Is really the stuff that we help with consulting, trying to help people sort that stuff out. Because as we were growing in ministry and serving in our own church and bringing biblical counseling to our own church, these were the things that we were trying to sort out. But we didn't have a podcast to listen to about it.

Mike: 23:50

But anyway, if that's you, and this stirred something in you and you have some further thoughts and some concerns and things that I could help you with, please feel free to email me. I'll put all the information in the show notes where you can schedule an appointment with me and I'd be glad to meet with you virtually more than likely. But any concluding thoughts, Beth?

Beth: 24:07

No, I think this is great. Thank you for the opportunity. And I do get inquiries. I try to respond to as many of those as I can. It's not the focal point of the ministry work that I do right now, but I love trying to help people figure out their next step when they can.

Beth: 24:22

I'm just glad we're doing this podcast.

Mike: 24:24

Yeah, great. All right. Next time, because I did, I would definitely like to get into some of the things that you're teaching at this year's Made to Minister Conference. But we could do that in a podcast some other time. And I do think that one of your encouragements to those pathways, as someone who's practiced modern psychology in a professional manner, because our previous podcast where we talked about different psychological labels, I think that's where those things would become helpful.

Mike: 24:53

Because we do live in a psychologized culture.

Beth: 24:55

Sure.

Mike: 24:55

At any rate, thank you, Beth. Appreciate it.

Beth: 24:57

Thank you.

Mike: 24:58

Thank you guys for listening. Again, if there's anything you'd like us to talk about more, please email us at topics@speakthetruth.org. We look forward to hearing from you guys then. See you.

Beth: 25:06

See you.