Healing the Church Project – A Continuum of Care Model
The world we live in today is filled with struggles. People within our churches struggle with a variety of life issues. Just because you are a Christian or you faithfully attend a church does not mean that struggles with life issues do not exist. Training people in Christian Life Coaching and training people to lead small group ministries can be an effective tool to minister to people.
Christians metaphorically have been referred to as the Army of Christ; however, as an army we have often shot our own wounded. The Church is not a place where the perfect need only apply; on the contrary, instead of judgement, the church can provide a safe environment to be a source of redemption, healing, and Grace. How can we create such an environment for people to heal within our churches?
As churches, we have often felt shy about dealing with the depth issues of struggles within people's lives – we do share the Gospel with them, and remind them of what Scripture says about a variety of behaviors – but yet we don’t go the extra mile when people come to us struggling with issues – we have given them superficial answers, don’t feel that we have adequate skills to help them; and we often end up sending them to a secular mental health care professional where they are more likely to get advice that is not Biblically based and inconsistent with conservative Christian beliefs.
What if we could better train people in the church to minister to the difficult issues that we often avoid as a church, and we could address these issues at a deeper level? This is where Christian Life Coaching comes in and we can train lay people to do this. We can better prepare and train small group ministry leaders to minister to people attending small groups at a deeper level.
The larger vision that I am suggesting is that we need to develop within the Christian community a “Continuum of Care Model”.
The first level of the continuum of care model is coming together in church services either in person or it might be through broadcast services through TV or the internet. We come together as a fellowship of believers and are inspired, taught, and offer up praise, petitions, and thanksgiving. We draw support from being together as a collective faith community.
The second level of a Continuum of Care Model is through Sunday School and Small group Bible Study classes. This provides more of an opportunity for deeper study of the Bible, opportunities for teaching on what it means to be a Christian, opportunities to pray for one another, and an opportunity for greater connection with others. Small groups afford an opportunity for individuals to ask questions, become more personal in their interaction with others – and, as members feel more comfortable and safer with each other, and as a result, they are more likely to open up and seek prayer and support from others.
The third level of a Continuum of Care Model is that of Specialized Groups. These groups go deeper in providing opportunities for individual ministry and support and healing and are likely to be more complex in nature. Specialized small groups usually require a greater degree of preparation or training as a facilitator. Churches may not offer this type of group because they do not believe they have people qualified enough to lead such a group. However, I am suggesting that we can train lay people in ministry to use the principles of Christian Life Coaching and small group ministry facilitation to minister to these types of issues. If we do this, I believe we can help people in our churches to experience healing of spiritual and emotional wounds that are holding them back from fully living their lives as Christians.
As we go higher up on the continuum of care model there are issues requiring greater degree of skills and training to provide deeper interventions. On many occasions those situations may best be referred to individuals trained as Licensed mental health professionals. Traditionally, these services have been provided outside of a church. However, there are churches who have developed their own “in house” programs staffed by Licensed mental health professionals, yet the services provided are still under the oversight of the church to assure that services delivered are consistent with the theological values of the individual church or denomination.
Finally, there is the need for Christian Inpatient Programs, Residential Aftercare Programs, and programs providing Transitional housing assisting members back into general society. These programs, for the most part, currently are not church based programs but I see a vision whereas a Christian Community we could come together to form these programs as a separate 501.C organization and establish a board filled by Christian leaders to provide oversight and direction to a program. I am suggesting that these programs should not use government funding or secular sources of funding and the funding and resources should be provided fully by the Christian Community and staffed with individuals who are professed Christians, are trained, and who hold Conservative Christian values.
How do we begin to develop this Continuum of Care to promote healing within the Church? I am suggesting that we first begin setting up training for small group facilitators and train people in Christian Life Coaching. There are two books that I am recommending people to read – the first one is Christian Coaching by Dr Gary Collins. The second book is Making Small Groups Work by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. If you are interested in working together with me in working with other Christian leaders in Central Ohio to develop the vision presented here in this article please contact me at [email protected].
To learn more about the Healing the Church project you can view this 12 minute You Tube video which will give you more details