Mobilizing Church-Based Counseling

Mobilizing Church-Based Counseling, the first book in the Church-Based Counseling series, provides a framework for guiding churches through the process of building a volunteer-led counseling ministry.

Many churches would like to start a counseling ministry, but they don’t know where to start. Mobilizing Church-Based Counseling offers direction to churches for creating a ministry built around lay-led counseling groups and mentoring. Based on proven models used in his own congregation, Brad Hambrick lays out a clear plan to launch a sustainable soul-care ministry that can be replicated in churches of any size.

Hambrick brings clarity to common points of confusion about church-based counseling and provides guidance on how to provide oversight for lay-led counseling groups and mentoring relationships. Your church can minister the hope of the gospel to the struggles of life—both sin and suffering—without incurring unwise liability or going beyond the capacity of your members.

The first book in the Church-Based Counseling series is designed to help churches mobilize and utilize levels of care from friendship to mentoring to counseling groups Discover two flexible models of church-based counseling ministry. One addresses common life struggles (the G4 model) and the other focuses on premarital and marital Designed to fit within a local church and to be implemented by volunteers Acknowledges and addresses questions and concerns of liability and ethics of lay counseling as well as the care and well-being of the mentors and leaders Includes foreword by J. D. Greear

1. Opening Credits
2. Foreword
3. Preface: How to Read and Implement Mobilizing
4. Chapter 1: You Want to Do a Good Thing: Let’s Do It Well!
5. Chapter 2: Who Are You: Who Was Mobilizing Written to Equip?
6. Chapter 3: What Is G4?
7. Chapter 4: A Grassroots Launch Story for G4
8. Chapter 5: What Is GCM?
9. Chapter 6: A Grassroots Launch Story for GCM
10. Section 1: Navigating Common Points of Confusion
11. Chapter 7: Parable of the Dark Room: The Fear of Liability
12. Chapter 8: The Challenge of Sustainability: HR Stewardship and Burnout
13. Chapter 9: Staying in Our Chosen Lane: What Is Counseling?
14. Chapter 10: Where Is the Pastor in This Model?
15. Chapter 11: Ten Challenges: Why Wouldn’t We Want a Counseling Ministry?
16. Chapter 12: Problems in Living, Meaning of Life, and Mental Health
17. Section 2: Three Spectrums of Counseling Ethics
    in Church-Based Care
18. Chapter 13: Introducing the Spectrum of Formality
19. Chapter 14: Introducing the Spectrum of Expertise
20. Chapter 15: Introducing the Spectrum of Jurisdiction
21. Section 3: How Would We Start a Counseling Ministry?
22. Chapter 16: An Intentional Six-Phase Approach to Launching G4 or GCM
23. Chapter 17: From Referral List to Counseling Consultant
24. Chapter 18: When Do We Put a “Counseling” Tab on the Church Website?
25. Chapter 19: Five Conversations with Your Senior Pastor
26. Appendix A. Triage: Where to Begin in Complex Situations
27. Closing Credits