Sister, all churches has problems, even if you have a counselor or no counselor, at least with the counselor you know about them.
Reminds me of a pastor who ran about 200 people, when he started small groups he was heard to reply, I didn't know that we had that many problems.
The problems will always be in a church, the truth is do you want to know about them and design a God honoring solution.
If you need a paid counselor in your church to help people with their problems, there is something wrong, IMO. I'm not talking about a couple people who have problems here. This is professional help she's referring to, not pastoral.
Yes, people have problems, even ones that require professional help, but if your church has to hire a professional to help those in your congregation...well, that's probably the least of your problems.
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I've gone and done it now! I'm on Facebook!!!
If you need a paid counselor in your church to help people with their problems, there is something wrong, IMO. I'm not talking about a couple people who have problems here. This is professional help she's referring to, not pastoral.
Yes, people have problems, even ones that require professional help, but if your church has to hire a professional to help those in your congregation...well, that's probably the least of your problems.
I think it depends on the size of your church. When you have 500+, you are going to have problems in people's lives and they need counseling. I'd rather they go to someone we trust than to some secular counselor that we don't even know.
I think it depends on the size of your church. When you have 500+, you are going to have problems in people's lives and they need counseling. I'd rather they go to someone we trust than to some secular counselor that we don't even know.
While I can see your point, if one is talking about a full-time counselor...well, again, there are more problems going on than meets the eye.
Maybe I'm blind to this, and I'm certainly willing to admit that, but I've been a member of a large church with over 400 and we had no counselor. Maybe some needed one, but we had a good pastor who was gifted enough to care for those who needed it. I realize not all pastors are that way, and I'm not faulting them.
I just think there is a conflict of interest of sorts for a member of the church to be employed full-time or even part-time as a counselor. If there are people who want to see you privately, fine, but I just see a problem with it. Wish I could explain myself better because I don't feel I'm going a good job.
Probably got to do with the fact I woke up at 3:30 this morning for clinical. Ugh!
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I've gone and done it now! I'm on Facebook!!!
Our Counselor doesn't get paid by the people or insurance or anything. His counseling is all free, because he gets a salary from the church. We do this as a ministry to people in the church.
The operative words here are that he gets paid a salary and counseling is within his job description. He gets paid for ministering to the people in your church. To say it is a free service is a misnomer.
To say the Pastor ministers unpaid is also in the same category. To say that many Minister's of Music are unpaid is also another category. One has to work to eat, as instructed by the Bible, and if one ministers in the process...thank God for his blessings.
Not sure....now that we've had one, it would be hard to go back to doing without one!!
Exactly! Since the Bible tells us that those from whom we receive counsel should have the Holy Ghost and be spiritual...the pot to draw counselors from is very limited. Thank God for men and women of God who have acheived the skills necessary to assist in kingdom ministries in this area!