Mobilizing and equipping the church for soul care and counseling: a classic resource updated and revised.

Wang, David C.

Lay Counseling: Equipping Christians for a Helping Ministry (Revised Edition) by Siang-Yang Tan and Eric T. Scalise, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016. 318 pp. ISBN 978-0-310-52427-4, $19.99.

Many years back, my inspiration to willingly subject myself to the five years of deprivation and torture associated with doctoral studies in professional psychology came from a relatively short stint as a college pastor. I had sensed a call to shepherd souls, "to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ ..." (Ephesians 4:12, English Standard Version). And yet as I walked alongside this small group of college students, I grew painfully aware of my own inadequacies and deficits in my shepherding efforts, especially as they applied to the care of the many mental health concerns that arose in these students' lives. Now, as a licensed psychologist and a pastor, I still haven't forgotten that call. While the state psychology licensing board may have commissioned me to practice mental health counseling within the state of California, the lack of an ecclesial body commissioning me to practice pastoral counseling activities within the church troubled me. My intention in becoming a psychologist was not to corner the market on counseling and soul care within the church--far from it; from my perspective, doing so would have been to ask the church to abdicate one of its most crucial responsibilities.

In line with the Reformation principle of the priesthood of all believers, Paul Stevens (2002) asserted that the work of the pastor was not to do all the work of the ministry himself/herself, but rather to equip all the saints to do this work. Extending this point, I believe that it is not the role of mental health professionals (even Christian ones) to perform all the care and counseling work of the church; in fact, part of the important role that such individuals play is to equip the church body for this kind of work. I don't think it will take much convincing for Christian therapists to agree on the point that the church needs equipping in this regard, for it is commonplace to hear sentiments like the one expressed by one of my colleagues not too long ago, "Sadly, it's the church that keeps me in business."

If the training and equipping of the church body for care and counseling work is indeed an important priority of Christian mental health professionals, a body of knowledge needs to exist that outlines best practices, common approaches or models to training, ethical considerations, and biblical foundations for such activities. The development of this body of knowledge and literature is crucial given how many Christian mental health professionals (such as myself) were trained in non-religious public institutions and never had opportunities to incorporate church ministry into their professional development; moreover, it is unfortunately unlikely even for clinicians (at the masters-level or doctoral-level) trained in Christian institutions to receive dedicated instruction in this regard either.

Accordingly, when Dr. Siang-Yang Tan (Professor of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary and Senior Pastor of First Evangelical Church Glendale) published the first edition of his book, Lay Counseling: Equipping Christians for a Helping Ministry back in 1991, it addressed this very important gap and eventually established itself as the classic text on the subject. Now, 25 years later, Lay Counseling has been revised and updated for the first time to include new chapters on ethical and legal concerns for lay counseling ministries as well as chapters on stress, burnout, and self-care among lay counselors. The remaining chapters have been revamped to include new examples and illustrations as well as recent theoretical and empirical research. In all, this revised text represents a comprehensive, definitive, up-to-date resource for individuals interested in developing a new church-based lay counseling ministry or already actively engaged in an existing ministry.

The opening chapters develop a biblical basis for lay counseling, drawing from some exegetical work of pertinent biblical passages (e.g., Galatians 6:2; Romans 15:14; Colossians 3:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:14) as well as classic theoretical models (on how psychological science might co-exist with the Christian faith in the practice of counseling) from Jay Adams (nouthetic counseling), Gary Collins (people-helping), and Larry Crabb (biblical counseling). The model that Tan (2016) ultimately lands on is one that is open to utilizing concepts, principles, and techniques from secular approaches to counseling as long as they are found to be "in alignment with scriptural principles" (p. 39), but is also careful reject those elements that are found to be inconsistent with or contradictory to God's Word. He describes this model as, "biblically based, comprehensive, and eclectic, with a strong cognitive-behavioral component" (p. 39), and is quick to offer the disclaimer that his model is not the only biblical model, as other viable biblical models exist as well.

There are some notable philosophical distinctives between Tan's model of lay counseling compared to what might be typically espoused in a non-religious counseling model. First, concerning one's basic view of humanity, the lay counseling model affirms that sin--the breaking of God's moral laws, along with the belief that humans can ultimately handle their own affairs apart from God--underlies most mental-emotional problems that are non-organic in nature. Although sin is indeed a necessary and foundational tenet of any model of human nature and human change endorsed by Christian mental health practitioners, and while I am glad that the authors were quick to clarify that not all emotional suffering or anguish is due to sin, I would have preferred that they describe sin as underlying some or perhaps even many mental-emotional problems (rather than most). The reason why this subtle shift in language can be helpful is because it more clearly avoids substantiating the myth that mental illness (such as depression and anxiety) is fundamentally rooted in a discernable, personal, moral decision (i.e., "I chose to be depressed; therefore, my inability to recover from depression is due to my own moral failure"). While I do not believe the authors to be advocating this idea, dispelling and correcting such myths (which unfortunately can be quite pervasive within some Christian communities), I believe, is one of the foremost responsibilities of the training and education arm of lay counseling ministries. Alternatively, the authors may have also considered expanding their definition of sin to incorporate not only individual moral decisions, but also more communal manifestations of sin--such as corporate or institutional sin, as might be reflected in the many potential forms of institutional racism (Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000; Neville, Yeung, Todd, Spanierman, & Reed, 2011).

Another distinctive of Tan's lay counseling model (compared to non-religious models of counseling) is its view of the ultimate goal (i.e., telos) of counseling as a means to support the development of counseling clients' maturity in Christ and obedience to God's will (cf. Romans 8:29), or as the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it--to know God and enjoy Him forever (Williamson, 2003). This, in my opinion, is both an appropriate and pertinent distinction of lay counseling (vs. traditional mental health counseling), especially in light of the authors' clarification that mental-emotional health remains a valid and worthwhile (though secondary) goal to pursue. Other notable distinctives (which due to space constraints will not be discussed in more detail here) include the importance of the Holy Spirit's work as counselor and comforter, a view of Scripture as a valid and fundamental (though not exhaustive) guide for dealing with problems in living, and the open incorporation of prayer into the counseling process.

A notable strength of Lay Counseling is its practicality. Complimenting its robust review of the theoretical and empirical research literature on lay counseling are a plethora of case studies and examples, outlines of sample lay counselor training curriculum, sample evaluation questionnaires (for both counselors as well as clients), a sample informed consent and care agreement form, a sample counseling session note, and even a sample lay counselor application form and application reference form. Entire chapters are devoted to common tasks and considerations involved in the development and oversight of a church-based lay counseling ministry--tasks such as the selection of lay counselors (chapter 6) as well as the training (chapter 7), supervision (chapter 8), and evaluation (chapter 9) of lay counselors. Given its structure and organization, the book does not lend itself to be read from cover to cover in one series of consecutive sittings; rather, it reads more like a textbook or a reference tool that was designed to be consulted repeatedly, depending on the immediate needs of the reader. It is appropriate to a wide readership, ranging from individuals interested in learning more about lay counseling ministries (e.g., its many potential forms and structures, its biblical justification, examples of what is currently being done in churches throughout the world), to those actively developing a new ministry in their own church, to even those already overseeing an established program; everyone will most certainly find pertinent resources and information within its pages. As a psychologist and pastor myself, I greatly benefited from my own reading of Lay Counseling and am pleased to join the many others who look to it as a definitive source ol guidance on the subject.

References

Bonilla-Silva, E., &c Forman, T. A. (2000). "I am not a racist but ...": Mapping White college students' racial ideology in the USA. Discourse & Society, 11, 50-85.

Neville, H. A., Yeung J. G., Todd, N. R., Spanierman, L. B., & Reed, T. D. (2011). Color-blind racial ideology and beliefs about a racialized university mascot. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 4, 236-249.

Stevens, R. P. (2002). Liberating the laity: Equipping all the saints for ministry. Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing.

Tan, S-Y., & Scalise, E. (2016). Lay counseling: Equipping Christians for a helping ministry. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Williamson, G. I. (1970). 7he Westminster Shorter Catechism: For study classes. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.

Reviewed by: David C. Wang, 13800 Biola Ave., La Mirada, CA 90639. E-mail: david.wang@bioIa.edu

WANG, DAVID C. PhD. Address: Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, 13800 Biola Ave., La Mirada, CA 90639. Title: Assistant Professor of Psychology. Degrees: BA (Computer Science, Social Welfare), University of California, Berkeley; ThM (Spiritual Theology), Regent College; PhD (Counseling Psychology), University of Houston. Specializations: Trauma, Integration of psychology and Christian faith, Spiritual formation. Multicultural psychology.