Medicine and Faith
Steven R Fair, ACSW, Renewal Director

What is this thing called Christian Counseling anyway? Many assume that a Christian Counselor will be like a priest to them, confronting them to confession and assigning them to penance for their failures. Others expect a Christian Counselor to be a weird, spiritual version of the traditional psychoanalyst in the movies who puts their patients on a couch, asks them how they feel and blames all their problems on their mother or father.

A Christian Counselor is none of the above! But what a Christian Counselor (Renewal Center style!) actually is can facilitate change in your life like very few other interventions! A Christian Counselor at Renewal is a licensed professional with the same training as the clinicians at any other counseling center but with extra training to allow our clients to utilize their values, beliefs, and their faith in their mental health treatment process. We have a staff Psychiatrist who will address the medical aspects of your symptoms to find if there are medications that could be helpful. We use the same techniques of assessment that other clinical facilities use to diagnose and also use similar clinical tools such as cognitive-behavioral therapy that are proven to reduce the symptoms of such things as depression, anxiety, and anger.

What is the difference then? The difference is “the source” of your emotional healing. The source of change does not come from the client or the counselor alone; the true source of change comes from your faith! Traditional family values and an emphasis on introspection and unconditional love are aspects of a believer’s faith that truly power them towards lasting change! Faith is a powerful thing! As the Bible describes in Hebrews, “faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the certainty of things unseen.” This substance of things hoped for (faith) is a prerequisite to any person or relationship obtaining true change, because without this substance of things hoped for there is no envisioning that change is even possible.

Once change is envisioned, we also need a source of motivation from which to pursue the specific goals of the desired change. For those coming from a traditional Judeo-Christian background, their hope is that there is a power who is greater than themselves and is active in their lives to produce love, joy, and peace within each heart, as well as lasting marriages and family relationships. Our hope as Christian Counselors is that change does not come from our own strength but from the Source of change WHO is so much larger than ourselves! Change is powered by faith!

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