Care and Counsel Training

My good friends from College Hill Presbyterian, Sam and Barry Stare, called two weeks ago and asked if I could meet with two new friends from California, Joel and Chris White. The couple was in town on the advice of Jay Diller, a man involved in counseling missionaries and with whom I had ministered in Russia.

Jay strongly suggested that the Whites come to Cincinnati to get basic training in care and counsel from EMI before they left for Beijing, China to join a team of missionaries as their Chaplains. EMI is an organization we set up at College Hill in about 1978 after doing a couple of international training events. The Elders said that it was a great idea to "Equip Pastors and Lay Leaders" but we needed an organization separate from the church to do the seminars, publish the books and collect the monies as a non-profit. They were wise.

It was EMI that supported me as I took my doctoral dissertation and made it into several books called Apples of Gold I and II. A bit later Alice Petersen suggested that we add a volume on Cognitive Therapy and Rational Christian Thinking was written. Over time EMI expanded and trained people from many nations and are still doing a great job of touching lives.

After leaving EMI and establishing Life Way In-Patient Hospital I saw a need to write more extensively for equipping Christian Counselors both Lay and Professional. Hope and Change for Humpty Dumpty is the result. If you or someone you know is doing Pastoral Care, Pastoral Counseling or going into Professional Counseling/Psychology/Psychiatry, etc. this is the book for you. I gave Joel and Chris a copy along with some materials I have on ministry to Asians.

Hope and Change is a book for anyone interested in being a better influence of others from a Christian point of view. Pastors, Sunday school teachers, missionaries, etc are all interested in being better influences and need this book.

Not long ago I attended a meeting with several local ministry leaders interested in preventing drug abuse. The sponsors are wonderful people who follow God and want the best for others. However, their approach to prevention and influence was outmoded and sure to fail. It has passion but little knowledge about how people respond to good intentions.

I could not sell my book to them but it reminded me of the lack of information in the church about what works best to help people grow and change. I am so often like a fireman watching oily electrical buildings burn while people try to put the fires out with water. They have the motivation and zeal without knowledge and yet the fires rage out of control. Hope and Change will not make them expert firemen but it can help them become more skilled as community fire fighters.

Hope and Change for Humpty Dumpty is available from www.authorhouse.com, www.amazon.com and from Life Way Institute, 11161 Kenwood Road, Cincinnati, 45242, 513-769-4600