Our History

Into my (Tony’s) teens and 20s, counseling was the last thing I wanted to be involved in. Connecting one-on-one with people came fairly easy to me, and I loved being involved in ministry. But, to me, counseling was too messy and way too time consuming to worry about. God challenged that perspective in a big way during a nine-month college missions internship in Pakistan, when I discovered we are all a lot messier and need a lot more time and help than we think. After four months of the stress of ministry among conservative Muslims, anxiety and depression overwhelmed my life. This ended up turning into a 10+ year struggle. However, God used that brick wall to slowly open me up to my deep need for Christ in ways I never knew I needed: for his help through others, heart change, comfort, and love. I started to learn that we are all a lot messier than we think and that Scripture speaks to all of our problems in surprisingly powerful ways.  

This awakening led to seminary and pastoral ministry with families and youth where mentoring and counseling was a big part of what I did. Four-and-a-half years ago, in 2018, we transitioned into the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). We expected that God would provide another pastoral role for me there, but to my surprise there were no pastoral ministry openings. However, the door was wide open for counseling. I started working part-time for Jacob’s Well Church in Green Bay and then our home church, Emmaus Road. It went well and led me into online classes with the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation (CCEF), and then starting a doctorate of ministry in counseling with Westminster Theological Seminary – and graduating this spring (2022)!  

As my counseling work continued, God helped us develop partnerships with churches to help them in counseling and equipping classes. In the fall of 2020 we launched a three church partnership between Emmaus Road (our home church), Village Church, and Cornerstone Church. We set out to do expanded versions of two CCEF classes, How People Change and Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands. In 2021 this work expanded to include Grace Presbyterian in Pardeeville, WI, and the creation of a mentoring methods class at both Emmaus Road and Grace – these classes launched heart-change focused mentoring ministries at both churches. At the same time I began contract counseling for other churches which led to partnerships with another three churches. An additional two churches are planning to partner with us for classes starting in the fall of 2022.

Due to the level of need we are seeing and the interest among churches to join in this ministry, we worked in 2022 to turn the part-time work I have been doing with churches into a full-time non-profit ministry with a board and team of funders. By God’s grace we met our fundraising goal for 2023 in March of 2023 and could begin the transition to full time ministry. As of Fall of 2023, the number of churches we are working with has increased to 12, and we completed a summer lay counseling training to help promote six of our existing mentors to lay counselors along with two others from two other churches in the area.

We’re constantly impressed that, in spite of the stress of getting into the hard areas with groups and individuals every day, God has been changing lives in ways we don’t expect. Every week it’s impressive to see people breaking life-long destructive patterns, engaging relationships in new redemptive ways, finding Christ in the darkness, and building new, deeper community. The most exciting part is when whole church culture’s are impacted and meeting Christ and each other in deeper ways. In all of this I’ve come to more deeply appreciate that the whole church is a critical part of work of bringing God’s deep comfort and heart-change to his people and the world. His gospel and the ministry of the Spirit through his Word are the anchors, and the church, in all its gifts, speaking the truth in love, is the key means. In the future we hope to continue classes and leadership development with existing partners, continue to provide counseling help and guidance, develop new partnerships that serve the region within a 90 mile radius, and hire additional staff for this task. We would love your prayers and joining together with us in any way God leads to help with this work.