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 of 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 will help launch 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. Now, an additional two churches are planning to partner with us for classes starting in the fall of 2022.

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 relationship in new redemptive ways, finding light in the darkness, and building new, deeper community. It’s also a gift to teach and counsel content that keeps impacting me. 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.

Due to the level of need we are seeing and the interest among churches to join in this ministry, we have been working since the start of 2022 to turn this part-time work I have been doing with churches into a full-time non-profit ministry with a board and team of funders. We’re excited to see what God can do with the support, structure, and wisdom of a whole team pursuing this ministry vision together.