by Winston Smith

Worship in counseling? Yes, let me explain.

I recently met with a counselee who was struggling with some very powerful and painful emotions. As is almost always the case, those emotions reflected deeply held beliefs. The beliefs plaguing him and the feelings of rejection they evoked aren’t unusual but something new I asked him to try in the session was unusual – at least for me.

Let’s step back for a minute. How does a biblical counselor usually help such a person? Perhaps two or three passages of scripture leap to mind, verses that might direct this man’s thinking away from the unreliable affections of people to the unchanging, perfect, and infinite love of Christ. Here’s the problem: my counselee already knows most of those passages. We’ve read and discussed many of them together. So, where to now? I know, you’ll remind me that I should press on, remembering that change is a process and often a slow one at that.  But I want to share with you something different that I tried that was a game changer and I believe reflects on the ways we need to think more broadly about worship in the counseling process.