Pastor’s Corner
Ministry is a privilege — and one of its heaviest privileges is knowing what your people are carrying. You hear things in your office that most people never tell anyone. You carry those things home. And sometimes what walks through your door is beyond what pastoral care alone can address. Pathways Counseling exists, in part, to stand alongside you at precisely those moments.
Our Statement of Faith consists of the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. Our director, Dr. Van Dyken, was instrumental in planting a Gospel Coalition affiliated church in the Middle East. He understands the challenges of ministering across cultures, the dynamics of church hurt, and the many pressures pastors face.
We are not a parachurch organization with a vague spirituality. We are grounded Christians who take Scripture seriously as our authority. Our counseling approach follows the tradition of Christian Psychology — a framework associated with the work of Dr. Eric Johnson and others who have sought to develop a distinctly Christian account of the soul, rooted in Scripture and the history of the church's care for persons. We are not nouthetic counselors in the tradition of Jay Adams, nor are we secular therapists with a Christian veneer. We integrate biblical truth and prayer where they are welcomed, tailoring our approach to each client's faith and goals. We do not diagnose. We offer soul care — Christ-centered, theologically informed, and attentive to the whole person.
Who We Can Help
When a pastor refers a congregant to Pathways Counseling, the most common presenting issues include:
Depression and anxiety — the weight that doesn't lift, the fear that doesn't quiet
Grief and loss — death, divorce, broken relationships, lost faith, lost community
Addiction and compulsive behaviors — substance issues, pornography, behavioral patterns that have taken hold
Spiritual abuse recovery — congregants who have been harmed by leaders, churches, or religious systems
Spousal and domestic abuse — situations requiring a level of care and confidentiality that goes beyond what pastoral oversight can provide
Trauma and complex trauma — histories that require patient, skilled, and unhurried accompaniment
Burnout — ministry workers, missionaries, and caregivers who have given more than they had
We also very comfortably welcome non-Christians, ex-Christians, and those of no faith. A pastor who refers a skeptical or post-Christian congregant can do so with confidence that they will be received with genuine respect and care.
Our Counseling Approach — A Note for Theologically Minded Pastors
We are aware that the question of counseling methodology matters to many pastors. We want to be transparent. Pathways Counseling follows the Christian Psychology tradition associated with Dr. Eric Johnson — a framework that takes the full authority of Scripture seriously while engaging thoughtfully with what the study of human beings has revealed about how we suffer and how we heal. This is not secular psychology baptized with Christian language. It is an attempt — standing in a long tradition of Christian soul care stretching back through the history of the church — to think Christianly about persons, about suffering, and about what genuine healing looks like.
We do not share the presuppositions of nouthetic counseling, though we respect the conviction behind it. We believe that the complexity of human persons — body, soul, spirit, history, community, narrative — requires an approach that is theologically serious, historically informed, and genuinely humble about what we do and do not know.
Pastors who have found nouthetic approaches insufficient for complex trauma, addiction, or spiritual abuse — but who are uncomfortable with secular integration — will find in Pathways Counseling a framework that takes their theological concerns seriously while offering more resources for the hardest cases.
Pastors familiar with Tim Keller's ministry will recognize something of what drives Pathways Counseling. Keller described the Gospel as simultaneously counter-cultural and culture-fulfilling — subversive in confronting what culture gets wrong, fulfilling in meeting the legitimate longings that culture cannot satisfy on its own. Keller developed this vision at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, but we believe it applies not only to how a church engages its surrounding culture, but to how the church engages its own failures. Pathways Counseling exists at precisely that intersection — counter-cultural in naming abuse and coverup as the church's most sensitive sin, and fulfilling in demonstrating that honest repentance and genuine soul care make the Gospel more compelling, not less. The vision we carry and the counseling we offer are, we believe, two expressions of the same faithfulness.
Sessions are $100 individually or $80 each in sets of five. All sessions are conducted online, making Pathways Counseling accessible to any of your congregants regardless of where they live.
Training and Resources for Your Church
In addition to individual counseling, Pathways Counseling offers customized webinars and workshops for churches and ministry teams. These can be tailored to address topics including:
Recognizing and responding to spiritual abuse
Supporting congregants through grief and loss
Addiction awareness and pastoral response
Burnout and care for ministry workers
Emotional and spiritual health from a Christian Psychology perspective
We also encourage you and your church members to review our Youtube channel which covers many counseling topics.
The Referral Process
We strive to make the referral process simple. Referrals can be made by sharing our website or encouraging the individual to contact us directly.
We consider it a genuine privilege to partner with pastors who are committed to the care of their people. If a congregant comes to mind as you read this — or if you simply want to have a conversation before any referral need arises — we invite you to reach out. A relationship built before the crisis is far more useful than one scrambled together in the middle of it.
You can schedule a complimentary consultation with Dr. Van Dyken here, and we’ll be in touch with you shortly.
