Kentucky Baptist Church Reaching Lost Through Counseling
By Marie
A nonprofit that began as two separate ministries of a Kentucky Baptist church is faithfully reaching the lost in Warren County.
One of those separate ministries — a counseling ministry that began for members of Living Hope Baptist Church on Bowling Green — launched in 2016 and soon expanded into the community. Local churches began asking questions about what the Center for Biblical Counseling provided.
“We are here to help your congregation, the people who are sitting in your pews, be healthy,” Brandy Moore, executive director of The Centers for Hope, would explain. “We want to help them be healthy believers, living life according to the gospel, glorifying God — because when they do that as individuals, then they do that in their marriage. Then their marriage affects other people, but then it affects their children. Then their children affect … they have their circle of influence.”
Healthier believers have a greater impact on the community, Moore added.
As the counseling center gained traction, the church opened a pregnancy resource center in 2019. Shortly after, both ministries became a separate nonprofit organization.
“Early in the spring of 2020, we were officially the Centers for Hope, which consisted of the Center for Biblical Counseling and the Center for Pregnancy,” Moore said.
As counselors worked with believers from Living Hope and surrounding congregations, ministry leadership were prompted to explore the difference between discipleship and counseling.
“Because we can’t send everybody to the counseling center who just needs to be discipled through the Word,” Moore explained.
While discipleship addresses the Christian life as a whole, biblical counseling deals with specific issues or problems in the lives of believers.
“I have sat in a room with people that are extremely strong believers, that whatever has hit them has hit them to where they just don’t feel like they can move,” Moore said. “At that point, counseling is very specific to that situation or that presenting problems. And so we attack that at the root with the gospel and then we can send them back to their church, and then that’s when their discipleship process continues.”
The Center for Biblical Counseling employs eight part-time counselors, all of whom are either certified by the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC) or in the process of obtaining their ACBC certification. On average, the Center provides 3,800 hours of counseling each year.
And counseling services are free because “the gospel is free,” Moore noted.
In fact, everything The Centers for Hope do is built upon on the good news of Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected for sinners.
“It all comes back to the gospel because without that, we have nothing really to offer people,” Moore said.
In addition to the gospel, the Center for Pregnancy offers material resources, pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, parenting classes and mentoring relationships where client advocates can share the love of Jesus with pregnant women who lack support networks.