Hope Family Resources
Adults or children in need receive personal and relationship counseling, prayer, mentoring, educational media, and/or house visits through the combined efforts of a Mission Team of volunteers (and other lay or religious persons) serving in positions best utilizing their talents. Team members participate in study, training, and spiritual development activities as part of their ongoing formation. Hope Family Resources is an affiliated organization of the Association of Christian Counselors.
HFR exists to strengthen the well-being of lay or religious persons who are suffering emotionally, mentally, spiritually, physically, academically, occupationally, and/or socially.
Hope Family Resources affirms the central truths of the Christian faith as expressed in the Bible and historic creeds. God is one and this unity is revealed to man as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. HFR recognises this and specifically the Lordship of Christ and the authority of Scripture in all areas of belief and practice.
The organization acknowledges that there are different emphases within the various Christian counselling traditions and recognises that some Christian approaches are more at ease than others in drawing on insights from secular theory and practice.
Definitions - Basis of Christian Counselling
It is not our purpose to make all Christian counsellors think the same or counsel in the same way. However, we do expect our counsellors to have a specifically Christian worldview. A Christian counsellor works with overall assumptions that underpin his or her counselling. These may be implicit or explicit. They should be consistent with:
* What the scriptures reveal about the nature and activity of God - that He is both the creator and judge of human beings and their redeemer in Christ.
* People being created in the image of God - although, because we are fallen and sinful, they are in need of God's redeeming grace.
* Christ as the one true Saviour and Lord. Through His life, death, resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit, God has made available all the resources of His grace to rescue people, heal them and bring them to maturity and wholeness.
* God's work of justice and mercy in the world and His love towards all people.
* His work of rescuing people, even though they do not deserve it, and bringing them to faith and maturity in Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit.
* The reality of a fallen world where suffering, pain, guilt, fear, broken relationships and fragmented communities occur.
* God's desire for His people to work to bring healing and wholeness of spirit, mind and body.
Christian Counselling
In light of the above, we may define Christian counselling as "that activity which seeks to help people towards constructive change and growth in any or every aspect of their lives through a caring relationship and within agreed relational boundaries, carried out by a counsellor who has a Christian worldview, values and assumptions."