Statement of Faith
We believe that Jesus is God’s Son, sent to us for salvation, redemption, healing and sanctification. We want all that we do, and say to reflect His glory, majesty and deity. With His help, He is at the center of all of our counseling, assessment and business practices. We affirm that He is the only way to salvation.
We believe that Jesus is the author of ALL healing; whether that healing comes through a physician, medication, counseling, miracles, friendship, reading, or any other means. Jesus is always at the heart of healing and we acknowledge Him as the Lord of our counsel.
We believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” We believe that all Christians are meant to live by God’s word, and that we cannot truly be happy unless we spend regular time with our Lord in His word. We encourage our clients to do the same. We find that our counsel is far more balanced and sound when we ourselves spend regular time receiving “counsel” from our Lord through His written word..
We believe deeply in the efficacy of prayer for changing our lives, for supporting the counseling process and teaching us relationally about the Father and His Son. In our experience the counseling process flows more smoothly and quickly when both therapist and client are praying for the counseling process. We believe that good counseling is a training ground for prayer, and we hope that our clients will continue a healing and growing conversation with God long after counseling stops. We are dedicated to praying for our clients, their problems, and their healing. We are also dedicated to praying for wisdom, discernment and the leadership of the Holy Spirit in our counsel.
We believe people were created to worship God. We believe that regular worship is necessary for emotional and spiritual well-being. Worship through singing and music is one of the best natural ways of changing a depressed or anxious mood. We believe that when used in combination with prayer, worship leads to changed lives. We affirm that worship should be a daily experience, and not merely something left to Sunday morning.
We believe in the sanctity of life. We believe that Jesus is the author of life, and all authority about life and death decisions rest with Him alone. It is our bias; our deep conviction, that abortion is wrong. We believe that when we make mistakes in life, we are far better off going to our Lord to resolve and redeem those mistakes than trying to compensate for them on our own. We believe there is no problem so deep that our Lord won’t redeem it if we ask Him to. That includes redemption from an unplanned pregnancy or redemption from an abortion already committed. We believe our clients have a right to know our conviction that abortion is wrong, as this conviction will most definitely influence our counsel.
We believe that people are almost always better off healing their marriages rather than seeking divorce. We believe divorce should never be considered casually or encouraged. We will always work to restore marriages, rather than to break them up. We believe that there isn’t any marriage that Jesus cannot redeem if both partners in a marriage will seek Him and His Way. We recognize that frequently in our culture, both do not seek His redemption for marriage. We also believe that Jesus can forgive, heal and redeem us after a divorce and we will work lovingly and graciously with those struggling to over-come the ill-effects of divorce, and to prevent it’s recurrence.
We believe that every addiction is a type of idolatry. We believe that the curse of idolatry passed down to the next generation is at work in addiction, and we affirm that God’s promise of loving kindness and healing from addiction is available to any who would seek Him and keep His commandments. We believe that in Christ we have the promise of over-coming our problems and not merely coping with them.
We believe that sinfulness is the best description of the human condition. We believe that sin is the ultimate cause of all human suffering. However, we do not believe that ones’ own sin is the cause of all psychological problems, as many emotional and relational problems are the result of being sinned against, or may arise from the difficulties in living in a sinful culture or unhealthy family. We believe that the simplistic confrontation of sinfulness is not an effective means of achieving psychological healing or even behavioral change. We would, rather, follow the example of Christ who confronted, forgave, encouraged, taught, served, walked with, prayed for, laughed with, and cried for those He came to save.
We believe that the primary goal of counseling is to present each person whole and complete in Christ. We recognize that counseling is only one way of working towards wholeness. We believe that counseling is fundamentally a relational process, and that the types of problems counseling can best help are relational in nature. We believe that as counselors we communicate the same Gospel message that is preached from evangelical pulpits, but that the medium of counseling is our relationship with our clients, more than the spoken word. We affirm that we will never use our position as counselors to manipulate others into a religion. Rather we desire that our clients would come to know the person of Christ through our example, our love, our grace and our words.
In Christian Love,
J. Mark Dobbs, Psy.D.