I love my job so much that I’m trying to get better at it. Want to help?
Thanks to the generous support of so many churches and individuals, I’ve served as a pastoral counselor and coach to missionaries for about nine years now. Last week alone I met online with missionaries serving in or returned from Kyrgyzstan, Kenya, west Africa, Japan, Cambodia (six clients), Bulgaria, Dominican Republic, and Tanzania.
Shortly after our return to the States, Elizabeth and I decided that I should go back to school. I’ve been in grad school studying clinical mental health counseling for one year now, and I have a year and a half to go. I hope to use this education to continue serving missionaries around the world for many years to come. So…
Like many companies and churches, our missions agency provides an educational reimbursement benefit up to $5,000 per year. This is fantastic and could be extremely helpful! However, because Team Expansion is a missions agency, and because we serve in a support-based position, we have to raise our own benefits.
In other words, we won’t get the benefit if we don’t raise it. Maybe that sounds weird to you, but we’re super grateful for even the chance of this benefit, and that’s just sort of how things are done in the missions world.
So, we’d like to invite you to consider giving especially for this educational need. (It’s tax-deductible for folks in the US.) Some have already given, so we’re only $3,700 away from our goal!
Many of you gave towards this last year, and we are soooo grateful! It was immensely helpful in deferring some of the school fees!
If you’ve been blessed over the years by our writings or pastoral counseling ministry, or if you’d like to support this preparation for future ministry, would you consider giving through PayPal (preferred) or Team Expansion’s giving portal here? Note: if you donate through Team Expansion’s website, please add “education” to the notes section.
Team Expansion has taught us to invite boldly, so here we are. We’re not using regular donations to fund this education benefit — only money raised specifically for it.
As I’ve said over and over, we couldn’t have gotten this far without y’all, and we can’t get a whole lot farther without y’all. If you have any questions, please let me know.
In the meantime, we’re going to keep trying to “follow close” behind Him, serving missionaries and cross-cultural workers around the world, equipping them to see the hearts of the hurting people around them, for his glory and for the growth and health of the global Kingdom.
All for ONE,
Jonathan T.
by Elizabeth
Over the years our family has developed a morning ritual. We call it “devo,” and we model it after the daily devotionals my husband grew up with. Every morning his family gathered in the living room before breakfast to read the Proverb and Psalms for the day.
We started doing morning devos in Cambodia when everyone was young and still learning how to read out loud, and we’ve changed up our routine several times. We started with the Proverbs only but at one point got bored of them and switched to the Psalms instead. Then we went through a phase where we were reading through the Gospels. We tried Shane Claiborne’s Common Prayer for a while, and now we’re back to the Proverbs again – we all missed the simplicity of those early days in Cambodia.
Several years ago we decided to sing on Friday mornings instead of read. Hymns had been instrumental in building my faith and keeping me moored in times of doubt and fear, but my children didn’t know the hymns, as we didn’t sing them at church on Sunday mornings. We owned a few Church of Christ hymnals, so we got to work teaching our family how to sing.
I don’t know if you do a “morning time” in your homeschool or if you have evening devotionals with your family. But I do know a few liturgies that have been helpful to our family, and I wanted to share in case you want to add any of them to your worship times.
The Apostles’ Creed. With a world in such flux and so many arguments over what is important or true, we wanted to draw our children to the foundations of our faith. In the Creeds we proclaim the most important beliefs of the Christian faith. They are the ones we need to agree on, the ones we should never waver from. We worked together to memorize the Apostles’ Creed and say it together most (not all) days. It has been an anchor for me the past several years. There are a couple modern songs based on the creeds, but nothing beats reciting the complete Apostles’ Creed, whether by yourself or in community.
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.
The Doxology. This was one of the first songs we taught our children. It’s simple and easy to sing and is really a prayer. We often end our morning devo by singing the Doxology (although we sometimes end on another song, which I’ll explain below). We also sing it before meals, especially when we have guests over. We love it when old Church of Christ friends come over because they can SING. Four-part acapella harmony, delicious and delightful and a little taste of heaven. (As it turns out, you can take the girl out of acapella churches, but you can’t take the acapella out of the girl.)
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
The Serenity Prayer. Reinhold Niebuhr’s words are a newer addition to our morning times, but I think they have staying power. Like most people, I’ve known the first stanza for years (and it is the only part of the prayer attributed to Niebuhr with certainty). The second part is used in many 12-step programs and has been particularly helpful to me as a compulsive worrier. We are memorizing the entire prayer as a family.
Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference,
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as He did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that He will make all things right,
If I surrender to His will,
That I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with Him forever in the next.
Amen.
Paschal Troparion (Resurrection Hymn). We’ve been singing this song ever since I learned it from eine blume during a Velvet Ashes retreat. The lyrics are a modern English translation of a 5th century Orthodox hymn. We sometimes end our morning times with the Paschal Troparion instead of the Doxology.
Christ is risen from the dead,
Trampling down death by death.
And to those in the grave
He’s given life, He’s given life.
The Lord Bless You and Keep You. My mom prayed Numbers 6:24-26 over us each day before we headed off to school, and I started praying it over my oldest as soon as we got home from the hospital. At some point I stopped saying it over my bigs before bed, but my youngest still regularly requests this prayer – a reminder of the power of repeated prayers. The version below is closest to the New American Standard.
The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face to shine upon you,
The Lord be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
And finally, the 23rd Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer. We don’t pray these as a family, but I pray them regularly by myself. I depend especially on “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want”; “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, Your rod and your staff, they comfort me”; “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name”; and “Give us this day our daily bread.” They speak to my tendency to worry, especially over money and death and danger. I need something beautiful and poetic and true to ground me in those times.
Prayer rituals have the power to form us as Christ followers. Perhaps you already have prayer rituals of your own; perhaps you are looking to develop some. If so, I hope these ideas can enrich your spiritual life and build a deeper, sturdier faith in our triune God.
The idea is pretty simple. First, think about the signs that show that you are doing well in that area. How do you know you’re in the green? What does your friend or partner see when you’re in this color? And then, what are the things that help you to STAY in that color? Keep doing those things.
What are signs that you’re in yellow? What starts to happen when you’re trending in a direction you don’t want to go? The idea is to notice these things earlier than maybe you have in the past. And then, what are some things you might want to think about doing (or stop doing) that would help nudge you back to green?
And then the last one. What are the signs that things are really running hot? That you’re really struggling or not doing well? What are some things that maybe you don’t normally do, but that you might really want to do (or stop doing) that would get you moving back toward the healthy green?
It’s not rocket science, but when we’re really struggling with something, we don’t need rocket science. We need simple. We need straightforward. We need pre-planned.
Filling this out gives you a cheat sheet when you need it. When you’re trending towards red, you’re probably also forgetting all the helpful things. But if you’ve written them down, if you’ve shared them with a friend, partner, or ally, then you can look back, remember, and then maybe implement.
Hope that’s helpful out there, y’all! Take care, and happy Thursday!
Jonathan T.
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I’ve been using these concepts for a few years now, but I finally got around to creating a handout/worksheet for The Stoplight Tool. I’ve used this with folks dealing with OCD, depression, anxiety, and even adult ADHD. If you’d like to use this in your practice or ministry, would you consider purchasing the PDF for $2.99 here? Drop your email address in the comments when paying and I’ll send you the file. Thanks!
Starting in a couple of weeks, I’ll be seeing clients at Mt. Hope Christian Counseling Center on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. And since I’m an intern, Mt. Hope offers clients a sliding scale payment option that makes sessions pretty inexpensive.
Please help spread the word, and let me know if you have any questions.
Meet Jonathan Trotter, our newest counseling intern!
We are excited to announce that Jonathan is currently accepting new clients for individual and couples counseling.
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Read Jonathan’s bio:
As an intern with Mt. Hope, Jonathan is excited to offer marriage counseling, pre-marital counseling, and individual counseling to clients thirteen and over. Since 2014, Jonathan has walked alongside hundreds of couples and individuals in dozens of countries. He has experience journeying with people through issues such as grief and loss, life transitions, anxiety, depression, trauma, OCD, abuse (spiritual, sexual, physical, emotional), debriefing, ministry burnout, and addictions.
With couples, Jonathan utilizes an attachment-based, emotion-focused approach. He also greatly appreciates the evidence-based tools and resources from Dr. John Gottman. With all clients, Jonathan takes a person-centered, trauma-informed, experiential approach.
From 2012 to 2020, he and his family served as cross-cultural missionaries in Phnom Penh Cambodia. Prior to that, he worked bi-vocationally as an ER/trauma nurse (RN) and youth and worship pastor. He is a licensed attorney in California (inactive) and is currently completing his master’s in clinical mental health counseling at Colorado Christian University.
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Click here to see availability.
For questions, or to schedule an initial consult, contact the office at (417) 624-9659 or contact Jonathan directly at JonathanTrotterCounseling@gmail.com.
