We believe that Grace changes everything! When the gospel is made relevant in the counseling process, clients experience grace from the moment they enter the counseling room. To facilitate a process in which the truth of the gospel is deeply personalized and becomes real to the person, we must be mindful to provide the care needed in the way it will be best received. This is called Contextualized Care. When we do this well, our clients experience grace and become more open to the direction of the counseling process as well as receiving the care they need. We meet them where they are, and at the same time, we take them where they need to be.

Although contextualized care cannot be the same for every person, we believe the counseling process must include the following four interrelated, continual, and at times, simultaneous processes. These are essential for creating an experience of grace and for helping people progress toward healing and wholeness:

• Building Alliance

• Relieving Symptoms

• Grieving and Accepting

• Facilitating Heart Change

All secular modalities of counseling involve one or more of these processes. In the Redeemer Counseling approach, the process of facilitating heart change is added to complete the counseling process. Each of the other processes are transformed as the gospel is embodied. In this month’s toolkit, we will elaborate on how the counseling process is transformed and completed in light of the gospel.