Lay Counseling/Support & Recovery

The Lay Counselors & Support/Recovery Group Leaders represent a group of individuals who have a heart to bring the healing love of Christ to others in their time of brokenness. These leaders commit themselves to a large amount of initial and ongoing training in order to serve in this ministry. Their own life experiences and their humble love-filled walk with Christ is poured out to those that the Lord brings near to them. It is an honor to serve with such dear friends of Jesus.

The Support and Recovery Ministry grew out of the Peer Counseling Ministry that was started by Danny Meyer approximately 17 years ago. At that time Peer Counselors were trained to come alongside the small group leaders in giving pastoral support. The Peer Counselors offered additional specialized support and discipleship to individuals attending one of our church's small groups. They were trained through Gospel of Wholeness and in addition, attended monthly trainings offered and taught by Danny. When Danny left VCC to plant the Vineyard Delaware County Church in 2002, the Peer Counseling ministry was handed over to Vicky Grady, MA in Clinical Pastoral Counseling, who oversaw the ministry until August of 2004 when she decided to counsel fulltime in Vineyard's Professional Counseling Center. At this time, the ministry was passed onto Teresa Smith, MA in Biblical Counseling, for oversight. In addition, Teresa counseled part-time in the Professional Counseling Center.

The ministry was renamed "Life on Life" (a Lay Counseling/Spiritual Mentoring Ministry) due to so many Joshua House (20-Somethings) being interested in receiving and serving in the ministry. In addition, the ministry opened its door a bit more to individuals outside the church who were looking for spiritual mentoring. Our hope was that individuals outside the church who are struggling, looking for help, or attempting to make sense out of their suffering would have another door into the church by which to meet Jesus and then find a home at Vineyard Church of Columbus.

In 2005, there was a growth in the number of Vineyard leaders having a heart to lead support and recovery groups and thus Teresa was asked to oversee these groups along with the lay counselors/spiritual mentors. Ruthmary Mangan was brought on as a 15 hour administrative assistant. In May, 2006, after Ruthmary left, Christina Wurdack was hired as a full-time Administrative Assistant. The fulltime help of Christina made it possible for the ministry to keep up with its continued growth. The church also shared with us Linda Bradshaw to help with triaging and on her own time, oversight. Linda's heartbeat of care & her expertise has been an invaluable addition to the ministry.

Currently, there are 85 lay counselors/spiritual mentors (our quota) each seeing 1-5 individuals a week. There are approximately 60 Support & Recovery Groups throughout the church each networking within the church into a variety of ministry areas, i.e. Small Group Ministry, Marriage & Family, Men's Ministry, Women's Ministry, FOTV, and Joshua House. In general, most of our groups are made up of 50% non-members from outside the church and have 5-30 individuals in attendance. Out largest group, Integrity Dot Men, has approximately 75 in attendance. The types of support & recovery groups vary from addiction support recovery (e.g. substance abuse) to relational support groups (e.g. divorce care) to medical support groups (e.g. cancer support).

Currently, the Support Recovery Ministry Staff is made up of Teresa & Christina Wurdack. An incredible amount of individuals, too many to name, serve as leaders for the ministry and then give extra time to tend to the many needs. These brothers and sisters are truly like family, always stepping in to fill the need. I will attempt to name some of these individuals but know I could never name all of them. First off, we are blessed to have Linda & a few key volunteers namely, Karen Semon, Susan McIntyre, Elise Karl, & Jane Flewellen who volunteer weekly hours to coordinate and administrate the ministry. These volunteers and Interns (present & former) operate as the staff for sustaining this ministry. In addition, there are 34 Lead Coaches and Coaches that give the needed pastoral support for this large ministry of servant leaders. The ministry also has an Advisory Committee that helps to bring direction to its future. We are extremely grateful to all these individuals, who give additional time to pastorally support and direct the ministry and its leaders. A special thank you, also, to our former Interns, Kristin Nakhla, Sara Baumgartner, Tracy Merrill, Rachell Killilea, Rachel Rosenthal, & Erin Zappin who provided pastoral support & coordination these past 3 years.

We are thankful to the numerous individuals who have taught or regularly teach at one of our classes or contemplative retreats. These teachers include but are not limited to Claudia Cook, Mark Sullivan, Lorie Rees, Vicky Grady, Bob Crawford, Bill Christensen, Rhodie Shreve, Dan Franz, Michael Hanson, Ron Hitchcock, Danny Franz, Ginny Short, James Thomas, John & Lois Myer, Ruthmary Mangan & Larry Reichley. A special thank you to the men, Doug Karl, Larry Messick, Dave Hutchison and Victor Aksenow who took care of making sure we had sound & recording at our trainings and then duplication of these trainings. Men, you continually saved the trainings, thank you!

Last, but certainly not least, we want to give credit where credit is due and extend our appreciation to Bill Christensen. God used Bill to make this ministry come into a fuller sense of existence. We all know that without his pastoral oversight & direction, the ministry would not have borne the fruit that it has.