Chapter 1

​CHAPTER 1 
THE MINISTRY SETTING
This chapter will lay out the setting for the ministry project. This will include the ministry description, which gives the reader a glimpse at the history, theology, structure, and current status of the project setting.  Further, it will explain how the project setting is suitable for the ministry project. The chapter will continue with an overview of the demographics and community information in which the ministry project will be run, showing that the needs and opportunities of the ministry context validate the ministry project. 
Next in the chapter is the project director’s information. This section will display the project director's suitability to oversee the ministry project. Following this, a section on hypothetical presuppositions will present the ideas on which the ministry project is built. In light of this, the next section of this chapter presents the purpose statement for the ministry project, followed by the conclusion of Chapter 1.
 
Ministry Description
The ministry project for this dissertation will take place at Country Bible Church in Wallace, Michigan. Country Bible Church has been committed to seeking God’s truth from the Scriptures since its inception. The church began in the winter of 1979 when a Bible study was conducted in the home of Gordon Newlin to get “a better understanding of the Bible.”[1] This group grew and eventually formed Country Bible Church in April of 1982. Throughout its short history, Country Bible Church’s guiding documents have bound the church to follow God’s Word and His will in all they do. For example, the original purpose of the church was “the ministry of the Word of God for the salvation of souls, the edification of Christians, the worldwide proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the promotion of Godly worship, the defense of the ‘faith once delivered,’ and cooperation with Christian activity.”[2] The original statement of faith began with this confession on the Holy Scriptures, “We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the verbally inspired Word of God, the final authority for faith and life, inherent [DB1] [sic] in the original writings, infallible and God-breathed.”[3]
In 2012, the church rewrote and adopted a new constitution, reaffirming the same purpose. The first core value listed in the constitution is: “Knowing and doing truth.” This core value is explained:
We live in a world with many voices offering numerous opinions and a diversity of advice and counsel. Where do we turn for wisdom, answers, and truth? While praying for His followers, Jesus said, ‘Sanctify them in truth; Your Word is truth’ (John 17:17). God’s Word is powerful, life-giving truth (Hebrews 4:12). It is authoritative and yet freeing, full of Godly wisdom which equips us to live in a world that is deceived and broken. A church that strays from God’s Word as truth is missing God’s message, denying its power and forsaking its wisdom.[4]
 
This commitment has shown itself in the church's life, as the church has been consistently committed to expositional preaching and biblical counseling.[5]
For the first two decades of the church’s existence, Country Bible Church was affiliated with and helped by the Independent Fundamental Churches of America (IFCA International) and the Independent Bible Mission, who guided the church in its infancy and provided financial assistance. Both ministries are committed to independent churches that are given to biblical ministry.[6] As such, IFCA International promotes biblical counseling, giving an entire issue of its bi-monthly publication in 2014, Voice Magazine, to that topic.[7] Country Bible Church’s partnership with IFCA International and Independent Bible Mission was natural and helpful.
Country Bible Church is a nondenominational church that is reformed and baptistic in its theology. It is a congregational church led by a plurality of elders and served by deacons. Currently, there are four elders and six deacons. The church is supported financially with voluntary giving by its members and attendees and is debt-free. In the forty-two years the church has existed, it has had two senior pastors.[8] In 2011, the church changed its polity from a singular pastor leadership model to a plurality of elders leading the church. In doing so, the church recognized multiple men as pastors who are accountable to provide pastoral oversight and pastoral care to its members. 
The church has been steadily growing in attendance and membership. Church attendance has doubled over the last ten years. Currently, the church has seventy-two adult members, averaging one hundred seventy in attendance.[9]The church has also completed two major expansion projects over the last six years. This included an education wing and an expansion to the sanctuary. This growth has brought an optimistic excitement and energy to the congregation. It has also brought growing opportunities and responsibilities. In February of 2024, the church voted to hire a second full-time pastor to serve the needs of the growing church. One of the draws that brought him to Country Bible Church was the offer to help him pursue training in biblical counseling.  
 
 
Demographics
Country Bible Church is located in the village of Wallace, a community in rural Menominee County in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.[10] The county rests between the Menominee River and Lake Michigan, attracting outdoor enthusiasts in boating, fishing, hunting, and snowmobiling. Wallace has a population of 1,640, and the whole county has a population of 23,502.[11] Country Bible Church draws people from much of Menominee County and its neighboring county, Marinette County, Wisconsin. Community members often drive over fifteen miles to attend church and church events, including counseling appointments.[12]
Rural communities with a low population often have limited resources in their community.[13] This is reflected in Menominee County. There are several indicators of this. Menominee County has no hospital, so the healthcare options, including mental health services, are limited. Menominee County residents have a lower average income than the State of Michigan and the nation. The median household income in Menominee County is $54,074, while the median household income in the State of Michigan is $66,986, and in the United States, it is $74,755.[14] There are no higher education opportunities within Menominee County. The education attainment for the county is lower than that of the state and nation, with 16.7% of Menominee County’s population having a bachelor's degree or higher. In comparison, the state has 32.1%, and the country has 35.7%.[15] The church is located in the middle of the county, and it is served by a volunteer fire department and ambulance service. 
In a rural county with limited resources, the opportunity for outreach by offering biblical counseling services is noteworthy. Whether this be through partnering with local non-profits seeking the well-being of this rural area, offering free counseling services to the community, or simply equipping the congregation of Country Bible Church to bring the wisdom and power of God’s Word to meet the needs of their co-workers, fellow students, friends, and neighbors, the potential to offer God’s help and hope through biblical counseling is a worthy pursuit. 
 
Ministry Community Information
God has providentially placed Country Bible Church in the middle of Menominee County. Most people in the community work, shop, and seek out professional services in the neighboring Marinette County. According to a recent community survey, the two most significant needs in Menominee and Marinette Counties are substance abuse and mental health.[16] Another considerable concern in the county is the suicide rate, which is higher in Menominee County than the state average.[17]
The community offers limited services to meet these needs. There is only one publicly funded mental health service in the county. Menominee County has a ratio of population to providers in mental health of 730 to 1. In contrast, the State of Michigan has a ratio of 320 to 1.[18]  Other mental health services are available in the neighboring county. That neighboring county is in the State of Wisconsin, which limits insurance coverage for Michigan residents. Substance abuse help is also limited. Neighboring Marinette County has one outpatient facility, and neither Menominee nor Marinette County has any inpatient facilities. Volunteer organizations Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous have local branches. A local church was operating a Christian recovery ministry called Celebrate Recovery, but it recently ended that service. Establishing a biblical counseling ministry at Country Bible Church could be a vital asset to the surrounding community, which lacks resources to meet some of its mental health and substance abuse needs.
Within the church, Country Bible Church has had significant exposure to biblical counseling. The founding pastor, Ralph Hathaway, was influenced early in his ministry by Jay Adams and was committed to biblical counseling.[19] During his eighteen years at Country Bible Church, he had a substantial counseling ministry. In a recent interview with him, he shared that he would regularly counsel ten families per week. He was sought out by people in the church and outside the church for counseling because “no one else was doing it.”[20]
When the project director took over for Ralph Hathaway, he began to bring several in the congregation to biblical counseling training events. Most of these events were organized by Faith Biblical Counseling Ministries in Lafayette, Indiana. A few other events were organized by regional churches. He has also had a significant counseling ministry in the congregation as he has counseled hundreds of people within the church and has grown a reputation in the local community as a biblical counselor. As a result of both pastor’s ministries and guidance in the church, the congregation has embraced a biblical counseling model for pastoral care and has realized the responsibility for personal care by counseling one another biblically. For example, it is normal in the congregation to seek out pastoral care inside the church rather than secular therapeutic care outside the church. Also, members of the church are often encouraging friends and family who do not attend our church to seek out a biblical counselor for help in times of need. Further, there have been many within the church who have pursued biblical counseling training so they be a help to those who may need help for life’s problems.  
 
Project Director Information
The project director, David Buckley, has been the senior pastor of Country Bible Church for twenty-three years. This has been his only vocational ministry job. Before coming to Country Bible Church, he volunteered in many different ministry roles, primarily in student ministries at a Christian camp and church youth groups. In all these roles, he provided individual counseling care.
The project director did not grow up in a Christian home. His parents divorced when he was a child. However, due to his non-Christian grandparents' generosity, he attended a private Christian school, where he was instructed in the Christian faith. Much of his theology was shaped by this school and the church that oversaw the school. The church and school emphasized Bible memorization, consistently preached the gospel, and encouraged Christian service. In the first grade, he professed his faith in Christ. During high school, he considered pursuing a career in church ministry. Upon graduation, he went to Bible college and majored in church ministries.
In his time at Maranatha Baptist Bible College and Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary, the project director was interested in biblical counseling. While attending seminary, he took several biblical counseling courses. It was in his first year as the pastor of Country Bible Church he recognized that the biblical counseling courses he took in seminary did not adequately equip him for the personal ministry of pastoral counseling. He began to pursue further biblical counseling training to grow in this ministry. This led him to several conferences, including the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation annual conference, the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors national conference, the Biblical Counseling Training Conference in Lafayette, Indiana, and some local and regional Biblical Counseling training conferences. He was introduced to many helpful biblical counseling resources at these conferences, such as books, journals, pamphlets, and worksheets. 
Throughout his twenty-three years of ministry at Country Bible Church, the project director has had the opportunity to counsel hundreds of people. He has worked with families in marriage and parenting counseling, and he has worked with individuals dealing with depression, fear, insomnia, post-traumatic stress syndrome, drug abuse, anger, sexual abuse, pornography, grief, domestic abuse, and a variety of other issues. In recent years, he has met with three to five individuals or families on average each week. 
 
Hypothetical Presupposition
Country Bible Church has come to know and appreciate biblical counseling. The people of the church have experienced it personally. For forty-four years, the church has had two pastors who have practiced it within and outside the church. Several church members have attended entry-level biblical counseling training conferences. Further, the church has unanimously approved the total funding for the project director to pursue a Doctor of Ministry degree with an emphasis in biblical counseling. Yet, the senior pastor is still the primary counselor in the church. It is rare for a church member or leader to sit with an individual or family to offer biblical counsel. 
With the strong influence of biblical counseling on the congregation, the demand for biblical counseling has increased. This provides an excellent opportunity to meet needs, but it has also increased the senior pastor’s responsibility to the point of overload. There is a waiting list for pastoral counsel. Another result of the church's limited yet extensively demanded biblical counseling ministry is that it is provided by only one person, depriving the church of caring well for one another (and their neighbors). The church has come to see the benefit of biblical counseling without being equipped to share in that ministry. 
 Four presuppositions shape the ministry project. First, God has established the church as the primary base for His redemptive activity on planet Earth. Second, there is a great need for the project director to train others to care for souls through biblical counseling. Third, this training should be substantial enough to help the members of Country Bible Church understand biblical counseling principles sufficient to engage in serving others. Fourth, Country Bible Church’s growth has increased the demand for biblical counseling and has provided an opportunity for this ministry since the church has more resources to support it. 
In light of the opportunities and challenges Country Bible Church is facing, the church needs to steward the opportunity to multiply ministers in the church through training in biblical counseling.  To do this, the project director will develop and teach a twelve-week course to train the church leaders and members in the basics of biblical counseling. This course will be adapted from several biblical counseling ministries, textbooks, and other churches that have taught a foundational biblical counseling course.[21] The course will aim to teach five fundamentals of biblical counseling.[22]  The five fundamentals of biblical counseling that will be presented in the course are as follows: the need for biblical counseling, what it is that makes biblical counseling biblical, the definition and goal of biblical counseling, getting to heart issues, and discerning problems biblically. 
The hope is that this curriculum will be used now and in the future to train biblical counselors in the church. Outside the scope of this ministry project, the hope is that this project will encourage some in the church to give themselves to more intensive biblical counseling training and pursue certification in biblical counseling. In doing this, Country Bible Church would be able to establish a more formal biblical counseling ministry that could have a more significant impact on the community. 
 
Purpose Statement
The purpose of this project is to develop and teach a course that will be used to train members of Country Bible Church in biblical counseling. By doing this, the congregation will be given a resource that will assist the entire church in helping those in need. It will also further the vision of biblical counseling as a normal and essential ministry of discipleship and evangelism in and through the church. 
 
Conclusion
Chapter 1 describes the ministry setting where the project will take place. The chapter presented the ministry description along with demographics and community information that gives an overview of where the ministry project will take place. These sections present a case for the rationality of doing the project in this ministry setting. The project director was described, followed by some hypothetical presuppositions he carries into this project. These two sections present the opportunities and needs the project director will address. Finally, the purpose statement for the ministry project was presented. This purpose statement defines what the project director plans to do, which is to design and implement a course. It also explains why he is creating the course to train Country Bible Church members in biblical counseling. 
Chapter 2 will help the reader understand the biblical rationale that will justify the ministry project. In this chapter, some theological themes will be developed. It will also include several passages of Scripture as evidence for the biblical rationality of the project. 
 
 


[1] Gordon Newlin, “A written history of Country Bible Church,” 1990, Unpublished.
 

[2] Country Bible Church Constitution, “Purpose of the Church,” Wallace, MI, p. 1. 
 

[3] Country Bible Church Constitution, “Statement of Doctrine,” Wallace, MI, p. 3.

 
[4] Country Bible Church Wallace, Michigan Constitution and Bylaws, “Core Values,” Wallace, MI, p. 1. 

 
[5] Both of Country Bible Church’s senior pastors received biblical counseling training and provided pastoral care through biblical counseling. Pastor Hathaway (1982-2000) stumbled upon biblical counseling when he received a flyer for a pastoral counseling seminar at Liberty Baptist College in Lynchburg, Virginia. The seminar leaders were Jerry Falwell, Ed Hindson, and Jay Adams. Pastor Hathaway did not pursue formal biblical counseling training but kept up with it through the works of Jay Adams. He was also influenced by H. Norman Wright, a Christian psychologist. He mentioned in an interview that he found the books of H. Norman Wright to offer help with counseling methodology, such as putting off certain things and putting on better things and advising counselees to be discerning as they seek out counsel (bad advice or foolish input from others). Source: Ralph Hathaway, former pastor of Country Bible Church, interviewed by David Buckley, video chat, March 7, 2024. 
 

[6] The Independent Fundamental Churches of America (IFCA International) is a “movement of churches and believers from around the world who are committed to biblical ministry in an effort to enhance the strength of the Church by equipping for, and encouraging toward, ministry partnerships to accomplish the Great Commission.” IFCA International, “Who We Are,” IFCA.org, accessed March 28, 2024, https://www.ifca.org/page/who-we-are. Independent Bible Mission is a “church planting ministry of IFCA International… dedicated to reaching the lost with the Gospel by starting and supporting independent, Bible-teaching churches.”, Independent Bible Mission, Home Page, IFCAIBM.org, accessed March 28, 2024, https://www.ifcaibm.org.
 

[7] Voice Magazine, An Independent Church Journal Volume 93, Number 5, (September/October 2014). The journal carried the title “The Importance of Biblical Counseling” for that issue. Each article was written on a practical theme of biblical counseling. In his article “Importance of Biblical Counseling,” the then IFCA International president shared, “Biblical counseling may be defined in short as: 1) meeting the person where he is and empathetically listening to his story; 2) seeking to find the point(s) of pride and sin in his life; 3) graciously pointing out what is wrong and unbiblical; 4) helping him obtain the desirable behavioral change through his appropriating God’s grace; 5) all of this process based upon prayer, dependent upon the Holy Spirit and directed by Scripture” Les Lofquist, “Importance of Biblical Counseling,” Voice Magazine Volume 93, Number 5 (September/October 2014), https://www.ifca.org/file/bdb4839a-ebbb-11e9-8303-0614187498c1.
 
 

[8] Ralph Hathaway served from August 1982 to August 2000; David Buckley has served from March 2001 to the present.
 

[9] As of the time of writing, there are 15 people in the process of joining.
 

[10] The demographic data in this section comes from the following methods of data gathering: government websites, surveys, church records, and interviews. 

 

[12] Currently, Country Bible Church has people traveling each week from as far as Menominee, Michigan (14 miles), Marinette, Wisconsin (15 miles), Carney, Michigan (20 miles), Peshtigo, Wisconsin (23 miles), and Amberg, Wisconsin (27 miles). 
 

[13] There are several federal agencies that have specific programs funded to help the unmet needs of rural communities. For example, the USDA and EPA have rural development programs. The USDA offers financing, loans, and technical assistance for water and wastewater infrustructure, energy resources, high speed internet access, and electrical infrastructure among many other programs (U.S Department of Agriculture, “Explore Our Programs,” accessed August 17, 2024, https://www.rd.usda.gov/).
 

[14] United States Census Bureau, “Menominee County, Michigan,” census.gov, https://data.census.gov/profile/Menominee_County,_Michigan?g=050XX00US26109; United States Census Bureau, “Quick Facts: Michigan,” July 1, 2023, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/MI. 
 

[15] Ibid.
 

[16] Aurora Health Care, Marinette County Public Health Department, and Provident Health Foundation, “Marinette County, WI/Menominee County, MI Health Needs Assessment: A Summary of Key Informant Interviews,” 2022, p. 12.
 

[17] The suicide rate is nearly double the state average, with 25 suicides per 100,000 compared with 14 suicides per 100,000. University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, “County, Menominee, MI,” countyhealthrankings.org, https://www.countyhealthrankings.org/explore-health-rankings/michigan/menominee?year=2023.
       

[18] University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, “County, Menominee, MI,” countyhealthrankings.org, https://www.countyhealthrankings.org/explore-health-rankings/michigan/menominee?year=2023.
 

[19] Ralph, Hathaway, former pastor of Country Bible Church, interview by author, video chat, March 7, 2024. 
 

[20] Ibid.

[21] Several biblical counseling ministries offer foundational biblical counseling courses, such as the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, the Institute of Biblical Counseling and Discipleship, Mid-America Institute for Nouthetic Studies, and the Biblical Counseling Center. One church that provides biblical counseling training courses is Faith Church in Lafayette, Indiana. The following books are a sampling of sources that offer basics in biblical counseling: John MacArthur and the Master’s College Faculty, eds., Counseling: How to Counsel Biblically (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2005); John Babler and Nicolas Ellen, eds., Counseling by the Book (Fort Worth: CTW, 2019); Bob Kellemen and Steve Viars, eds., Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2021); and Wayne Mack, A Practical Guide for Effective Biblical Counseling: Utilizing the 8 I’s to Promote True Biblical Change (Wapwallopen, PA: Shepherd’s Press, 2021).
  

[22] These five basics or foundational topics came from a survey of five different training courses. The courses surveyed were Reigning Grace Institute’s Firm Foundation course, For the Church Institute’s Fundamentals of Biblical Counseling course, the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors Fundamental Training Course, the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors Fundamentals Online Training Course, and Faith Biblical Counseling Ministries Track 1: Foundational Training. 

 [DB1]This is incorrect as used in the original document. It should be “inerrant in the original writings.”