Our mission is to approach counseling from a Pastoral Counselor, Clinical Chaplain perspective. This practice is inclusive of a wide range of individuals (children, adolescents, and adults) as well as couples and families that come from various lifestyles. We welcome the uniqueness that each person brings into the counseling relationship. We are fortunate to have experience providing services to very diverse populations in a variety of settings. When working with a client, we are ultimately headed towards creating a trusting environment that is conducive to exploring and decreasing emotional distress, maladaptive behaviors and increasing personal wellness. The instillation of hope is fundamental to clients in order to acquire the motivation needed to make change. We embrace cultural competency, and am committed to understanding the importance of the client's worldview, which we believe is vital to the therapeutic process. We welcome the opportunity to assist children, adolescents, adults (individuals & couples), and families with issues that may surface in the cycle of life. Many things can bring a person into counseling/therapy. 

As a practice, we at RNLF Counseling Services strongly believed that the only place for a Christian mental health professional to begin is to adopt an unwavering confidence in biblical basics. We further suggest that the Scriptural standard is authoritative and final. Developing total confidence in the Bible does not negate the need to study secular systems, nor does such confidence alone render one competent to counsel. What it does do, however, suggests that there is something wrong with the person who is to be confronted biblically. It arises out of the fact that there is a condition, which God desires changed. The fundamental purpose of biblical confrontation then is to effect personality and behavioral change-- conformity to the image of Christ. God wants change. All counseling aims at change. Without this element whatever we might be doing, it is not counseling. In the word, "restore" we had a term which required change. Usefulness was lost. The change must take place because of the Christian who is caught in sin (Galatians 6:1). The change that is contemplated in the restoration to usefulness is a change in life patterns in which sinful beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors are replaced by righteous ones (see Ephesians 4:22-24).

1. All counseling has to do with changes in beliefs, judgments, values, relationships, thoughts, behavior, and other such moral elements of life, and may be defined in short as….1) meeting the person where he is.... 2) pointing out what is wrong.... 3) and helping him obtain the desirable personality and behavioral change -- based upon Scripture.
2. Problems are solved by verbal means, that is, there must be some Biblical confrontation of the problem at hand.This implies personal, verbal contact in which the Word of God is applied to the counselee. There is no idea here of nastiness, or harshness, or a know-it-all-attitude, in the concept of confrontation. We will deal with this further a bit later. There is training by the mouth, that is, it is a person-to-person verbal use of Scripture-- sometimes by encouragement and sometimes by reproof. There must be a "speaking the truth in love" a truth telling which pleases God (Ephesians 4:15, 25).
3. There must be the element of concernor otherwise confrontation will be sterile, lifeless, cold, professional, harsh, and probably out of a critical spirit. In this care for another there ought to be strong desire and untiring effort to relieve the person of the misery that sinful life patterns have brought upon him. This is true biblical counseling.

From my observation from working with various people over the years in a counseling ministry, I think that people are motivated by three basic dynamics or controlling factors in their lives. There are those who basically are 1) behaviorally motivated. 2) For most people their thought life, (beliefs and misbeliefs) is the controlling dynamic which brings about their behavior. Still others are 3) motivated predominately by their emotions as they react emotionally and then think about their sinful behavior later.

The  acrostic- P R E A C H has traditionally served as a great  model.

1. PHYSICAL ASPECTS INVOLVED.
2. RESOURCES AVAILABLE--Family, Friends, Church.
3. EMOTIONAL FACTOR--Depression, Anger, Bitterness, etc.
4. ACTION OR BEHAVIOR--Directive Counseling--Adams' approach-Based on Behavior As The Basic Motivating Dynamic.
5. COGNITIVE ASPECTS OF BIBLICAL COUNSELING–Recognition of Thoughts and their Effect on the Life.
6. HOMEWORK-- AN AID TO HELP THE COUNSELEE

Counseling is a planned, coordinated process where clients can learn new ways of thinking and behaving. The information gained from the case study is used to establish a behavioral baseline from which both the counselor and the patient can measure future progress to the presenting problems identified earlier in the chapter. This plan contains the client's treatment objectives, goals and measurable outcomes, all laid out in a clear, detailed process.