America’s mental health crisis extends way beyond statistics, grim though they may be.
It’s the college student raised in a Christian home who chooses the desperate path of suicide.
It’s the teen mocked or bullied at school.
It’s the widow overwhelmed by grief. And so many more.
“Before the pandemic, we had a mental health crisis in our country,” Dr. Tim Clinton, professional counselor, bestselling author and president of the American Association of Christian Counselors, tells Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. He and the AACC offer a powerful solution to help everyone from lay counselors to pastors to mental health professionals to everyday church members address this crisis: the 2021 AACC Waymaker World Conference, taking place Sept. 15-18 at the Marriott World Center in Orlando, Florida.
After the problems associated with the pandemic as well as election concerns, racial trauma and more, Clinton says, “It was intuitive that we would have an uptick” in various mental health concerns … “And we have seen that on steroids.
And the church cannot ignore these problems, Clinton says. “We can’t turn a blind eye again and just continue to focus on not ministering to these people who are flooding into our churches looking for help and encouragement.
“If we don’t meet them at that point of need, like Jesus always did, they’ll go bright out the back door, and they’ll wind up believing that God doesn’t have an answer for the pain and the trial and the challenge that they’re going through in this very moment,” he adds.
AACC’s goal, Clinton says, is to be “clinically excellent, meaning understand the latest on what’s happening in the field, and then be biblically anchored and solid theologically. And it’s been stunning to see what God’s done with it.”
The Waymaker World Conference offers 25 tracks and 175 workshops as well as 50 pre-conference workshops, Clinton says, designed for anyone who works or desires to work in the area of biblical Christian mental health ministry. Keynoters include former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Dr. Ben Carson, Lee Strobel, Darryl Strawberry, Lysa TerKeurst, Levi Lusko, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, Shaunti Feldhahn, John Bevere, Sam Rodriguez, Janet Parshall and worship with popular leaders including Danny Gokey and Jeremy Camp.
“I can’t promise everything,” Clinton says. “But I promise you this: You come to the Waymaker World Conference, and you’re going to be excited about what God’s doing in and through Christian counseling and local church ministry.”
For much more from Dr. Tim Clinton about how anyone with a heart for ministry to others can benefit from the 2021 Waymaker World Conference Sept. 15-18 in Orlando, Florida, listen to the entire Greenelines podcast here. Be sure to subscribe to Greenelines on your favorite podcast platform, and check out Clinton’s books at timclinton.com/books/, {eoa}
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