Every pastor wants a culture of care, but not every pastor feels equipped to counsel—much less to equip others to counsel one another.

In this episode, Deepak Reju—a Delaware pastor who served for nearly 20 years as the counseling pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church—joins Ligon Duncan and Matt Smethurst to discuss counseling versus discipling, how to build a culture of lay counseling, advice for getting tooled up, tips for pastors who feel out of their depth, thoughts on medication and referrals, and more.

Resources Mentioned:

• “Cure of Souls (and the Modern Psychotherapies)” by David Powlison
• Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness by David Powlison
• How People Change by Paul David Tripp
• How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks
• Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands by Paul David Tripp
• The Art of Disagreeing: How to Keep Calm and Stay Friends in Hard Conversations by Gavin Ortlund
• The Pastor and Counseling: The Basics of Shepherding Members in Need by Jeremy Pierre and Deepak Reju
• Journal of Biblical Counseling
• New Growth Press’s Minibook Counseling Resource Pack
• Counseling Talk podcast
• Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation (CCEF) courses