practical steps to starting a soul care ministry on this edition of Truth and Love.

I'm Dale Johnson and you're listening to Truth and Love, a podcast of the Association of Certified

Biblical Counselors, where we seek to provide biblical

solutions for the problems that people face. Today on the podcast, I have with us, Pastor Scott Mel,

and I love getting to know Scott. Every time that we're around one another, it's just been a

privilege and a pleasure with his laugh and the laughter that we share together is just

such a fun thing. And even hearing about his experiences there in L.A., he's the pastor of Cornerstone

church in West L.A. And, man, Scott, we've talked several times even throughout this last year and a half.

And man, some of the challenges and difficulties that you guys have faced in your location, but then navigating that, trying to shepherd the people well, I've been encouraged. I know it's been stressful and difficult, but I've been encouraged by, you know, hearing some of those stories. I pray that there'll be an opportunity for us to share some of those at some point. He's been a pastor there for 15 years. He's married to his wife, Laura, and they have four children. He's an ACBC member as well. And I just, I love his heart as a pastor, as a shepherd, loving to just spend time with people. And today we're going to talk specifically about this idea of starting a soul care ministry. I have people all over the place, everywhere that I go asking these types of questions, looking for resources, wanting to know more about how do I even get started in this direction? And Scott, I think you're going to be really helpful to us today to think through some of these. So let's just start, and some of this is going to be semi-testimonial, and some of it's going to be just encouragement.

And I want you to just explain for a second.

How did the Soul Care Ministry at your church get started?

Yeah, thanks, Dale.

Man, it is always so good to be together.

I think for us, the Soul Care Ministry or counseling ministry began for us really just out of the need of seeing people hurting and our pastors wanting to know how we could better help and walk with them.

And I think sometimes particularly when people are just starting out, you know, you look at a

church with a robust

counseling ministry or robust soul care ministry or programs, all these things. You're like,

okay, how do I start that? And really for us, it just started one at a time. You know, it started

by just counseling one person, just caring for the person in front of you. And you care for the person in front of you and the next person in front of you and the next person in front of you.

Over time, not only were there pastors and leaders with burdens for people around them,

but there were more and more people who had been counseled, who had seen the power of the spirit of God

to transform hearts in the darkest suffering and the deepest sin and they wanted to help

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