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Standard Name:Guidelines for Ministers & Staff Who Are Not Licensed Counselors In Spiritual Care Situations
Scope:All Staff, Associates, and Volunteers
Revision Date:May 23, 2023
Last Review Date:May 23, 2023

This information is for all ministers and staff who do spiritual care as a part of their field ministry work with Reliant. These guidelines are given to reduce the risk to Reliant employees and Reliant as an organization. Reliant's ministry is not intended to help to train or develop counselors.

Pastoral/Spiritual Care Guidelines

  • Clarify that you are not a professional counselor or therapist unless licensed within the state where you work. 
  • If you have a certification or credential but are not licensed, ensure that the individual you are providing care to understands the difference between the services you can offer and what a licensed counselor or therapist treats.
  • Do not attempt to diagnose a physical or mental condition or provide medical advice about any medications.
  • If asked for a diagnosis of a mental state, direct the individual to a licensed counselor or a mental health professional.
  • Avoid using the title "counseling" if you're not licensed or certified. For example, avoid the label "Pre-Marriage Counseling" if the pastor or staff member doing the sessions is not licensed or credentialed.
  • Consider providing in writing to the counselee an overview of the type of care you are able to offer and what you are not able to provide.

Duty to Report

All Reliant staff are expected to understand the duty to report requirements within their state and must comply with them. For example, if a person intends to hurt themselves or someone else or if there are elderly or children in danger, there is likely a responsibility of the staff member to report this to an appropriate agency. You should not assume a church or clergy exception without prior written verification. 

See: Child welfare policies by state

Standards of Conduct pages

16 Comments

  1. user-231f6

    Dave Meldrum-Green: How do we feel about getting further comment on this as well from Paul Standinger and Tim Courtious as certified counselors on GCM staff, and Steve Kessler as a field pastor who has interest and experience in how counseling referrals work from field staff, and Brooke Summers as a senior woman minister from a female of view?

    1. Dave Meldrum-Green

      Great suggestions, Chris. I already ran it by Paul Standinger. Tim Courtious was actually next on my list. But I never thought about Steve Kessler and Brooke. I'll also send it out to them as well. I also rec'd good input from Rick Keith from Ann Arbor when I was at the Staff Conference.

  2. Dave Meldrum-Green

    Tom,

    Given the fact that we instruct staff in the polciy to "Avoid using the title of "counseling" if you're not licensed"....I think we need to also  take out "Counseling" from the title of the policy. So go with.....GCM Guidelines For Ministers & Missionaries....

  3. Tom Mauriello

    Agreed - we could change it to "who are not licensed counselors" and that would read better.  

  4. Dave Meldrum-Green

    Good suggestion. Just changed it.

  5. Dave Meldrum-Green

    The GCM board approved this policy at the June 14, 2013 board meeting.

    They amended section 8 - first sentence to now read....

    8.  All GCM staff are expected to understand the duty to report requirements within their state and must comply with them.

  6. Dave Meldrum-Green

    I have also added a web link for staff to research state by state child abuse reporting requirements.

    https://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/state/

    Chris, I'd like to post these new Board approved Guidelines on StaffNet. Let me know if you want to do the write up announcement or if we just want to review something that I write up.

  7. user-231f6

    Dave - yep, I think it's great to have these in PDF form posted to forms, and then write up a News announcement announcing that they are new and summarizing why they are important.  We can schedule an e-mail for them, since I think any new policy should get an e-mail.  

    1. Dave Meldrum-Green

      Thanks Chris. I'll write up an announcement and run it by you.

      Also, saving things in PDF form from Solomon can be tricky. Do you have a preferred standard format that you'd like to see policies and guidelines like this saved in?

  8. Sarah Swann

    user-231f6 we need to move or copy this page over to the Field Manual. I found a PDF on staffnet and was about to create a page when I saw we already had one made that just needs to be moved. Just leaving comments on pages that I find that need to move over to the field manual. (smile)

  9. Dave Meldrum-Green

    Julie Thomas Also wanted to make you aware of this doc as well. I wrote this up for insurance reasons for our missionaries who are NOT licensed, counselors. Currently, we only have five Lic. counselors on staff - 3 FT and 2 PT. 

  10. Julie Thomas

    Matt Elkins, Dave Meldrum-Green, Mike Swann, CJ White - Hey all! In our policy review, I did some major edits to this policy to make it more concise. I see from the comments above that this was previously reviewed by some of our staff who are mental health professionals 10ish years ago. We can do that again, but I wanted to get your input first. I think it is important to consider how much broader our staff has gotten in the last 10 years.

    1. CJ White

      Thank you Julie Thomas ! I have never seen this document and is helpful to know it exists. This is a difficult topic as almost every pastor I know steps into some form of counseling. Especially regarding the phrase of "pre-marriage counseling". I could list several of our church partners that operate in this fashion and are not licensed counselors but pastors. I totally understand the sentiment and liability issue and not wanting to give professional advice if individuals are not licensed counselors. I just wanted to get some clarity if we are really wanting our partners/pastors to communicate differently/use different verbiage if conducting pre-marriage counseling, etc. And as for license is the need to be a LPC or will a Biblical Counseling license suffice for some forms of counseling? That might be a helpful distinction to note if there is a preference. 

      1. Dave Meldrum-Green

        CJ WhiteGreat comments! We realize that this can be a very gray and murky area for the church. But Licensed Professional Counselors are licensed by the state they practice in. Currently, Reliant has 3 of them that we report to our insurance carrier on our annual application for Professional Liability Insurance.  A Biblical Counselor would have to meet their state requirements to become licensed. I am not aware of an actual Biblical Counseling License. Could you elaborate on that more? I know there are Certified Biblical Counselors (who may or may not be licensed in the state they practice in). 

        1. Julie Thomas

          Yes, if you are looking at the "ready" version, you'll note that I made some edits that acknowledge the difference between a credentialed counselor and a state-licensed one in the 2nd bullet. In the last bullet, I re-wrote it keeping in mind that there are some credentialed counselors (typically Biblical counselors) that would offer pre-marital counseling. However, hopefully, bullet 2 will address the differences between the two. 

  11. Julie Thomas

    Reviewed by Tracy Johnson, counseling consultant, on 5/6/2023.