Counseling Referrals

Referrals from Local Pastors

If you’re seeking professional counseling, your local pastor can help you find a counselor and provide a referral.

How Stephen Ministry describes referrals

Stephen Ministry teaches that referral to a professional counselor is appropriate when a person’s needs go beyond what a trained lay caregiver can provide. A Stephen Minister offers Christian care and support—not professional counseling—and should recognize those limits rather than try to provide treatment.

What Stephen Ministries provides

The national organization addresses this directly in its training resource, When and How to Use Mental Health Resources. Its contents include:

  • “Defining the Stephen Minister’s Role”
  • “What Stephen Ministers Do Not Do”
  • “When to Refer a Care Receiver to a Mental Health Professional”
  • “How to Refer a Care Receiver to a Mental Health Professional”
  • “After a Referral to a Mental Health Professional Has Been Made”
  • “What to Say—and What Not to Say—When Referring a Care Receiver to a Mental Health Professional.”

In other words, referral is an anticipated part of responsible Stephen Ministry care, not something outside the ministry’s purpose. The publicly available page gives the table of contents, however—not the full guidelines—so it does not establish the exact criteria or wording the training manual prescribes.

What that means in practice

Congregations describing their Stephen Ministry programs explain the approach this way:

  • Recognize the limits of lay caregiving. Stephen Ministers listen, provide emotional and spiritual support, and help people consider resources; they are not professional counselors, psychologists, or social workers.
  • Recommend additional help when needed. When a care receiver’s needs exceed the Stephen Minister’s capabilities, the minister may suggest a referral to an appropriate professional.
  • Professional counseling and Stephen Ministry can work alongside each other. Referral does not necessarily mean ending the caring relationship. Some congregations explicitly provide continued Stephen Ministry support with the professional caregiver’s concurrence. That is a described congregational practice, rather than a universal requirement established by the publicly available national material.

A way to explain it to a care receiver

The following is suggested wording, not a quotation from Stephen Ministries:

“I’m glad we can talk together, and I want you to have the support you need. Some of what you’re facing deserves the help of a professional counselor—help that goes beyond my training as a Stephen Minister. Seeking that help doesn’t mean you have to face this alone.”

For an official training statement or church procedure, the most relevant source is the full When and How to Use Mental Health Resources resource, particularly its chapters on when and how to refer and its appendix on what to say.