“Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2, NRSV).” Thus begins the homepage of Stephen Ministries website, and sums up their purpose well. Their mission as stated on their homepage: “Stephen Ministry congregations equip and empower lay caregivers—called Stephen Ministers—to provide high-quality, confidential, Christ-centered care to people who are hurting.”

That we are turning the spotlight on this ministry also seems appropriate after featuring Jenni Poole’s story earlier this month. Jenni took Stephen Ministry leadership training in 2005 and along with another church member, introduced this program to her home church—East Stroudsburg United Methodist Church in Pennsylvania. Jenni says she has “found those skills [learned then] to make an amazing difference in the way I loved and cared for others.  I no longer had to solve their problems, that was God’s task…I was simply a willing vessel to love and care for others.”

And so this 44-year-old organization continues to make a difference in the life of the visible Church. Their records show that more than 13,000 congregations worldwide have enrolled in this ministry and more than 75,000 pastors and lay leaders have been equipped through their leadership training. In turn, those pastors and lay leaders have gone back to their churches and trained more than 600,000 laypeople to become Stephen Ministers. Perhaps most impressive is that more than one-and-a-half-million people have experienced the personal help of a Stephen Minister as they walked through difficult times.

Stephen Ministry training provides Stephen Ministers with Christ-centered essential caring and relating skills. They learn how to listen, care for, and walk with those going through life struggles, such as the death of a loved one, miscarriage, divorce, job loss, or a chronic or terminal illness. The care receivers include not only church members but community members as well. An intake process determines which Stephen Minister would be best qualified to help the receiver. Men are paired with men and women with women. If help is needed that goes beyond the training of the Stephen Minister, the person is referred to a mental health care professional or community agency.

Jenni says that the training she initially received as a leader for the Stephen Ministry program at their headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, was “intense” and the six days were long. But she learned that “God is the Curegiver. We are simply Caregivers.” Finally, Jenni believed that this program had been around long enough so that she and her co-leader could trust the experience and knowledge of what they had learned. They believed if they could implement their local program as they had been instructed, it would be successful.  

Jenni describes the learning curve the leaders in her church program experienced as they began the program. “We learned a lot as time went on about how to select trainees, and how to determine if the Care Receivers had normal coping skills but just needed a good listener who would pray for and with them, or whether they needed more professional help.”

“We learned that WE cannot ever solve another’s problems or even change their behavior…but by allowing them to process their thoughts and feelings and turn them over to the Lord, they would be able to trust God in and through their situations.  We have had many who did not know the Lord come to a saving faith in Christ through the love and care of their Stephen Minister.  I think we all agreed how freeing it was to be able to let God do His work without us personally having to solve another person’s problems.”

This is the 14^th year of Stephen Ministry at Jenni’s home church.  They have trained over 50 members of that congregation to become Stephen Ministers and have ministered to over 250 different folks from the church and community.  They sometimes have joint trainings with other Stephen Ministry congregations, and continue to use wonderful community resources to train their Stephen Ministers twice a month in ways to improve their care.  They still follow the Stephen Ministry guidelines in having Supervision every first and third Tuesdays of the month, and always look for ways to glorify God in ministry.

Jenni says that being a Stephen Minister has “dramatically impacted” how she relates to her own family, in addition to those she is sent to care for. “I have changed how I listen and approach my loved ones, realizing that God works in their lives more effectively if I step out of the way and simply help them look at consequences and possible outcomes, instead of rescuing and trying to protect them from the outcomes of their choices.”

Both congregations and their communities benefit from the presence of Stephen Ministries. Stephen Ministers learn a practical and powerful way to love and serve others. Pastors gain a team of trained lay people who are able to help shoulder the responsibility of serving members in need. Church members are able to go through difficult times with the aid of compassionate brothers and sisters in Christ. In the community, the love of God can be seen by the work of Stephen Ministers which draws others to come to the church.

Megan (not her real name) had moved to a new city near her family after the end of a long relationship. But shortly after she moved, her family had to relocate far away. Then her grandfather died. Feeling alone and struggling with some spiritual wounds in her past, she asked for help from the Stephen Ministry in her church. “I realized that my Stephen Minister was a safe person who wasn’t going to share what I told her with anyone else….What I needed the most was her unconditional love—to know that no matter what I shared with her, no matter what I’d done, she cared for me. Her care showed God’s love for me….Asking for a Stephen Minister is the best thing I could have done for myself.”

To read all of Megan’s story as well as for more information about Stephen Ministries or to learn about how to begin a Stephen Ministry program in your church, visit https://www.stephenministries.org.