Do you or someone you know struggle with anxiety and/or depression? Christian counselor Brad Hambrick joins us again this week as we delve deeper into a Christian perspective on mental health – tackling two of some of the most prominent manifestations: anxiety and depression. Although this conversation can be taken on its own, we’d recommend listening to last week’s conversation with Brad. This week, Brad helps us understand what someone means when they say “I struggle with anxiety/depression,” and what the best response is towards them. Whether you struggle with anxiety/depression or not, this conversation will help equip you.

 

Who’s Our Guest?

Brad Hambrick serves as the Pastor of Counseling at The Summit Church in  Durham, NC. He also serves as Instructor of Biblical Counseling at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, a council member of the Biblical Counseling Coalition, and has authored several books including Do Ask, Do Tell, Let’s Talk: Why and How Christians Should Have Gay Friends and God’s Attributes: Rest for Life’s Struggles.

Episode Links

Make sure to check out Brad’s site which is full of resources.

Read It

*Below is an edited transcription of the audio conversation.

With me again this week is Christian counselor and author, Brad Hambrick. Once again, if you’re listening and you didn’t hear last week’s episode, Brad serves as the Pastor of Counseling at the Summit Church in North Carolina. He’s the instructor of Biblical counseling at the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he’s also a counsel member of the Biblical Counseling Coalition. Thank for being here again with us Brad.

My pleasure.

For those who didn’t listen last week, Brad, can you just give us a basic rundown of who you are and sort of what you do?

Yeah, I am a husband and father. I’ve been married for close to 20 years. I have two children who are 10 and 13 so we’re in a fun season of life there. My ministry responsibilities vary between serving as a Pastor of Counseling, which is, at a church of our size, predominately serving as a consultant for our staff and overseeing counseling ministries of our church. Then also as an instructor at Southeastern Seminary, helping people who are wanting to go into counseling related ministries get trained for that.

Cool. That’s awesome. I just was reminded in my time at Bible College, I had one Pastoral Counseling class and our text book was called the BYB, The Big Yellow Book, which was Gary Collins. I don’t know if that’s a resource that you use or not.

It has been updated several times, so the Big Yellow Book is now The Bigger Yellow Book. In terms of overviewing and assortment of mental health concerns and giving some initial best practices, it is. It’s a quality resource.

That’s cool. Anyways, can you briefly give us the definition of mental illness? You’ve sort of worked through that definition. For those who didn’t listen last week, might be helpful for them to hear where you’re co...