What Is Stephen Ministry?

What Exactly Is Stephen Ministry?
Stephen Ministry is a ministry in our congregation in which trained and supervised lay person, called "Stephen Ministers," provide one-to-one Christian care to individuals facing life challenges or difficulties.

Who Is Involved?
Stephen Leaders are the ones who oversee and direct our Stephen Ministry. They recruit, select, train, organize, and supervise our Stephen Ministers, identify people in need of care, and match them with a Stephen Minister. We have two Stephen Leaders. They are: Rosario Cartwright and Patti Caple.

Stephen Ministers are the caregivers. They have been through 50 hours of training in Christian caregiving, including general topics such as listening, feelings, boundaries, assertiveness, and using Christian resources in caregiving.

What Do Stephen Ministers Do?
Stephen Ministers are caring Christian friends who listen, understand, accept, and pray for and with care receivers who are working through a crisis or a tough time.

Are Stephen Ministers Counselors?
Stephen Ministers are not counselors; they are trained lay caregivers. Their role is to listen and care - not to give advice or counsel. Stephen Ministers are also trained to recognize when a care receiver's need exceeds what they can provide. When that happens they work with care receivers to help them receive the level of care they really need.

In addition, their training covered specialized topics such as ministering to the divorced, hospitalized, bereaved, and aging. We currently have 15 active Stephen Ministers.

Care receivers are the recipients of Stephen Ministers' care. They are people from Asbury or community who are experiencing divorce, grief, loss of a job, loneliness, hospitalization, terminal illness, or any of an endless number of other life difficulties. Stephen Ministers usually meet with their care receivers once a week for about an hour for as long as the care receiver will benefit by the relationship.

Can I Trust a Stephen Minister?
Trust is essential to a caring relationship and Stephen Ministers are people you can trust. Confidentiality is one of the most important principles of Stephen Ministry and what a care receiver tells his or her Stephen Minister is kept in strictest confidence.

Why the Name Stephen?
The name Stephen comes form St. Stephen, who was the first lay person commissioned by the apostles to provide caring ministry to those in need as recorded in Acts 6.

What's the Pastor's Role?
Pastors will always be the primary caregivers, but there is no way pastors can meet all the needs to care. God has called all of us, not just pastors, to minister to one another. Stephen Ministry multiplies ministry by turning pastors into equippers, so they can enable lay people to provide caring ministry as well.

How Can Someone Become a Stephen Minister?
Begin by talking to one of our Stephen Leaders or Stephen Ministers and they can tell you more. We usually train a new class of Stephen Ministers every year and we plan to begin our next training class on January 7, 2005. Stephen Ministers make a two-year commitment to train and serve.

Where Did It All Start?
Stephen Ministry has been around since 1975, when Kenneth Haugk, a pastor and clinical psychologist, began it to multiply the caregiving in his congregation in St. Louis, Missouri. We have had Stephen Ministry at Asbury since commissioning our first class in May, 2004. There are more than 7,000 Stephen Ministry congregations from more than 90 denominations. Stephen Ministries St. Louis, the organization behind this international ministry, is headquartered in Missouri.

How Can Someone Receive Care from a Stephen Minister?
Our Stephen Leaders coordinate referrals. If you or someone you know could benefit from the care of a Stephen Minister, you can talk to them or to one of our pastors. Any of our Stephen Ministers would also be happy to help you through the process. (If you want to talk about Stephen Ministry for someone else, make sure you get his or her permission first.)

How Much Does It Cost?
Stephen Ministry is a caregiving ministry available to Asbury members and our community free of charge.

What Does the Stephen Series Logo Mean?
The Stephen Series logo consists of a cross and circle together with a broken person and a whole person. The broken person behind the cross symbolizes the brokenness in our lives due to our sin and imperfections. The whole person stands in front of the cross because it is only through the cross of Jesus that we are made whole. The circle symbolizes both the wholeness we receive through Christ and God's unending love for us.

"Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." (Galations 6:2)