WP133 | Ask a Pastor: What Churches Look for in Therapist Partnerships with Pastor Payton Stone
What if faith wasn’t something to tiptoe around in therapy — but the very foundation of healing?
In this powerful conversation, Pastor Payton flips the script on how mental health professionals engage with spirituality. For clients whose faith is central to their identity, it’s not just relevant — it’s essential. Payton makes the case that integrating spiritual life into clinical work isn’t just respectful; it’s transformative.
He shares what he looks for in a trusted therapist, how counselors can build real relationships with local churches (without feeling like they’re pitching a service), and why speaking the language of faith can open doors to deeper healing and collaboration. Whether you're a clinician working in Christian spaces or someone curious about bridging the sacred and the clinical, this episode is a must-listen.
It’s not about marketing. It’s about ministry. And it starts with showing up.
Faith as Foundation, Not Obstacle
Many mental health professionals, depending on their worldview, might approach faith with skepticism or sideline it as irrelevant to clinical work. Pastor Payton challenges that perspective head-on. He emphasizes that, especially for clients whose faith is core to their identity, healing must involve the integration of spiritual life. Counselors should not pathologize faith or spirituality — even when it's tangled up with trauma or guilt — but rather explore how spiritual disciplines and church life might support and enrich the therapeutic journey.
For those of us working within the Christian counseling space, this might feel like preaching to the choir. But Payton reminds us that outside our bubble, this integration is far from a given — and the way we talk about it matters.
What He Looks for in a Referral Partner
As a pastor, Payton frequently finds himself in the position of identifying when someone in his congregation needs professional mental health support. And when he refers them out, he's looking for a counselor who:
Honors faith without diminishing clinical excellence
Collaborates with the church (with client consent) to integrate spiritual practices
Sees therapy as walking with someone, not fixing them
Leads with humility, clarity, and compassion
He’s not impressed by credentials alone, though he acknowledges their importance. What stands out most to him is the relational piece: people who see their clinical work as a kind of ministry and are open to building genuine relationships with local clergy.
Connection Before Collaboration
Payton also offers a gentle warning to professionals: don’t lead with an agenda. He recalls a time he was invited to what was billed as a collaboration luncheon, only to find himself on the receiving end of a sales pitch. (Though, to be fair, the pot roast was excellent.) For him, authentic connections begin with coffee, conversation, and curiosity — not a marketing plan.
Simple gestures, like a handwritten note of introduction or a casual email (followed up thoughtfully), go a long way. And while he understands that everyone has a business to run, the tone of outreach matters. The goal should be mutual care, not just client referrals.
Speaking the Same Language
One of the best ways for therapists to build trust with clergy is to speak "church language." Payton encourages counselors to reflect on and articulate how therapy and faith intersect in their work. Don’t be afraid to name the presence of the Holy Spirit in the healing process, or to frame counseling as a form of ministry. For those less fluent in theological terms, he suggests doing some prep work — because shared language can open doors to shared purpose.
Mental Health Needs in the Church
So what issues are showing up most among his congregation? Payton highlights:
Anxiety and depression, especially among young adults navigating a chaotic world
Trauma, increasingly recognized and named thanks to a more trauma-informed culture
Spiritual distraction and disconnection, with many feeling untethered and overwhelmed
A deep need for presence and groundedness, which he often addresses through Christian contemplative practices and spiritual disciplines
His small group for young adults, affectionately called the YAMs (Young Adults at Mulberry), has become a space where vulnerability and healing happen in community. It’s a reminder that the church isn’t separate from mental health work — it’s often the front line.
How Therapists Can Show Up
Payton encourages therapists to resource themselves to local networks of clergy. Whether it’s joining a clergy association, offering to speak at church gatherings, or just letting pastors know you’re available as a support — it matters. He points to initiatives like Macon Mental Health Matters as a model for how therapists and pastors can work together to meet community needs.
As he puts it, pastors often serve as first responders to mental health crises, but they aren’t always trained to handle what they encounter. Your expertise can meet their challenges. You just have to show up.
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[00:00:00] Whitney Owens: Hi, I am Whitney Owens. I'm a group practice owner and faith-based practice consultant, and I'm here to tell you that you can have it all. Wanna grow your practice, wanna grow your faith, wanna enjoy your life outside of work, you've come to the right place. Each week on the Wise Practice Podcast, I will give you the action steps to have a successful faith-based practice while also having a good time.
Now let's get started.
[00:00:29] Jingle: Where she grows your practice and she don't play. She does business with a twist of faith. It's Whitney Owen and Wise Practice Podcast. Whitney Owen and Wise Practice Podcast.
[00:00:47] Whitney Owens: Podcast. Welcome back to the Watts Practice Podcast. I have a really fun episode for you today. So I run a membership community, as you know, through wise practice called the Wise Practice Membership Community, where we get together every week with great content on growing, starting, scaling your practice.
You're also connecting with other faith-based practice owners. But part of that is I bring in an expert once a month to talk about something related to practice growth. A common questions that I get are all about church partnerships. What does that look like? What are pastors looking for? And it has been a goal of mine to get a pastor around to talk about that.
So my husband actually is a pastor, but I thought it might be good to have someone outside of him coming into the episode, even though he has great things to say. Didn't really wanna have that dual situation there. So I decided to bring in someone unbiased, because my husband's very biased about me. So I brought in one of his friends, Peyton Stone, into the membership community to do a q and a.
And I kind of had some questions that I prepared in advance for him, and then the community really fired off some great questions. I was just so full, like I loved it. I loved the content, I loved the collaboration. I loved all the things that we learned that pastors are looking for, and I was like, I have got to air this as a podcast because I wanna provide that information to more than just the membership community so that y'all are hearing that.
So I reached out to Peyton and he was like, of course, whatever I can do to help the Wise practice community, it's all good. So this interview, it's gonna be a little longer than the usual episode, but it's because you're gonna get the content that we had within that presentation. So you're gonna get to know Peyton, you are gonna hear from me.
You might hear some questions from the members within the community 'cause they're awesome and it's just gonna be a fantastic episode. So check that out. If you are wanting more information, you can head to wise practice consulting.com for a free PDF on how to market and network with churches. I've got four tips there on the things that I do.
Some of it's here in the episode, but sometimes it's nice to have it in writing there. So head to wise practice.com that pop up will give you the opportunity to grab that free PDF. Thank you for listening to the show. This is packed full. So we're gonna be asking a pastor all of our questions.
So without further ado, Peyton Stone.
[00:03:21] Pastor Payton Stone: Thank you so much, Whitney, and readings everyone. A little bit about myself. I am going into my fourth year full-time ministry. I serve here at Mulberry Street in Macon. It's a historic downtown church. I'm the associate pastor here, which means I have all the fun and I don't have any other responsibility of the senior pastor, but in all seriousness, that means that I get to do.
A lot of different things. Every day's different. A lot of the work that I do involves pastoral care, and that's what brought me to this position. So when you're a pastor, when you do life in a church, as I'm sure many of you are involved in, churches yourself, you know that it, it's total, it's life. You're doing life together.
So in my role here at the church, I get to see the highs and the lows for folks, and it's very important to me. That we get it right when it comes to those dark moments in life, whether that's at the hospital bedside or visiting families after grieving loss, or dealing with difficulties, or whether it's just here in my office when someone's come with a, an issue or even just doing pastoral care over a phone call.
So I, I found a lot of fulfillment out of that and it's, it's good for me. It's helped me draw from my own educational journey. For a long time I thought I was actually going to be doing what all of you do. I was planning on pursuing a counseling degree after finishing my undergraduate studies. But, uh, I got that calling to ministry and you get it.
You can't avoid it. That's just kind of the nature of it. So I'm thankful for the work that I get to do, but also the ways that I can. Remind people that the healing that we are after as Christians, the healing that God makes available through the power of Jesus and resurrection life is something that is, is total right?
It's body, mind, and spirit, right? We pray for those who suffer and we, we seek to direct people towards finding healing and wholeness. So one of the important things for me is normalizing therapy and, and doing that in a lot of different ways from the pulpit in small groups in one-on-one settings, right?
Normalizing that as an avenue for healing, because I firmly believe that, you know, in the same way that we don't question God working through the work of physicians, right. When you're getting your surgery, I. Y'all are doing such incredible ministry and work yourselves, right? It's very much a calling for you and I applaud you for all the work that you do.
So it's important for me to, on my side of things, to help folks know that it's, it's okay not to be okay. It's great to get, you know, involved in therapy, whether that's preventative as it were, just kind of ongoing, or if it's during moments of acute crisis. I know how to recognize some of those signs. I think we'll talk about that with some of the questions that Whitney has.
But you know, it's important to help folks know that that is just one of the best things that you can do. And I think just being a younger clergy, I'm also 29 years old, some like a baby compared to a lot of my colleagues here in South Georgia. But just being from the kind of cusp of Gen Z and the millennials, right.
I don't really question that a lot. That hasn't been something that I question a lot. So serving in churches with older folks, that can be a little bit challenging sometimes to overcome some of those generational stigmas about mental health. But it's a healthy challenge and it's one that I look forward to.
So, so glad to be here.
[00:06:31] Whitney Owens: I have some questions for you. Yeah. The first one is, what kind of qualities are you looking for in a therapist when you're looking to refer clients to a therapist?
[00:06:41] Pastor Payton Stone: Yeah, great question. So I know this is a group of mostly Christian counselors, right? Mm-hmm. Or those who would identify as that.
So I'm kind of preaching to the choir right here to use one of those church metaphors. But you know, I we're really looking for, I'm looking, see there's a throat clearing. I'm looking for someone who understands that faith is not a barrier to healing. But that it's central to it. And that may be a given amongst this group, but that's not always a given amongst mental health professionals, depending on one's worldview, one's notion of the importance of religious faith or I know that can be a contested claim amongst other practitioners.
So it is important to me that if I've, if I've been working with someone and I know that faith is important to them, and especially if. Faith may be kind of connected in some ways to the presenting issues, right? Feelings of guilt or shame that may be compounded by religious trauma. For example. I need to know the person that I'm gonna be referring them out to as not someone who's going to, again, pathologize that.
Counselors who honor the spiritual life and. If they're open to, and of course, with client consent, are willing to collaborate on the ways in which the resources of spiritual disciplines and spiritual practices in church life can actually be a part of that counseling process. Right? One of those practices that may come alongside the work that's happening in the session, and then also in the time between.
So clinical skills are important. That's of course an a, a no brainer. I'm, you know, I'm gonna want to send someone who is struggling with X, Y, Z to someone who's. Trained to deal with X, Y, Z, right? So knowing someone's professional competencies and certifications or experiences, or even just how you talk about what you like to work with, that's important to me as well.
So they kind of bring it back though. Someone who's not gonna try to fix a problem, but walk with someone in the same way that I try to walk with folks in my own job here at the church.
[00:08:37] Whitney Owens: Yeah, great. I'm even taking notes here, so, alright, so when we are thinking about building trust with pastors, I think a lot of pastors are scared of referring their sheep, you know, out someone they don't know.
Yeah. So how do therapists build that rapport appropriately knowing that you have limited time and so do they?
[00:08:57] Pastor Payton Stone: Yeah, start with relationships and you know, we're all colleagues, right? We're professionals. I think building a network of professional relationships is a healthy thing to do. Whitney and I were talking before some of you got on, and this is just one of the quick things we talked about, but I, but I brought up to her, and I'll bring up to y'all that when I.
Started in this position as a new pastor. You know, I didn't know anyone, but some counselors and then others amongst different ministries that we're connected to. What was most helpful as someone new to an area was people reaching out and saying like, Hey, let's get coffee, or Let's sit down and have a lunch so we can get to know you and know your passions and know where you're at.
And then also talk about collaboration, you know, uh. I recognize that you have your jobs and you have to bring in your revenue, right? So there is that kind of dimension to it, but there's a big difference in my mind between when someone's reaching out to me to build that kind of relational side. Then when someone's reaching out to me because they have an agenda or they want to just like sell a product to me.
So I haven't had that happen with any mental health professionals, but I have had it happen a couple of times with other health professionals. So I'll share an example as a cautionary tale. Shortly after arriving here, the senior pastor here at the time of myself received an invitation for what was pitched as a collaboration luncheon with one of the larger retirement and communities here.
In Macon, we have a lot of folks that live there, and so we're thinking, oh yeah, this will be a time to sit down and talk about what we're seeing and ways that we can. Help folks navigate the kinds of challenges that come with switching to, you know, care facilities and all that kind of stuff. And it ended up just being a sales pitch.
Now, I, I wasn't worse for the wear because we had an excellent pot roast at that lunch and it was delightful. But like that said, it wasn't the best use of my time. You're, you're trying to tell me. Why, like we're the best option instead of getting at, well, how do we actually go about helping folks navigate the movement into senior living?
So that's just one example of getting really turned off by that kind of practice. Uh, you know, it's important for me that when I'm building trust with someone, that I see a heart for ministry. I'm sure like no, because you're a part of the Wise Practice community. I know all of you have a heart for ministry, and I'm sure that comes out when you're meeting folks, but what you do is ministry, even if it's happening in a clinical space.
So it's kind of important for me that I, that I see and hear that out of someone. There's plenty of personality characteristics that make a good first impression. Humility, consistency. Clarity as you might be expressing your vision for what therapy can do and how it can intersect with pastoral care. And then, you know, how do you understand your specialties?
Then again, simple coffee, an introduction. Those are all great things. I'm always looking for an excuse to get outta the office 'cause I get a little stir crazy. So, you know, we'll pop down to the coffee shop and grab something together. That would be great.
[00:12:00] Whitney Owens: Well, I'm glad to know that when I don't have y'all over for dinner, I should serve pot roast.
[00:12:04] Pastor Payton Stone: Yeah, I love pot roast. It's so fun. Like especially at Mississippi Pot Roast, you know, with a little bit of spice to it. Those are great. Those are great.
[00:12:12] Whitney Owens: Oh, that's great. I love how you kind of talked a little bit more about how we approach a pastor. You kind of went into that with our personality skills, our humility, and so that was really helpful to hear.
I think a lot of therapists struggle with getting in the door, so for example, they will reach out and that the question just came through as I'm asking it. There we go.
[00:12:32] Pastor Payton Stone: Yeah. Yeah, I just saw that too.
[00:12:34] Whitney Owens: How do we go about reaching out? Like how do we actually do that and what do we say? 'cause a lot of times what we hear back is nothing.
Or Yeah. You know, we already have people we refer to, even though we might have a specialty that they don't know yet on the, you know, so it's, it's hard to,
[00:12:52] Pastor Payton Stone: yeah.
[00:12:52] Whitney Owens: Start that relationship.
[00:12:54] Pastor Payton Stone: Yeah, I have a sucker for a handwritten letter because it takes time to do that. I try to do that as much as I can when I'm thanking someone.
I was just doing some of those before we hopped on, thanking people for their contributions to the church, just because it takes that I. Extra little bit of effort to, to go through writing it out. So I'm always impressed by handwritten note, welcome, you know, welcoming me to the community or whatnot. So I think that might be a good start.
I think email is good, although email probably has the lowest rate of return, so to speak. 'cause it's easy for stuff to get bogged down. And the email, I just, um, the opinion that that kind of. I never try to call someone first. You know, I want the kind of like touch to be a little bit softer than a phone call.
'cause the phone call might take up more of their time if I'm trying to, to build a connection. But be persistent if you don't hear back, you know, maybe they just, they just got lost in the inbox and send another one later. I'm, I'm never, you know, I never received that as someone being pestering. Now, you know, if you're sending like.
Two emails a day. That's a little bit different, but you know, just be judicious about that. So, handwritten letters though, they're great. Lost art.
[00:14:06] Whitney Owens: Okay. So maybe a handwritten note and something at the end that says, I'd love to take you out for coffee. Please shoot me a text or an email with my contact info.
Yeah,
[00:14:15] Pastor Payton Stone: yeah. Or a business card. If you have 'em, drop it in there. Business cards are nice and I try to keep, you know, I've got plenty, like in my eyes I scoop back. I've gotten, you know. A handful of business cards that folks had given me, just kind of right here that I can pull out and reference if you need these.
So
[00:14:31] Whitney Owens: yeah. Okay. That's excellent. So this kind of goes with it a question that just came through that, how would you recommend going about approaching or working with a pastor who's resistant to people or congregate seeking mental health counseling and that? And that kind of goes into that question,
[00:14:44] Pastor Payton Stone: that stuff.
[00:14:45] Whitney Owens: Yeah. Scared of, you know, when pastors don't really believe in it or agree in it, agree with it.
[00:14:51] Pastor Payton Stone: That's tough. That's tough. Uh, and I, you know, I can't confess to have personal knowledge of that as I shared with you. It's a no brainer for me that these are two things that work well together, but obviously y'all are used to dealing with resistance.
Right. So use some of those best practices from your therapy skills, I guess. But I, I think so in terms of best practices, you can do speak church language, right? And, you know, use that kind of. Uh, shared foundation, right? Especially if you feel competent in speaking church talk, right? Or talking the kind of language of a particular church or tradition, right?
Talk about those kinds of essential things that bind us together in the church, you know, those kind of dogmatic things, as it were. But, but. Don't be afraid to talk about how you see and how you sense therapy and faith intersecting how, and however you parse that out, however you nuance that out. You know, we see, you know, the healing that happens in this session room as a work of the Holy Spirit, for example.
Like, don't be afraid to use those kinds of languages and you know, if that's a struggle for you, take the time to think about that ahead of time. But maybe be proactive in heading off some of the questions because I mean. Again, the question that you threw at me, Whitney, was like, what are some of the misconceptions that pastors have about therapy?
I think if I were to bring it down to one, it would be some folks feel that referring someone out is like a sign of failure or a lack of spiritual power. When I would say it's quite the opposite, that it is an extension of the pastoral ministry and it's okay to like. Especially if you recognize, you know, persistent problems, persistent TRA trauma or clinical stuff, right?
Like that's when you need to send someone out in order to broaden their care team and bring in people who are trained. Because that's one of the challenges that pastors face, I think, is that we. Sometimes they're the first responders. We're first to encounter some of this stuff and not everyone is trained to handle that or trained to identify it.
We have more questions than answers, even if we know the kinds of signs of things that are out of our league. So, and I kinda went around about with that, but to go back to the original question, you know, just don't be afraid to, to. Speak the language of commonality, right? How you see integration as an important part of it, if that's a part of your framework being integrationist between the two domains.
[00:17:19] Whitney Owens: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's great. So what challenges are you seeing mental health wise in the church, though? Like what are common things that therapists should address?
[00:17:29] Pastor Payton Stone: I mean, there's deep anxiety, I feel like. Gosh. So we have a small group for our young adults at church and we call ourselves the yams, the young adults at Mulberry, which I just think is the greatest thing.
And we have a little sweet potato as our logo. If I have, if I can be quick, I'll send it to the chat. It's a lot of fun. I. And we get together and so much of our time together is informal. We're just talking, and this happens in lots of other small groups, but since my wife and I host this one, we see it a lot and you know, we're just, it's tough times right now.
Wherever you're at on whatever spectrum you're checking in on is just tough times. We've got the economy doing this, politics doing that. My family's doing this, my family's doing that. There's a lot of anxiety. And depression is the part of it, whether that's just kind of everyday more mundane or, or clinical.
I see. So that's that. I, I encounter a fair bit of trauma. I think as we, as a culture get more okay with that kind of language of describing things as trauma, as we, as a culture maybe become slightly more trauma informed, I think people are becoming more equipped to talk about the traumas of their life.
And so, thankfully, again, in our small group. We've been going at it for almost four years now together, so it's very much a safe space for folks to come in and talk together, not just to me as the pastor, but we've had some folks open up about some, some really traumatic experiences. And so, you know, my work in that setting is a particular kind of advocate for pastoral care as we're all coming together to try to show healing for folks.
But definitely lots and lots of traumas. I think, you know, it's hard to pinpoint. Oh, I actually wanna talk about this one just kind of in attentiveness, right? Not feeling grounded, not just feeling like life is passing by. The kinds of distractibility of this particular moment I think is due a number on a lot of folks because a lot of the.
For a number of the folks that I kind of meet with regularly, a lot of our work is spiritual disciplines of presence, kind of Christian versions of mindfulness as a way to counteract the kind of speed at which our world is moving and our lives are moving, and as a way to perhaps push back against some of those communal anxieties.
[00:19:43] Whitney Owens: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:43] Pastor Payton Stone: So those would be some of the big ones.
[00:19:46] Whitney Owens: Mm-hmm. So how can therapists help support pastors? As this stuff is coming in, right? Like, and I'm even thinking, I'm kind of giving an example here, like you refer, maybe someone with trauma comes in and you're referring them to therapy. Not everyone's gonna follow up.
Almost just kinda like, how can we have a deeper partnership together to help people get treatment?
[00:20:11] Pastor Payton Stone: Yeah. I think resourcing yourself to networks of pastors in your community is a great thing that you could do. Right? Providing your professional experience to. The pastors in your church, like if you are a church goer, make yourself as a resource available to them to help them become more knowledgeable.
I've got, we've got a couple of LPCs here in our church and they are, obviously, we kind of navigate the confidentiality dimensions of that, but, but it, some of them will be the kind of first call that I'll make if like. I recognize this is not something that I a hundred percent know how to navigate. Well, let me call Emily and, you know, say, well, what do you think about this?
So make yourself available as a, a source of support and figure out how you can navigate that with your pastor in your own church. Many communities like what here in Macon, have associations of clergy. I'm the Vice President of R one here in Macon, the mayor's council clergy. We have regular meetings to talk about things going on in our communities, and we've had different mental health initiatives come and make presentations and trainings to the group, like Macon Mental Health Matters, talking about some of their work gathering research to inform policies in our communities.
So I think if that's something that's happening in your community. Just make yourself avail available. Say, Hey, I'd like to come and talk about whether it's a more in-depth presentation or something more basic. You know, being trauma informed can help shape your ministry, put on, you know, offer to your church or offer to a pastor and to come and sit down and talk about how to recognize signs of X, Y, Z, or, you know, do a primer on that.
Identifying political issues that you might see as a pastor, because I do think. A lot of pastors get really burnt out from being on the front lines and, and not always having the skills or the knowledge to do that. So that kind of your expertise meeting the challenges that we face is, is a great opportunity for partnership.
[00:22:05] Whitney Owens: Hmm, I like that. What are some specific ways that therapists can help pastors feel confident referring people to them? Just outline the process.
[00:22:15] Pastor Payton Stone: I also think that that's not a given, that a pastoral will understand what that looks like, or they may not understand the complexities of the, the client relationship, the the practitioner client relationship, even though it functions somewhat similarly to the clergy.
Parishioner kind of relationship. Uh, talk about your comfortability for partnerships. 'cause that may not be a given. You know, there have been a couple instances where I've been able to refer folks to, to counselors here in the community where we have been able, I've, they, with the client's consent, right?
I, I've received some kind of updates from the counselor, just kind of some basic stuff saying, this is how they're doing, this is what we're seeing. You may feel comfortable doing that. You may not feel comfortable doing that again, of course, with client consent, so. Delineate how that might work, equip them with your contact info.
Again, a business card might be a helpful thing. One of the things I encourage colleagues to do, and I've got it and tempted to pull it up right now, but I won't do that. But I've got just like a one page, right, of just different contact information or counselors in the community that I feel comfortable sharing people with.
So if a, like a direct connection is not easily imaginable in the moment, sometimes it may, you know, as I'm suggesting. Pursuing a counseling relationship with someone, it may just be like, Hey, you know, this, this is a, a list of vetted resources in the community. You know, I feel comfortable with you reaching out with any of these folks.
I wanna take this and look at it. So helping GY come up with that kinda resource for themselves.
[00:23:49] Whitney Owens: That's great. Yeah, had a couple of thoughts as you were sharing just from my perspective and my work with pastors to share with the community. Sorry about that. One is when they do reach out, and I say this to y'all all the time, follow up with people ASAP because people are in need in that moment.
And if you reply, they will always remember what you did to go above and beyond for them. And I've, I've had this happen so many times, or I have, I give my phone number, my cell phone, my personal cell phone to pastors. 'cause by the time they call the practice and that message gets to me. That's gonna take some time.
I want them to feel like they have a counselor on call, just like Peyton was saying with Emily, you know, like, like that pastor can text me. Local thing going on in the community, you know? Can you get involved or what would you recommend for this person? Do you have a therapist you recommend? I. I think that being available like that will set you apart from other therapists who are busy seeing all their clients.
They don't have anyone filter their calls and so you're just able to, to help out more. So, Peyton, I did not send you this question, but this kind of came to me. That's good talking. So sometimes churches for us will pay for therapy sessions for clients. Mm-hmm. And I've done a lot of different things over time.
I've had like partnerships where the church pays a certain amount a month and I offer one course and so many sessions or whatever. So I've had other situations where they just pay for one person at a time. So do you have any like recommendations on how churches might like therapists to do that or what that could look like?
[00:25:20] Pastor Payton Stone: I've seen it different ways. I know that we have here in Macon, a larger Christian counselor collective, right. That started out of one of the churches or connected to one of the United Methodist churches, formerly United Methodist churches up here in Macon. Mm-hmm. That did agreements with churches to pay for a percentage of the.
Parishioners the clients for people that they sent that way. What I think is more common is just gonna be on a case by case basis. And that's, I mean, that's kind of how we do it here. We have pastor discretionary funds. Lots of churches are gonna be tied on their budget, especially your mainline churches like us, United Methodist.
But we do wanna support folks both in our church and who we see with our ministry to. The homeless here in the community. So I think just having rates that, you know, you're comfortable discounting your rates, your hourly rate a little bit for that kind of service as a kind of benevolent thing on your end, might be good to see, but just have those rates ready and prepared to go.
But I think what you're gonna see more commonly is that a case by case kind of thing. And perhaps that's a little bit more easy to navigate, but I could be wrong. Yeah.
[00:26:28] Whitney Owens: That is what we have seen. It can get complicated from an administrative standpoint, especially if we have three or four different churches and clients from different places.
Seeing different therapists, like it does get kind of crazy, but that is definitely the most common. And we've also seen that just, just for y'all as you're looking at working with pastors. If the church says something like, let's say your fee's a hundred dollars, and the church says, well, I can handle. I can pay for three sessions.
Well, we know it's therapist. Three sessions isn't gonna do very much for somebody. So what we'll come back with is, okay, well if you're comfortable with $300, how about could you do $50 a session and let's get six sessions in? 'cause that's a big difference. And then have the client pay. So just encouraging y'all to be creative in the way that the money is spent in that way.
So, but yeah, we're seeing a lot more individual situations as well.
[00:27:19] Pastor Payton Stone: And I know it gets sticky too with the matter of insurance and, you know, we have at our church with such a, a big footprint ministering to those, the working in uninsured and those without jobs, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, we want them to have access to, to, to counseling and to resources as well.
Thankfully, we have some great ministries here in our community that volunteers like yourselves will come in and provide their services for much lower costs. We actually, on our campus, have the Macon Volunteer Clinic, which is a, a healthcare collective that's formed out of volunteers to provide their services to, to provide for the working and uninsured.
So just recognize that that is also, I guess, a dimension in play as well, the kind of socioeconomic dimension behind that. And I know that gets sticky with insurance and all that kinda stuff on your side of things. Yeah,
[00:28:07] Whitney Owens: definitely. Well, I'm gonna jump into some of the questions coming through. If, if a therapist is of a different denomination, do you think that matters?
[00:28:17] Pastor Payton Stone: I saw that question. I'll actually take a step too at the question above that, because listen, I'm gonna refer to whoever I think is most competent, and again, I actually. When, when I was mentioning people in my church, I'm actually looking to them to perhaps get connections outside of themselves. You know, recognizing that this counselor I'm talking to in our church might have a preexisting relationship with the person coming to me, and we don't want dual relationship of force.
So really I start with the people I know in order to. To go through them to get other people that they know and trust and then kind of go from there and, and frankly, I did that with myself. I should have mentioned at the beginning, you know, I did counseling when I was up at Duke. I did my schooling at Duke University.
I'm devastated that they lost, if you follow college basketball, it was a tragic loss. I don't know if what James did with it. I don't even know if he likes. Basketball Whitney. Mm-hmm. But I was pretty devastated that we lost in such a fashion. But you know, you had such a good student insurance up there that you could do anything you wanted with that insurance.
I was like, heck, I'm gonna start going to counseling once a week. And it was great. And it was so important because I spent my time up there in Durham during those pesky covid years. So everything just kind of was flipped on its head, and that was essential to helping me navigate. That moving to a different state and then being stuck in an apartment doing schooling, it was not fun.
And then when I moved down here, met with someone for a little bit. It wasn't really the best fit, so I kind of suspended that relationship, but then had a major life change, had a child come into the world and I did not do great with it. It was, you know, I was definitely dealing with a lot of really intense anxiety, depression.
I mean, it was just not a good time. There's a whole host of reasons why that was the case. But you know, I was like, gosh, if I'm sitting with myself talking to myself in my office, I'm telling you, you need to get to counseling bud. So, you know, sure enough, like I called my friend Emily. I was like, Emily, do you have someone good that I can see this time?
You know? And so sure enough, she connected me with one of her close colleagues, and that has been a essential relationship. So I trust the people that I know to help me kind of make those connections. So, so that's why I mentioned with that. To go to the other question, if a clinician is of a different denomination, hey, we're all brothers and sisters and siblings in Christ, I'm good for that.
As long as, you know, I'm sure that that clinician has a, a similar understanding of the human person that I do because there are are some different understandings of. The Christian life and some of the kinds of issues that we deal with just to be explicit, like I tend to be more affirming in my ministry of all persons and welcoming of people from all different kinds of backgrounds, particularly sexuality and gender.
And it's important to me if I have someone who's dealing with like that particular challenge, because it's such a lightning rod kind of thing, I'm not going to send them to a counselor that I know. To not be as affirming or welcoming. Right. And that's just me being sensitive to the kinds of needs and realities.
You know, I could tolerate that clinician's views. Right. You know, I'm not casting aspersions on that primarily right now, but I'm not gonna send someone to them that they could do harm to, whether in unintentionally or intentionally because of their frames of reference. Especially if they're doing Christian counseling.
'cause that gets really sticky. I. So it's just kind of just knowing. Yeah, just kind of knowing the landscape.
[00:31:43] Whitney Owens: Yeah. I mean I think that it's a great example. It'd kind of be the same idea, like if someone had had an abortion and came to your office and needed to like deal with that trauma, you wouldn't send 'em to a Christian counselor who would like have the faith that would say how bad that was.
Right?
[00:31:59] Pastor Payton Stone: Yeah.
[00:31:59] Whitney Owens: It's a similar concept, and it's not to say one person is right or wrong, it's just understanding. That background and that part of it and, and I have found, at least the last time I met with some pastors, this was actually a church. Very close to my sec, second location. I had four, four pastors that sat down with me for lunch.
It was kind of intimidating. I was like, here we go. But they asked me so many questions about what I thought about all that stuff, you know, and, and I was glad they did because what's most important is that we're navigating people to the right for what they're going through. But then also as therapists, we're not putting our stuff on clients.
It is a fun balance there. But, um. Yeah, it's definitely important. It gets
[00:32:41] Pastor Payton Stone: especially tricky I guess with doing integration therapy. Like I also, in my mind recognize there's a distinction between a Christian, a counselor who is a Christian or a Christian counselor and like biblical counseling, and I don't know how much of like that you talk about within your community.
I mean, I, you know. I know that I've, I've had some people be burned by like biblical counselors, which is not using kind of integration as a framework. It's more so just strictly, it's more of an, it is more, it's closer to the work that I'm doing as a pastoral counselor than I would say the work that you're doing, so,
[00:33:19] Whitney Owens: right.
I think I've hit most of my questions that I had for you. Do, does anyone have additional questions they wanna ask? You can feel free to throw 'em in the chat or just unmute yourself and go at it.
[00:33:30] Community Member 2: Earlier we were talking about reaching out to pastors and connecting with them and whatnot, and there was the conversation of, you know, don't email them like twice a day and all that kind of stuff.
So how long, right? Like if it's six months and we're still reaching out to that pastor, you know, doing like little warm touches here and there, but there's still no response, do we still reach out? Do we back off?
[00:33:52] Pastor Payton Stone: I'll probably back off. I mean, I would say like, give it a month, like a month feels fine to me.
But again, that's gonna, that's gonna vary from person to person. But like, I know I'm busy, I know as much as I try to get to zero red on my inbox, like stuff's gonna slip through the cracks. So, uh, I think. And also bring up, again, like trying to find opportunities to go to, you know, interdenominational inter clergy gatherings to make yourself known.
Those can be great networking opportunities where you can put a face to a name or go to community events where you know, there will be a, a church presence. Right. Those, I think could be helpful ways to be like, Hey, you know, I've been. Trying to email you, but just wanted to like, introduce myself face to face and, and give them the chance to, if they're thinking in their mind, I'm not, I'm not interested in working with you, to just like, at least get them to say that to you instead of ghosting you for months on end, which is fun for no one.
[00:34:45] Community Member 3: So along with that question, you mentioned that you love handwritten notes, so I'm having trouble visualizing a handwritten note that it. It's a profe it's professional. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like on, on a head, head letter, like, you know, we're all taught that business, business writing, you know, it's, it's typed, you know, so yeah, I'm having.
I mean, to me that would look a little too unprofessional. Yeah.
[00:35:16] Pastor Payton Stone: But, and maybe use your best. Yeah. Maybe use your judgment if that's like that's, you know, not how I wanna portray myself. That is akay. I think for me, just because one, I'm doing a lot of those note writings myself to different folks as a way of.
Going even beyond just the email or the kind of formal email. You know, it's important that I'm making a personal connection to people. I think that's why I prefer those, but I think they might be more appropriate than you think, like in certain settings of, so things that come to mind, like if a pastor's new in town, you know, look out for those Methodist churches 'cause they're moving pastors like hotcakes here, there and everywhere.
Like that's part of our identity. We're getting moved around a lot. Just drop 'em a letter and just say, Hey, welcome to town. You know, would love to, to meet up with you. I, I think most folks would receive that pretty warmly because again, what, what I think you're trying to establish with this first point of contact is a relational side of it, beyond just the kind of business dimensions.
Now I totally affirm like trying to be professional and wanting to, you know, convey that side of your practice and who you are as a clinician.
[00:36:24] Whitney Owens: Yeah, I, I've definitely tried to use any kind of connection I can. So, you know, if it's like, oh, I know someone who attends that church. I'll say, oh, you know, Sarah told me to reach out to you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I think that, you know, even in your handwritten note, you could say. Hey, I know someone who attends your church says wonderful things about your preaching. You seem like a great place to be. I would love to make a further connection, you know, whatever you can to kinda personalize that note. I still think it's very professional.
I.
[00:36:53] Pastor Payton Stone: Yeah, thank you notes. Those also go a long way, especially if we've made that referral and if we haven't already talked about what that might look like, that might be an opportunity to, even if you're, you know, sensing like, hey, there might be opportunity for collaboration to, to invite that pastor into that, that opportunity.
[00:37:12] Community Member 1: Sometimes in, in the past we've gotten a referral from somebody who I didn't expect to get a referral because I didn't like actively make that relationship. Mm-hmm. Uh, which is great. We love that when that happens. But I'll use that opportunity to write a thank you note and then I'll be like at the end, like, I would really love to get coffee with you.
Thank you for this referral. I really appreciate your trust and I'd really love to get coffee with you to learn a little bit more about, you know, you and what you do and all of that. So sometimes I use that too to get in there.
[00:37:44] Pastor Payton Stone: Yeah. Another thing, just since we're here, one thing I didn't wanna mention, I just had this in my notes to bring it up.
I like, like. I like a good TLDR too long, didn't read like I like a fact sheet. You know, I want easily accessible kind of information. So if you're able to, to provide one of those, like your practice at a glance, you know, as an attachment or whether in the body of an email or as a, like a flyer or something in a handout.
Those are always appreciated, you know, trying to operationalize some of your things, right? So, you know, since you're talking to a pastor, maybe particularly mention how you integrate faith into your work with a sentence or two, just to kind of give that a qualitative dimension to it.
[00:38:28] Whitney Owens: That's, that's a great suggestion.
I like that. Yeah. Some therapists will just drop cards off or drop flyers off at churches. What do you think about that? Do you think that's effective at all or?
[00:38:41] Pastor Payton Stone: I think that after you've made a first point of contact, right, if you're dropping them off as something that could be. Like I'm, I'm looking out into our kind of main office room.
Like we've just got kind of sitting areas and we have flyers and those kinds of things there. Like especially for something like that, you know, having been in the church office, that's something we're always looking for, those kinds of things. But, um, I would say definitely try to make that first. Touch first, the first point of contact first, and then provide resourcing or again, like, you know, in that initial contact, if, especially if it's through an email, just like a little fact sheet or a flyer.
[00:39:19] Whitney Owens: That's great. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, people drop stuff off at my office all the time to attend therapy groups or whatever. I just throw that stuff away. I don't know who these people are. I don't know anything about them. Another thing, going back to Melissa, this is very similar to what you said. I mean, takes it maybe a little step differently.
If a client comes in and they rave about their church, maybe the pastor didn't even refer them, I will ask to get an ROI for that pastor. I'll say something like, sounds like your church is really important. I'd love to connect with your pastor, even if it's just to, you know, get coffee or whatever. Could you do a ROI?
So that way I can let them know we have a connection and that's helped me get in with new pastors in the area as well.
[00:40:00] Community Member 4: So I have a question. Mm-hmm. You mentioned you like to get out of the office and go have coffee. Mm-hmm. And I, I have a little bit of, okay, so I'm a female. You're a male. Yeah. Yeah. Just is it Okay, say I, I, I would prefer going to the office.
[00:40:20] Pastor Payton Stone: Yeah, that's fine too. Navigate those in the best way. In what, in whatever way is comfortable for you. I get that. That is certainly a relational dynamic there, but from my perspective, like as long as it's in a public space, right. You know, like going out to a very popular coffee shop, I basically hold office hours at one of the coffee shops at Ingleside Village just 'cause I'm over there a lot.
Like I like to get out and about last year I actually did like. Coffee with Pastor Peyton, like I did those after. We were just navigating a lot of stuff here at the church just to try to get out in a different setting because for me it's a neutral setting. That's partly why I throw it out. You know, it's not the church office, like we're just, we're hanging out in the community.
But if that kind of, that dynamic you mentioned is a part of your concern, then by all means stop by the church office. We, we want it to be a welcoming space, so anybody's welcome to pop in. Well,
[00:41:12] Community Member 4: as far as that goes, maybe it's better at a public coffee place instead of the office. I don't know.
[00:41:18] Pastor Payton Stone: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:41:25] Whitney Owens: Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this episode. Peyton provided so much great content for us as therapists to learn how to connect and grow our practices alongside pastors. I know it was an abrupt ending there. Unfortunately, our zooms kicked off all at the same time, so I'm not exactly sure what happened, but you got a lot of great content already from that interview, so I'm really glad to bring that to you.
And if you were listening and you were thinking, gosh, that was so cool, I'd love to be a part of a community of faith-based practice owners that meet every week and have meetings just like this one. Reach out to me, Whitney, at wise practice consulting.com. The membership community is currently closed, but we'll open up later in the year or you can head to the website, join the email list, and when the doors open, we will let you know.
Thanks again for listening to the show.
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[00:42:38] Whitney Owens: Special thanks to Marty Altman for the music in this podcast. Wise Practice Podcast is part of the Site Craft Podcast Network. A collaboration of independent podcasters focused on helping people live more meaningful and productive lives.
To learn more about the other amazing podcasts in the network, head on over to site craft network.com. The Wise Practice podcast represents the opinions of Whitney Owens and her guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only, and the content should not be taken as legal advice. If you have legal questions, please consult an attorney.
