Who Is Perimeter Counseling?

"Do we really need another counseling option in Atlanta?" I wrestled with this question a few years ago as I knew of a growing number of counselors and even more counseling organizations in and around North Atlanta. But I couldn't shake this question: "Where is the church's voice in the counseling conversation?". 1 Or put more pointedly: “Shouldn’t the church be the place that offers the best care for people?”

I certainly wasn't the first one to ask this question, nor will I be the last. 2 The more I read, prayed, and studied, the more I knew the Church - specifically my church - should play a role in the counseling conversation. Thankfully, the leadership at Perimeter Church was in agreement.

What would it look like to have a counseling organization that ministered to the people of Perimeter Church, but also to the surrounding community? What would it take to have counselors who were both experienced and wise in studying people (the stuff of psychology) and the Scriptures (the stuff of theology)? What would it look like to have a counseling center that lived inside a church, supporting the leadership and discipleship structures, but not replacing the need for these structures? Could a church-based counseling center strike the balance of both excellent professionalism and loving, pastoral warmth? These questions were the energy behind what we now call Perimeter Counseling.

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The word “counseling” can have a variety of meanings. Rather than seeking to give the most perfect, well-rounded counseling definition in history (an assuredly futile exercise for yours truly), I’ll tell you a bit about us. Here is what we mean when we say “counseling” at Perimeter: We are a Christ-centered, clinically informed counseling center that is redemptive in purpose, holistic in care, and practical in application. Let me unpack what we mean by those terms.

Christ-Centered

If I could have one phrase that defines our counseling, I’d want it to be “Christ-centered”. I tell our counselors that if all else fails and the person in front of you is loved and pointed to Christ - that is a success. 

To be Christ-centered is to have one primary, overarching, main goal in counseling: God-glorifying heart change. 3 We want to help you worship God with the thoughts, emotions, choices - and even the desires - of your heart. That's our goal: that Christ would be exalted in each heart as we grow in faith through our union with Him. 

How does this make us distinct? Mike Emlet, a faculty member of CCEF (Christian Counseling Educational Foundation), sums up what is distinct about our counseling:

Biblical language is our native tongue. While fluency with psychological conceptualizations and methodologies may indeed be helpful as a second language, our counseling theory and methodology is driven by Scripture's view of people as physically embodied, relationally and situationally embedded, image-bearing worshipers of the living God. 4

 Clinically informed

A native tongue is something that naturally flows from you. It is the natural way of speaking, the gut-reaction, the go-to words for any situation. Can someone be fluent in two languages? Certainly. But there is always something about that second language that is just that - secondary.

Our native tongue is Christ-centeredness, as Emlet puts it, being “driven by Scripture’s view of people…” Our secondary language is the way psychology would understand a person, including observations and methods that might be helpful to help that person get better. We believe that psychological research, data, and methodologies can be helpful secondary sources to aid in our goal of Christ-centered heart transformation.

Redemptive in Purpose, Holistic in Care, and Practical in Application

At Perimeter, our counseling is redemptive. We want to locate your story within the context of the redemptive-historical Biblical storyline.

How do we do this? We listen and locate. First, good counseling listens to a person's story and all the "rabbit trails". In the counseling room, people often apologize for going "off track". I quickly remind them that no piece of a story is meaningless, because everything said (or left unsaid) tells a story about your experience. Through listening well, a counselor locates the person’s story within the larger metanarrative of Scripture, connecting our lives to God’s plan of redeeming the world (Ephesians 1:9-10, Rev. 21:5). God is working in your life right now to: 

bind up the wounds of your broken heart, 

walk with you in your suffering,

break you of sin’s reign and power,

make you more like Him,

bring redemption to those around you,

for the sake of his glory…

and so much more. 

We want to help you connect your story - the good, bad, and the ugly - to God’s redeeming work. Because in that you will find purpose, and in that you will find joy. But most importantly, in that you will find Him.

Next, our counseling is holistic. Christian anthropology understands that people are created both body and soul. Therefore, although we focus on the “heart” or “soul” in our counseling, we can’t neglect the influences of the body. Mike Emlet elaborates:

...the Bible…compels us to look at both potential bodily weaknesses and the sin that arises out of the heart. The riches of the gospel apply not to generic “hearts,” but real flesh and blood people struggling in specific situations with specific heart issues. Robust biblical counseling must walk the tightrope of acknowledging real somatic influences while rejecting any world-view that minimizes the coram deo aspect of living, as expressed in obedience to the first and second Great Commandments. Put another way, faith and repentance never occur in a vacuum, but are expressed in the midst of the unique bodily pressures that provoke the heart. 5

Notice what Emlet says here. Understanding this body-soul interaction is like walking a  "tightrope". That being said, we approach people’s experiences and bodily influences with great humility and curiosity.

Finally, we aim to be practical in our care. We need tools for change. We need to replace harmful thoughts with helpful thoughts (Phil. 4:8). We need to understand how to grieve, to lament, to forgive, to move forward. If  the truth discussed in the counseling room never hits us at street-level, then we will not move forward with lasting heart change. Theology is practical, because God is involved with every thought, word, and deed of our lives.

All of this sounds great and is important - and it is important. But at the end of the day it boils down to this: we want to offer you the same comfort we’ve received from God Himself (2 Cor. 1:3-4). If you need direction, are stuck, are struggling, or in pain - we hope you can find a home here. We know Someone who can help. 

1 For more of a backstory, see A History of Pastoral Care in America: From Salvation to Self-realization by E. Brooks Holifield.
2 The Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation’s motto is to "Restore Christ to counseling and counseling to the local church.” I’m indebted to their labors)
3 See Identifying Heart Transformation by Nate Brooks
4 Emlet, Mike. The Biblical in Biblical Counseling, Journal of Biblical Counseling 35:1 (2021), 4.
5 Emlet, Mike. Understanding the Influences of the Human Heart, Journal of Biblical Counseling Winter 2002, 50.

Replacing False Beliefs with the Truth

At the outset of this blog, let me give credit to Robert McGee’s work provided in his book The Search for Significance (highly recommended reading). Much of what follows has this book’s DNA. 

In February of 1971, Paul McCartney formerly of the Beatles wrote a song titled “Another Day” – the song describes the daily routine of a lady, unhappy and mundane, expressing “it’s just another day.” Is that how you woke up thinking or feeling this morning? I have fallen prey to that mindset all too often.  

Let me ask another question: as you move through these mundane days, do you find yourself seeking meaning in the acceptance and approval of others? Don’t know? Well, let’s check that out. 

Ask yourself these questions: 

1. Do I tend to believe that I must meet certain performance standards to be approvable – to have worth?

2. Do I tend to believe that I must be esteemed by certain others to be acceptable? 

3. Do I tend to believe that those who fail (including myself) are unworthy of love and deserve blame and punishment? 

4. Do I tend to believe frustratingly that I am what I am - I cannot change - I am hopeless and full of shame? 

If you emphatically said “yes” to any of these questions, then you might be mired in the quagmire of “false beliefs.” Based on my tendencies, and based on what I have seen, I suspect you might struggle with at least one of these items. 

As we look left and right in our world, we find ourselves desperately wanting to achieve some notable feat, or be included in various social, academic, athletic, economic, or other circles with high approval and acceptance. Further, we tend to look at the performance, behavior, beliefs of ourselves and others and quietly judge that people that don’t measure up are unlovable, and should suffer punishing consequences. And like the McCartney song above, some of us simply fall into the rut of the mundane, frustrating thought that I am unchangeable and simply “this is my life and I will just live in shame.” 

If you read McGee’s book, you will find his overarching false-belief formula to be: 

My (and others) Worth = My (and others) Performance + Other People’s Opinions about me (them) 

So if this formula is true, approval, acceptance, blame, and shame are tied to our performance plus what others think about us. You may be thinking: “Of course this is the measurement – we live in a performance-based society!” But this thinking is directly opposite to Biblical Truth. 

Even worse, these habitually wrong beliefs can lead to various forms of anxiety or depression that sometimes even reach clinical levels. The associated struggles from false beliefs show up in excessive anger, jealousy, bitterness, frustration, disappointment, sadness, risk-taking, compromising, medicating, nervousness, and other problematic behaviors.  

Unfortunately, if the beliefs stay unnoticed and unreplaced, we become a part in the final verse of McCartney’s song about “just another day”: 

So sad, so sad. Sometimes she (we) feels so sad.  

Oh, but because of God’s great mercy and His Word, we can deal with this! As a biblical counselor, I am tasked, through God’s Word and by God’s power, with helping people dispel the false beliefs that they have adopted, and replace those false beliefs with the Truth of the Scripture.

While our subject lady in the noted song lyric is looking for who-knows-what, we point to Jesus and His finished work to change our outlook in the Search for Significance. 

So, let’s look at the Scriptures to give us the proper spiritual mindset as we begin each day where His mercies are “new” as conveyed in Lamentations (of all books!). The remedy is tied to the finished work of Christ. 

1. Approval (versus failure) – Our quest is to replace the false belief that I must meet certain standards to have worth. (Example: If I could just get that promotion, I would be worthy of approval.)  
   
   We replace this by embracing the Truth with the theological concept we term Justification. This Truth emphatically says that we have been declared 100% righteous based on  Christ’s perfect righteousness that was transferred to us when we embraced Jesus by faith (Ref. Romans 5:1, 2 Corinthians 5:21 e.g.). Thus, being declared “perfect” based on what Christ has done on my behalf, at what higher level do I need to perform to be approved? The answer is obvious. 

2. Acceptance (versus rejection) – Our quest is to replace the false belief that I must be esteemed by certain others to be worthy of acceptance. (Example: If I could just economically measure up to that group, they might accept me into their clique and I would love it!).  
   
   We replace this by embracing the Truth with the theological concept we term Reconciliation. This Truth emphatically says that although at one time (outside of Christ) we were at enmity with God (not in His clique as it were), we have now been reconciled to Him by the finished work of Christ – not only reconciled, but adopted! (Colossians 1:21-22, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 e.g.). Thus being reconciled to and adopted by almighty God Himself, how many more earthly acceptances do I need to be fully accepted? The answer is obvious. 

3. Innocence (versus blame – punishment) – Our quest is to replace the false belief that those who fail (including myself) are unworthy of love and deserve to be punished. (Example: The behavior of my teenage kids drives me mad, makes me angry, and I am going to give them a tongue-lashing they’ll never forget.)   
   
   We replace this by embracing the Truth with the theological concept we term Propitiation. Simply put, God’s wrath against our sins has been satisfied by His unleashing of punishment onto Jesus at the cross where Jesus said, “It is finished” (1 John 4:9-11 e.g.). Thus, if Jesus has appeased God’s wrath on our behalf, how much more punishment does our or someone’s performance deserve? The answer is obvious. (Guidance and discipline to those teenage kids -yes; verbally abusive punishment – no). 

4. Flourishing (versus shamed / stifled) – Our quest is to replace the false belief that frustratingly posits I am what I am - I cannot change - I am hopeless. (Example: My past sin is so grave; this burden will never be lifted – I am hopeless.) 
   
   We replace this by embracing the Truth with the theological concept we term Regeneration (tied to Sanctification - Ephesians 2: 1, 1 Corinthians 5:17e.g.). When we embrace Christ through faith, the Bible is clear that we have become new creations, and that God now does a work in and through our new heart. He does change us as we grow in Christ so that we can look forward and not wallow in shame. Really – is God unable to change you? The answer is obvious. 

The application to dismissing false beliefs is straightforward, but it will take full reliance on the Holy Spirit to undo the habitual patterns of thinking and behavior that have plagued us for so long. We must (by His power) daily renew our minds (Romans 12:1-2) to recall and know that we are fully approved, fully accepted, fully significant to, fully loved by God, and ever-changing in and through the finished work of Christ. If resting in God’s finished work is an application, then that is your and my application. However, it does not mean we rest from being about his Kingdom’s work.  

On the contrary, we stop the folly of seeking approval, acceptance, security, love in worldly desires (things and relationships) all the while dismissing our adopted position through the finished work of Christ. With that change, resulting from our gratitude and love for/from Him, we become immersed in His desires: Worshipping Him, serving others, spreading the Gospel, making disciples. 

Over time, the lyrics can become: 

Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee.