By Taylor Stuck, Communications-Writing Major
Foundations Christian Counseling, founded in 2002, works: “to serve the church and community through biblically-based, professional counsel, resources and instruction for Christ-like growth and change,” as their mission statement says. Foundations has multiple offices in Pennsylvania, one in New York and one in Vermont. In the 2015, God opened up the doors for Jeremy Yeckley (’12), to bring Foundations to the Clarks Summit University campus.
As Yeckley was finishing his Master of Science in Counseling at CSU, his pastor challenged him to launch his own professional counseling ministry. Yeckley studied various ministry models and interviewed the directors of several existing Christian counseling centers, including Foundations’ executive director and founder, Fred Jacoby. Jacoby invited Yeckley to plant and develop new Foundations offices instead of starting from scratch.
Yeckley said, “It’s kind of one of those things where you know God wants something to happen—you don’t exactly know how it’s going to happen, so you just start walking by faith and trust He’s going to bring the pieces together.”
Yeckley is director of new initiates at Foundations. Foundations new counseling center openings use what Yeckley describes as a “church-planting model.” Instead of planting new churches, Foundations plants new counseling centers in areas where churches and communities have a need for biblical counseling services. “Foundations was never designed to operate as an independent ministry. We’re constantly collaborating with churches, staff and other local community providers…we want to work together with the individuals we serve to help them feel supported wherever they’re at.”
Foundations partners closely with local churches and Christian ministries. Church ministry partners and donors provide funding that helps offset counseling expenses for families in need of Christian counseling. This model allows the ministry to function independently of insurance companies. The center offers services for churches such as conferences, seminars and training events to equip and encourage professional counselors and pastors and those in the church community who desire to grow in their ability to care for others.
Many of Foundations’ counselors are CSU graduates, having a shared vision for serving Christ through counseling others. Yeckley says that the center appreciates the thorough education CSU students receive, which equips them with both a solid foundation for biblical counseling and a practical knowledge of psychology. He says the way CSU prepares students to be competent and clinically informed in both of these areas is extremely valuable, saying, it “equips you to be able to serve Christ, whether it is in a ministry or clinical context.”
In turn, Foundations helps prepare CSU’s counseling students for effective ministry. Counseling students have the opportunity to gain valuable real-life experience on campus through observations and internships with Foundations.
The close ties between CSU, Foundations and the surrounding community help students who are seeking to minister to others through biblical counseling and those who benefit from biblical counseling resources. Yeckley says many of the church ministry partners and churches that host Foundations’ events are already connected with CSU, so it helps relationships develop naturally.
Foundations Christian Counseling is interested in helping CSU alumni open Christian counseling centers in communities that lack access to the recourses they need. Alumni can contact Jeremy Yeckley at jyeckley@foundchristcounsel.org if they believe their church or community would benefit from a Christian counseling center.
CSU Alumni at Foundations
- Kelly Haight, (’79, ’81)
- Paul Osborn (’79, ’16)
- James (Jim) Lane (’86)
- Ingrid May (’95)
- Livia Gallo (’08)
- Jeremy Yeckley (’12)
- Zack Rollinson (’17)
- Nicole Stania (’04)
