Brown puts biblical counseling skills to work at Union Gospel Mission

When Maranda Brown heard the representative from Union Gospel Mission in Dallas share about the ministry opportunities at the Dallas-based ministry in her fall 2021 Emotions and Addictions course at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, she had no idea she would soon be putting into action the skills she was learning in the classroom.

At first Brown, a Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling student from Euless, Texas, was hesitant to begin serving as a volunteer with the ministry. Though the ministry’s representative explained the students were equipped to minister to UGM’s constituency because they knew the Word of God, Brown said it wasn’t until after Jonathan Okinaga, assistant professor of biblical counseling in the Jack D. Terry School of Educational Ministries, reminded the class the Holy Spirit would provide “the right words to say” and that it would be Christ “doing the work,” she felt ready to volunteer. Following Okinaga’s reminder, Brown and a classmate decided they would serve at the ministry together.

A stone’s throw from Dallas’s hospital district, and in the shadow of downtown Dallas, is the Center of Hope Women and Children’s Shelter. Though UGM has been ministering in Dallas since 1949 when the city’s Christian businessmen began sharing the Gospel with the poor on the city’s streets, the ministry’s shelter for homeless women and children did not open until 2002. The women who seek assistance from the shelter are often homeless, have been abused, and have children in tow.

When Brown began serving as a volunteer at the shelter in October 2021, she started in the cafeteria, meeting the women, and eating lunch with them. She explained this helped build a “level of trust” with the ladies and allowed them to get to know her and vice-versa. After a few weeks of building relationships with the women, Patrice Denning, women’s program director of the Center of Hope, mentioned to Brown there were ladies who were ready for counseling. Though “excited,” Brown said she was hesitant due to her age – the 20s-something Brown was assigned a 48-year-old woman to counsel as her first client. 

However, she soon realized with the “Holy Spirit guiding the whole conversation,” coupled with the skills she was learning in her biblical counseling classes, she was able to minister well. Brown explained the women at UGM began to look past her age as they realized she was not seeking to give her “opinions or what culture says” but instead she was directing them to the Word of God. Brown saw the women begin to respond by “genuinely” desiring God’s Word.

Earlier this year a youth director and chaplain role opened at the Center of Hope. After “much prayer and talking with mentors and different people” in her life, Brown applied and was offered the position in April. In her role, Brown has implemented discipleship curriculum for the children as “they never had a discipleship program for any of the children,” she explained. The result has been children who are “super excited to read their Bibles” and “so many children who have come to know Christ,” Brown added.

In addition to investing in the lives of the children, Brown continues counseling the women, not as counselee to counselor, but as she explained, as sister-in-Christ to sister-in-Christ. At times, this occurs through the chaplaincy element of her ministry role as Brown ministers to women who call the center and seek shelter. She said when women call they are “pouring out their hearts” over the phone and it opens the door for her to not only ask questions but to also share the Gospel.

Brown has utilized several of the lessons she has learned in her biblical counseling classes in her hands-on ministry at the shelter. One of the first things she used is a PDI, or personal data information sheet. She recalled in Okinaga’s class he taught the students how the information on the sheet, which includes various details about a person’s life, helps to “glean from which area to start with” in the first counseling session. Additionally, Brown has applied the skills of asking questions, including those that help determine whether the individual is a believer. The response allows Brown to share the Gospel with the woman or begin building off the foundation the woman already has in her relationship with Christ.

The biblical counseling courses Brown has taken at Southwestern Seminary have also enabled her to know how to form homework for the women she is counseling, so they leave the session with a practical way to apply what they have learned. Brown sees the growth of those she is counseling and notes the women “can see that growth in the lives as well.”

Using the “heart worksheet,” a tool she learned about in her courses, Brown helps the counselee “focus” on their heart because “we know that at the heart lies a lot of issues” and the issues the woman is facing “flows out of those things,” she explained. As Brown guides the counselee in working through the worksheet, she helps them look at “their heart and their desires” as they evaluate “what they really want” and determine if it aligns “with what God’s Word says and what God wants.” Brown also uses the “heat and the thorns” method of evaluation as she listens to counselees. The heat and thorns method, which she learned from Lilly H. Park, associate professor of biblical counseling, enables Brown to assess if the woman is responding to situations out of “the flesh” or “the Spirit.” Brown said this also helps her see “the real heart issue” and direct the woman to Christ.

While Brown is able to see growth in Christ in the women she is counseling, Okinaga sees growth in his student as a counselor.

“Maranda has the heart and passion to help those in need,” Okinaga observed. “When the opportunity to volunteer at UGM was presented, she jumped at the chance to serve women who are often neglected. It has been amazing to watch her grow in her ministry role and as a biblical counselor.”

As Brown looks forward to graduating from Southwestern in May 2023, she hopes to continue serving at UGM, but as a long-term goal, she hopes to equip local churches with the tools of biblical counseling, using what she has learned in her seminary classes.“It’s literally sitting down and sharing the Word of God with people,” she concluded. “God has already equipped us to do that. He’s already called us to share the Gospel.”