(6/30/2006)

Christian Life Ministries: Counseling God's Way

Learning to live the "Zoe" life

BY GREG JOHNSON

DAKOTA VOICE

Philippians 3:7-10a But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from {the} Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which {comes} from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.

About five years after he became a believer, Bill Ewing wanted people to know God, to know Him as He really is, for them to experience more in their Christian life, a life circumscribed by grace and truth – the Life described in New Testament Greek as the Zoe life. This was before Bill went through his own personal crash, his brokenness, and that was part of God’s plan for Bill’s journey. In the late 1970’s Bill found himself in the midst of brokenness.

This only deepened Bill’s passion for God, for knowing Him. This is when God put it into his heart to come back to Rapid City, where he and his wife, Nancy started to share the truths of God’s grace, His comfort, and principles from His Word with hurting people. It was Bill’s desire that first and foremost, others would know God as a Father on a daily basis and have a better understanding of His Word and His ways. Bill wanted to start a place for people to come who were tired, burned out, and whose life and relationships had quit working for them. Christian Life Ministries of Rapid City, SD was started By Bill Ewing in 1981.

Dakota Voice spoke with Bill Ewing’s sister, Marci Maddux and Mark Theissen, both counselors and instructors at CLM. Marci shared some of her history and beginnings with Christian Life Ministries.

“I had made a lot of desperate choices in my life, and was addicted to a number of things,” Marci said. “One of my other brothers, Dick was on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, working with a staff out of Bozeman, Montana. They had begun to pray for me and so I moved up there. I was exposed to a grace community and God used that to begin to help me to quit fighting, because my picture of God was so warped and I was very afraid of Him.

“It was at that time, I heard about SCOPE Ministries out of Oklahoma City. I moved down there from Bozeman to get counseling, to get help for myself. That’s when I came into contact with the Word of God and that’s when He started to become personal to me. I became acquainted with the staff at SCOPE, and continued in counseling and learning. I moved to Fort Worth, Texas where I attended seminary to get additional training in the Bible, because I didn’t have any background in the Bible other than what I learned while at SCOPE.

“It was here that God laid out a spiritual smorgasbord of many good teachers and leaders that I sat under. This was also when I first heard the teachings of the Gillhams (Bill and Anabel). God gave me a hunger for the Word, where I just couldn’t get enough. God began to use His Word to heal my mind. Through a passage in Isaiah, and a personal vision that God gave me, I knew that He was calling me into Biblical counseling of others.

“So, it was in 1980 that I went to work with SCOPE Ministries as a counselor. I spent ten years in Oklahoma City and five years in Colorado, where I started a counseling ministry. My brother Bill and I had always wanted to work together and I wanted to be a part of a counseling team, so in 1994 I moved back to Rapid City to become a part of Christian Life Ministries,” Marci concluded.

It was on a Wednesday night in March 1973 that Mark Theissen became a believer.

“God had much more in store for me than I had thought,” he said. “Several years following my conversion, God saved me from my life, my agenda, and my playing God in my life. I came to want things God’s way, not my way in the early 1980’s.

“Up until this time, I was a full time musician, but found this type of life had put me at odds with the way everyone else was living. The late nights playing in clubs and the lifestyle made it difficult. I got out of the full-time music business, and this is when I first met Bill Ewing.

“I learned about ‘Christ in me,’ and how all of His solutions had something to do with this. I joined the staff of CLM in 1986. I went to SCOPE Ministries for a year, and then came back to CLM where I have worked in some capacity since that time. A couple of years ago, I realized that I felt like I was just marking time and once I had taken the Lay Counseling Level III at CLM, I found that it was time to come into counseling on a full time basis,” Mark concluded.

God’s confirmation for Mark came with the incredibly generous funding by donors.

At CLM they don’t want to turn anyone away from the pure message of the Gospel. Regarding fees, they want it to be between the client and their God. Part of the counselors’ income comes from their supporters. According to Marci, “Biblical counseling is a mission field. God has invested us with a gift of walking alongside and building up the Body of Christ to fullness where they can go out to reach the kingdom and build the kingdom up, as a mission.”

There are five full time and five part time counselors at CLM, with a staff of four administrative personnel. There are a lot of others involved in keeping CLM functioning, including the board members. Approximately four thousand counseling sessions are conducted each year, with 75-100 persons seen each month.

Marci stated, “There are additional things besides counseling that CLM is invested in, based upon where God has led us, and that is in the area of training. Over six thousand people have come to know the Lord and developed a personal relationship with Him since CLM started. But if you look at the whole picture as a tapestry, one of the other threads is the training. Training is constantly running at CLM, day in and day out with our lay discipleship counselor training classes. We have four levels of training at our facilities, along with correspondence courses and materials. One of the ways that we provide now is through the Bill’s book, “Rest Assured” and the accompanying “Travel Guide” workbook; that’s good discipleship training material.”

“We’re involved in outreaches in the community with one of our counselors and trainers, like Pat Karn who teaches the Eternal Investments Bible study every Wednesday morning at the Alex Johnson Hotel,” Marci continued. “There are small Bible studies that we do, marriage retreats, and pulpit supply that the guys do. I’ve been to the women’s state prison three or four different times to minister to the inmates.

“CLM is in the process of starting a counseling and training center in Gillette, Wyoming. Counseling services and training are also offered in Spearfish, SD. The Mountaintop Retreat in Bozeman, Montana resort was established by CLM trained people and is operated independently. Most of the staff at Cornerstone Mission in Rapid City and the director of the women’s shelter here have trained under the CLM discipleship counseling programs. CLM has also sent people out to areas hit by disasters through the Billy Graham Association Rapid Response Team beginning in 1986, ministering to others in many parts of the world including Grenada, those affected by 911, Hurricane Katrina and others,” she said.

Mark added, “It’s amazing how God is expanding the ministry in ways we couldn’t have ever sat down and planned out. That’s what’s so cool after being here with any person in a counseling situation, how the client can become someone who is truly a disciple, someone whom God has chosen and is preparing to become a disciple. The Gospel is unstoppable and it’s amazing how it just continues to spread while the Body of Christ continues to expand.”

Referring to a passage in Corinthians which speaks of ministers of reconciliation, Marci said, “We are reconciling people first to their God as a result to other people, lives are being set free and doors are opening. We’re at where we’re supposed to be. One on one is adding to the kingdom of God where discipline and training is multiplying the efforts.”

The idea is to reconcile the relationship and let God put the hearts together. If you make it your goal to reconcile you will be disappointed. If you let it be your desire to be reconciled, then God is allowed to do His work. There has been a lot of reconciliation in destroyed marriages of people who have passed through the doors of CLM.

It was part of Bill’s original vision to have a retreat type of facility in this area where people could come to do more concentrated discipleship. Marci told Dakota Voice, “It’s our hope that God will provide us with a Black Hills area retreat facility. We see a lot of really fractured people. Some of these people need to get out of their environment for a sufficient length of time. That type of setting is in Marci’s heart as she sees that it is needed. Some of these people need physical administrations. CLM has access to some very good doctors who are available to help.”

Connie Karn is the contact person at CLM for training, correspondence course materials, and to order Bill’s books, “Rest Assured” and “The Travel Guide.”

Bill Ewing and Dr. Ray Strand of Rapid City have coauthored a new book, “Designed for Life” which is due out sometime this summer.

Christian Life Ministries is located at 1948 N. Plaza Drive in Rapid City, SD. The phone number is (605) 341-5305. Their mailing address is PO Box 9272, Rapid City, SD 57709, or email at CLM1@rushmore.com

Please watch for an announcement of their web site address on our web site.