Welcome to Speak the Truth, a podcast devoted to giving biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the individual and local church in counseling and discipleship. Hello. Hello. Hello. We are still on the road at the biblical counseling coalition global summit, and I am excited about this particular episode because as you guys have been hearing at this point, we're interviewing a lot of people from different countries.

And so this episode is no different, but I'm very excited because it's near and dear to my heart because of the country that these two are rep or excuse me, the continent, I should say, in country countries rather that they represent. I'm talking with Kyle Johnston and Jane Kratz Kratz. Sorry. I've been learning, educated me several times, and I failed miserably when I hit the record button. It's a pleasure to have you two.

And, before we jump into just biblical counseling and everything, obviously, wanna share a little bit of just who you guys are, your ministry context, and then how you got into biblical counseling. So how about ladies first?

Oh, there we go.

Yes. Yes.

Oh, yeah. I I live in Kent. Got involved in counseling a short while after my husband died, Steven, in 2012, and wanted to explore a little bit more of a pastorally sensitive and theologically rich approach to dealing with grief and loss. Extended my theological studies and then landed up through a course of events doing the equipped council material that ABC offer in an intensive through doctor Greg Cook at one of our local bible colleges.

Shout out to Greg Cook. Wow. Nice.

And I was just blown away at the power of God's word to minister to us in a way that I knew psychology couldn't, which I had studied some years before. And I said to him, where can I learn this? Yeah. That journey took me to The States to study at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Yep.

2016. 2017. Yep. And stayed on for another year. Got a bit of experience in a couple of the Texan churches.

And then went back to South Africa. Yeah. So a lot of my focus has been on grief and loss. But as we know, when you get into biblical counseling, you get all sorts of things. Anxiety, depression, marriage, and relational issues.

Yeah. So that's been my journey into the biblical counseling world.

Nice. So you're you got to experience a little bit of Texas. I did. Was that a culture shock?

It was. But I think it may have been more of a culture shock for the Texans hearing the South African accent. First time I walked in

UK or something?

Not just that. I walked into a Walmart to go and buy a few items. And I don't know if it was the accent or the terminology because we talk about a trolley, not a cart, and a whole lot of other things. Candy rather than we use candy. We talk about sweets.

So this chap in the store just looked at me and eventually fetched somebody else and said, you help her. Yeah. So I don't know which way the culture shock went.

But That's fine.

Yeah. I enjoyed Texas. Everything is bigger and better.

So you experienced that whole adage. It didn't ring true.

A gallon of Coke and any meal that I ate there, had to it couldn't even half of it. And I'm like

Lot of doggy bags.

Yep. And wherever I go, it's no ice, please.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. We like to drown stuff in ice. I can't stand it.

You have a glass of ice, and you add something else

to it. If I'm paying $4 for a soda, I want soda. I don't want three ounces of soda in a, Yeah. Glass full of ice. Mhmm.

Nice. Yeah. Yeah.

Nice. That's good. That's good. Kyle, a little bit of your context, brother.

Yeah. I'm an ordained minister in a church in Cape Town. So I live in Cape Town. I'm married and have three daughters. And yeah, I love being in pastoral ministry.

It's a church called Gracefields Church in Fishhoek. And my pathway into biblical counseling was actually through pastoral ministry. I was fortunate enough to get, when I was recently converted, to get into a good Bible teaching church and had a real you know, I really benefited from good Bible teaching. It was in a culture where we would do a lot of one to one Bible reading with each other. There was a kind of culture of people doing that with each other.

But over time I noticed that when we were teaching the Bible from the pulpit, would there was a lot of confidence and clarity. But when it came to applying the Bible in a more back and forth conversational space, particularly with complicated problems or how the Bible spoke into relational dynamics, things like that, it felt as though we didn't quite know what to do with the Bible. And so that I think that disconnect was something that became increasingly and so when I was studying theology formally I was looking around to see if there were any counseling options and was connected to Wayne Mack who had moved out to South Africa and taught his old curriculum that he used to teach at Masters University and taught it here. And through doing the courses there, ended up studying a master's degree at Masters University in Los Angeles and that was in 2012 and yeah continued on in pastoral ministry in South Africa with having been equipped in that way and have had that focus on pastoral care and counseling. I studied a bit further in South Africa but have always kept that role in in the churches I've served in which is a kind of general pastoral role of preaching and providing governance and all sorts of things but I've been able to keep that focus on pastoral care and counseling and it's I've been grateful for that because I've always had to think how can we make this a normal part of church life where we are seeing the ministry of the word happen in the pulpit, but also thinking about what ministry of the word looks like at different levels of church life and especially in these more acute areas of complex suffering.

What does it look like for the gospel to speak in to those complicated areas and bring hope and help for people? That's been my journey into counseling was actually just through doing normal ministry.

Yeah. Yeah. So the personal ministry of the word, and then we'll we'll get into this a little bit more when we start really getting into missions and my specific time in Zimbabwe. But what drew y'all to Africa? Like, at the heart level, like, the training because you guys could have went and trained like you get your theological training and you could have went anywhere in the world.

Why Africa?

For me, I grew up in Cape Town and lived there and something that's helped me with my decision making over the course of my life was something John Stott said. So John Stott said what you if you want to serve the Lord with your life you've got to ask yourself three questions. The first one is what are the needs of the world? Second question is what am I good at? What are my gifts?

And the third question is how can I stretch my gifts to try and meet the needs as best I can? And there's, I mean, there's need everywhere but we live in Cape Town, there's enormous need in Cape Town, in South Africa, in Africa and so if life is about fruitful labor for Jesus which I think is how Paul frames it in Philippians one. Yeah. Then it seemed like we were just in a good place to try our best to serve the Lord and help people in his name. That's probably that sense of this is a context where I can serve the Lord and hopefully be fruitful in that.

And so I think that sense of, yeah, that framework by start I found really helpful, and that's probably been a guiding principle in my decision making.

Yeah. No. That's really good. And that may have sounded like a silly question considering you guys grew up there, but it's because when I went to Zimbabwe, it was because a lot of them the educational system is phenomenal. So a lot of them would they would be over educated, overqualified because they didn't have the infrastructure.

They didn't have the economical opportunities as everyone else. And so they would leave and go work in another country. And so they would send money back. And so it's it's it's very common. Yeah.

So you get educated and you could there's lot of need. So the fact that the Lord put that on your heart because a lot of people when they get they'll go serve in other places, not necessarily where

Yeah.

Where home is or was. Yeah.

So for a lot of people, if they have the means, they might end doing that. And they don't it's not always for bad reasons. It's because maybe they can earn more money somewhere else and support their family or whatever. But yeah. So that is quite common.

Yeah.

Yeah. What about for you?

I grew up in Johannesburg and '95 moved to Cape Town. And then I think when I came to The States for my studies here and then did the year of optional practical training in some churches in Texas, I was open to the idea of the Lord opened the doors for me to stay. Just where does the Lord want me to serve? But no doors opened, and I love my country. It's complex.

And in some senses, in South Africa, we can do missions work without going anywhere. Yeah. Because so many people come from other African countries to to Cape Town and South Africa, Johannesburg, seeking a better life. Because it is the Because is the country.

The best economy in Africa.

It is one of the best. Yeah.

Yeah. Is Nigeria equally arguably just as good as South Africa economy wise?

I'm not qualified to answer that but I It is

a big it's a big country and it's got a big economy. Yeah. So it's it is a big one but it's an enormous country with Yeah. Yeah. But certainly we have a lot of people coming to South Africa other African countries and so in terms of, yeah, the opportunity to reach people from different contexts is is significant in South Africa.

Yeah. Because go ahead. I'm sorry.

And I think also just being outside of my own cultural context and the American context for a couple of years, I I got to see my own culture more. You you don't people here keep saying you've got an amazing accent, and I'm like, you only

notice wonky too. Right? When you're hearing other people Yeah. Think you have the accent.

But when you get used to the American accent, then you get on a South African Airways flight back home, and you're like, oh my gosh. We do have an accent. But also just going back, it's we have a way to speak into our culture because of our historical experience.

Yeah.

That it's wonderful to learn all that we've learned and the generosity and kindness of the American culture. And what I've learned, I've I I wouldn't trade it for anything. I love the fact that I could go outside of my context to do some learning and then go back into it because just that culture shock, counter culture shock is a way to, yeah, just see things a little bit differently, a little more freshly. But I think just because of historical context and experience, there are ways in which we can minister in contexts in which we've grown up in that is uniquely different. And we can pick up on some of the nuances.

I love that we're in our context and culture. And maybe the Lord will move me one day, but

Yeah.

Home is home and Yeah. And I love it there.

Yeah. It's funny. As you were sharing some of that, I was thinking some of those cultural things that I just I so appreciate it. And one of the things that I remember is the hospitality there because we you being and being able to visit Texas, southern hospitality was a thing, but I think Africa has Texas beat on hospitality. Especially eating the salsa and watching them cook it and the laboring that they put into that.

Yeah.

Unreal. Unreal.

Yeah. In Africa, a wedding, you don't even have to know the bridal couple or a funeral. Like, the whole community is there. It's just a completely different culture. And when I got married, it's like dad said, okay.

We can afford 70 guests. In Africa, it's it stretches to a 170, 270, and they will provide food for everybody. Yeah. So it's just a very different context. And it's for me, when I went back into Johannesburg for the first three years of my ministry after studying, and it was very multicultural.

It was not the South Africa I grew up in under apartheid. And very challenging, but also such a blessing to grapple with things that I've grown up with, to deal with my own heart in relation to the things that I'd grown up in under apartheid and apply the gospel Yeah. In those kinds of contexts and just be so much more open to engaging people as people and not as a race or a culture. Yeah. So it's

been awesome. That's good. Another thing, just some of those cultural things that I just I when I left away or when I left from Zimbabwe, I just not just the hospitality, but they're very affectionate people. Hugging and just, like, personal space didn't appear to be a thing, which is funny because Shana makes fun of me all the time because I'd she's like, Michael, sometimes when you talk to people, you're too close, you need to back up. So I I relate to them in that way.

That's great. I appreciate you guys sharing a little bit about your context. I wanna move to just biblical counseling Africa. How and obviously, your context and how you guys got involved in biblical counseling. So how did biblical counseling Africa come to be and where it's at now?

Like history, heart and hope of.

Yeah. Being exposed to biblical counseling, I think for a lot of Christians, their next impulse is to think this is wonderful. How can we share this and grow this? And there are different ways of doing that. There are, yeah, it seems to me, at least what I've noticed in The States, think you've got educational pathways and then you've got certification pathways and obviously those are connected.

So for a long time I was trying to think what would it look like to try and promote biblical counselling and because I was also just learning ministry in general it wasn't always clear how to do that. One of the ministries that has been a wonderful blessing to many people is the educational resources from CCEF. But the courses were quite expensive once you convert the dollars across. And it was sad that such wonderful resources were just hard to access. And so one of the founding, one of the reasons we were keen to try and found something like Biblical Counselling Africa is so that we could establish a ministry partnership with CCEF.

And that was probably at a practical reason the big reason to form an organization. The hope of course though behind that is really what CCEF's tagline is which is to restore Christ to counseling and pastoral care in general and to see that happen in the life of the church. So our goal as an organization is to see the church being equipped to provide gospel centered pastoral care that is wise and loving and to see that happen in churches across Africa. That's a very ambitious goal but the reason we call that Biblical Counselling Africa and not Biblical Counselling South Africa is just because we want because we're able to offer a lot of those courses online. It is possible to apply from another African country and we didn't want someone in Zimbabwe or Kenya or Namibia to feel like they couldn't apply to us to study.

Our big hope is to see local churches being equipped so that they can provide pastoral care in wise, loving, gospel centered ways.

Nice. So that brings me to just so you mentioned CCF and then ABC and ABC's certification with using JBC articles and things like that. And, obviously, when I visited Zimbabwe, there wasn't they didn't really care about letters. Like, we we gave them a certificate of completion when they went to the pastor's conference and things like that, but we did tracks. Right?

And so I did a biblical counseling track, and it was for five sessions, five hours that we did it in between the preaching and stuff. But just giving them an abridged version to your point, like the resources, I don't have that. So I was able to take Laura Chica's book, Journey, which is an abridged sort of version of the paradigms of ETC level one, and giving it to them and working with the pastors and showing them like how they can first be equipped a little bit like how much equipping are you gonna do in two days really, but just leaving them a resource. And so I understand what that was like in my context. So I'm thinking with biblical counseling Africa, like, what's the typical process of trying to equip at varying levels?

Like, whether it's the highest level of care or just closing those mutual care gaps. What does that look like organizationally for y'all?

We've done slightly different things. We've thought about it in three basic levels. So the level one would be a more grassroots approach. And so those tend to be short shorter inputs like seminars or talks or even consultations and conversations with pastors where you're wooing them to biblical counseling, you're trying to explain what it is because the word counseling for a lot of people it's not connected to the ministry of the church.

Like it has more secular connotations? So

it's trying to explain what that is and then doing seminars allows you to flesh that out in a bit more detail. Those are a little bit more ad hoc because it depends on the capacity of the team. We're all volunteers. But there've been wonderful opportunities over the years to do that whether it's Jane's grief course would fall into that kind of category.

Like an introduction to grief or like awareness

or It's a care course. It's a nine week care course.

But it's the kind of thing a church member could sign up to do and it gives them a real experience of what we mean by a biblical counseling approach to grief or I've spoken at different camps or things where what is a biblical counseling approach to burnout or anxiety or mental health or depression or transgenderism or Yeah. Those we consider those sort of level one type events.

And we've used the ABC conference conferences Oh,

each year. Audio stuff.

Yeah. Actual videos and

Oh, okay.

And then run the videos, but alongside workshopping them so that people are applying it. And rather than running six sessions in a day, pick three, let's workshop it, or let's put a case study to it.

Yep. And giving

yeah. Flesh it out. So so that's been a great blessing to us to be able to offer that in various locations in South Africa. But also one of our executive members has taken it into Africa to

Yeah.

I think three countries in Africa as well.

Yeah. And then you will write a a local case study to go with the material. So

A very local case study. Some of the you have to really change that are in the book. Yeah.

So that would be the level ones stuff. And then, of course, some of the other ABC materials been really helpful and change run that.

Equip to Council.

Equip to Council.

Yeah. We did that during COVID and Louis ran it in Cape Town as well subsequently

in person. Very helpful. Yeah. And then our most sort of advanced educational offering are the CCEF courses. That's not for everyone but we've

had a

number of students do them. The numbers are slowly growing which is encouraging. So those would be the big, those would be the kind of the ways we're trying to promote counselling education. And then I think in the next couple of years our focus is going to be on probably working a bit more with pastors and helping churches think about okay we now have a number of people who've received biblical counselling training, we're convinced of biblical counselling theologically, but what would it look like to get a culture of care happening and what would it look like to see care actually taking place in in the church. Yeah and so not just receiving training but how do we move into seeing church members provide care for other church members, overseen in a responsible way overseen by the pastors.

So that's probably we'll keep doing what we've been doing but I think going forward it's trying to think through that next step as well.

Yeah that's really go ahead.

Yeah and developing a more of a culture of vulnerability and openness and sharing stories and not the sort of put on your Sunday best keep your smile even though you had a fight in the car Christianity, but really having good gospel conversations, able to challenge people, be challenged by God's word in conversations that are not just in between about the weather or what did you do this week, but let's actually talk about the message we've heard and how do we apply it.

Yeah. That's really good because and to to both of what you guys are saying, I'm I'm not trying to put it in American context, how you do church. But even at that communal level that I I experienced, there's a lot of sitting and gathering and talking around food. And but Sunday service worship is super important, and that's where most ministry happens, like, because they're expecting to hear a word from the pastor. Yeah.

So there's still that super authoritative spiritual authority, which is great. But like here in The States too, I would argue that I think that's there's some commonality there where we expect a lot more to happen in the pulpit. And then in the one on one care, the mutual care, the one anothering to where some of those things is just the discipling piece that's happening, that's missing. And so they really put a lot on the pastor. So back to what you were saying in passing, Kyle, of different things that you would teach on and talk about and equip pastors with is just like the burnout stuff.

Because they expect that from the pastor. They don't look because what I experienced it is very hierarchical. And so they don't look at the lay level.

Yeah. Correct. Yeah. It's the priesthood of all believers. Right.

So I think that's often something that the biblical counseling movement has been quite good at I think is to say the job of the pastor according to the New Testament is to equip the Saints to do the work of ministry. So of course the pastor does teach the Bible and is a governance function but ministry leaders are there to equip the Saints to do ministry and yeah and I think they can be a mistake even in good conservative churches to think that being a Bible, a church that's strong on the Bible can easily think we're strong on sermons so we're good at the Bible church. But actually the ministry of the word does involve good preaching but the ministry of the word is much more than that.

Yeah like it's equally strong in a in a both and.

Yeah yeah in fact I think the beginning of Keller's book on preaching, Timothy Keller, talks about the church. It's a book on preaching, and so he believed in the value of preaching. Yeah. But he actually begins by talking about you need more than preaching for a church. The ministry of the word is a bigger thing than just preaching.

And I think the area in which biblical counseling can really help is even help pastors to apply that even more to their own lives which transforms their preaching. You'll you can often see a pastor who has had some exposure to biblical counseling or to more helpful app application of that word or any way or just doing that as part of you see that come through in their preaching, which is immensely helpful to the congregation.

Yeah. That's funny to that point, our own teaching pastor at our church, because he went through our first level one class in 2019, it changed the way he preaches. And I hear that testimony from a lot of pastors.

Yeah I think it's in God's kindness one of the things that's been so helpful in the biblical counseling movement is a focus on the heart and I think it's possible to teach the Bible in a way that is accurate to the text, but to if we're not attentive to our own hearts and the ways in which we dodge the text, minimize what the text is saying, we because we're sinful, we have all sorts of ways of interacting with God's word. And so I think an awareness of our own hearts and helps us preach and teach God's word because we think that focus on how's it impacting my heart. And if that's true for me, it's probably true for others as well. And Yeah. I think that does inform preaching.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good. That's good. So with biblical counseling Africa, obviously, being a five zero one c three.

Yeah.

Or

No. We don't use that terminology.

Okay. So is it in other words, if people were to support It's

a non profit. Non profit.

It is a non profit. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess that would be an American tax IRS thing. Sorry about that. Yeah.

I'm Marty. Yeah.

That's fine.

Saturated with American terminology. But the South African version of that, like a nonprofit. As people are listening to this podcast who didn't realize that your ministry existed and they wanna support y'all, whether it be financially, prayerfully, what would be some really helpful ways to support the ministry of biblical counseling Africa?

That's good to ask. I think the first thing would be to pray for us, to pray for wisdom. We really do want to serve the local church and I think that does mean doing so in humility and trying to get a sense of where churches are at and we're in process of trying to develop and contextualize things and we're doing that because we want to serve the church better. So I think if people could pray for wisdom and godliness and that would be hugely valuable. Yeah, there's always a need for resource support and financial support as well.

And the best way to probably do that is to go to our website and to find out a bit more about us and they can get a sense of what we're doing. They could always pop us an email as well if they are considering financial support and just say how would the money be used that kind of thing just so they get more clarity on that. Yeah. So all that information would be available on our website and it's biblicalcounselingafrica.com. We'd be very happy to engage with potential supporters or donors and obviously grateful for that as well.

Biblical counseling spelled the British version of counseling with the double l, not the single.

What's funny is I accidentally spell like that all the time and it auto corrects me. I like the l apparently when I'm typing. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. And I think we, BCA, have been very blessed by organizations like CCF, ABC, and others who have enabled us to provide training and equipping at a more affordable cost for our context. But we recognize that just as The USA has been able to do that for us in South Africa, we are, for the most part, economically better off than many African countries. So as we trust the Lord to extend more into Africa and support other countries or even students that we currently have who can't even afford the kind of rates which are vastly better than what we would have had when I came to The US to study, and I would have paid in dollar rates for one course more than or almost as much as a year of theological training. We would wanna be able to similarly bless other African contexts where literally there is no ability to pay anything.

So yeah. So supporting not just the running of the organization, which is primarily runoff For most of the time, it's been purely volunteer energy of people like Carl, myself, and many others who are part of the organization, who are pastoring, have families, and then still on top of that, give of their time to serve the organization. So yeah. So not only enabling us to employ people to function and take some of the pressure off that volunteer support and to do what we do even better, but also to be able to support students who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it. So that's also another area that would be a great need.

Yeah. And I'd like to just express my gratitude to our American friends. At the moment, we're able to offer these courses at about a quarter of what they would normally cost. And by South African standards, it's still quite expensive, but it's an incredible thing to be able to do that. And it's been made possible by largely by our American brothers and sisters who've been incredibly generous in sharing resources.

And yeah. So I just want to, yeah, thank you at ABC, but RCC, our friends, and others.

And there are many others who've supported us. Yeah. There

are many others who, yeah, in in those kind of quiet behind the scenes ways have have served and supported and

Biblical Counseling Coalition as well. BCC Conference, they've been supportive of so many ways.

Yeah. Steve mentioned he said to me a few years ago when I we were at one of these biblical counseling events that all ministry is the overflow of sacrifice. And you realize that it was true for the Lord.

Yeah. Quite literally.

Yeah. And it's but it's true for us. Yeah. We're deeply grateful for the sacrificial partnership that we've had with people. And so we're very grateful for

that. That's good. So speaking of sacrificial stuff, as far as serving and helping serve more, like, you mentioned volunteers. It's largely handled through volunteers such as yourselves. But what about people who are like, they're hearing this, man, I I may not have money to give or what, but I would love if there's any administrative, operational.

If there's anything that that you guys need, what could they do? So I'm assuming can they go to the website and fill out some information and just try

to Pop us an email.

How they could partner with you and volunteer and help you guys with a myriad of things, I'm sure.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. How long is a piece of strength? Yeah.

But absolutely, if someone who's listening to this would like to find out more, they're yeah. If they go to our website, they can send us an email, and we would love to to engage with him. And yeah, there's lots of different ways that could take place depending like about Stott's thing, know, what the second question is, what are your gifts? Yeah. And we all have different gifts, but we're all part of the one body.

Yeah. And so anyone is welcome to email us and

to Yeah.

To experience any interest. Yeah.

Good. So if there's any listeners out there in your local church context that you're not able to serve your church and you've got some bandwidth to keep serving serving and anything that you can do to help out Biblical Counseling Africa. And thank you guys for your partnership. This has been very interesting for me, very fun, very heartwarming. We love the Biblical Counseling Coalition, and we're thankful for all of what you guys are doing.

And we hope we can continue to partner and really hopefully bring this maybe to South Africa. Yeah.

Absolutely. Cape Town is rated as one of the probably, depending on the rating agency, between ten and twenty top cities in the world to come to. I certainly place.

Yeah. I certainly enjoyed flying into it.

Yep. And you have a home to come and visit if you're there. And, yeah, it'd be lovely to if anyone's there and we can pull together a little bit of a training or an equipping

Yeah.

Sharing around a meal, we'd love to do that.

Yeah. I certainly experienced everything you're alluding to in Africa when I went by Asia. It was just one of the most enjoyable experiences I've had. As far as people, regardless of circumstance, they they care for you. They're smiling.

They're always smiling. And I don't think it's really fake. Now I understand there could be a level of fake sometimes, but they genuinely are happy people. Yep. And Yeah.

It's glad that you guys get to to serve in that.

Yeah. There it is. It's yeah. Lots of wonderful things.

Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you, Mike, for the opportunity to share and to Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Put Biblical Counseling Africa out there and really the prayers of Sochi, and we appreciate all the support in that regard, especially.

Yeah. Hopefully, we'll be we'll be visiting y'all within the next couple of years. Lord willing. Lord willing, of course. Great.

Alright. Thank you guys so much. Thank you guys for listening. We appreciate it, and we'll see you guys next time.