In this episode of The Care Ministry Podcast, Laura Howe is joined by David Barter, pastor, ministry coach, and the lead for Hope Made Strong’s work in Australia.

David shares how his own experience with depression, anxiety, and burnout shaped his passion for helping churches care well. Together, Laura and David talk about the reality many churches face—they want to help, but often aren’t sure how.

This conversation also introduces Hope Made Strong’s next step toward global hubs, starting in Australia. Not as a new organization, but as a way to deepen connection, offer culturally relevant support, and better serve care leaders in their local context.

This episode is especially helpful for leaders who feel like they are carrying too much alone and are looking for a more shared, relational approach to care.

“I really started to think about it—well, what am I doing that maybe not that I shouldn’t be doing, but that somebody else could do?”
David Barter

“People need to be empowered across the church to do the work of the ministry.”
David Barter

“The work of the ministry basically is to care for people and disciple each other.”
David Barter

“We’ve always had a global community at Hope Made Strong… but this is about making that feel more connected, more relational, and more rooted in local context.”
Laura Howe

A Better Way - Website

The Church Mental Health Summit

Email David - david@hopemadestrong.org

HMS Amazon Store 🇨🇦Link
HMS Amazon Store 🇺🇸Link

Website: HopeMadeStrong.org
Socials: Facebook – Instagram – Twitter – YouTube

In this episode of The Care Ministry Podcast, Laura Howe and Rebecca Bailey explore one of the most misunderstood areas of care ministry: referrals.

Church leaders often feel tension when referring someone outside the church. It can feel like handing people off or losing influence. But healthy referrals are not a failure of care. They are a critical part of sustainable, holistic ministry.

Laura and Rebecca reframe referrals as accompaniment rather than outsourcing. They discuss how churches can build ethical referral systems, develop trusted community partnerships, and avoid codependency in ministry leadership. You will hear practical guidance on consent, autonomy, follow-up, and how to navigate value differences with humility.

Strong care ministries do not try to meet every need alone. They build thoughtful networks that expand support while remaining relationally present.

“We don’t want codependency in the church… because we aren’t the saviors.” –Rebecca Bailey

“We’re not referring someone out. We’re referring someone in.” –Laura Howe

“Referrals don’t have to be an endpoint. They are transitional.” –Rebecca Bailey

“Healthy care ministries share the load.” –Laura Howe

Hope Made Strong Model of Care
Three Steps to Building a Sustainable Care Ministry
Care Protocol Download
Episode 187 - Types of Mental Health Professionals

HMS Amazon Store 🇨🇦Link
HMS Amazon Store 🇺🇸Link

Website: HopeMadeStrong.org

Socials: Facebook – Instagram – Twitter – YouTube

5 Practices for Faithful Community Engagement with Kent Annan

Many churches care deeply about their communities but feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the needs around them. Where do you start, and how do you help without causing harm or burning out your team?

In this episode, Laura Howe talks with Kent Annan, co-founder of Haiti Partners and author of Slow Kingdom Coming, about how churches can engage their communities with humility, wisdom, and long-term impact.

Kent shares five practices that help leaders discern where they are called to focus and how to serve in ways that honor dignity and build meaningful partnerships.

If you want to serve your community well without trying to fix everything, this conversation offers practical encouragement and perspective.

• Slow Kingdom Coming CAN Link / US Link
• When Helping Hurts CAN Link / US Link
• Haiti Partners
• Spiritual First Aid
• Slow Kingdom coming Discussion guide
  
  

• “If the primary takeaway from being with people who are suffering is that we feel better about our own lives, we are disrespecting them.” – Kent Annan
• “The practices of attention, confession, respect, partnering, and truthing are both spiritual disciplines and practical ways to do justice work well.” – Kent Annan
• “The slow kingdom coming means we can lament that the world isn’t as it should be, hold onto hope that transformation is possible, and commit ourselves to participate in that work.” – Kent Annan
• “When you enter a community, you slow down and ask: Am I coming with honor, and am I waiting to be invited in with respect?” – Kent Annan

Website: HopeMadeStrong.org

Socials: Facebook – Instagram – Twitter – YouTube

How do you lead well in church ministry when you care deeply about people but aren’t the final decision maker?

In this episode of the Care Ministry Podcast, Laura Howe sits down for one of her monthly coaching conversations with Lacey Reaves, a ministry leader serving in small groups at Redemption Church in South Carolina.

Together they explore a leadership challenge many ministry leaders face: how to faithfully care for people while navigating leadership structures, shifting ministry needs, and the realities of leading from what Laura calls the messy middle of ministry.

Lacey shares openly about her experience of burnout and what she learned about carrying ministry differently. Laura reflects on how sustainable care ministry requires leaders to care deeply for people while also recognizing the burdens they were never meant to carry alone.

If you’ve ever felt the tension of trying to lead, care for people, and navigate church leadership dynamics at the same time, this coaching conversation offers encouragement and practical perspective for sustaining ministry over the long term.

“I knew that I still cared about people, but I felt that I had lost the capacity to care effectively because I myself needed care.” –Lacey Reaves

“I found that I am still called, but I may need to learn how to carry the calling differently.” –Lacey Reaves

“Ministry rarely happens in clean and simple ways. Most of the time we’re leading in complicated spaces with changing needs, limited resources, and leadership structures.” –Laura Howe

“There’s a wisdom that develops when we stay deeply compassionate toward people while recognizing that we are not their savior.” –Laura Howe

• Joyfully Free Journey Podcast (Lacey Reaves)
• Care Ministry Collective (Free Online Community)
• Care Ministry Cohort
• HMS Amazon store 🇨🇦Link, 🇺🇸Link

Website: HopeMadeStrong.org

Socials: Facebook – Instagram – Twitter – YouTube

Churches often do a meaningful job receiving needs and responding in the moment. A meal train is organized. A hospital visit happens. An outreach event is planned with excellence. But what happens after that? Laura and Rebecca walk through the Hope Made Strong Care Protocol: receive, respond, report, and follow-up, and then zoom in on the step where many churches struggle most.

Follow-up is where trust is either strengthened or quietly weakened. It is where people learn whether they are a task that was completed or a person who is truly known. In this conversation, they introduce a simple framework to clarify responsibility so that care becomes shared, sustainable, and rooted in belonging rather than burnout.

“When you follow up, it says, you’re trustworthy, and I’m important.” –Rebecca Bailey

“We don’t want our events to begin and end at the building. We want them to lead to belonging and real community.” –Laura Howe

“Follow-up is often where we shift from programs that care to cultures of care.” –Laura Howe

“Clarity helps us spread out and share the load without missing people at the same time.” –Laura Howe

• Care Protocol
• Care Ministry Cohort
• Online Community
• HMS Amazong store 🇨🇦Link, 🇺🇸Link

Website: HopeMadeStrong.org
Socials: Facebook – Instagram – Twitter – YouTube

In this episode of the Care Ministry Podcast, host Laura Howe sits down with Dave Eckert and Mark to explore how churches and communities can work better together to care for people on the margins.
Drawing from decades of experience in mental health, social services, and church leadership, Dave and Mark share why community itself is often the missing piece in care and how churches can move beyond good intentions toward meaningful, collaborative impact.

The conversation unpacks the difference between services and help, the power of belonging, and why churches are uniquely positioned to fill gaps rather than duplicate efforts already happening in their neighborhoods. This episode is both deeply practical and deeply human, offering a hopeful vision for churches seeking to love their communities well.

Quotes

• “The only disability is loneliness.” –Mark
• “There’s a big difference between a service and help. They’re not always the same thing.” –Mark
• “Sometimes churches start with what’s exciting for them to do instead of asking what the community actually needs.” –Dave Eckert
• “What people need most is not professionalism—it’s relationship.” –Mark
• “When churches fill gaps instead of overlapping, they develop a reputation as a necessary partner in the community.” –Dave Eckert

Resources

• Intersect Webpage
• Intersect Trainings
• Intersect Newsletter
• Access Services Strengthening Communities Podcast
• Access Services Facebook Page

Connect with Hope Made Strong

Website: HopeMadeStrong.org
Socials: Facebook – Instagram – Twitter – YouTube

HMS Amazong store 🇨🇦Link, 🇺🇸Link

In this episode of The Care Ministry Podcast, Laura Howe is joined by pastor and care ministry leader Chad Clements for a coaching-style conversation about grief, leadership, and the pressure many ministry leaders feel to move faster than they should.

Chad shares openly about stepping into a newly created care role without a clear roadmap and how his own journey through grief and lament has shaped the way he thinks about care. Together, Laura and Chad talk about why care ministry does not begin with programs or systems, but with listening, trust, and taking time to understand what is already happening in a church.

This episode names a tension many leaders feel but rarely say out loud. The internal pressure to produce results, build structure, and make sure no one falls through the cracks, even when leadership has not placed those expectations on them.

Along the way, Laura introduces simple care frameworks, shares practical tools for grief support, and reflects on why going slow is not a setback but a faithful and wise approach to care. This conversation is especially helpful for leaders who are building care ministries from the ground up, navigating transition, or trying to care well without burning out.

“It’s more my own personal journey of going through grief and lament. Just doing too many funerals, seeing too many tragedies, and seeing how powerful it was to meet God in the midst of it.”
Chad Clements

“The leaders haven’t pressured me, but I feel that internal pressure to produce and to develop what they’ve called me to develop.”
Chad Clements

“Care doesn’t start with systems. It starts with listening and slowing down enough to see what’s already happening.”
Laura Howe

• CareNote
• Notebird
• Planning Center
• GriefShare
• The Loss Foundation
• Stephen Ministry
• New Life Ministries
• Edmund Ng
• Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries
• HMS Amazong store 🇨🇦Link, 🇺🇸Link
  
  

At Hope Made Strong, we walk alongside church leaders as they listen well, discern next steps, and build care ministries that are sustainable and relational. Coaching is not about rushing to solutions. It is about creating space to notice, reflect, and respond wisely.
Apply to receive coaching on the podcast

Website: HopeMadeStrong.org

Socials: Facebook – Instagram – Twitter – YouTube

In this episode of the Care Ministry Podcast, host Laura Howe is joined by Rebecca Bailey for a rich conversation on how spiritual formation functions as preventative care within church care ministries. Together, they explore why care and formation cannot be separated, how spiritual formation shows up across Hope Made Strong’s five-part Model of Care (self, community, peer, pastoral, and professional), and why care is less about fixing problems and more about being present and becoming formed alongside one another. This episode invites leaders to move beyond reactive care toward cultivating cultures that sustain people before crisis hits.

• “If in our care ministries we’re focused on the doing and the fixing, then we will miss the being and the becoming.” –Rebecca Bailey
• “Spiritual formation is happening on the inside and the outside—it’s circular. What happens between us forms us.” –Rebecca Bailey
• “Care has historically been reactive in the church. Spiritual formation helps us think about care as preventative.” –Laura Howe
• “Spiritual formation isn’t about adding more programs. It’s about becoming more intentional with what’s already happening.” –Rebecca Bailey
• “Good spiritual formation in care ministries keeps teams from absorbing what they were never meant to carry.” –Rebecca Bailey

• Hope Made Strong Book Club
• HMS Amazong store 🇨🇦Link, 🇺🇸Link
• Download the Model of Care

Website: HopeMadeStrong.org

Socials: Facebook – Instagram – Twitter – YouTube