Review
Captain John Cheydleur has provided us with a valuable tool to improve our skills as counselors in his new book, Called to Counsel. I wish that I had been helped through the lessons in this book at an earlier point in my ministry and medical practice. The author has included useful resources rather than arcane references and has documented every point with down-to-earth, easy-to-relate-to examples from his own unusually broad clinical experience as a pastor, social worker, and counselor.
I am pleased to recommend this excellent skills training manual to every mature believer, with the prayer that it will be used widely to equip and encourage the non-specialist to become involved in the care of the bruised and confused who are all around, and to assist each Christian congregation to become a truly healing community.
-- Major Herbert C. Rader, MD, FACS - September-October, 1999 issue of Cross-Cultural Vision
Millions of people have an urgent need and a desperate desire to be listened to and understood. A thousand Laura Schlesingers would be helpful but not sufficient to sit down with each one for even one session. But what if thousands of local officers and soldiers could be equipped for the task? Captain John Cheydleur has provided us with a valuable tool to improve our skills as counselors in his new book, Called to Counsel
Because Larry Crabb has challenged the elders of the church to recover their counseling function as a way of enhancing the healing ministry of every congregation, we need guidance.
Because other recent works by experienced psychotherapists are challenging the effectiveness of psychotherapy and its value to Christians, we need alternatives.
I am pleased to recommend this excellent skills training manual to every mature believer, with the prayer that it will be used widely to equip and encourage the non-specialist to become involved in the care of the bruised and confused who are all around, and to assist each Christian congregation to become a truly healing community. --September-October, 1999 issue of Cross-Cultural Vision
About the Author
Dr. John R. Cheydleur, ACSW, is a Salvation Army officer who currently serves as the Eastern (USA) Territorial Social Services Secretary for a network of 2700 social services programs operating in the Northeast and Puerto Rico. He also serves as the Counseling Studies Coordinator at the School for Officer training in Suffren, New York.
Dr. Cheydleur is the author of the personality-development and spiritual-gifts book How to Find and Be Yourself, and is the coeditor of the addictions self-help book, Every Sober Day Is a Miracle. He is a contributor to Baker's Encyclopedia of Psychology and is the author of more than thirty other popular and professional articles and a mental-health television series.
He has also served as the president of the Personality Development Institute at Anaheim, California; president of Trinity College of Graduate Studies in Anaheim, California; chairman of the Department of Social Work at Melodyland School of Theology in Anaheim, California; director of The Salvation Army's San Diego County Bureau of Social Services; and a U.S.-Canadian administrator of the Kiwanis International Collegiate Program: Circle K. International.
He is also a member of the Christian Association for Psychological Studies, the American Association of Christian Counselors, the North American Association of Christians in Social Work, and the Academy of Certified Social Workers.
John, along with his wife Judith, and their son Andrew, lives in West Nyack, New York. They also have two grown children, Amy and James, and five grandchildren.
