Emerge Ministries

Emerge Ministries mission is to:

1. Provide to the church an adjunctive ministry of competent Christian mental health care by professionals who respect both the infallible truths of God's Word and the authentic nature of spiritual experiences as legitimate therapeutic resources for the mental health needs of believers;

2. Integrate the resources of Scriptural truth and spiritual experience in a treatment modality of Christian psychology consistent with proven mental health principles;

3. Develop and promote programs embodying this modality in areas of prevention, treatment, and training.

• A full-service Evangelical Christian mental health outpatient center dedicated to helping churches minister to the needs of Christian believers.

• Outpatient staff includes psychologists, psychology residents, counselors, and interns. Psychiatric care, when needed, is available at a local hospital through referral to Dr. Sam Rajiah, Medical Director of EMERGE Ministries.

• Educational opportunities provide training for pastoral counselors and preventive mental health care for the Christian community.

• Video, audio, and print ministry materials help churches provide both preventive and restorative mental health care to believers.

EMERGE has its taproot in a painful chapter of Dr. Dobbins' personal life. When he and his first wife, Dolores were expecting their first child, complications including a Caesarean-section birth caused Dolores to experience severe postpartum depression. This was during the late 1940s, a time when an intense antipathy existed between psychiatry and religion.

Dr. Dobbins recalls that episode in their lives this way:

"When we looked to the medical world for help, they blamed her problem on religion and urged us to get her out of her 'crazy religion,' reassuring us that this would result in her recovery. On the other hand, when we looked to the church for help, her devotional life came under scrutiny. We were told that she needed to spend more time in prayer and reading God's Word every day.

"Dolores was always a very devout person. All during this time, she was spending from 30 to 45 minutes a day reading her Bible and praying, even though she believed she was condemned and abandoned by God. She had no conscious awareness of God's presence in her life. But from her exemplary devotional habits, I knew her symptoms were not the result of neglecting this area of her life.

Many months into this experience, one morning during our devotions, the Lord miraculously healed her. From that time, she and I carried a deep compassion for Christians with mental health problems."

Contact Information:

EMERGE New York Location:
8130 Oswego Road, Suite 1
Liverpool, NY 13090
PH: 315.652.0000
FAX: 315.652.2736
emergeny@emerge.org

MAIL:
EMERGE Ministries
900 Mull Avenue
Akron, Ohio 44313-7597

Toll free at 800.621.5207
Local Calls: 330.867.5603
Fax: 330.873.3439

Emerge Ministries website is: emerge.org