Our Framework

Church Well Co exists to help the Church reimagine its relationship to pain and suffering. We operate with a framework that includes 2 core practices, 3 types of story, and 4 contexts.

Core Practices

  • Storytelling: we are people of story and we always have been. The stories we tell shape how we experience ourselves, others, community, and faith.

  • Hospitality: how we welcome and are welcomed into space, place, and relationship shapes the way we experience community and faith.

The Stories We Tell

  • Lament: Stories of things that are not as they are supposed to be and as such, cause pain.

  • Confession: Stories of the way pain alters how we engage - physically, emotionally, and relationally.

  • Disappointment: Stories of all that resides In the space between what could be and what is.

Contexts for Development and Practice

  • Communities of Praxis: SLOW Communities and Pastoral Care Groups.

  • Individual Support: Therapeutic Guidance and Spiritual Direction.

  • Training and Consulting: Monthly webinars, local and virtual workshops, conferences, staff development, church transformation process.

  • Practitioner Development: A collective for those who live at the intersection of ministry and a helping profession.

FAQs

  • Church Well Co exists to help the Church reimagine its relationship to pain and suffering for the formation, healing, and flourishing of the people of God in community.

    We do this in four primary ways:

    1. Communities of Praxis (also called SLOW Communities and Pastoral Care Groups)). These are groups of 6-8 shared-space leaders who meet monthly on a virtual platform to form relationship, provide support for one another, and engage together with the 4 core practices of Church Well Co: Survey, Lament, Own, and Welcome. Find a group for yourself here.

    2. Trainings. Church Well Co provides workshops, multi-day trainings, and staff retreats to help churches and teams develop shared language and practices within the context of local relationship and community to deepen relationship, shape relational culture, and develop communal safety. Virtual and in-person training opportunities are available.

      Church Well Co also offers individual support in the form of coaching and consultation for leaders to identify and overcome obstacles to relational connection in leadership and community. Learn more here.

    3. Individual Guidance. Our trained practitioners are available to provide Spiritual Direction and Therapeutic Guidance for those in need of a confidential space and companion to heal from pain, develop attentiveness to the move of God in their lives, and find the keys to unlock the doors in front of them. Explore the Deeper Well here.

    4. Church Well Collective. Church Well Co is committed to creating space of brave relationship for pastors and church leaders. To this end, Church Well Co invests in the development and formation of community for helping professionals who share this heart. The CWCollective is a community of likeminded helping professionals (counselors, spiritual directors, coaches, etc.) who have pastoral backgrounds and are committed to using their gifts and skills to serve the Church. The members of the CWCollective also serve as Guides for the SLOW Groups that Church Well Co facilitates.

      Join the CWCollective here.

  • There are three specific groups toward which support is offered through Church Well Co:

    1. Ministry leaders. The wellbeing and sustainability of ministry matters. A great deal.

      All those who contribute to care for the Church face challenges, weariness, and isolation and are deserving of space held specifically for them. Ministry experiences all too often lead to additional life tensions, mental health challenges, and burnout. Sustainability and wellbeing do not always come easily. Sometimes it necessitates individual support and at other times benefits for a caring community. Because of this Church Well Co provides both individual care (coaching) and supportive community (Pastoral Care/SLOW Groups).

      Church Well Co serves:

      • ministers at all levels (lead, assistant, NextGen, worship, etc.)

      • ministers in all contexts (missionaries, chaplains, Christian helping professionals, etc.).

    2. Leadership teams and congregations. By providing both topic-specific workshops as well as team intensives, Church Well Co works to deepen connection and bring insight enhance the cultural and communal wellbeing of churches and leadership teams.

    3. Professionals who serve pastors and churches (therapists, coaches, spiritual directors, pastoral counselors, etc.). Church Well Co provides relational and learning spaces to foster community and strengthen capacity for Christian clinicians across the helping disciplines working to bring healing and wholeness in the Church.

  • Church Well Co is simply that. An organization seeking wellness for the church. The work of truly becoming well individually and collectively is complicated enough. No need for a complicated name.

Church Well Collective

This community of practitioners engage with one another to develop contexts of bravery, cultivate new imagination, and practices skills necessary in the formation of brave community. From that foundation of relationship and community, we provide training, support, and guidance to pastors, ministry leaders, and congregations.

  • Dr. Noah Branson

    Psychologist

  • Kalli Davis

    Pastor | Counselor | Guide

  • Kevin Dolbee

    Pastor | Counselor | Guide

  • Lindsay Garrison

    Pastor | LMFT | Guide

  • Craig Hinca

    Spiritual Director

  • James Knight

    Pastor | Spiritual Director

  • Jeanne Kuckelman

    Christian Counselor

  • Lisa Machen

    Pastor | Counselor | Guide

  • BrianJames McMahon

    FOUNDER | Pastor | LMFT | Guide

  • Stephanie Moore

    Social Worker | Guide

  • David Pinkston

    Spiritual Director

  • Cammie Wilson

    Spiritual Director | Coach

Hi, I’m BrianJames.

I am a pastor and licensed marriage and family therapist and dream of a Church that is brave, a Church that can enter into pain and suffering in a way that embodies the incarnation of Jesus. And I dream of communities led by leaders who are thriving.

Over the years this work has taken me in many directions and has taken on on many different forms. After time spent living in New York, China, Seattle, and Los Angeles, I am happy to call Kansas City home for myself and my family. Through the years I have pastored, church planted, developed a counseling center to launch other therapists into private practice, and provided care in a variety of capacities to individuals, families, and organizations. As a licensed marriage and family therapist I currently own and operate a private practice, BrianJames Therapy where I work specifically with pastors and organizational leaders.

In each context of my life I bore witness to the frequency with which suffering led to isolation. Not because of preference, but because of the absence of relationships that were able to truly companion the suffering.

About Our Founder

There is a great need in our world at large, and held by pastors and church leaders, for relationships and spaces to in which form friendship and process the challenges of ministry - places that can hold the heavy things and carry one another’s burdens in a way that truly fulfills the law of Christ. I love being a therapist and the opportunity it provides to engage the sacred heavy of life. Yet it became apparent that those I care deeply for, my friends, and the pastors and ministers in our churches, need brave relationships that exist beyond individual therapy. In 2022 I founded Church Well Co to create contexts for the kind of brave relationships that all ministers need, yet few can find or are able to cultivate. Today Church Well Co provides supportive communities, trainings, and individual coaching for pastors, leaders, and churches who desire to engage in brave relationships with one another and cultivate cultures of bravery in their contexts.