August 5, 2024
by Greg Henson, CEO Kairos University; President of Sioux Falls Seminary
Let’s take a few moments to review the past few posts we have shared. We are in the middle of a series of blog posts that are reflecting on our stewardship of the past ten years at Kairos University. After introducing the series, we called attention to the history of Spirit-led learning and service on which the past ten years have been built. Next, we described the precarious situation in which we found ourselves in 2013. Like many schools across North America, the legacy partners of Kairos University were dealing with several significant challenges. Sioux Falls Seminary was, perhaps, in the most tenuous situation. In response, the school embraced the idea that stewardship is about what we have and God has given us the resources to do the things God was calling us to do. So, we offered some loaves and fishes and began a ten-year journey of cultivating educational and clinical mental health pathways that are affordable, accessible, relevant, and faithful.
Our work over the past ten years reconnected us to our roots, created new opportunities to meet people where they are, and connected us to a global community of interconnected and interdependent collaborators. Today, we are blessed with a growing community of students and an amazing opportunity to join with the Body of Christ on mission.
In addition to our work in theological education, we have been stewarding resources, opportunities, and people in the area of clinical mental health. Nearly 35 years ago, Dr. Ernie Zimbelman donated his counseling practice to Sioux Falls Seminary. Since that time, we have developed new programs in clinical mental health, added numerous therapists, and opened new clinics. We have seen the most substantial growth in that work over the past ten years.
When an organization embraces the reality of integrated stewardship, it begins to ask new questions. In the case of Kairos University, those questions extended into the way we envisioned the clinical mental health work that we do. It was not a “business” or even a “division” of the school. Rather, it was a unique way for us to serve the community around us. We noticed a growing need for affordable mental health services for children and for those in our community who were underinsured. Our legacy partners addressed this need in different ways. In Myerstown, PA, Evangelical Seminary opened local mental health clinics that could serve the local community for free and/or significantly reduced rates. Sioux Falls Seminary opened a Child and Adolescent Therapy Clinic and a Community Counseling Clinic, both of which were designed to provide affordable care. In Sioux Falls, these new clinics required the school to enhance its operations in order to amplify services while reducing costs.
As was the case with our work in theological education, God has used our commitment to stewardship to produce amazing fruit over the past ten years. A few statistics as of August 1, 2024, include:
31 Therapists
4 Locations
28,522 Sessions
July 1, 2023 – June 30, 2024
3 Clinical Mental Health Programs
Master of Arts in Counseling, Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy, and Doctor of Professional Counseling
166 Clinical Mental Health Program Students
25+ Clinical Mental Health Faculty, Mentors, and Supervisors
We give thanks to God for the people he has placed in our care over the past ten years. As we step into the future, we are excited to see what God has in store! Serving others is an important part of stewardship. God entrusts us with abundant resources to be a conduit of blessing. As we see in Genesis 12, God’s blessings are for the life of the world. Our educational programs and clinical mental health services are not the only way we serve others. From the beginning of this 10-year journey, we have been committed to sharing our resources, learning, and opportunities with other schools and clinics, thereby seeing an exponential impact that is not confined to the Kairos community.