Mission, Vision, and Values
Our Mission
“To bring hope to the hopeless and healing to those who are hurting by helping individuals realize their God-given, divine potential.”
At Light Counseling, we desire to help you or someone you love find solutions to the pressing issues of life, healing, and wholeness through Christ. Whether you are coming to work through wounds of the past or to deal with the current stressors in your life, we desire to help you work through these issues in a healthy and Godly way.
If you have spiritual, interpersonal, relational, or family needs, please allow us the privilege of talking with you, praying with you, and seeking God’s help and guidance for the needs in your life. Since our founding, we’ve helped over 100,000 families— and we can help you, too.
With locations throughout Virginia and in Liverpool, NY—and online therapy in 40 states, we make getting the help you need as simple as possible.
Our Vision
“To make clinically excellent and distinctly Christian mental health services available worldwide.”
If you’re struggling with mental health, please know you’re not alone. Our passion is serving you and others who are struggling, and in today’s world, there may be more hurting people than at any point in world history. As a Christian counseling practice, we cannot sit and do nothing about this.
So we take action. We started as a one-office practice, then opened two offices. Then, we went to three offices—and in 2023, we opened three new counseling centers in Richmond, VA, and added an additional clinic in Liverpool, NY.
We’ve also introduced Light Counseling +, an online wing offering clinically excellent, distinctly Christian counseling in 40 states and counting.
We’re always learning, adapting, and achieving—and we won’t rest until the world has access to affordable Christian counseling.
Our Values
Honoring God in All Things
Doing Everything with Excellence and Care
Always
Learning
Adapting
Achieving
Building Stronger Communities Through Relationships and Faith
United Together in Spirit and Purpose
Statement of Faith
Light Counseling is a clinically excellent and distinctly Christing counseling practice. While we will serve all clients with love, compassion, and without judgment, we believe it is important to share our Statement of Faith with those who are considering us for their counseling journey or employment. Our organization believes that:
- There exists only one God, creator, and sustainer of all things, infinitely perfect and eternally co-existing in three persons Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
- The Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, are the inspired, inerrant, and trustworthy Word of God, the complete revelation of His will for the salvation of human beings, and the final authority for all matters about which it speaks.
- Human nature derives from two historical personas, male and female, created in God’s image. They were created perfect, but they sinned, plunging themselves and all human beings into sin, guilt, suffering, and death.
- The substitutionary death of Jesus Christ and his bodily resurrection provide the only ground for justification, forgiveness, and salvation for all who believe. Only those who trust in Him alone are born of the Holy Spirit and are true members of the Church; only they will spend eternity with Christ.
- The Holy Spirit is the agent of regeneration and renewal for believers in Jesus Christ. He makes the presence of Jesus Christ real in believers, and He comforts, guides, convicts, and enables believers to live in ways that honor Christ.
- Ministry to persons acknowledges the complexity of humans as physical, social, psychological, and spiritual beings. The ultimate goal of Christian counseling is to help others move to personal wholeness, interpersonal competence, mental stability, and spiritual maturity.
Our Founder & President
Light Counseling was co-founded in 1991 by Tim Clinton, Ed.D., LPC, LMFT. Dr. Clinton is also the president of the American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC), the world’s largest and most diverse Christian counseling association. Dr. Clinton also founded Light University—a global leader in certificate, diploma, and continuing education in mental health. He also founded the biennial AACC World Conference (which has consistently hosted nearly 7,000 leaders representing all 50 states and nearly 40 countries) at the magnificent Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee.
He also serves as Executive Director of the Global Center for Mental Health, Addiction, and Recovery and Professor Emeritus at Liberty University. For the past seven years, Dr. Clinton has extended his ministry as co-host of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, heard on more than 1,400 radio outlets daily, and now hosts a weekend television program, The Road Forward, seen on Real America’s Voice News streaming service and numerous platforms.
Licensed as a professional counselor and marriage and family therapist, Dr. Clinton is recognized as a world leader in mental health and relationship issues. He spends much of his time working with Christian leaders and professional athletes from the NFL, PGA, NASCAR, MLB and more. Recently, Dr. Clinton and his son, Zach, launched a new daily meditative prayer podcast on pray.com for mental health and relationships, with nearly two million downloads in the first 45 days. More than six million people are impacted monthly through his media reach and influence. Dr. Clinton has authored or edited nearly 30 books, including Take It Back: Reclaiming Biblical Masculinity: The Heart & Strength of Being a Man, and his latest, Focus on the Future: Your Family, Your Faith, and Your Voice Matter Now More Than Ever.
He has been married 43 years to his wife Julie, and together, they have two children, Megan (married to Ben) and Zach (married to Evelyn), and two granddaughters, Olivia and Sophia, who have stolen their hearts.
Dr. Tim Clinton, LPC, LMFT