MINERAL POINT, WI / ACCESS Newswire / August 20, 2026 / Derek W. Mason, Christian Transformation Expert and founder of Identity In Christ Ministries, is expanding his work through a Spiritual Counseling Certification Program designed to equip Christians, pastors, ministry leaders, and future counselors with practical training for helping others experience healing, freedom, and lasting transformation in Christ.
Led through the Christian Academy of Healing, the program grows out of Mason's more than a decade of work in Christian counseling, discipleship, pastoral ministry, and spiritual freedom. After personally counseling close to 1,000 individuals and leading thousands of spiritual deliverance sessions, Mason is now focused on multiplying that experience by preparing others to serve people with biblical truth, spiritual maturity, and practical understanding.
Meeting a Growing Need for Spiritual Counseling
Mason believes there is a significant gap in how many Christians understand spiritual counseling. People may sincerely want to help someone facing fear, shame, addiction, spiritual confusion, emotional pain, or other serious struggles, but good intentions alone do not always prepare someone to guide another person through a difficult season.
The Spiritual Counseling Certification Program is intended to help address that gap. Rather than treating counseling, discipleship, emotional healing, and spiritual freedom as completely separate areas, the training brings them together within a Christ-centered approach.
Identity In Christ already serves individuals, pastors, churches, counselors, and ministry leaders. Its broader approach combines biblical counseling, psychological understanding, spiritual warfare, identity in Christ, and intentional discipleship while considering the whole person, including body, mind, and spirit.
Training That Starts With Personal Transformation
A central principle behind Mason's program is that those who guide others should first understand the healing journey in their own lives.
"The reason we do not see powerful sanctification programs being taught in churches today is that it is not being taught to many pastors and they have not experienced the journey themselves," Derek W. Mason says. "We must intimately experience the healing journey before we can guide others through it. We can't give what we don't have."
That belief reflects Mason's own path into ministry. His approach was shaped not only by theological education, but also by his personal experience of moving from an identity built around achievement and outside approval toward a deeper relationship with God. He later earned a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and devoted his ministry to studying and teaching identity in Christ, spiritual formation, discipleship, spiritual warfare, and Christian spiritual counseling.
For Mason, effective spiritual counseling therefore begins with more than learning techniques. It requires personal spiritual preparation, biblical understanding, compassion, discernment, and the maturity to walk alongside another person through a process that may take time.
Combining Biblical Truth With Practical Understanding
The certification program teaches the approach used within Identity In Christ, combining biblical foundations, dependence on the Holy Spirit, and practical psychological understanding.
The goal is holistic support that goes deeper than temporary symptom management. Participants learn to consider the spiritual, emotional, psychological, and practical dimensions that can affect a person's life while keeping transformation in Christ at the center of the process.
This reflects Mason's larger Transformation in Christ framework: intimacy with Christ, identity in Christ, freedom in Christ, purpose in Christ, and equipping others for Christ. The underlying idea is that transformation should eventually lead beyond personal freedom toward helping others experience freedom as well.
The program is not tied to charismatic, Pentecostal, Catholic, or any other denominational identity. Mason's focus is on biblical truth and authentic relationship with Jesus Christ rather than denominational labels or theatrical approaches to spiritual ministry.
Building a Community Equipped to Help Others
Mason sees the certification program as more than a course. His longer-term goal is to develop a community of capable people prepared to serve those struggling with addiction, alienation, deception, despair, spiritual bondage, and other forms of darkness.
That multiplication is central to the values of both Mason and Identity In Christ. The ministry does not simply seek to help individuals find freedom. It aims to equip people to disciple, counsel, lead, and serve others.
As the program expands, Mason plans to continue preparing people who feel called to spiritual counseling and related ministry with training, spiritual preparation, and practical tools they can use when working with others.
The vision is ultimately about creating more places where people can find wise, compassionate, Christ-centered support rather than building a ministry that depends solely on Mason himself.
Expanding Access Through Identity In Christ
As more participants complete the Spiritual Counseling Certification Program, Identity In Christ plans to make it easier for people seeking spiritual guidance to connect with trained individuals through IDinChrist.com.
The expansion supports the ministry's broader vision of helping believers embrace their identity in Christ, experience lasting spiritual freedom, live out their purpose, and become equipped to help others do the same. Identity In Christ currently carries out that mission through counseling, discipleship, books, podcasting, speaking, training, and its certification program.
For Mason, the measure of the program's success will not simply be how many people earn a certification. It will be whether those people are prepared to bring truth, love, hope, wisdom, and practical support into the lives of people who need it.
About Derek W. Mason
Derek W. Mason is a Christian Transformation Expert, ordained pastor, author, speaker, and founder of Identity In Christ Ministries. After building a successful business career, Mason experienced a profound personal turning point that redirected his life toward ministry. He later earned a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, became an ordained pastor, and dedicated himself to studying Scripture, identity in Christ, sanctification, spiritual warfare, spiritual formation, and Christian spiritual counseling.
Since launching his counseling ministry in 2013, Mason has personally counseled nearly 1,000 individuals and led thousands of spiritual deliverance sessions. His work brings together biblical theology and an understanding of the whole person, emphasizing identity in Christ, renewing the mind, discipleship, emotional healing, spiritual freedom, and an intimate relationship with God.
Mason currently serves as Lead Pastor of Cedar Rock in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. He is also a certified Enneagram Administrator, author of Embracing Our Full Victory in Christ, host of the Dominion Over Darkness podcast, and founder of the Christian Academy of Healing. Through the academy's Christian Spiritual Counseling Certification Program, he trains Christian leaders, pastors, counselors, and others who feel called to help people pursue biblical healing and lasting spiritual freedom.
About Identity In Christ
Identity In Christ is a Christian discipleship and spiritual transformation ministry founded by Derek W. Mason. The ministry serves individuals seeking spiritual, emotional, and mental freedom, as well as pastors, churches, counselors, and ministry leaders who want to better equip themselves to help others.
Through biblical counseling, discipleship, books, podcasts, speaking, online training, and the Christian Spiritual Counseling Certification Program, Identity In Christ helps believers deepen their relationship with Jesus Christ, renew their minds, understand their identity in Christ, pursue lasting spiritual freedom, and live with greater purpose.
Learn more at Identity In Christ or follow Derek W. Mason and Identity In Christ on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Contact information:
Organization: Identity In Christ
Website: https://www.idinchrist.com/
Email: Derek@IdinChrist.com
Contact Person: Derek Mason
SOURCE: Identity In Christ
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