Our Vision

A non-profit organization focused on building high-quality, innovative, and compassionate mental health care that facilitates personal and professional growth in our counselors, clients, and community, so that they experience the hope, peace, and joy God desires for them.

Charis: We Heal Together.

Our Mission

Trusted Professional Mental Health Counseling.

All of our therapists are licensed and committed to the mission of Charis Counseling, practicing the very best evidence-based therapies.

Donor-funded financial solutions to ensure people complete their healing journey.

Once part of Charis, we offer tailored financial solutions for clients so everyone can complete the healing they started.

Free community education.

Healthy individuals and communities heal together. We are helping remove the stigma around mental health in faith-based places. Seeking help is a bold step toward restoration and growth. 

Meet our Board of Directors:

  • Lisa Orr

    Lisa joined the Board of Directors for Charis Counseling in 2020 and is now serving as the Board President. Lisa graduated from Concordia University in 2006 with a Bachelor of Science in Healthcare Administration. She utilizes the knowledge and experience gained from twenty years in Healthcare and Healthcare leadership to advise and guide Charis to remain true to the mission and vision. Knowing the great need for quality professional Christian mental health services in the Pacific Northwest, Lisa is committed to Charis being the trusted source for those services.

  • Bob Schilling, Ph.D.

    Bob has served on the board at Charis Counseling since 2017. He shares his insight as a past business executive and devoted Christian. Bob received his master’s and Ph.D. from Fielding Graduate University in Human Development in 1998. His prior experience was in the business world as an engineer and then as an executive in a communications company. Bob received training and licensing from Covey Leadership Center, worked as a group facilitator for divorced parents and youth, and served with MarriageTeam as a coach for couples seeking healing in their marriages.

  • Jessica Davis

    Jessica has been a board member at Charis Counseling since 2022. She has long admired the mission of Charis and is honored to serve on the Board of Directors. Jessica feels mental wellness is a vital piece of our whole self and loves the approach Charis has taken in offering support, awareness, and accessibility to our community. She is excited to participate in future growth and opportunities moving forward. She is married with three children, a foster parent with experience in trauma-informed practices, and works as a paraprofessional at a local school.

Meet our Director of Advocacy and Education:

Abe has served as a Lead Pastor for the past decade, leading people from a wide range of backgrounds. During this time, it became clear to him that emotional health and spiritual maturity grow in tandem.

A concerning trend caught Abe's attention: those in the greatest need of professional Christian therapy often had the least access to it. It's no secret that good therapy is expensive, and finding trustworthy Christian therapy can be challenging.

Combine these challenges with the unfortunate stigma that remains in some communities, and the barriers to healing can seem insurmountable.

Abe longed to find a way to address these problems and make professional Christian therapy accessible to all. Little did he know that Charis had already found a response to these questions!

Now, as the Director of Advocacy and Education, Abe partners with communities and individuals eager to support Charis' longstanding mission to extend God’s healing grace into the lives of those who need it most through the avenue of professional mental health services.

Our Mission:

To be the trusted source of Christian professional counseling services and mental health education for local churches and communities in the Pacific Northwest.

Our Core Practices

  • We are committed to providing professional counseling services in accordance with local, state, federal, and organizational laws, statutes, and ethical guidelines.

  • All counseling theory and techniques utilized will be consistent with our Statement of Faith below. We wholeheartedly believe and commit to our Statement of Faith .

  • We are committed to demonstrating respect for all clients.

  • We are committed to addressing the holistic development of our clients—physical, emotional, cognitive, social, and spiritual. We are also quick to refer those issues that are primarily pastoral in nature to a church pastor or pastoral counselor and those that are primarily physical in nature to a physician.

  • We are committed to being a counseling resource for local churches.

  • We are committed to benefiting our local community.

  • We are committed to making every attempt to be affordable to clients in need.

  • We are committed to ensuring that all clients are afforded the right to a counselor with whom they have no other ongoing relationship, and who is competent to treat their issues.

  • We are committed to ongoing personal, professional, and organizational growth (physically, emotionally, cognitively, and spiritually).

Statement Of Faith

We believe that the Bible is God’s inspired word. There is one living and true God existing as three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, eternal and equal with the Father. Human beings are created in the image of God, and yet became sinners by nature and deed, therefore becoming hopelessly lost. Salvation, restoration to membership in God’s family, is by grace through faith alone for those who trust in the saving work of Jesus, the Messiah, at the cross.

Our History

The word CHARIS (pronounced “care us”) is Greek for grace. Grace is undeserved support or acts of kindness. In brief, it means that God desires the best for us so He unconditionally provides what we do not have and cannot supply for ourselves. This word is the inspiration for Charis Counseling Associates.

Charis is a professional counseling service that is passionate about facilitating growth in people and helping them experience the hope, peace, and joy God desires for them. As an innovative, collaborative, and compassionate group of Christian professionals, we want each person to experience the highest quality of affordable counseling, support services, and resources. We utilize evidence-based psychotherapy approaches and sound psychological theory consistent with Biblical truth to promote emotional health, improve quality of life, supporting healthy goals & growth, and reconcile relationships.

We offer services to all people regardless of age, color, culture, disability, ethnicity, national origin, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, marital status, or socioeconomic status. We respect the dignity and worth of all people, and your rights to privacy, your own beliefs, and to make your own decisions. We will work with you from your own perspective because no client needs to hold to our beliefs to receive the best professional service we can provide. Nor do we impose our beliefs on clients. At Charis, we treat all people with respect, grace, and understanding.