Nick Vujicic on Faith, Counseling, and Mental Health

SPEAKER 01 : 0:00

This is Liz Franzel with Crawford Media Group, and today our guest is Nick Vujicic, founder and CEO of Nick V Ministries. Nick is also known around the world as an evangelist, entrepreneur, speaker, and author. Today we’ll be talking about the work he’s been doing to make a difference in local communities and churches to bring awareness and help for those battling mental health issues. Welcome to our program, Nick.

SPEAKER 02 : 0:25

Thank you, Liz, for having me. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER 01 : 0:27

Well, it’s good to have you back. Nick, you know, for those that don’t know you, can you share some of your testimony and your own victory over depression?

SPEAKER 02 : 0:38

By the grace of God, I first and foremost had incredible parents who loved on me, who told me that God’s got a plan for me despite my birth defect of having no limbs with no medical reason as to why. And they always told me, don’t worry, God’s got a plan. And at age eight, I went through my first depression. And it lasted for quite some time. And it was surrounding the big question of where is God in my pain? And why doesn’t he give me arms and legs like he gave everyone else? And I actually attempted suicide at age 10. And by the grace of God, I stayed, even though not Really knowing what future God would have for me, I gave my broken pieces a chance. And I, at age 13, started coming out of depression that really the first key was because of an attitude of gratitude, being thankful for what I had instead of being angry for what I did not have. Age 15, I read John chapter 9, a man was born blind, no one knew why he was born that way. And Jesus said he was done so that the works of God would be revealed through him. And I realized if God’s going to plan for a blind man, then he’s going to plan for me too. And so that was that. And, you know, just because you gave your life to Jesus Christ, it doesn’t mean that you’re immune then all of a sudden to ever have depression again. In fact, I had a couple other spouts of depression as an age 19 year old. And then even recently, in 2021, you know, mental health is real. We all have ups and downs. And one of the greatest ways that I’ve actually been able to overcome depression is, yes, being thankful, yes, but getting counseling as well. And I needed counseling. And what was interesting where I actually had depression The engagement with the counselor one-on-one is I started to talk about events and things and people who hurt me since 2002. And I think deep down there are wounds that we sometimes carry that we don’t know still triggers us and that we subconsciously even carry sometimes.

SPEAKER 01 : 3:01

Mm-hmm. You know, what’s interesting is you touched on counseling. I think a lot of Christians think that because they’re saved, they’ve got Jesus, that they don’t need counseling. They’re just going to muscle through it, you know, speaking scriptures and whatnot. I think that’s really important that you mentioned that. Also, what caught my attention was you said when we get saved, we’re not immune. Things still happen. And I think that’s also something that Christians probably struggle with. Because they think, well, Jesus lives in me now, you know, I’ve got the Holy Spirit, I should have nothing. So I’m glad you said that. And, you know, you’ve got several facets of Nick V Ministries, but this one we’re talking about today is how you’re going around and training churches and local communities. And don’t you actually have an event coming up?

SPEAKER 02 : 3:56

Correct, yes, April 25th and 6th here in the Dallas area. in Richardson, I think it is. We’re going to be at the building of Create Church, where we are having experts of different fields to talk about different topics that do touch on mental health. And we do discuss things like human trafficking and sexual abuse and addictions to pornography. There are just things that we believe that the church is not really catching up to fast enough in regards to I think it kind of happened roughly 20 years ago, in my opinion, where many of the Western church mentality and leaders kind of went from a discipleship growth mentality to a church growth mentality. And in that, counseling kind of used to be something we used to do one-on-one. And we don’t really do that these days. We kind of put everyone in a small group. But, you know, there’s a roughly 25 million abortions that happen in our churches, and no one’s really talking about, you know, the PTSD from one, and just helping the church be educated and aware on the incredible resources that not only can be given for free, but training people in churches. to do one-on-one counseling with some of the specialties that people think that only a licensed practitioner can actually talk about. So we’ve got this incredible, robust, first-class certification process of a general core course that is roughly 20 hours of a course online and then also a 12-hour approximate duration of a specialty. So if you actually go to nicktheministries.org and you click on the tab of Champions for the Brokenhearted, we’ve got a ton of free resources and interviews of me with experts in different fields from foster care to widows to veterans to the poor to the bullied, the disabled, and 12 topics basically out of 106 different ways in how the human being can suffer and how we can actually help the church be that church that does offer one-on-one counseling. Because you know what? I think a lot of people don’t understand how many saved people are still going to their graves and bleeding on the inside. And the Lord wants his children healed. And, you know, why send wounded soldiers to the front line? No one does. And so I think we need to just go back to some basics of discipleship and counseling growth.

SPEAKER 01 : 6:40

And, you know, trying to find a church that does offer counseling because there’s so many people in need. I was part of an inner healing ministry at a church I used to be a part of. And it was so instrumental. What you mentioned earlier. soul wounds and people hurt you and they literally you know we call them soul wounds and those have to be healed because soul wounds manifest in the physical and you probably know that firsthand and if i could if i can add that it from a firsthand experience some soul wounds don’t ever like they don’t always heal right but to manage it to to manage when that trigger is there

SPEAKER 02 : 7:27

to be able to cope through some of these things. You know, I’ve never been sexually abused, and I know God can heal anyone and anything, but at least to be aware of how you can manage and have that team around you, that you don’t have to do that alone anymore. Sorry, I just had to interject on that, because it’s really important for people to understand it.

SPEAKER 01 : 7:46

It is, and you hit on that too, the key word, you don’t do it alone. We need someone oftentimes to lead us through that process, and sometimes we don’t even know we need that or to be led through a process, right? We just think it’s our depression, it’s our anxiety, it’s our fear, and we’re just going to deal with it. Well, it’s real important that someone who knows how to do that really is able to help you through that process and you know you when you say you’re training churches so this training that this event that you’re doing in April I’m in Dallas is that art is it mainly churches gonna be coming pastors ministry leaders to though the to our wish wish no it’s more of the people who know that they’ve they’ve been called to

SPEAKER 02 : 8:41

something greater that has something to do with counseling and encouraging people and want to get to know more about what they could do in their own local church community as a voluntary counselor who have a heart for a specific people group. And it seems as though within the next couple months we’ll also be issuing a potential scalable and sustainable model to help people actually have a almost like a paid missionary kind of model, because it’s hard to find now extra time to voluntarily help the brokenhearted. But if we could pioneer a scalable growth model of people who don’t need to necessarily ask people for donations to continue to do what they do and do more of it, but actually be a paid scale, I’m going to call them a missionary, an American missionary for America.

SPEAKER 01 : 9:47

So once they get the training, I imagine these people are a part of a church as far as in the congregation. Is it your hope? And hopefully they will go to their church and say, hey, I’ve got this training. Can we start this program here?

SPEAKER 02 : 10:03

Yeah, that’s the hope. That’s the hope. And we hope to in the spring of 2026, Liz, also host a youth pastors conference and debut this because I think there’s a lot of youth pastors who know that there are kids who are addicted to pornography. They know a lot of their kids have a lot of mental health issues and one in three girls have been raped by age 17 and one in five boys have been raped by age 17 and 67% of teenagers today are doing pornographic imagery for their boyfriends on their smartphone. and we’re all addicted to technologies, and the mental health crisis has never been more scary. And so I think we need to also help come alongside the youth pastors as well. So we hope to do that all in the next 12 to 18 months.

SPEAKER 01 : 10:52

I think that’s huge because that age is so vulnerable. And that age group, middle school, even elementary school, but middle school, high school, bullying, they’re trying to find their identity. And that’s when I think it’s just really instrumental for them to get that help.

SPEAKER 02 : 11:13

As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t help the kids by age nine, you’ve missed them. Completely.

SPEAKER 01 : 11:21

You know, NICV Ministries has many facets. What are some of the other issues that you are involved in or the different causes?

SPEAKER 02 : 11:33

Yeah, look, it’s all actually intertwined together. When you look at the stats, 85% of the people in prison came out of the foster care system. They never had a home. they aged out and became homeless and end up in prison. And so, you know, like we want to be a champion for the foster and adoption kids. You know, like why kind of half a million churches pick up one kid each? That’s how many kids are waiting for a home. And then so we have a prison ministry. We have an events schedule. And I’m also doing a world tour for about four years. On average, I do about seven countries a year. And Latin America is our focus for this year and last year. And by the grace of God, last year, I’ve been able to preach the gospel to 67 million people. And this year, it’ll be closer to 110 million people in Latin America. We’ll go on to Africa next year, and then Balkans in 27, in Southeast Asia, in Pacific, in Australia, in 2028. So we’re predominantly an evangelistic ministry. And in… October of this year, all across the USA, there is a documentary coming out called No Limits, No Limits. And it’s all about my life story and encouraging people that if God can use a man without arms and legs to be his hands and feet, then God can use any one of us.

SPEAKER 01 : 13:00

We’ve been talking with Nick Vujicic, founder and CEO of Nick V Ministries. Nick, where can our listeners go to find out more about your ministries and also get involved?

SPEAKER 02 : 13:12

Yeah, look, thank you so much. Go to nickvministries.org right now and then go have a look at the tab of Champions for the Brokenhearted. When you go through that, please let people know. You know, if they’re going through depression, if they’re a foster kid, if they’re a widow, if they’re bullied, if they’re disabled, or any of those people groups, there’s messages right for them for free and incredible interviews with experts, as I mentioned earlier. And then if you’d be interested to come to the Caregiver Training Summit on how you could potentially be certified to be an extension of God’s love in your own local church as a one-on-one trained counselor.

SPEAKER 01 : 13:54

Nick, thank you so much for what you’ve been doing, and thank you again for joining us today.

SPEAKER 02 : 13:59

You’re welcome. It’s my privilege. Thank you, Liz.