April 2025 | 13
“I’ve moved from full-time Senior Pastor to part-time Pas- tor and Discipleship,” Newman said. “My role for 2025 is to do counseling, but also, really whatever is necessary to help Brian get fully acclimated in the new role as Senior Pastor.” In 2026, Newman will no longer be on staff at Koinos but will serve as a non-staff, non-employee elder. And, he and his wife will be fully launching the new minis- try the Lord has placed on their hearts – Thrive. Thrive is a non-profit ministry aimed at providing coach - ing, care, and counseling to pastors, pastor’s wives or other ministry leaders and missionaries. “What we recognized over the years is the huge impor- tance biblical counseling has been in our church,” he re- called. In 1998, Koinos Church was planted with a group of ad- dicts from Narcotics Anonymous. “Over the years we had lots of broken people in our church,” he said. As people requested help, Newman sent them to a Chris- tian counselor. “That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? That’s what all
pastors do,” Newman remembered. “I’m not the profes- sional. Go see the Christian counselor.” However, the feedback he received from the people he sent wasn’t good and he decided he couldn’t send people there anymore. “At that point, I discovered biblical counseling and I be- came a certified biblical counselor.” Newman is currently doing some counseling on a small scale but will be full-time at Thrive in 2026 meeting the great need for biblical counseling he sees in the ministry. “Many pastors are in a single pastor church where they don’t have that kind of culture of care elders around them, helping them settle conflict,” he noted. “There are lots of pastors who just don’t have anybody to go to to talk about these things.” Johnathan and Jeni Newman’s new mission is to be the ones that pastors and missionaries can contact for help, counseling needs, addressing conflict in the church, coaching, embracing change, and other spiritual and practical needs, as they devote the next chapter of their lives to Thrive.
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