Equipping people with the biblical tools necessary to navigate life with a loving God who meets our emotional and spiritual needs.
Carolyn’s Story
Even though I was saved when I was 4, I struggled with severe anxiety, insecurity, fits of anger, and depression for most of my life. I felt like I had to control my environment and perform well to be accepted by others and be happy with myself. Failure and success or how valued I felt by others drove how I felt about myself. I knew my Bible, prayed, taught Sunday School and Youth Group, participated in Bible studies and small groups, and went to Bible school. I knew what Jesus did on the cross for me. I “tried” hard to live the Christian life. I really loved God and knew He loved me. I knew I was supposed to have the fruit of the Spirit, but I didn’t, and I had no idea what was wrong.
About 14 years ago I started asking God why I was so emotionally up and down and why I couldn’t be happy even though I had so much in my life that was good. I didn’t understand why my faith didn’t look like the examples I saw in the Bible, even though I was actively wanting to live my life for Christ. Once I started asking God these questions, He answered by putting me through the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to experience emotionally and spiritually in my life. This challenging time lasted approximately 3-4 months and began the journey of discovering the difference between living my life knowing Christ and living my life with surrender moment by moment to the Holy Spirit. He also began to show me what spiritual warfare is all about.
It took about 7 years of my own personal journey, working through my wounds, attitudes, habits, misunderstandings, and strongholds with God, before He started healing me to the point that I could no longer not talk about it. My depression was gone after 40 years. I didn’t struggle or cycle in negative thoughts, anger or anxiety. The biblical truths I learned to apply practically to my daily life with Him began to solidify into themes and tools that I could share. I began telling people around me about what He had done in me, and God started bringing people into my life in a natural way who were open to walking this journey with me. I started doing individual mentoring and spiritual coaching informally and was asked to do some speaking for groups and adult Sunday School classes.
In 2019, with the full support of my husband, I quit my career as a speech therapist and began my second master’s degree through Liberty University. In May of 2021 I received my master’s in human services counseling with an emphasis in crisis prevention and trauma. I’m excited to see what the Lord does now as I step into a ministry that He has initiated and orchestrated in a way I never could have even if I had tried. This ministry is built on biblical truth, surrender and repentance, and learning to pray in ways that allow for transformation of the core of who we are through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Tara’s Story
My own journey of healing and restoration began 16 years ago. While I had been a Believer for many years, I never fully realized what it looked like to walk in true freedom from hurt, rejection, fear, loneliness, and a sense of never being enough. In fact, it was only during a difficult season in my own life did I allow God to start stripping away some of those very same things and to show me what a real surrendered relationship with Him looks like. Eventually, it was through this very surrender and obedience to Him that my own heart began healing and I was able to find the true freedom I so desperately desired.
Before long and as only God can plan, I found myself meeting with other women that were struggling with so many of the same things. Over time, He began to use me, my experiences, and my personal testimony to meet them wherever they were at, to encourage them, and to invite them on their own journey to personal healing and freedom in Jesus.
In August of 2023 I made the decision to step away from 28 years of cosmetology and pursue this new calling that God had laid on my heart. After completing my Biblically-based certification course, I began actively studying and observing under my friend and mentor and founder of Stage 5 Ministry Carolyn Moore. I officially joined Stage 5 Ministry in October of 2023 and now seek to provide Bibically-based mentoring and coaching to other women who desire spiritual, mental and emotional healing.
Thalita’s Story
I accepted Jesus as my savior when I was 5 years old, however in my life I had a lot of ups and downs. My parents were divorced, so I had to deal with a lot of moves and a lot of emotional manipulation in my family, which many times caused me to think that God only loved me when I was “acting good” for Him. I lived my whole life as a slave of fear; fear of man, fear of feeling rejected, fear in general, and fear of being unloved. I always loved the Lord, but a lot of my relationship with Him felt exhausting, because of trying to perform, trying to please God, while also trying to please everybody and never feeling like I was being successful.
When I started to learn about God’s grace I was in so much joy to know that God loved me despite my weakness. However, I continued to struggle to know what life is without fear, and what it really means to live a life dependent on the Lord. It was when the Lord allowed me to experience that warfare is real, that I was able to understand who my fight was against. I learned that there is something outside of myself that tells me lies, that wants to enslave me in fear, and in unbelief that God is all powerful and all loving towards me, and that He loves me so much that He wants to set me free from all of it.
It was when God allowed me to walk closer to Carolyn that I learned from her about the importance of prayer, the importance of humbling myself before the Lord, recognizing that I don’t need to live as a slave of those things, and of negative emotions, and recognizing that I can’t change on my own. I needed to repent to God for those times, agreeing with those lies, and receiving His forgiveness, for Jesus died on the cross so I wouldn’t have to live that way. I also had to learn to stand strong in the Lord, in the times that the enemy tempted me with those lies. And the more that I brought those thoughts captive to God, the more I relied on Him through prayers, the more I grew in intimacy with the Lord in a way that I have never experienced before. As Paul says in Philippians, it was in the middle of the suffering that I got to not only know Jesus, but deeply experience Him. Experiencing Him brings freedom and a whole other perspective . He filled me with His joy, that kind of joy that we can’t keep for our own.
God has always poured into my heart the love for discipleship, for it was in those moments, one-on-one, that He taught me a lot. I had the joy of experiencing discipleship in my home church in Brazil. And this year God gave me the opportunity to use what He has been doing in my life lately to share with others through Stage 5, in a way that I can walk alongside others teaching the same biblical tools so they can experience healing, freedom, and a deeper growth in their relationship with Christ Jesus.
About Stage 5 Ministry
In Matthew Chapter 13, Jesus tells the parable of the farmer who scattered his seeds. What happens to these seeds represents a different spiritual stage. Stage 1 is when some of the seeds fell on the path and birds ate the seeds. This represents a person who hears God’s word but the evil one snatches away what was sown in his heart. Stage 2 is when the seeds fell on rocky ground without much soil and the sun scorches the plants. This is the person who receives God with joy, but the joy only lasts for a short time due to troubles and persecutions. Stage 3 is the seed that fell among the thorns. This is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the seed, making it unfruitful. Stage 4 is the seed that fell on good soil. This is the man who hears the Word of God and understands it. This person produces a crop that yields 100, 60, or 30 times what was sown.
It is obvious that Stage 4 is where most Christians want to be. One question is why did some people in Stage 4 yield 100 times what was sown while others yield only 30 times? Throughout the Bible, there seems to be a possible level of relationship with God that goes beyond our seed falling on fertile soil. People like David, Peter, John, and Paul seemed to have a deep intimacy with God. These people desired God’s will in their life more than they desired their own will in their life. We were created to live intimately with God. Stage 5 is living life the way God created us to live. Many people struggle with strongholds like fear, self-hatred, bitterness, unbelief, jealousy, idolatry, and anxiety that keeps us from living a fulfilled life in Christ. A person cannot enter Stage 5 until they have gone through prayerful repentance and surrendered those strongholds to God. The purpose of Stage 5 Ministry is to help walk a person through this process. It does not matter what stage you are currently in; you only need to have a desire to be more intimate with God and to move towards Stage 5.
Our Values
Theme Verse
Jeremiah 33:2-3, ESV: “Thus says the Lord who made the earth, the Lord who formed it to establish it—the Lord is his name: Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”
Mission Statement
Equipping people with the biblical tools necessary to navigate life with a loving God who meets our emotional and spiritual needs.
Ministry Vision
Stage 5 Ministry will be a thriving ministry that brings people to an intimacy and dependency on God through surrender of sins and strongholds by implementing biblical truths.
Biblical Counseling
It is not legal for a licensed Christian counselor to tell a client that any of their behaviors or lifestyle choices are wrong or talk to them about God as the answer for their mental and emotional struggles, unless the client gives the counselor permission to do so. It is for this reason that Stage 5 Ministries has chosen to have trained counselors that are not licensed. We want to walk alongside believers who are seeking God and biblical truth for the answers for their emotional, mental and spiritual health, because we believe the Bible holds the only true answers for everything in life, and that God through Christ and the Holy Spirit is the only One who can fully heal and restore anything that has been damaged or wounded within us.
We partner with and are in agreement with the Association of Biblical Counseling (ABC). We encourage you to see their website for their values and philosophy of biblical counseling and for more information regarding the differences between licensed Christian counseling and Biblical counseling.
If you want to read more about the difference between Biblical Counseling and Traditional Counseling check our blog post for more info.
