At the Crossroads

Tim sits down with Pete Kuiper, co-founder of Crossroads Counseling of the Rockies, to hear the story behind 25 years of intensive counseling ministry. Pete shares how God placed a deep conviction on his heart — that real transformation takes more than an hour a week — and how that conviction became a model that has helped individuals and couples from across the country find lasting freedom.
A conversation about surrender, the work of the Holy Spirit, and what it looks like when God uses broken people to help other broken people get unstuck.
📍 crossroadsworkshop.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We are on the road. We're in Bunavista, affectionately known as Buni or BV. Uh, and I'm here with my good friend Pete Kuiper, who is a legend in in the world of counseling. Pete and his friend Will started crossroads counseling. What was it about 25 years ago? 2001. 2001. Right, the day before 9-11 is when we started it. That's amazing. Some very bad things and very good things happening in the same week. Yep. Tell me about Crossroads Counseling of the Rockies.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Yeah, we started it on that on that day before 9-11. Will and I each had clients, even though it was a very tragic moment, knew that they needed to stay and and to do the work. And they had both had amazing experiences. And as a result, they had referred so many clients after they left because of their satisfaction with having their lives transport.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Yeah. And Crossroads has reached people from, I think, over 20 different countries in every state in the Union except for Vermont. Are they just perfect up there?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

I think Bernie Sanders hasn't realized his need for intensive counseling. That may be true. That may be true. It's actually 17 or 18 countries, so I don't want to overstate. Okay. And that just shows you how great the need is for people to get unstuck from deep places of the heart.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Now you have a unique approach. Tell me a bit about how counseling works here. How long do people come? What does it look like?

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Well, Will Franz and myself became very dissatisfied with just traditional counseling that one hour a week. We're just getting to places where we're making major progress, and then we had to stop because the time was up. And the next week when they came back, so much life happened in between. We had to reconstruct what we did last week and then uh start building again. And so we decided that a better way to approach really difficult issues that seem to be resistant to treatment would be to do an intensive approach to counseling, which means couples and individuals would come for one or two weeks and do three hours of counseling every day, plus an hour of the teaching that I do. And in those three hours and doing it daily, you just get to a deeper, deeper place. And uh we experience so much more transformation in one or two weeks than most people experience in almost a year of counseling sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Yeah, 30 hours of counseling in two weeks, which is about nine months in the traditional model, isn't it? And yeah. And I've had the privilege of contracting and working with Crossroads uh for the past few years, and it's been a total joy because my experience is about a third of the way to half the way through, there's a significant breakthrough almost every time. Yep. And that's truly the work of God, the work of the Holy Spirit, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 3:14

And that's and that's what we really base our whole program on, is is the work of the Holy Spirit, that we are instruments that God uses, and He does use our talents, gifts, abilities, experience and education, all the stuff that we bring to the counseling office, but it's the work of the Holy Spirit through us that really makes the difference.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Yeah. Tell me a little bit about your latest project. You developed a workshop, which really you've developed over the past 25 years, but uh what is this newest version and what does it look like?

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Well, up until now, the the teaching that that took place at Crossroads was a powerful uh supplement and complement to the counseling that was taking place in the office, but it was really restricted to people who came here. And because I have retired from direct counseling, and I still do the counseling here at Crossroads every day while I'm here, I decided I wanted to make that available to way more people. And so I got the idea of recording the main teachings that I do. There's seven main teachings that I do and have done over the years, and put them on video so that they can be viewed, and then created a 26-page study guide that takes you much deeper into the issues that I teach on, and the complement of those two things together now are available to anybody who wants to use them, and I think they're gonna be a wonderful resource to both pastors doing counseling, lay people that are doing spiritual direction, therapists who use those for assignments and going deeper with those questions with their clients and missionaries in particular. I'm really excited that we're gonna offer this completely free to missionaries. It's been so true over the years that missionaries typically don't have great resources.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yeah. Well, I'm really excited about this workshop having gone through it live with you. What is the website to access the workshop?

SPEAKER_01 5:30

All they have to do is go to at the crossroadsworkshop.com, at the crossroadsworkshop.com, and you'll read all about it and they'll take you to a purchase page. It's only a hundred dollars for the whole thing. And um, once a church, for example, downloads that and pays the one-time uh purchase price, they can use it any number of times for small groups, pastoral counseling, for spiritual direction, celebrate recovery, a discipleship class, many, many uses.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Wow, that's a great deal. I think you also offer it for free or at a reduced price for mission agencies as well.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

It's totally free to mission agencies and missionaries. So all you need to do is to apply through the website and they'll explain how to do it.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Wow, that is wonderful. So I wish we had more time. We'll probably do more interviews later. That'd be great. But uh the website for this will be in the notes of the podcast. And also check out Crossroads Counseling of the Rockies.com if you want more information about intensives. If you or someone you know wants to do a one or two-week intensive in Bunavista, Colorado, which is the most beautiful place in the world, surrounded by 14,000 foot mountain peaks, more sunshine per year than California. It's got the river with all the river activities, hiking, all the stuff you could want. So check that out. Um, but one last question, Pete. Actually, two. Tell me about your family and tell me what you do for fun.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

I've been married for 56 years in December. Wow. My wife Marty and I have two sons that both live in Colorado Springs with their wives, and we have seven grandchildren, and uh we have love living in Buna Vista more than anything. And our favorite thing to do is to ride our our e-trikes. Nice. You'll see us going all over Buna Vista, you know, on our trikes and having a blast. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Well, thank you for taking the time to do this, Pete. I would encourage everybody listening to this to check out the resources we have here. And uh yeah, look forward to the next time that we have you in the studio.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Great. Thanks, Tim.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Have a great day.