MEIER CLINICS CELEBRATES 35 YEARS OF SERVICE

A message from our Co-Founders: 

Paul Meier, M.D., and Nancy Brown, President

   In 1975, Dr. Paul Meier was completing his residency in Psychiatry at Duke University and was planning on taking one of two great job offers, when he found out that the majority of counseling in America was done by pastors with little training in the area of clinical depression, anxiety and other mental health issues. After some prayer and conviction, Dr. Meier turned down the job offers and decided to teach future pastors at a seminary and pursue a seminary degree himself.   He started at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and ended up in 1976 teaching full time at Dallas Theological Seminary. Dr. Meier's sister, Nancy Meier Brown joined him in his dream by helping start a psychiatric and Christian counseling clinic in Dallas, Texas, where Dr. Meier worked part time to keep up his skills and practice his profession while still teaching full time. He also took seminary courses and graduated with his theological degree.  Paul and Nancy never planned on having clinics located nationally, but God obviously did. There was no official field such as "Christian Psychology" yet, so Dr. Meier began writing textbooks and counseling books for his students at Dallas Seminary and for the general public.  Since that time, over 90 books in more than a dozen languages have been printed and read by approximately 8 million readers.   Nancy oversaw the business aspect of Meier Clinics and the clinics mushroomed into what is now a national chain of non-profit clinics with an international outreach.  Paul and Nancy are thankful to God for guiding the process all along.   

   In 2003, Meier Clinics became a non-profit and tax exempt organization in order to seek grants and donations to help provide charitable care discounts to people who wanted Christian mental health care but had no insurance and had financial difficulties.   Over the years since then, the Meier Clinics has provided approximately $600,000 to $1,000,000 yearly in charitable care discounts to thousands of people. 

   In 2006, the Meier Clinics won a Federal Healthy Marriage Initiative Grant for $10,000,000 over a five year period.  Along with over 20 non-profit organizations around the Chicagoland area, we launched a program, Family Bridges, to serve under-resourced people with free 8 - 10 hour workshops on topics such as Communication Skills; Parenting Skills; Conflict Resolution; and Financial Management.  These workshops, under the Direction of Dr. Alicia LaHoz, were made available to married couples and singles, and we were able to train high school students in 64 high schools in the Chicago area!  The high school students were taught what a healthy vs. abusive relationship is and financial management, such as setting up a family budget.  Workshops have been presented in Spanish, English, Russian and Indian languages, primarily to those with a median income of under $5,000 per year per person in the family.  Over the last five years, over 40,000 people have completed our workshops and over 25,000 young people have also been served!  The outcomes of marriages saved and changed are fantastic as a result of these efforts. 

   God has blessed the Meier Clinics through His grace these past 35 years.  We are thrilled to work in a ministry we believe in so completely and one in which we have the joy of seeing lives changed and, in some cases, lives saved!