SCOPE OF PRACTICE

SCOPE OF PRACTICE STATEMENT

Leadership Spirituality Institute · Burn Bright Engagement

The honest limits and faithful reach of this work

Document purpose. This statement tells you, in plain language, what the Burn Bright Engagement is and is not, what I am trained to offer and not trained to offer, and when I will ask you to work with someone else alongside me or instead of me.

Good coaching — like good medicine — begins with a clear sense of what a practitioner is for. A guide who will not name his limits cannot be trusted with your interior life. So here are mine.

Relationship to other documents. This Scope of Practice Statement is a supplementary document. It does not replace the Client Engagement Agreement (practical terms: schedule, investment, cancellation) or the Covenant (relational posture: how we will meet, how we will be honest). It clarifies the lane of practice that both of those documents assume.

1. WHAT THIS WORK IS

Pastoral coaching grounded in the sanctification tradition.

Most coaching addresses what an executive does. This work addresses how you are burning — what fuel is running the engine, what has accumulated on the lens, what weight was placed on your shoulders that was never yours to carry. It is shepherding, not supervising. Catalyzing, not curing.

Four plain descriptions of what you are entering:

Structure. Twelve weeks. Ten one-hour sessions by Zoom. Two "breathing weeks" built in — unscheduled space for the work to settle. A methodology called CAREFREE: eight subtractions, each with a corresponding discipline.

Aim. Not to add capacity. To subtract encumbrance. The working assumption is that you are not broken. You are burdened — and the burdens can be set down.

Posture. You are the active agent of your own awakening. I am a servant of the work — naming patterns, asking the question that lets you hear yourself, holding silence, standing with you in what surfaces. I do not produce your transformation. I keep the space in which your own transformation can happen.

Orientation. Sanctification — the slow refining of a life already touched by grace — rather than conversion, apologetics, diagnosis, or treatment. If the work drifts toward any of those, it has left its lane. I will name that out loud when I see it.

This is the sort of work historically done by a trusted elder, not a certified specialist. I take that lineage seriously. I also take the professional standards of the 21st century seriously — which is why this document exists.

2. WHAT THIS WORK IS NOT

I will be direct. This list matters.

This is not psychotherapy. I am not a licensed mental-health professional. I do not diagnose mental illness, I do not treat it, and I do not substitute for the clinicians who do. If you have a therapist, keep them. If you need one and don't have one, I will say so and help you find one.

This is not psychiatric care. I do not prescribe medication, adjust medication, or advise on medication. Decisions about antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication, sleep medication, or anything else belong between you and a prescribing physician.

This is not medical care. I do not diagnose or treat physical illness. Several conditions can masquerade as burnout — thyroid disorders, sleep apnea, hormonal shifts, chronic inflammation, even cardiac issues. I am not qualified to tell them apart from exhaustion of spirit. Keep your physician involved.

This is not crisis intervention. I am not available as an emergency resource. If you are in acute crisis — considering self-harm, in a mental-health emergency, or in immediate physical danger — please contact 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline), 911, or go to the nearest emergency room. Between sessions, I respond to email within one business day. I do not operate in real time.

This is not traditional spiritual direction — as practiced in Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, or monastic traditions, where a director is formed in a specific discipline (Ignatian, Benedictine, Carmelite, etc.), often serves at nominal cost, and operates within an explicit ecclesial structure. My work shares some of that tradition's pastoral posture and contemplative emphasis, but it is its own thing: executive coaching informed by pastoral formation, not spiritual direction in the classical sense.

This is not evangelism or apologetics. I will not try to convert you, argue you into a particular belief system, or require you to share my faith. I serve clients of all traditions and none. My work is informed by Christian pastoral tradition and by Daoist philosophy (see §4), and I will be honest about what I bring. But the purpose of our hour is not to persuade you of anything — it is to help you set down what has been placed on you.

This is not performance coaching. I will not help you optimize your schedule, restructure your team, sharpen your board deck, or shave minutes off your operating rhythm. Other coaches do that work well. Mine is deeper and slower. If you need tactical operating support alongside this, I will tell you so directly.

This is not legal, financial, or tax counsel. Nothing said in a session constitutes advice of any of those kinds.

3. WHEN I WILL REFER YOU TO A CLINICIAN

Saying "I can help you" must also mean I can say "I can't." Referral is not failure. Referral is integrity. Here are the signals I watch for, and what I will do if I see them.

I will recommend clinical care — and may pause or close our engagement in favor of it — when any of the following is present:

Suicidal ideation, self-harm, or concrete thoughts of ending your life. This is emergency territory. I will name it directly, help you identify immediate resources, and ask that clinical support be in place before we continue.
Clinical depression — persistent, disabling low mood that has not responded to rest, connection, or ordinary honesty; the kind that sits on you even when the external circumstances improve.
Panic, severe anxiety, or dissociation that disrupts your ability to function, sleep, or think clearly.
Unresolved trauma — combat, abuse, childhood wounding, medical trauma, grief that has not had space to move. Trauma responds to specialized modalities (EMDR, somatic work, trauma-informed psychotherapy) that I am not trained to offer.
Addiction — alcohol, substances, prescription medication, or behavioral addictions of the kind that require specialized support and, often, a community.
Disordered eating.
Bipolar symptoms, psychotic symptoms, or significant cognitive changes.
Marital or family crisis requiring a couple's counselor, family therapist, or mediator.
Medical symptoms — persistent fatigue that rest does not touch, unexplained weight change, cardiac symptoms, sleep disruption that suggests apnea, anything a physician should evaluate before we assume the problem is interior.

What referral looks like in practice:

I will name what I am seeing, without drama. "What you are describing sounds like it needs someone with clinical training. I am not that person — but I want to make sure you find the right one."
I will help you, as best I can, identify the kind of clinician you need.
Depending on the situation, we may continue our work alongside clinical care, pause our work while clinical care takes priority, or end our work in favor of it.
I will not abandon you. Even if our engagement ends for reasons of scope, I will stay in touch briefly enough to confirm you are in good hands.

A note on honesty. You are under no obligation to disclose mental-health history, diagnoses, or medications to me. But if something becomes relevant to the work, I would rather know than not know. What I ask is that you keep me apprised in good faith — and that you keep me apprised especially if something is getting worse. I cannot help what I cannot see.

4. CREDENTIALS AND DENOMINATIONAL STANDING

These are the qualifications I bring — and the ones I do not.

Pastoral and theological formation:

Teaching Elder (ordained minister of Word and Sacrament), Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), ordained 1996. In good standing with presbytery.
Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.), concentration in 21st Century Leadership.
Active parish ministry in a PC(USA) congregation alongside this coaching practice.

Coaching and leadership formation:

Certified Leadership Coach, John Maxwell Team.
Author, The Providence Playbook: An Executive's Freedom from Burning Out to Burning Bright.
Founder, Leadership Spirituality Institute.

Theological rooting, named plainly. My training is in Reformed theology; my discipline is shaped by Christian spirituality and by the Daoist philosophical tradition of Laozi and Zhuangzi. I hold these two streams as complementary — Christian soil, Daoist wind — neither as decoration for the other. You do not need to share either tradition in order for this work to serve you. But you deserve to know what informs the questions I ask and the images I use, so that you can consent to the work with clear eyes.

Professional licenses I do NOT hold. I state these plainly so there is no confusion:

I am not a licensed clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, or physician.
I am not a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), or any other state-licensed mental-health clinician.
I am not a certified spiritual director in the Ignatian, Benedictine, or other classical direction traditions.
I am not an attorney or financial advisor.

5. PARALLEL CARE

The Burn Bright Engagement complements other appropriate relationships — it does not replace them.

You are encouraged to maintain, during and after our work together:

Your therapist, if you have one.
Your physician and any specialists under whose care you belong.
Your clergy — your priest, rabbi, pastor, imam, sensei, elder, or spiritual director, as appropriate to your tradition.
Your attorney, financial advisor, and tax professional.
Any support group or community that sustains you.

If the work we do together surfaces a question best taken elsewhere, I will tell you. That is part of what you are paying me for.

6. EMERGENCY RESOURCES

Keep these somewhere accessible. Better to have them and not need them.

988 — Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (call or text, 24/7, U.S.)
911 — any immediate danger to yourself or another
SAMHSA National Helpline — 1-800-662-4357 (24/7, free, confidential — substance use and mental health)
Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741
Your local hospital emergency department — appropriate for any acute medical or psychiatric concern

If you are outside the United States, please identify the equivalent resources in your country and keep them at hand.

7. ACCEPTANCE

This Scope of Practice Statement is accepted by the same means as the Client Engagement Agreement and the Covenant: the Client's affirmative reply to the welcome email (for example, "I'm in"). No separate signature is required.

By accepting the Engagement, the Client affirms that:

The Client has read this Scope of Practice Statement;
The Client understands what the Burn Bright Engagement is and is not;
The Client understands the circumstances in which Rev. Dr. Sam Stone will recommend clinical care;
The Client understands that this work complements but does not replace mental-health treatment, medical care, or specialized spiritual direction.

If a Client prefers a formal signature, the signature block of the Client Engagement Agreement serves for all three documents — the Agreement, the Covenant, and this Statement.

A closing note, not a clause:

Naming limits is not a diminishment of the work. It is what makes the work trustworthy. A guide who will take on everything will steward nothing well. The hour we spend together is serious, and bounded, and enough for what it is for.

Sam

Rev. Dr. Sam Stone The Lightkeeper

CHANGE LOG

Version Date Changes 1.0 April 2026 Initial version. Client-facing translation of the Lightkeeper canonical scope position, complementing the Client Engagement Agreement (practical terms) and the Covenant (relational posture) as the third document in the onboarding triad. Names pastoral coaching and sanctification work as the lane (§1); names psychotherapy, psychiatric care, medical care, crisis intervention, traditional spiritual direction, evangelism, apologetics, performance coaching, and legal/financial advice as outside the lane (§2). Specifies clinical-referral indications, the referral protocol, and disclosure norms (§3). Lists credentials held — Teaching Elder PC(USA) since 1996, D.Min. 21st Century Leadership, John Maxwell Certified Coach — and licenses NOT held, no state clinical license, no formal spiritual-direction certification, no legal or financial license (§4). Encourages parallel care with therapists, physicians, clergy, and advisors (§5). Provides emergency resources (§6). Includes client acknowledgment signature block (§7). Written in first-person pastoral voice consistent with the Covenant; structured for informed-consent clarity consistent with the Engagement Agreement. 2.0 April 2026 §7 restructured for single-signature architecture. Separate signature block removed. Replaced with §7 Acceptance, which clarifies that the Client's affirmative "I'm in" reply to the welcome email accepts this Statement alongside the Client Engagement Agreement and Covenant — with the Engagement Agreement's formal-signature option serving as the fallback for all three documents for clients who prefer wet-ink. Aligns with Client Engagement Agreement v3 §10 (three-document onboarding triad) and v3 §11 (single email-acceptance covers all three). No changes to §§1–6 or to the closing note.

Document: Scope of Practice Statement — Burn Bright Engagement Version: 2.0 Date: April 2026 Author: Rev. Dr. Sam Stone · The Lightkeeper · Leadership Spirituality Institute