Dr. Mike Lawyer Obituary & Memorial Service Livestream

Obituary

Mikel Lee Lawyer was born in Riverside, CA, to an architect father and a photographer mother. His childhood was full of bike rides to the beach, tennis, and water polo. He graduated from high school in the early 1970’s, and joined the navy immediately after. 

While Mike was stationed on a submarine, a young man named Douglas Wilson transferred onto the same sub. Doug wore a necklace with a large cross made of nails, and was very openly a Christian. Mike was intrigued, and became a born-again Christian very soon after becoming friends with Doug. 

After a few years in the Navy, Mike left and began pursuing his higher education. Some of this took place at the UI in Moscow, ID, where Mike earned his BA in Philosophy. During his time in Moscow, he helped start a church in an auto-body shop, alongside his Navy friend, Doug. After his time in Moscow, Mike pursued other degrees and decided being a pastor was his full-time calling. 

In the early nineties, he began pastoring a small church in Eureka, CA, where he met a lovely woman named Eileen Murphy. He was only there for a few years before accepting a call to be the chaplain to the unaccompanied adults on Kwajalein, in the Marshall Islands. Mike and Eileen got married in 1993, and lived on the island together for the second year of Mike’s two-year contract. 

After Kwajalein, Mike and Eileen moved back to California, where their daughter Rachel was born (1994), then accepted a pastorate in Missouri (1997). Two years later, in 1999, they relocated to a church in Bremerton, WA, where Mike discovered he’d become reformed in his theology. Mike and his family moved back to Moscow, ID (2001). He accepted a new position alongside Doug, serving the same church that they had started in the auto-body shop. 

Once re-established in Moscow, Mike began to pursue his Doctorate of Ministry degree in counseling from Westminster Theological Seminary in PA. He received it in 2008, and became Reverend Doctor Lawyer, much to his delight. During this time, Mike was able to meet and learn from several of the founders of the nouthetic counseling movement. He was tremendously inspired by his time with them, and realized Jay Adams had developed a Biblical system of doing ministry and counseling that Mike been trying to figure out by himself for the last several years. Mike poured himself into learning everything he could from these men, and quickly became certified in the organization that would become the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC), as well as the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF). He encouraged his wife Eileen and daughter Rachel to become ACBC certified (or at least learn the certification material) as well, since they were heavily involved in Christ Church’s (as it had become by then) counseling ministry. He named the counseling ministry of Christ Church the Center for Biblical Counseling (CBC).

Eileen died, however, part of the way through her certification process (June, 2016), a month after their twenty-second anniversary. Losing her to cancer transformed Mike’s counseling ministry—as one counselee put it, he had learned what it meant to grieve. 

In the winter of 2021, Mike was unexpectedly diagnosed with advanced metastasized prostate cancer two weeks after giving Rachel away to be married. However, his day-to-day health remained unimpacted to a large extent. He pursued treatment options, including radiation the following spring (2022), but since he never really felt like he had cancer, it was hard to see progress (or regression) from the outside. Mike was able to continue counseling and golfing. The cancer diagnosis gave him renewed zeal for his ministry, and he launched the Center for Biblical Counseling Academy (CBCA) in the fall of 2022. Mike was overjoyed that God was giving him and his team the opportunity to teach other Christ-minded folks how to counsel Biblically.

The Lord, however, had other plans for Mike. Mike was called home to glory on December 13, 2022, after a rapid four-day decline. He went to be with the Lord peacefully in his sleep, after spending his last few days with family and close friends. He was tremendously blessed, in particular, by the generosity of folks who came to sing hymns to him a few days before he went to be with the Lord. Mike was very thankful for the support from the church body, both local and distant, particularly after losing Eileen. After his diagnosis, he spoke often of seeing her again, and we are thankful that the Lord has taken him home in his timing. Mike is survived by his daughter, Rachel, and by his counseling ministry. 

Memorial Service Livestream

Below is the livestream link for those who are unable to attend Dr. Lawyer’s memorial service tomorrow.