Dr. Jim Wilder has been training leaders and counselors for over 30 years on five continents. Jim has extensive clinical counseling experience and is the founder and chief neurotheologian of Life Model Works. Jim grew up in South America and is fluent in English and Spanish. He is the author of 20 books with a strong focus on maturity and relational skills. His co-authored book, Living from the Heart Jesus Gave You, has sold over 100,000 copies and is printed in 14 languages. Jim has published numerous articles and developed four sets of video and relational leadership trainings. He served as a guest lecturer at Fuller Seminary, Biola, Talbot Seminary, St. John Vianney Theological Seminary, Montreat College, Tyndale Seminary, and elsewhere.

Life Model Works builds on the fifty-year legacy of Shepherd’s House, which began in the 1970s as a ministry to street kids in Van Nuys, California. In those early days, Jim worked with the team of volunteer counselors and Fuller Seminary faculty to build a counseling center to help broken people recover from negative habits, addictions, abuse, and trauma. By the 1990s, Jim was Assistant Director and later Executive Director of Shepherd’s House, helping hundreds of pastors and churches with their toughest counseling cases.

Jim was intimately involved in 1987 when Shepherd’s House conducted a careful review of why some people with the same level of trauma and treatment recovered but others did not. The results of this case-by-case study became the Life Model, a new recovery model. The Life Model study findings were published in Living from the Heart Jesus Gave You.

Kitty Wilder was dedicated to embodying and promoting the Life Model throughout her life. She held numerous roles, including THRIVE trainer, Life Model teacher, prayer minister, recovery leader, ordained minister with the Church of the Nazarene, missions consultant, wife, and grandmother. Passionate about witnessing God’s healing, Kitty facilitated the Immanuel process in both individual and group ministry settings, providing pastoral care to women, couples, and individuals grappling with childhood wounds.

Alongside her husband, Dr. Jim Wilder, Kitty consulted with leaders, missionaries, and pastors, assisting them in resolving leadership challenges as well as organizational and congregational crises. Together, they dedicated 30+ years to spreading the Life Model widely. Even during challenging times, including financial hardships within Shepherd’s House (later renamed Life Model Works in 2014), the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and her personal battle with cancer, Kitty remained steadfast in her service, offering support and guidance to those in need through various channels, including diligently responding to inquiries received through the Life Model Works’ website.

For over three decades, Kitty was actively involved in prayer counseling, healing ministry, and spiritual warfare, collaborating with institutions such as YWAM schools, Fuller Seminary, various Bible schools, the Church of the Nazarene, THRIVEtoday, and numerous Christian mission organizations. Her life was a testament to her own healing journey, and she found profound meaning and purpose in sharing the comfort and healing she had received with others. Kitty cherished exploring the world, reading, and camping. She valued the relationships God gave her as she received and gave life with a growing spiritual family.

Her enduring legacy is marked by her unwavering love, exemplary teaching, and the countless lives she touched and transformed through her faithful embodiment of the principles she so fervently championed.