The way that you counsel other people is determined by how you understand God, yourself, other people, life’s pressures, and change. This course addresses the depth, breadth, and balance of your understanding. How does Christ’s past grace, present grace, and future grace speak to our hearts and change how we live our daily lives? This course is about people. It is about how we face the troubles of life. It is about how we deal with our inner struggles. It is about how we change into Jesus’ image. Through case studies, class lectures, assigned readings, and Scripture, you’ll explore these practical questions. Self-counseling projects will help you to make first-hand, practical application of the concepts learned in class.

Let’s say you have a basic and growing understanding of biblical counseling. You know the key ideas and have been able to apply them to yourself. Now comes the hard part: How do you apply this understanding in your everyday relationships? This course will take the content you already know and get specific about how you can actually deliver the content. Case studies, lectures, and group discussions will help you grow in your ability to listen well, know people, interpret another person’s story from a biblical perspective, and offer biblically-based truth that will motivate others in their growth in Christ.

Note: This course has two unique requirements. First, you will be grouped with 3-4 other students for a bi-weekly community group. This group will decide when they want to meet, and what format works best (Skype, Google Hangout, Phone Call, etc.)

You will also meet weekly for an hour with someone (a friend, fellow church member, neighbor, etc.) to put into practice what you are learning in Helping Relationships. You will receive more information about these activities in your course syllabus and in the opening lecture.

Biblical counseling – is it just for the pastors and elders? Or for trained professionals? What does it look like to restore counseling to the local church? The purpose of this course is to:

• to broaden students’ understanding of counseling to include all relationships
• to build a thoroughly biblical understanding of the local church as a ministering community where everyone plays a part
• to help students find their place of ministry within the context of the local church and to help others do the same
• to see the importance of both public and private ministry of the Word and how they interrelate
• to examine present ministry opportunities

Topics covered include a biblical foundation for private ministry of the Word; the role of community and relationships in the process of sanctification; developing a practical ecclesiology; and developing an eye for ministry opportunities such as conflict resolution, evangelism, and church discipline.

Course Description
All of Scripture is sufficient for counseling, but how do you connect God’s word effectively to the lives and struggles of people around you? Do you always turn to the same familiar passages, and are less confident in using others to communicate the power of God’s love and faithfulness in the Gospel? How do you use the Bible’s redemptive story in counseling so that counselees grow in their knowledge of and love for the sovereign Lord? This course will help you understand both people and the Bible more thoroughly and is designed to strengthen your ability to rivet Scriptural truth to real-life ministry situations. Through lectures, class discussion, and interpretive assignments, you’ll develop your skills in interpreting and applying any passage of Scripture to help people to grow in love for God and others more fully in the midst of their complex, daily lives. 

Course Description
Marriage problems can seem especially complicated and disheartening, not only for the couples struggling with them but also for those trying to help. Talking about them with a helper can be difficult, even explosive. In this introductory course on marriage counseling, you will walk away with a working model for how to make sense of marriage problems. You’ll understand simple, basic, and Biblical categories that can handle all of the mess and hardship that marriage counseling and marriage problems will throw at you. You’ll also learn methods that help you to manage and constructively direct the conflict and volatility that are often part of the process. But most importantly, you’ll have a model that in every way connects the truth of the Gospel to everything that you are going to see in marriage problems.

Course Description
A biblical view of human beings begins with an understanding that we are both body AND spirit. From this reality flows a nuanced pastoral approach to suffering and sin in a person’s life that takes seriously both the physical and spiritual aspects of the struggle at hand. In this class you will look at issues such as traumatic brain injury, chronic pain, OCD, bipolar disorder, and other problems that require discernment of physical and spiritual components of the struggle. You will also gain an understanding of the role of psychoactive medications and psychiatry in caring for others. Through lectures, group discussion, and case studies you’ll learn how to wisely help those who struggle with problems in which both attention to physical and spiritual aspects are paramount.

What does actual counseling look like? It’s one thing to learn about biblical counseling through reading books and listening to a lecture, but it’s quite another to learn by actually seeing it done. You’ll have the opportunity to observe various CCEF counselors and faculty members as they counsel actual cases, either live or on video. You’ll experience the unscripted, unpredictable, and often messy aspects of face-to-face personal ministry, and be introduced to the artfulness, skill, and utter dependency on the Spirit that is needed to counsel wisely. Class discussion will focus on topics that arise out of each counseling session, and you’ll learn how to make effective progress notes to document your own counseling sessions.

Taught by Ed Welch or Mike Emlet (alternates each term)

*Please note: Dynamics of Biblical Change and Helping Relationships are prerequisites for this course.