Gospel-Centered Counseling Training

Helping you love others wisely

We want to help you cultivate a culture of care, equip lay counselors, provide resources for life’s struggles, and develop pathways for community support and congregational care.

The three modules below form the core of our gospel-centered counseling training, along with periodic intensive seminars. Each course is 7 months long. Each month you will listen to a lecture, read the required reading (articles and books), work case studies, and interact with your cohort. Your cohort will meet once a month for 3 hours to discuss the material, go over the cases studies together, and ask questions from your instructor.

Foundations of Gospel-Centered Counseling

In this course we will learn what gospel-centered counseling is and explore its biblical basis. We will cover the following topics:

  • Theological Foundations of Gospel-Centered Counseling - Understand the theological convictions that underline what we say and do when it comes to counseling. It defines what it is and why we do it.

  • Developing a Biblical Anthropology - Who are we? What do we need? What drives us? What influences us

  • The Qualifications of a Wise Counselor - Understand the kind of people we should be and grow in the areas of knowledge, character, skill, and accountability.

  • Understanding the process of change - What does the change process look like? How does a person actually change?

  • Process of Biblical Counseling (methodology) - Understand how to engage others with wisdom, love, faith, and humility. You will learn how to assess and understand a person’s struggle accurately, respond to them appropriately, and help equip them take the necessary steps for change.

Counseling Problems and Procedures

In this course we will learn how to speak with both depth and breadth about common struggles that people face and view those struggles through the lens of Scripture. We’ll learn how to wisely and compassionately bring God’s word to bear on a person’s life in a meaningful way. As we do this we will be empowered with the truth that God’s word does speak to the complexities of life and that we have a role to play in helping people wherever they’re at in life. We will cover the following topics:

  • Depression

  • Anxiety

  • Grief/Crisis/Trauma

  • Addictions

  • Sexual Sin

  • Sexual Abuse

  • Suicide

  • Anger/Conflict

  • Eating Disorders

  • Self-Injury

Marriage Counseling

In this course we will explore the theological foundations of marriage and the biblical principles that foster marital health so that participants will be able to articulate the biblical vision of marriage; assess and identify marriage issues; understand and offer biblical wisdom on issues such as communication, conflict, intimacy, and marriage roles; detect abuse in marriages and address it properly; and help couples restore and renew their marriages.