Counseling

This is probably the question I am most asked:

What is Biblical Counseling? 

• Biblical Counseling is the Christlike, caring, person-to-person ministry of God's Word to people struggling with personal and interpersonal problems to help them know and follow Jesus Christ in heart and behavior and their struggles. 

  • First, it is counseling. It helps specific individuals, couples, or families in their specific situations to know Christ better and to handle life in God pleasing ways. It is conversational---interactive and person specific in ways that go beyond the public teaching and preaching. 

    • It does share secular counseling approaches in basic concerns of relational dynamics, interviewing, listening skills, personal warmth and care, empathy, compassion, confidentiality, etc. 

  • Second, it is biblical.  Its truth source is not science or opinion, but God's inerrant, inspired Word, and its focus is on the Bible's main thrust, namely, Jesus Christ and his life changing, redeeming work for us and in us. In other words, Biblical Counseling is Christ-centered counseling.  For Hope and Grace, the Bible is more than a grid, filter, control, or standard; the Bible activiely drives both the theory and the practice of our counseling. 

    • The concepts and methodology are not merely consistent with, controlled by, or proof-texted from the Bible; they emerge from the Bible itself. 

    • With those things in mind, we build our counseling on the following key Biblical matters:

      • People and their problems, including their beliefs and motives as well as their behavior. 

      • How people change, and God's provisions for such change in the gospel.

      • The centrality of the church and God's equipped leaders and members in the change process. 

      • The Triune God---Father, Son, and Holy Spirit---his character, ways, commands, and promises.