Biblical Counseling is Not Secular Psychology
“I can’t come to your conference because I don’t like psychology. All that stuff makes my head hurt.” “You have to learn a new vocabulary and you have to buy a couch, and you have to go to school for a long, long time.” “Counseling is hard. You have to be able to get inside people’s heads and sort out all their neuroses, whatever those are, and they have diseases and syndromes and I don’t know what to do with those.” “To work with people who have problems, you need to be a doctor and I have neither the time nor the money for that.” “People have serious problems, like schizophrenia, ADHD, Bi-Polar, PTSD, and I don’t want to deal with it.”
These are examples of what I hear from people who are concerned about being involved in Biblical counseling. ‘Counseling’ is a word that modern pop-culture has taken and twisted away from the Biblical meaning: Biblically, ‘counseling’ means ‘to encourage’, ‘exhort’, ‘teach’, and ‘build one another up’. With the Biblical understanding, all Christians are called to counsel each other almost ceaselessly. When Paul tells us to love one another he means for us to come alongside and help others draw closer to God. We do this by counseling them in a Biblical way, giving them godly advice and sharing our lives with them so that they can draw nearer to God and His joy. Biblical counseling is about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? The Bible gives us everything we need to live, in all areas of life (2 Pet. 1:5). There is no sin that men or women can commit, no mental diseases they can have, that the Bible doesn’t have a remedy for. However, sometimes the answers only reveal themselves through wise and godly counsel.
The purpose of these conferences is to teach attendees to help those whom God places in their lives to become more Christ-like and filled with joy. Degrees aren’t required to love our neighbors. Christian counselors don’t need seven more years of school, but as with everything else, some training is helpful, particularly to be able to help people with problems we haven’t experienced ourselves. If you find yourself surrounded by Christians who need your help to live in fellowship with God, then consider coming to our Introduction to Biblical Counseling conference. If you want instruction on a natural method of talking about Christ to others, or a simple method to help others see their need for Christ, or if you are simply struggling with your own issues and sins, consider attending the Counseling-In-A-Week conference.
To clarify, Biblical Counseling has nothing to do with Psychology. It has to do with drawing nearer to God and helping others become mature in Christ (Col. 1:28). It is not scary: it is natural. It requires no heavy lifting, since you already do it all the time. But if you want to do it better, come and see us. If you are doing it better, we’d love to meet you and learn from you.