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Academic Catalog
   
    Mar 29, 2024  
Academic Catalog - Spring 2017 
    
Academic Catalog - Spring 2017 [ARCHIVED]

Christian Marital, Family, and Individual Counseling, M.A.*


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*Pending approval from ATS.

Every counseling system has a plan for “redemption,” a way in which people are taught what is wrong and how they can change. Christianity proposes a basic plan for fixing what is broken and wrong-the Gospel of God, the application of what Christ has done and is doing, (and will someday finally do) to reconcile relationships, and to alleviate familial dysfunction and mental disorder. Relational restoration is central to Christian faith and practice, and to our particular counseling model. Christian counselors function as ministers of reconciliation, sharing the unique riches of grace and truth that are distinctive to our understanding of reality, personhood, disorder, and change. Christian change is radically relational, aiming to bring restoration of relationship with God, family, marriage, and others.

Our aim is to bring the wisdom of God’s Word, the hope and power of His Gospel, and the unique relevance of the church community into the care and cure of souls, and the restoration of’ broken marriages and families.

Our counseling framework grants a uniquely constitutive role to Scripture, to the gospel of God in Christ, and to His Church. Holy Scripture is our primary “sourcebook.” We need God’s Word to interpret God’s world and the persons within it that he created in his image and likeness. Biblical and theological training are essential to full-orbed Christian counseling; therefore, our degree includes nine courses (27 credit hours) of such training.

The remainder of the courses in this degree (45 credit hours) are in family, marital, and individual counseling, with approximately half of these courses being oriented toward theoretical and conceptual foundations and the other half devoted to practical training in counseling skills and methods.

The Christian counselor may incorporate “secular” methods, if he or she views them through the spectacles of Scripture and applies them toward God-glorifying ends. Christian counseling shares with most types of counseling important concerns about listening skills, empathy, observation, evaluation, diagnosis, the process of change, the role of the body, the impact of key relationships and family and cultural systems, etc. We can consent to and benefit from that which is true, good, and beautiful wherever it appears since God is the ultimate source of anything that is in fact true. Of course, we recognize that all counseling systems have regnant authorities, particular authors, texts, and presuppositions upon which their truth claims rest. We believe distinctively Christian counseling is primarily an application of our distinctive resources (Scripture, Gospel of Christ, and the church) to people, their problems, the direction and process of change, and how we may facilitate change. We also believe the counselor can benefit from studying family systems and other models insofar as they are products of God’s common grace.

Admissions Requirements

The student entering into this degree must have l2 semester hours/credits (typically 4 courses) from the following areas: Human Development, Research Methods or Statistics, Family Studies, Psychology, or an allied field.

Total - 72 Hours


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