Northcreek Counseling Training Scholarship

Scholarship Details

This year, the Seminarian Scholarship and Internship Committee (SSIC) has graciously agreed to sponsor the $150 conference cost for up to 5 attendees of the Northcreek Counseling Training as part of its ministry scholarships in fulfilling its vision to prepare, equip, and encourage God's servants to improve their ministry skills. Please read on to learn about the opportunity, the motivation to pursue it, and the application process.

Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC)

The sponsoring organization for this type of training is the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. This is an organization, started in 1976, whose mission is to "[equip] Christians to provide biblical solutions for the problems people face." For additional context, here are some key definitions from their perspective (reproduced from their website for easy reading):

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What is the Nature of Biblical Counseling?

Biblical counseling is the personal discipleship ministry of God’s people to others under the oversight of God’s church, dependent upon the authority and sufficiency of God’s Word through the work of the Holy Spirit.

What is the Goal of Biblical Counseling?

Biblical counseling seeks to reorient disordered desires, affections, thoughts, behaviors, and worship toward a God-designed anthropology in an effort to restore people to a right fellowship with God and others.

What is the Method of Biblical Counseling?

This is accomplished by speaking the truth in love and applying Scripture to the need of the moment by comforting the suffering and calling sinners to repentance, thus working to make them mature as they abide in Jesus Christ.

It was formed by Jay Adam’s and the board of CCEF, and is an independent certifying organization (the oldest and largest biblical counseling certifying organization in the world). It was formed against a backdrop of godless psychotherapeutic methods creeping into the church, and aimed to essentially bring back shepherding ministry (i.e. counseling) back into the church of God.

Why Should I Go?

Counseling ministry, from the perspective of ACBC and NCT, is not just a formal ministry, but more so an informal one—we are, in the body, always giving counsel to one another. The matter is simply if we are giving wise, biblical counsel, or foolish, worldly counsel. From this view, this conference would equip any of the saints to counsel one another in areas of relationships, friendships, finance, marriage, parenting, emotions, and many areas in between, strengthening our ability to truly encourage each other and admonish one another when needed. Imagine if every member of our church knew that a husband’s role was to love his wife as Christ loves the church, if every member knew that the role of a parent was to bring their children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, if every member knew that fellowship in the body is made up of "one-anothers" that we perform to serve and love one another. And further imagine that every member was encouraged and exhorted to live out those biblical foundational truths.

I (Richard) have personally received great benefit from listening to the conference audio and going to the conference myself, and believe that you would also receive similar benefit. Prior to my own foray into biblical counseling, I had a limited biblical framework of daily challenges and responsibilities, and even less understanding of how to struggle against and fight my own sin. In short, I believe this is a tremendous resource for practical theology, moving us towards true biblical change using the resources God has provided to us. And I pray that you would consider this conference and scholarship as one step in your walk with Christ towards greater fruitfulness and blessing those around us.