8 Reasons To Pursue ACBC Certification.

PURSUING ACBC CERTIFICATION

Be a trained, certified biblical counselor with ACBC, The Association of Certified Biblical Counselors.

 

 
8 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD PURSUE IT.


1. PERSONAL GROWTH AND KNOWLEDGE
As you work through the required steps toward ACBC certification you will understand more of God’s Word and increase your knowledge of God, of Christ, of the gospel, and how it specifically applies to everyday situations of life. The studies for the exams and the preparation for the counseling sessions will all drive you to a humble dependence on God and a desperate longing for His grace as you seek to minister the Word to hurting saints.

2. DISCIPLINE AND ACCOUNTABILITY
A wonderful result of pursuing the ACBC certification process is personal discipline. The phases of certification are intense and quite involved. They require time, planning, diligence, study, prayer, and thought. It will teach you and hone personal discipline as you prioritize the time for study and writing. It also will develop accountability and foster close relationships as you walk through it with others in your local church who wish to serve the Lord in biblical counseling.

3. BLESSING TO THE CHURCH
Being certified as an ACBC biblical counselor will greatly bless your local church. It will allow the church to send individuals your way who are current members of the church and need guidance, direction, counsel and help. It will greatly bless the church as those in the community reach out and need help with the many struggles of life. As you pursue counseling, you will find it to be a rich occasion for evangelism of the lost and a glorious encouragement as you meet with the saints and minister the Word to them in the context of your church.

4. GREAT DEARTH OF BIBLICAL COUNSELORS
Tragically, many churches view counseling as belonging to the “professionals” and the clinically trained. Many pastors and church leaders refer hurting people to Christian counseling centers or, worse, secular counseling. There exists a great need for biblical counselors who stand on the all-sufficient Word of God, in the context of the local church, depending on prayer and the power of the Spirit, who believe that Christ’s gospel has the power to transform hearts and lives for His own glory!

5. SEE LIVES CHANGED
The Spirit of God has the power to save sinners and also to sanctify God’s people. He exposes sin, brings conviction, and enables biblical change that honors Christ because of His indwelling and glorious ministry of sanctification. As you meet with individuals for biblical counseling, you will have the immense joy of seeing God at work in changing men and women for His glory. You will see marriages restored, sins defeated, struggles endured, and joy abounding as God’s people see how the Bible provides the rich and sufficient guidance they need to help them through the issues of life. What a joy to minister God’s Word to the hearts of God’s people and witness the Spirit of God at work in conforming them more into the image of Jesus Christ.  

6. A TOOL IN GOD’S HAND TO MINISTER TO HURTING SAINTS
One of the joys of biblical counseling (among many!) is when you are an instrument in the hand of God to help hurting souls. Your training and biblical knowledge, coupled together with your compassion and patient humility, powerfully serves men and women of all walks of life as they persevere through various trials of life in a way that honors Christ and obeys His Word. To walk alongside of people through this journey and see the hurting saints full of joy will enflame your heart with gladness in God and gratitude for what He’s done. Ponder how God may use you in a sharp instrument - honed, trained, chiseled, skilled, faithful - in ministering the Word to others for their greater sanctification.

7. THE PROCESS OF CERTIFICATION — ESPECIALLY PHASE 3
The entire process of certification is carefully designed to aid you in the equipping to be a skilled biblical counselor. But, in particular, phase 3 is one of the most profitable. This phase, the last of the preparatory steps, consists in you counseling individuals while being supervised by an ACBC “fellow” (a supervisor, a seasoned biblical counselor) who will meet with you and help you along as you counsel folks. This input is extremely valuable and practical. I found it to be the best part of my certification process. It helped me take many of the principles I had learned and been taught in the classroom and my ACBC fellow carefully, patiently, and specifically helped me implement these points in the counseling room so that I could minister the Word of God in the most effective way to my counselees.

8. THE HOPE OF HAVING A CFBC COUNSELING CENTER
One prayer that we have offered to God many times is that God would be pleased to raise up a solid biblical counseling center in St Louis. Think of having a biblical counseling center where there are trained, certified, skilled, and mature counselors who believe in the all-sufficiency of the Word of God, and who counsel under the authority of a local church, and who are available to minister to hurting people in the church, in the community, online, and through referrals.  Everyone is either hurting themselves or knows people who are hurting. Biblical counseling can be great evangelism opportunities (for unbelievers) and wonderful occasions to counsel the all-sufficient Word to believers who need help and guidance in life’s journey. ACBC will aid you and prepare you to be part of this team that we pray that God may raise up in the St Louis area in the future.

Podcasts on Biblical Counseling  |  HERE

Biblical Counseling at Christ Fellowship Bible Church  |  INFO

Class Notes on "Biblical Counseling"  |  HERE

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Older Saints Serving In The Church!

WHAT CAN THE ELDERLY/OLD FOLKS DO AT THE CHURCH?   How can the aging, the older, the senior saints do in the congregation?   

Here are some real practical "ministry-ideas of service" for you to consider:

• You could open your home periodically for a young couple/college students/other members for a home-cooked meal & a time of fellowship.
• You could write personal letters/encouragement/thank you cards to folks/families in the church.
• You could personally write and keep contact with your missionaries.You could open your home and have a weekly/bi-weekly prayer meeting for the church members.
• You could go online & take free courses on biblical counseling so as to be trained and equipped in God's Word to address any issue of life with the Bible.
• You could make a weekly phone call to each of the women & mothers at the church to encourage them, strengthen them, pray with them, share a verse with them, and ask how you can pray for them this week.
• As you are exercising and walking you could take a handful of tracts and hand them out to folks, put them on car-doors and 'evangelize'.
• You could get a stack of books on various topics about God, Christ, the Spirit, salvation, holy living, end-times, pastoral ministry, and read them all and then pass them on to others.
• You could arrive early at your church each Sunday and be a greeter and warmly welcome every person that comes into this building with a smile!
• You could be a prayer warrior - 1 hour in the morning for the preacher’s sermon preparation; 1 hour in the afternoon for the members of the church; 1 hour each evening for the gospel growth, revival, conversions, maturing of saints.

Isaiah 46:4 -- Even to your old age I will be the same, And even to your graying years I will bear you! I have done it, and I will carry you; And I will bear you and I will deliver you.
 

Dear older precious saints, Spurgeon preaches:

    “Do not let the young people catch you indulging in melancholy [depression], sitting in your chimney corner, grumbling and growling, but go about cheerful and happy, and they will think ‘how blessed it is to be a Christian’ [when they observe you!]...
    If you are surly [grouchy, crabby] and fretful, they will think the Lord has forsaken you; but keep a smiling countenance, and they will think God’s promise is fulfilled.
    You can lead us to heaven if you have got heaven's sunlight on your face; but you will not lead us at all if you are snappy and ill-tempered, for then we shall not care about your company.
    Make yourselves cheerful with the people of God, and try to live happily before men; for so will you prove to us—to a demonstration, that even to old age God is with you, and that when your strength faileth, he is still your preservation.”

   

 So then, Precious Aged saints: what a model to follow! We need you!

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Some Parenting Encouragements

 Here is a compilation of parenting quotes for a project I've worked on. 

May these encourage all parents to remain vigilant and faithful in praying to God for the souls of our children and doing all we can to point them to Christ each day with gospel-proclamation supported by a holy and humble lifestyle. 

 

SOME PARENTING ENCOURAGEMENTS --

We have failed to understand that children and young people are not God-lovers until the Spirit changes them. They are dead to God. Our attempts at getting these young people to “pray the prayer” when they were small have not necessarily made them children of God. Their behavior belies the true state of their hearts. God has said that the only hope for them, therefore, is the regenerating work of the Spirit in the context of the preaching of the Word (James 1:18). However, our inadequate view of depravity and the inability of man has led us to resort instead to a greater confidence in entertainment to reach them and a minimizing of the use of the Word. If God has ordained that the Word and the Spirit are the only hope for these kids, then we should not avoid the means God has promised to bless.
    (Jim Elliff)

Children need to be saved and may be saved.  The conversion of a child involves the same work of divine grace and results in the same blessed consequences as the conversion of the adult.  But there is this additional matter for joy, that a great preventive work is done when the young are converted.  Conversion saves a child from a multitude of sins.  If God’s mercy shall bless your teaching to a little prattler, how happy that boy’s life will be compared with what it might have been if it had grown up in folly, sin, and shame, and only been converted after many days!  It is the highest wisdom to pray for our children that while they are young their hearts may be given to the Savior.
    (Charles Spurgeon)

Let’s rethink this matter of getting your children saved.  Perhaps one of the problems with this perspective is that it looks for a major spiritual event of salvation and misses the spiritual process of nurturing your children.  It is your task to faithfully teach them the ways of God.  It is the Holy Spirit’s task to work through the Word of God to change their hearts.  Even when the Spirit illuminates and quickens them to life, it is a life of progressive growth.
    (Tedd Tripp)

Godly parents cannot convert their children.  God alone can do this.  But they can lead them to Jesus, and bring them up in the fear of the Lord.  And when they have done this, they have done all they can do; for the Holy Spirit alone can change the heart.  They must be born again.  Christ has said it.  It is not a change of sentiment, nor an outward reformation of life; it is a new heart implanted by the Holy Spirit.
    (Mary Winslow)

“in every moment when you are parenting, you are being parented. In every moment when you are called to give grace, you are being given grace. In every moment when you are rescuing and protecting your children, you are being rescued and protected. In every moment when you feel alone, you are anything but alone because he goes wherever you go.”
    (Paul Tripp)

“So your hope as a parent is not found in your power, your wisdom, your character, your experience, or your success, but in this one thing alone: the presence of your Lord. The Creator, Savior, Almighty, Sovereign King is with you. Let your heart rest. You are not in this parenting drama alone. Your potential is greater than the size of your weaknesses, because the One who is without weakness is with you, and he does his best work through those who admit that they are weak but in weakness still heed his call.”
    (Paul Tripp)

More Parenting Resources can be found at the PODCAST page.

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