Certificate in Christian Counseling
If you are looking for graduate-level training to equip you with counseling skills but are not sure you want our full MA in Counseling (MAC) degree, then this certificate program may be just what you are looking for. Courses within the certificate program will emphasize helping/counseling skills, an understanding of a broad range of human struggles, and how we grow and change.
What is Christian Counseling?
Simply put, Christian Counseling is counseling that seeks to impart the love, compassion, and wisdom of God to those who are struggling with life’s problems. The ultimate goals include symptom relief, skill acquisition, insight, and maturation in the faith.
Who is This Counseling Certificate For?
The counseling skills and knowledge gained from our certificate program fit with a professional model but are also useful for pastors, church leaders, and lay leaders who want to improve their work within the church. Small group leaders, educators, and pregnancy counseling volunteers have also found these courses helpful. Mental health professionals seeking distinctly Christian and faith-based counseling skills may also wish to complete the certificate.
Many certificate holders may wish to consider a future MAC degree. Our admissions counselors can walk you through the process.
What Are the Specific Requirements?
The certificate program requires a completed undergraduate or equivalent degree, and completion of a degree application. Upon completion of the certificate, students may choose to transfer appropriately completed courses into the MA in Counseling (MAC) degree program.
Curriculum within the Program
Required Courses – 9 Credits
MAC510 Helping Relationships
MAC500 Human Development and Change
MAC512 Psychopathology
Electives – 6 Credits
MAC525a Ethics and Professional Orientation (2 credits)
MAC602 Counseling and Physiology (3 credits)
MAC704 Models of Counseling (3 credits)
Addictions Series – online (1-3 credits)
Summer Counseling Institute Courses (2 credits)
Optional Courses
The following counseling courses have prerequisites or may require approval before registration:
MAC601 Marriage and Family Therapy – Prerequisite: Helping Relationships or Pastoral Counseling, including a recommendation from the professor
MAC621 Child and Adolescent Counseling – Prerequisite: Helping Relationships or Pastoral Counseling, including a recommendation from the professor
MAC605 Advanced Counseling Skills – Prerequisite: Helping Relationships or Pastoral Counseling, including a recommendation from the professor
(These courses can only be considered after completing all core courses and may be substituted for electives.)
Total Required Credits – 15
Ready to start your journey?
Whether you are looking for more information regarding a program, scheduling a visit, starting the application process, or just wanting to talk to someone about your dreams, our admissions department is always available to assist you and answer any question that you might have.
What are professors saying?
In Defense of Missional Theology: A Response to Mark Galli
Mark Galli, editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, has devoted a four-part series in Christianity Today to critiquing missional theology and evangelicalism’s embrace of the missional purpose of the church: see 1) https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/june-web-only/unfortunate-pedigree-of-missional-church.html; 2) https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/june-web-only/church-does-not-exist-for-sake-of-world.html; 3) https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/june-web-only/purpose-of-world-to-become-church.html; 4) https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/june-web-only/churchs-sickness-unto-death.html. Christianity Today has a well-earned reputation as being the publication of centrist evangelicalism (founded, as it is, by evangelical pillars Billy Graham and Carl F. H. Henry); and Mark Galli, its current editor-in-chief, has a well-earned reputation for level-headed, irenic analysis.
New Perspective(s) On Paul
Hot off the press and well worth the read is this book that does a masterful job of laying out the topography of “perspectives” on Paul and illustrating (with sample sermonettes) the difference the various perspectives make in preaching (and applying) “the real point(s)” of Romans.
The Living Gospel
It is a powerful testimony to the watching world when Christians live out the Gospel amid tragedies such as in hurricane Katrina, the tsunami disaster, the Haitian earthquake or 9/11.
4 Things That Can Derail Missional Leaders
This post by Seth Richardson on the Missional Alliance web page caught my attention. It’s titled, “Addicted to Dysfunction: Healing from Missional Misery.”
The Blessing of Numbers
Don’t you feel bad for the book of Numbers? Seriously, the fourth book of the Bible gets no respect. I think the primary reason the book gets ignored is its name.
A Walk through African American History and Culture
Professor Todd Mangum and Dr. Larry Anderson Reflect on their walk through The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. A number of our Missio grads are serving in leadership in the Southern Baptist Convention in our region. One of the missional, Kingdom strategies being pursued – racial reconciliation. A set of pilot exercises and conversations are currently being conducted in southeast Pennsylvania that could end up impacting the whole convention, including deep into the south of the Mason Dixon line. Now, wouldn’t that be something?
Eugene Peterson: The Man Who Translated – and Lived – The Message
My wife called me Monday afternoon with the expected, but untimely news that my mentor and friend Eugene Peterson had passed away. “I’m sorry,” she said with a soft and warm tone, her voice trailing off into silence. I was preparing for this moment for the past few years – even more so the past week, as he was put on hospice – but the tears still flowed. Some out of sadness, most out of gratitude for his life. His son, Eric, wrote that for someone who practiced Sabbath, which he kept on Mondays, it’s only fitting Eugene experienced true rest for the first time on that particular day of the week.
Learning the How-To’s of Pastoral Ministry
Several years ago, when I graduated from Biblical Seminary, I was equipped with valuable theological, missiological and philosophical truth about God and His Mission. I learned what it meant to join God and His mission in the world by being incarnational. But looking back, I realized I had missed something: I didn’t really know how to do that specifically and practically in my day-to-day role as a pastor. I lacked the practical training for how to put into practice what I had learned.
Remembering September 11, 2001
Today we remember the 9/11 tragedy of 17 years ago — the abrupt loss of life, the dazed faces of dust-covered women and men who made it out of the towers alive and the sheer bewilderment that something like this could happen. The trauma may have diminished, but the struggle to understand remains.
Can Christians Call God Allah?
“[Christians and Muslims] worship the same God.”
These words on a Facebook post by a Wheaton College professor, Larycia Hawkins, whose principal aim appears to have been a demonstration of solidarity with Muslims (by wearing a hijab during Advent) at a time when Muslims are increasingly being demonized in the US, have caused much uproar whose ripples have reached far outside the relatively small world of North American evangelicalism (see the latest issue of Time).
