COUN101 — Biblical Counseling

Speaking truth in love to those who are hurting.

Course Purpose

• Every minister will be sought out in crisis, grief, conflict, and despair, whether trained for it or not.
• Untrained good intentions can do real harm; biblical counseling trains compassion to act wisely.
• This course equips students to counsel from Scripture with both genuine care and sound, safe practice.

Why This Course Matters

• Pastoral ministry without counseling competence leaves real wounds unaddressed or mishandled.
• Biblical counseling integrates sound doctrine with real compassion — neither alone is sufficient.
• This course directly serves Sozo's commitment to theology that produces action and ministry that serves people wisely and lovingly.

Course Outline

• Week 1: The Counselor's Foundation: Christ, Not Technique
  Establishing biblical counseling as flowing from genuine relationship with Christ and love for people, not a set of formulas. Students examine Christ's own pattern of compassionate, truthful engagement with the hurting.
• Week 2: Listening Well: The First and Hardest Skill
  Most counseling failures begin with poor listening. This week trains students in active, non-judgmental listening — fully hearing a person's pain before responding (James 1:19).
• Week 3: Truth and Grace Held Together
  Examining how Jesus held both truth and grace fully (John 1:14) as the model for biblical counseling — confronting sin without crushing the wounded, and comforting without enabling.
• Week 4: Understanding Grief and Loss
  A practical, Scripture-grounded look at walking with someone through grief — what helps, what harms, and the patience genuine grief support requires (Job's friends as both a warning and an example).
• Week 5: Counseling Through Anxiety and Fear
  Addressing anxiety with both compassion and sound biblical truth (Philippians 4:6-7, 1 Peter 5:7), avoiding both dismissive platitudes and secular approaches that ignore the spiritual dimension.
• Week 6: Conflict and Reconciliation
  A practical study of biblical conflict resolution (Matthew 18, Galatians 6:1) for counseling couples, families, and church conflicts toward genuine reconciliation rather than forced peace.
• Week 7: Counseling the Sin-Struggling Believer
  How to walk with someone caught in ongoing sin or addiction with both honesty about sin's reality and hope for genuine transformation (Galatians 6:1-2), avoiding both harsh condemnation and minimizing.
• Week 8: Marriage and Family Counseling Foundations
  An introduction to counseling couples and families from a biblical framework — communication, roles, conflict, and restoration, with humility about the counselor's own limits.
• Week 9: When to Refer: Recognizing the Limits of Pastoral Counseling
  A critical, honest week on recognizing situations (severe mental illness, abuse, suicidal crisis) that require professional or medical intervention, and how to refer wisely and compassionately without abandoning the person.
• Week 10: Confidentiality, Boundaries, and Accountability
  Practical training in maintaining appropriate boundaries, confidentiality, and personal accountability structures to protect both the counselor and those they counsel from harm.
• Week 11: Self-Care for the Counselor
  Addressing counselor burnout directly — students examine practices for sustaining their own spiritual and emotional health while carrying the weight of others' pain over years of ministry.
• Week 12: Integrating Counseling Into Everyday Ministry
  Synthesizing the course into a realistic, sustainable approach to counseling as a normal part of pastoral ministry — not a separate specialty, but a constant thread of caring for people well.

Full lesson content, readings, and reflection assignments for each week are available once you're enrolled and logged in.