Submitting Counseling to the Word of God
Restoring Counseling to the Local Church
OUR APPROACH
“There are many counseling organizations. How is Redeemer different?”
There is a difference between secular counseling and Biblical counseling. Unlike secular counseling, we will not settle for Christ-less, grace-less attempts at change. We believe the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. Our goal is not to increase your self-esteem or give you quick fixes. Rather our goal is to reveal your sin and reveal your Savior. We will not allow you to settle for anything less than a Scriptural solution.
The Philosophy of Redeemer Counseling can be summarized in 4 ways:
● Biblical
● God-Honoring
● Christ-Centered
● Local Church-Focused
Coming alongside you with the Word of God in our hands and the Love of Christ in our hearts.
We are NOT Christians who counsel. We are Christians who employ Biblical Counseling.
That may sound like semantics, but it is a vital distinction. We are committed to the Word of God sustaining you through your difficulty.
We are not simplistic in our counseling. It’s easy to treat the Bible like Tylenol. Take two doses daily. We go deep and reach the soul of your issue. Complex problems need complex answers, but all those answers are found in the Scripture.
The Scripture will reveal your sin or reveal where you need healing. We, at Redeemer, are committed to dealing thoroughly with both the sins you have committed and the evils you have suffered.
“The world is fallen, and it often falls on us. The world is a mess, and it often messes with our minds.”
- Robert Kellerman
The Word of God will renew your mind and heal your hurts. It is our textbook, our guidebook, and our light as we walk with you in this dark time.
Biblical Counseling is not ultimately about the counselee, but about The Divine Counselor.
We are not Soul physicians, but God is.
We are powerless as counselors apart from the powerful work of the Great Soul Physician. Each counseling session is God-honoring and attempts to inform your soul about the character of God.
A large part of good counseling is helping counselees see that at the root of all psychological problems are [often] theological errors. No one can have a proper view of self without a proper view of God.
- Dr. Garrett Higbee
Our goal is not simply symptom relief, but Christlikeness.
We are not solution-focused; but Christ-focused.
Christ-less Counseling is sinful counseling.
Isn’t it strange that we seem prepared to learn how to live life, learn how to face tragedy, learn how to process hurt from almost anyone but Christ? The goal of our counseling is to help your whole person become a whole person in Christ.
We discover wisdom for how to live life in a broken world from the wisest person who ever lived—Christ!
- Robert Kellerman
God has given us His Word and His Local Church: everything we need to live sane in an insane world.
Our counselors are all members of a solid theological local church.
They are committed to serving their church on a weekly basis and they submit to their local church pastors. They are not lone rangers, but members of a local body. Because we have deep convictions on the importance of being members of a local church, we require all of our counselees to be members of a local church or be in the process of church membership at a local church.
I don’t know of any reason, from a biblical perspective, to distinguish counseling from discipleship. They are the same thing: helping other brothers and sisters in the church to follow Christ by embracing the Word of His gospel.
- Jonathan Leeman