12 courses with the subject PTC, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
PTC 151Dynamics of Biblical Change
Purpose: · Demonstrate an understanding of the biblical view of progressive sanctification. · Describe and apply the Biblical Counseling model of change to your own life as well as to other situations presented in case study format. · Analyze the ways that the Biblical Counseling model of change might affect a church’s worship, preaching, evangelism, missions, offices, youth ministry, fellowship, children’s programs, and equipping. This course is a foundational counseling course that introduces the key framework and themes related to the wisdom and practice of biblical counseling. The way that you counsel other people is determined by 135
Purpose: · To help students develop a functional biblical counseling worldview · To help students understand the importance of heart change as a methodological goal · To develop an understanding of the role of Scripture in biblical counseling · To highlight and practice the critical skills for effectiveness in biblical counseling Part 1: Essential Skills for Everyday Conversations · You need help and give help · We are embodied souls with strengths and weaknesses · All ministry of change is grounded in prayer Part 2: More Skills for Longer Walks (Extended Conversations)
Purpose: · To teach students how to understand psychologists’ observations, theories, and practices, and how to engage them critically, humbly, and lovingly · To reinterpret through a redemptive gaze the things that psychologists see most clearly and care about most deeply · To understand where biblical counseling fits in our cultural context, both within the evangelical church and within the surrounding mental health system Topics covered include the skills of reinterpretation and redemptive interaction; historical overview of the biblical counseling and evangelical psychotherapy movements; the lay of the land in contemporary counseling; assessment of motivation theories and self-esteem theory; and primary source readings from a half dozen representative psychologists, ranging from high culture to self-help. Online (June and January terms), two hours.
PTC 151 (taken or in progress) and PTC 178 (taken or in progress)
PTC 251Marriage Counseling
Purpose: · Apply a biblical theology of marriage to counseling ministry and methodology. · Demonstrate a basic understanding of what goes wrong in marital relationships and how to work with spouses in wise and helpful ways. · Discern a couple’s fitness and capacity to proceed with marriage counseling. · Conceptualize and diagram common conflict patterns while uncovering heart desires, fears, and inner experiences. · Identify key marital crises while communicating a familiarity with their dynamics, causes, and remedies. · Cultivate constructive and intimate conversations with couples in distress. · Understand and demonstrate basic marriage counseling methodology with both spouses or only one spouse present. · Foster Christlike love and strengthen one-flesh unions. This course introduces Marriage Counseling and its complex, dynamic, and yet crucial form of counseling. This course will provide you with a basic theological framework and methodology for counseling that will help move couples beyond and beneath complaints to address dynamics, heart movements, and interpersonal patterns. Online (June and January terms), three hours. Restrictions: Only available to MAC and MDiv Counseling students.
PTC 151 (taken or in progress) and PTC 178 (taken or in progress)
PTC 261Applied Theology of the Person
Purpose: · To deepen students’ understanding of biblical doctrine as it applies to the person · To examine what doctrines are especially important to apply in this generation · To understand how to apply biblical doctrine in personal ministry · To be able to uncover the implicit theology in other models of personal ministry and dialogue effectively about these issues This course aims to draw out answers about who we are and how we care for others from Scripture in such a way that we know God better, know ourselves better, and are led into faith and love. The course will consider non-Christian counseling case studies as a way to demonstrate careful engagement as well as Scripture’s breadth and depth. 137
Purpose: · To identify the essential features of biblical counseling · To identify current counseling issues that are apparent in the church · To appreciate Scripture’s depth as it addresses common problems such as suffering, anger, and anxiety · To prepare students to move toward people with any type of struggle in a way that is helpful and Christ-centered This course considers more than ten everyday problems that people face in a fallen world, such as suffering, shame, conflict, and anger. With each problem, we will consider how the Bible conceptualizes the experience and how it leads us to help others to persevere through problems with the goal that their faith expresses itself through love (Gal 5:6). Topics covered include abuse, guilt and legalism, fear, anger, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anorexia and bulimia, and addictions. Online (September and March terms), three hours.
Purpose: · Develop an effective counseling relationship by establishing trust, honesty, and using effective listening skills · Continue to grow in the understanding of the complexity of human problems, the experience of sin and suffering, and how change happens · Learn how to document a counseling session · Learn how to employ an effective use of Scripture, prayer, and other spiritual resources in counseling · Developmental stages of children and teens and how these may affect the counseling approach · Learn how to conceptualize problems, develop an agenda for change, set goals, and implement particular strategies Counseling Observation provides students with a “real-life” demonstration of how the biblical counseling methodologies explored in other counseling classes are actually applied in the counseling room. Each observation class is unique, as the observation experience will vary based upon the particular counselor and the counselee’s particular problem and circumstances. Students will quickly see that biblical counseling is highly relational, not wooden or formulaic – there is no “one size fits all” approach.
This course will bring the lens of Scripture and hope of God’s redemptive perspective to complex problems of human suffering and sin. We will explore topics with a careful nuance that seeks to truly understand the experience of what it is like to live as an embodied soul who wrestles with deep distress, profound brokenness, or an entrenched sin pattern with the hope of meeting strugglers with compassion, grace, and biblical truth. Online (September and March terms), three hours. 138
Purpose: · Understand the spectrum of interpersonal ministry that exists in the local church, recognizing both public and private ministries of the Word for the whole church as a ministering community · Avoid pitfalls (e.g., issues of child safety, suicide) and to leverage opportunities (e.g., hospital visitation) in pastoral counseling · Navigate counseling ministry within the broader structures of the church setting (e.g., church discipline, small groups, lay counseling) · Examine and strengthen current pastoral care provision in local church settings Counseling in the Local Church provides an introduction, biblical foundation, and historical context for pastoral care and counseling. Key issues that will be discussed include pastoral care, such as hospital visitation, crisis response, and church discipline are surveyed with practical instruction. Online (June and January terms), two hours.
In Ethics of Biblical Counseling, students will develop a biblical-theological framework to navigate and evaluate the ethics of biblical counseling. Students will be equipped to assess situations related to their context, calling, and counseling relationships in a biblical, ethical manner. A framework will be offered to help students evaluate various ethical dilemmas and come to decisions that ultimately glorify the Lord and edify the body. Online (June and January terms), two hours.
PTC 151 Dynamics of Biblical Change and PTC 178 Helping Relationships.
PTC 691Culminating Seminar
Culminating Seminar draws together all the strands of teaching from the MAC program to help each student personally maximize his or her ability to put what they have learned into practice after graduation. In highly interactive, seminar-sized groups, students will work closely with one another and their faculty cohort leader through role plays and student counseling video review to identify strengths and weaknesses of their own counseling practice and to grow the skill of providing feedback on the counseling of others. Online (September, January, and March terms), two hours. Relationships, PTC 222 Counseling & Physiology, PTC 261 Applied Theology of the Person, PTC 301 Everyday Problems in Counseling, and PTC 372 Counseling Observation. 139
