Over the years I have received numerous e-mails asking the same question: What must I do to become a Christian counselor? I thought it would be well to provide my response for others who might have the same question.
As in any pursuit, here are two very important steps:
- Bathe it in prayer. What is God’s desire for you? – “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight” (Prov. 3:5-6).
- As you are praying, learn as much as you can about it. Sometimes the more you know, the more that passion grows. But, sometimes the opposite happens.
You also need to determine where you want to go with it, how you want to use it. Do you want to become a professional counselor or do you want to do lay or peer counseling, perhaps as a ministry in your church?
This should become clearer as you invest prayer into it and gain a greater understanding of counseling.
The answer to that question will point you toward your next steps:
If lay counseling, a certificate program could be sufficient. A good starting point could be the site of the AACC, the American Association of Christian Counselors. They have some courses that could be of great benefit to you.
If professional counseling, you will undoubtedly need to have a degree, probably even a Master’s Degree, to get licensed in your state. Each state varies in their requirements and procedures so you should check with your state government with questions you have about state requirements. It could be helpful to network with a Christian counselor or two in your area to learn from them what procedures they followed.
As an example: Pennsylvania requires you have both a bachelor’s and master’s degree to get licensed. The Master’s degree must be 60 credits. You also have to do 3600 hours of supervised counseling and take and pass the National Counselor’s Exam. — Where you are located could be different.
If you do not get licensed, then you should be careful in calling yourself a counselor as with that can come liabilities. People who are professional counselors usually purchase liability insurance. Those who live in the United States can get some ideas on that at the American Professional Agency.
Some use the term “Biblical Life Coach.”
Some put it under the umbrella of discipleship.
At minimum, you should refer to your counseling as “lay counseling” and not just “counseling” so as to denote that you are not doing this as a professional.
Here are some additional helps on the MinTools.com site:
Counseling Ministry Training – This is primarily for lay counseling, not professional counseling.
Counseling Ministry Resources - Most of these links will take you to other sites.
If you are a counselor and have further suggestions to add, feel free to leave a comment.
Your comments form a great beginning for the subject of becoming a pastoral counselor. It is a complex subject with many solutions.
Every day I speak with people involved in the conflict created by being a Christian and trying to function under the requirements of a state issued “counseling license.”
Typically, these people have invested tens of thousands of dollars and years of their lives obtaining a license that severely restricts their ability to actually help people, which is what they started out to do in the first place.
Most do not become aware that there is an entirely different path they could have taken that would provide them a solution consistent with their goals and their beliefs.
By becoming an ordained minister and practicing “Chrisitian Counseling” their practices become ministries and fall under the laws governing the practice of religion. In this arena it becomes not only acceptable, but rather, appropriate to pray with clients, suggest Biblical solutions, and have the power of God involved in the healing process.
This is not some end run around the law. It is simply following the correct path. A Licensed Clinical Christian Counselor will typically have earned hundreds of hours of educational credits, hold a Masters or Doctoral degree, and invested themselves in an internship to learn the process of employing what they have learned to help others. They will have insurance for their practice, understand how to create an invoice for a client’s insurance company, and become a supportive part of their community. They typically also a earn a respectable salary.
Consider this Catch-22: The most reliable way of helping a substance abuser achieve freedom from their addiction is to get them involved in a 12 step program. Twelve step programs are about finding a “Higher Power” and availing yourself of that power. However, a state licensed counselor cannot recommend “a Higher Power”, pray about anything, talk about God in a meaningful way, or hint that God may be a part of their solution. Like trying to be a surgeon with hand-cuffs secured around the wrists.
The National Christian Counselors Association has been in the ministry of helping Christians qualify themselves as legal, licensed Clinical Christian Counselors for decades. As a Certified Academic Institution under the NCCA, Pastoral Counseling Center offers programs designed to qualify and license counselors in the ministry of counseling.
When considering becoming a counselor, the first decision one should make is whether they are going to serve the state or people. What they do next then becomes much clearer.
The state licensing referenced in the post does not mean you are working for the state. You are merely getting credentials from them, similar to how a lawyer and other professions get credentials. Being licensed by one’s state does not necessarily limit a Christian in bringing the Lord and His Word into the counseling session, praying with the counselee, using a 12 step program, or Christian resources.
To be sure, if you worked in a government funded agency or perhaps in a secular counseling center, you would have some limitations. I know of many Christians in private practices or working within Christian organizations who are licensed by their states and make it a regular practice to pray with their counselees, use Scripture, etc.
Is a license always necessary? Absolutely not. That is why you need to begin with the first two steps in the post … to pray and to learn as much as you can. I appreciate Roger Young’s comment as it gives one more perspective to consider. There are definitely a number of different views among Christians about counseling.
The bottom line is that you are responsible for how God wants you to use it. Different kinds of counselors will reach different peoples. Some people who would never step into a church for counseling, might go to a Christian counselor in a private practice.
Personally, I would not trust anyone “licensed” (by the state?) to give me spiritual advice. W.W.J.D.? Was He “licensed”? No. As a Christian I am a little Christ (anointed one), and therefore I avoid any entangling alliances with Caesar (the state). No offense to you “licensed” practitioners out there. Heck, we all have to make a living, but don’t think for one minute that you are better or more qualified to consult than a true believer is. Wisdom is the principle thing, not licenses and degrees. What a joke!
Thank you so much for your thoughts. I respect where you are coming from. The purpose of this post is not to take a stand for or against licensing. Having people like yourself respond helps us look at all sides of the issue. In moderating the comments like this, I see my task as helping people look at all sides. Ultimately each person is responsible to God for what they do. So, let me just make a few comments for those reading the posts to consider in coming to a decision on this issue.
1) “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps. 111:10; Prov. 9:10), not degrees or licenses. Any counsel we give or receive should be filtered through God’s Word (2 Tim. 3:16-17). We should look first and foremost to God for wisdom (James 1:5). The question that needs to be asked is if having a license deprives a Christian from having and exercising godly wisdom.
Keep in mind that the license merely certifies that you have met the criteria to be a professional counselor based on courses taken from an accredited institution and hours put in. The training itself can be from a Bible college and Christian Graduate School, meaning that you can receive training from a Biblical perspective.
2) Jesus certainly should be considered the master counselor after whom we follow (Isa. 9:6). No, He did not have a license. But, neither was He ordained. Does that mean we should not attend churches with ordained pastors? There are so many things in our modern world Jesus did not have so can we use that criteria of “WWJD” in specifics or do we need to look at principles? For example, in Jesus’ day they didn’t have cars. Does that mean we should not drive because we would have to get a license from the state? Jesus was never married, so does that make all married people un-Christ-like? If He was married, would He have gone the route of getting a marriage license from the state?
3) God’s Word certainly does warn against being entangled with or yoked with the world (2 Cor. 6:14). At the same time, Jesus Himself said, “Render (give) therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” He even miraculously provided the coin to pay the tax (Matt. 22:17-21). Keep in mind that having a counseling license does not necessarily mean a person is beholden to the “state” unless in a state-run/funded agency or perhaps in other secular organizations.
The question becomes, how do we live in the world without being of the world (Jn. 17:14-15)? What does that look like practically? Based on “WWJD,” at minimum, we would pay taxes. Consider these questions in making a personal decision about becoming a licensed counselor or going to a licensed counselor: At what point do we cross over into loving the world and its ways (1 Jn. 2:15)? How can we best be lights in the world (Matt. 5:14-16)? Is it possible for a licensed counselor to be a light in the world, to not love the world, and to be in the world but not of the world?