Consider Your Counsel

Biblical counseling is not an easy calling. How do you effectively communicate the gospel to hurting people? Theological training and learning from other counselors are both key to growing in the wisdom, love, and skill needed to apply Scripture to yourself and others. Preparation is key, but sometimes the most effective training comes after you’ve jumped into the ring—when a coach puts his arm around your shoulder and helps you take a look at what you’ve done well and where you can grow.

In Consider Your Counsel, Bob Kellemen comes alongside counselors and shares where he and others have missed the mark. Drawing on more than three decades of counseling supervision experience, he unpacks ten of the most common missteps that he has noticed in his own counseling, as well as those he has mentored.

From teaching before listening to targeting sin but not suffering, Kellemen helps counselors of all ages see where they may need to reassess their methods and continue to grow. Each chapter briefly discusses a typical counseling mistake, then delves into a discussion of alternative approaches and practical suggestions for maturing as biblical counselor. This uniquely helpful book will help readers do an honest assessment of their counseling and encourage them to grow as counselors and friends.

1. Opening Credits
2. Introduction: A Word from Bob
3. Mistake #1: We Elevate Data Collection above Soul Connection
4. Mistake #2: We Share God’s Eternal Story before Listening to People’s Earthly Story
5. Mistake #3: We Talk at Counselees Rather Than Exploring Scripture with Counselees
6. Mistake #4: We Target Sin but Diminish Suffering
7. Mistake #5: We Fail to Follow the Trinity’s Model of Comforting Care
8. Mistake #6: We View People One-Dimensionally Instead of Comprehensively
9. Mistake #7: We Devalue Emotions Instead of Seeing Emotions as God’s Idea
10. Mistake #8: We Minimize the Complexity of the Body-Soul Interconnection
11. Mistake #9: We Maximize Sin while Minimizing Grace
12. Mistake #10: We Confuse the Sufficiency of Scripture with the Competency of the Counselor
13. Conclusion: Assessing Our Biblical Counseling
14. Closing Credits