Tips for Effective Biblical Counseling
General
Schedule counseling sessions between 60-90 minutes.
A typical counseling session will involve:
opening your time in prayer;
discussing their homework from the previous week;
asking good questions, practicing active listening, and taking detailed notes;
teaching relevant material, prepared ahead of time, from the Word of God;
assigning relevant and challenging homework;
praying with and for your counselee.
Allow time before the meeting for prayer and preparation and time after to debrief and finalize notes.
Meet at the same time and place each week, whenever possible.
Meet in a more formal setting, not sitting on couches or at a coffee shop.
Counsel members of the same sex whenever possible. Ideally, couples will counsel with other couples.
The average case will be around 15 weeks, some less and some more. The goal of counseling is not to meet with the same person for ongoing discipleship. If you choose to continue meeting with an individual for ongoing discipleship and accountability, that is fine, just be sure to have an official beginning and end date for the actual counseling. Most counselees will be asked to find a discipler to walk with them once your counseling with them has ended. Biblical counseling and discipleship are two related but distinct approaches to helping people grow in their faith and address personal issues or struggles.
Biblical counseling focuses on working through a specific problem or issue that a person is facing, using the Bible and the Word of God as a guide for understanding the issue(s) and finding solutions. The primary goal of biblical counseling is to help the person gain victory over the problem(s) they are facing in a specific amount of time.
Discipleship, on the other hand, is focused on ongoing teaching and accountability to help a person continue to grow in their faith and become more like Christ.
Spiritual
Rely, first and foremost, on prayer and the Holy Spirit. We are only the conduits that God may choose to use to bring His hope and healing to another person. We should be praying for and with our counselees often.
Philippians 1:3-6: I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work among you will complete it by the day of Christ Jesus.
Philippians 1:9-11: For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this I pray, that your love may overflow still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may discover the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and blameless for the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, for the glory and praise of God.
Colossians 1:1-8: To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ who are at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints
2 Thessalonians 1:3-4: We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is only fitting, because your faith is increasing abundantly, and the love of each and every one of you toward one another grows ever greater.
Matthew 10:20: "For it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you."
We are in no way better than our counselees. We are their guide, pointing them to the hope and healing that can come through a relationship with Jesus Christ, the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the sufficiency of the Word of God. But we must make it clear we are fellow sojourners navigating this life together.
Biblical counseling is an effective evangelistic tool. It is our responsibility to share the Good News of the Gospel with each person we meet with and implore those who are not indwelled with the Holy Spirit to take the opportunity to turn to Christ in repentance and surrender.
Though we will all be at different places in our biblical knowledge, and by no means do you have to have a doctorate in biblical studies, we all should be constantly growing in our knowledge of and love for the Word of God.
We all should be striving for personal holiness and have a dynamic personal relationship with the Lord.
How to counsel:
Everything begins and ends with God and His Truth—that’s what we are working to uncover and apply
Identify the issue(s) at hand
Identify the underlying sin associated with the issue(s)/behavior(s) and why we consider the issue(s) sin
Identify who is responsible for the sin and whether repentance or forgiveness is necessary
Identify the very real enemy
Identify God’s truth in His Word to counter the sin
Discern what to put off and put on
Take captive this sin by obeying the Word of God
Be transformed by the renewing of the mind
Identify triggers and implement change; lay aside everything that so easily entangles (Hebrews 12:1)
Involve other Believers for ongoing discipleship and accountability
Resources
“A Homework Manual for Biblical Counseling (1 and 2)” by Wayne Mack
“Value and Qualities of Good Homework”—https://blogs.faithlafayette.org/counseling/2019/02/the-value-and-qualities-of-good-homework/
“Counseling the Hard Cases” by Stuart Scott and Heath Lambert
