About CCEF

Each of us has personal and interpersonal struggles. Jesus Christ knows those struggles, he cares about strugglers, and so he enters into our lives. We see him bring about significant change in people’s lives every day. Because this is who Christ is, and because this is what he does, he is preeminently relevant to counseling. This conviction is our heritage and heartbeat.

We believe that the body of Christ is God’s primary context for change. God uses Christian community to transform his people. CCEF’s mission is to equip the church to be this kind of transforming community. We see ourselves as an extension of the local church, and we want to serve and promote its ministry. The good news of the gospel is meant to be preached, taught, and counseled with relevance to individual people. Our goal is to equip Christians for life and ministry.

The triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—has always known reciprocal fellowship and unity, and he has created us to participate in that fellowship. He welcomes us to himself through Jesus Christ. The Spirit connects us to Jesus, and Jesus is the only way to the Father.

This foundational reality has critical implications. God’s plan is to be close to us and for us to draw near to him. Herein lies the source of our interest in relationships and human connection. In response, our care for each other is inviting and familial.

Amid the swarm of life’s influences is the human heart—that is, the soul. Made in God’s image, we are both physical and spiritual. To know the heart is to know the person. And to know a person you must know what he or she desires and loves.

The heart has depth and layers. Most apparent are our natural desires for love and meaningful work. These desires are either satisfied or thwarted. And there are our emotions—anger, fear, shame, love. All of these reveal what is important to us.

The care of souls is not formulaic or predictable. What helps one person might not help another. When you listen to people’s stories, you can be helpful in so many ways. Some will be strengthened by a particular text of Scripture. Others will be moved by a personal story that helps them see God and their relationship to him in a new way, an act of love giving a taste of God’s kindness, or the death of a friend painfully reminding them of human need for redemption of body and soul. God uses people, circumstances, his Word, our own choices, and the direct power of his Spirit. Humility is an essential quality of a helper. We are constantly reliant on God, the wisdom and experience of others, and the input of those we help.

Biblical counselors are not alone in our desire to help others. There are many helpful Christian voices out there, and yet there are differences among us. Differences in practice usually reflect different theological emphases, particularly differences in how to understand people and how people change. There are also many secular voices whose differences in practice reflect more fundamental differences about who God is and his activity in our lives.

Our view of science is not a primary difference with other Christian and secular voices. Like others, we make observations about people that are useful to our counseling practice. We are also intentional to learn from the observations and experience of others, which includes the burgeoning Christian and secular literature. Biblical counseling adds, however, that all these sources are then interpreted and refined by the question: Who is the Lord and what does he say?