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The Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC) is a biblical counseling organization created to equip people in utilizing the Scriptures to address problems people face. ACBC seeks to strengthen the Church to speak the truth in love by providing a quality training and certification process, a global network of like-minded individuals and institutions, and a source of practical and biblical resources for the Church. In short, they aim to bring biblical solutions for the problems people face, upholding that the method God has given to do this is His truth through His Word in love.
ACBC has a biblically-grounded process that is made up of three phases: learning, exams and evaluations, and supervision. ACBC certification can be obtained through ACBC directly or a separate Certified Training Center authorized by ACBC to walk candidates through the certification process. The Master’s University is one such Certified Training Center that has partnered with ACBC to equip students to counsel biblically and receive ACBC certification. Our Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies (with an emphasis in Biblical Counseling), online Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Counseling, Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling (MABC), and Doctor of Ministry in Biblical Counseling (DMinBC) all provide classes that can serve as viable training courses to reach partial fulfillment of ACBC certification. The MABC program, in particular, offers a fully integrated process of completing all three phases of the ACBC certification process and obtaining ACBC certification once the program is complete. In other words, students who start and finish the MABC program will complete all three phases of the ACBC certification process and will not need to take additional steps for certification before or after they finish the program.
If a student in any one of these TMU biblical counseling programs has a question about their ACBC certification, they should reach out to their department lead. The department leads are as follows…
The Graduate Biblical Counseling department at TMU is the main representative for the entire TMU Certification Training Center. If any student is unable to touch base with their lead, they are welcome to contact Mark Smith, who leads the training center under the oversight of Dr. John Street.
The process for obtaining certification in the MABC program at TMU is as follows…
The MABC program consists of coursework that satisfy ACBC’s Phase 1. Part of this coursework fulfills ACBC’s Fundamentals Training and will be completed by taking courses such as, but not limited to, BC501 Introduction to Biblical Counseling, BC503 Methods of Biblical Change, BC521 Problems & Procedures, BC542 Marriage & Family Counseling, etc. Once all the necessary coursework equivalent to Fundamentals Training has been completed, the student will be eligible to take BC556 ACBC Membership Seminar, where he or she will obtain access to the Fundamentals Certificate they will then need to upload to the dashboard of their newly created ACBC account to report completion of Phase 1 to ACBC. The Fundamentals Certificate is not to be confused with full ACBC Certification for which students become eligible after completing the MABC program. In addition to completing coursework in fulfillment of Fundamentals Training, students will be reading certain books and watching certain observation videos in their MABC classes in fulfillment of the rest of Phase 1. This reading and observation will be recorded in logs on the student’s ACBC dashboard.
In several courses leading up to BC556, students will also be progressively answering key theological and counseling exam questions required for completion of Phase 2 of ACBC certification. Students will then get a chance to make corrections to and improve all the answers to their exam questions based on feedback given to prepare to submit them to ACBC for examination. Once students complete Phase 1 of their ACBC certification, ACBC will grant them access to post their graded ACBC Exams to Phase 2 in their accounts. In addition to submitting these graded exams to ACBC, students will need to fill out an application for certification, provide two recommendations associated with the application, and pay an application fee. Once all these steps are completed, ACBC will review the application and exams and contact the student about whether they are approved to move onto Phase 3.
Students will then proceed to Phase 3 of ACBC Certification which requires students to complete at least 50 sessions totaling at least 50 hours of counseling. To meet these requirements, students in the MABC program will take two classes, BC592 Applied Soul Care I and BC593 Applied Soul Care II. Each Applied Soul Care class requires MABC students to counsel individuals in their local context for at least 25 supervised counseling sessions consisting of at least 25 hours in total length over the course of the semester. By counseling at least 25 sessions within each class, students will accumulate the 50 sessions of supervised counseling necessary to qualify for passing Phase 3 of certification. Within each Applied Soul Care class, students will be assigned an MABC qualified and ACBC certified Fellow to supervise the counseling and provide direction. Once the 50 sessions of counseling are completed and the student has been approved, the MABC supervisor will recommend him or her for full ACBC Certification. At this point, the Fellow will indicate approval on his Fellow dashboard on the ACBC website. Although a student may complete and pass BC592 and BC593, the Fellow supervising the student is not under obligation to recommend the student for certification if he deems the student not yet qualified for it.
After all phases are complete, the student will be required to sign the ACBC member covenant and submit the prorated amount of membership dues before the student will be recognized as a certified member. The student once approved for certification is welcome to attend the following ACBC Conference to walk at the official member inductee ceremony.
Please note the following…
