Plenary Sessions
If God is for Us (Romans 8)
Plenary 1: ”New Life” - Paul Tripp
Plenary 2: ”Adopted Heirs” - Jeremy Pierre
Plenary 3: ”Future and Present Glory” - Jeremy Lelek
Plenary 4: ”Immutable Security” - John Henderson
Pre-Conference
Counseling through God’s Attributes
Track Options
ABC offers specialized tracks taught by leading practitioners in the field. Each of the following tracks will include eight insightful sessions. Attendees will choose one track during registration, and will attend all sessions in that track throughout the duration of the conference.
Note: Track sessions are listed in the order that they will be delivered.
Track A - Mental Health: Biblically Unpacking Diagnoses
We live in a culture where psychiatric diagnoses dominantly serve as the basis of most mental health treatment protocols. While diagnostic impressions may be helpful from a descriptive vantage point, they do extraordinarily little to help us effectively minister to those labeled as such. This track is designed to help biblical counselors wisely consider such prevalent diagnostic impressions while bringing to bear biblical and empirical truth that may help serve people diagnosed with some of the most challenging diagnoses in the mental health field.
Several of these diagnoses offer little hope for the sufferer when reading the research literature, but does the Gospel offer a hopeful alternative? Our aim is to show that it indeed does.
Objective One: Consider how Scripture may interpret symptoms associated with psychiatric diagnoses.
Objective Two: Provide empirical data and analysis of specific psychiatric diagnoses.
Objective Three: Provide practical methodologies to apply to varying psychiatric diagnoses.
Below are the DSM-5 diagnoses we will explore together:
Biblically Navigating Psychiatric Diagnoses
OCD: Scrupulosity
Borderline Personality Disorder
Gender Identity Confusion
Schizophrenia/Bi-Polar
Body Dysmorphic Disorder
Dissociative Identity Disorder
Panel Discussion
Track B - Trauma
Objective: True, lasting healing from trauma requires wise, tender counselors who can access and apply biblical truths to the complex effects of terror upon an embodied soul. Through eight sessions together, the trauma track aims to equip counselors at a basic level for perceiving, thinking, and responding to the experience of trauma. After establishing a biblical anthropology of trauma, we will define trauma and trace how traumatic experience develops in a human being before presenting an approach to ministering the gospel of Christ and word of God to various aspects of traumatic experience. The experience of trauma involves a quality of grief, terror, anxiety, confusion, painful reliving, guilt, and shame that only Christ, His Spirit, and His word can remedy.
Track C - Counseling Children and Teens
Objective: Knowing how to approach children and teens in counseling can be a challenge. Learning how to enter their world and draw them out can sometimes feel difficult. The goal of this track is to begin by providing attendees with a biblical framework for counseling children and teens - and parents. As we build a biblical foundation for understanding the needs of families, we will then demonstrate practical approaches for working with youth in counseling.
Track D - Fundamentals of Biblical Counseling Methods
Objective: As believers, our call is to care for each other’s souls. But how do we do that? This track is designed to equip you with foundational truths on how to facilitate and cultivate a culture of one another care within your church or ministry. Together we will discuss things such as how to get a counseling session off to a good start, learn how to ask good questions that engages the heart, understand the importance of listening, and knowing the dynamics of the heart. We will also spend time sharing how to bring the gospel into every session, foundational scriptures in caring for others, and the importance of confession and repentance. Lastly, we will address common mistakes and the value of personal stewardship. It will be informative, relational, and interactive…so don’t miss out!
Theology of Care - Lee Lewis
Starting Well: Navigating Initial Counseling Sessions with Wise Assessment – Emily Dempster
Unpacking a Persons Story in Counseling – Lee Lewis
Dynamics of the Heart – Lee Lewis
The Gospel in Counseling- Pete Potloff
The Character of God in Counseling - Pete Potloff
Sharing scripture in Counseling with Wisdom- Shauna Van Dyke
Ending Well: Navigating Closure and Encouraging Continued Growth in Christ - Emily Dempster
Track E - Common Sexual Issues
Objective: When it comes to sex and sexuality, God creates, and sin and the world corrupts. Many counseling issues that we face in the church and in the counseling, room come back to this topic. Helping individuals, couples, and families sort through past abuse, sexual struggles, pornography addiction, etc. are all areas that counselors need to be equipped to address. This track will help provide biblical and practical help for a perennial struggle.
Track F - Pastors & Church Leadership
Objective: This track seeks to serve and equip pastors and church leaders at three levels–personal, ministry, and leadership. We will teach and coach you on issues you face or want to address in your ministry. The track leaders, who have decades of experience as lead, executive, and care pastors, will teach collaboratively and engage interactively during each workshop.
Track G - Understanding Emotions: Shame, Guilt & Regret
Objective: In Understanding Emotions: Guilt, Shame, and Regret, you will learn to differentiate and minister gospel-based hope to this set of emotions that are too often experienced as synonyms. When it comes to applying the gospel to our lives, there may be no more important trio of emotions to differentiate than these three. Life will never be as neat or tidy as our categories, but confusion about these emotions may cause us to misapply the Bible as much as any other factor in counseling.
Track H - Spiritual Abuse
Objective: Join us as we seek to understand what spiritual abuse is, what it isn’t and the subtle forms it takes. We will also learn to recognize when it’s happening and appreciate the grievous damage it causes to individuals and church communities. We will then provide biblical ways of responding to promote healing and growth.