Who We Are
The Institute for Reformed Biblical Counseling
The Institute for Reformed Biblical Counseling is a counseling training ministry under the spiritual oversight of the Consistory of Cornerstone United Reformed Church (Hudsonville, Michigan).
We are overseen by a board of directors that is composed of faithful members of Reformed congregations.
Our Vision
To see pastors, elders, and church members within Reformed congregations grow in pastoral care and discipleship.
Our mission
Advancing Reformed biblical counseling through training and certifying counselors and supporting Reformed churches in their church-based discipleship ministries.
Interview
Core Values
1
Scripture is our system for understanding reality
God created man in such a way that he can only rightly understand himself, his environment, and his Creator through God’s revelation. Scripture provides Christians with a system for understanding every aspect of this world, including the particular details of a person’s experience and God’s will for every man and woman.
2
Christ rules over every aspect of our universe
As Abraham Kuyper famously said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” Jesus Christ is the sovereign Lord over all creation by virtue of his divinity and his bodily resurrection and ascension, and he exercises this authority in the unfolding of providence, in the realm of the academy and the sciences, and in the smallest details of human existence.
3
Counseling must reflect the ministry of Christ
Christ is the Wonderful Counselor, exercising the three offices of prophet, priest, and king throughout his earthly ministry and to the present day, proclaiming the will of God, interceding for his people, and demanding the obedience and submission of all mankind. Biblical counseling reflects the tone and tenor of Christ’s ministry, proclaiming the good news of the coming kingdom of God with compassion, conviction, and charity.
4
The Church grows in maturity through the ministry of the Word
The institutional church is the primary arena of God’s redemptive activity as God’s people await the return of Christ. As the community of God’s covenant people, the church has been given the task of making and maturing disciples. Christians grow as they are connected to the life of a local congregation and the ministry of the Word, of which counseling is a pastoral (shepherding) and personal (discipling) extension.
5
The Spirit guides the Church in the Truth
Christians today are not the first people to read the Scriptures, nor to try to understand the many issues that confront men and women in every age. The Holy Spirit has guided Christians throughout the ages to think carefully about numerous important issues in theology and the Christian life. Reformed biblical counselors study Scripture and the problems of humanity in conversation with the universal church through the historic creeds, Reformed confessions, and the theological works of the Reformed tradition that have withstood the test of time.