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A Crucial Step in Biblical Counseling Ethics

Our Standards of Conduct is a faithful guide for those who wish to be salt and light in the counseling world.

Oct 18, 2016

During the 40th Annual Conference of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors in Indianapolis the members of our association approved the Standards of Conduct as our new authority for counseling ethics. More than 99% of our members voted in favor of this document.

The approval of this document is a big step in the biblical counseling world. Let me explain why.

ACBC is the largest association of biblical counselors in the world, and exists to certify excellence in biblical counseling for individual biblical counselors as well as for counseling training centers. Our job at ACBC is quality control. We do not merely talk about biblical counseling at ACBC, we certify individuals and institutions who know how to do it well.

Certifying excellence means that there must be a clear standard for how to do this work. Since our founding in 1976, ACBC has enforced our original Standards of Conduct with our membership, but the culture and the counseling world has changed a lot in the last 40 years. All of us in leadership at ACBC agreed two years ago that it was time to do a massive overhaul of our original standard to address counseling challenges in this new day.

Our work on this standard was painstaking. The process from the initial draft to the final document involved input from scores of experts in counseling, theology, law, and medicine. Every leader in ACBC was given an opportunity to make edits, and ultimately every member of ACBC was given the opportunity to make suggestions. We also solicited feedback from every leader in the biblical counseling world, even those who are not members of ACBC.

It is a truly remarkable document. As far as we know, it is the only standard for counseling ethics that requires counselors to point counselees to the grace of Jesus Christ in counseling. It is the only standard that requires the use of Scripture as the sufficient authority in counseling. It is the only standard that requires the involvement of the local church in counseling. In addition to all this it strikes a careful biblical balance between the body and the soul, it is robustly complementarian, and it addresses the complex issues of sexuality we face in our day from a standpoint of biblical authority.

There is truly nothing in the evangelical or secular world like this document.

We are excited that the Standards of Conduct will serve as the authoritative statement for counseling ethics for our members all across the world. We are also excited about the opportunity we believe it creates.

The velocity of secularization is speeding up in our culture; it is not slowing down. As this secularization continues there will be increasing tension between committed Christians in the field of counseling and the state boards that provide secular licensure. It is our prayer that this document will serve as a faithful and biblical guide to counselors who wish to be salt and light in a counseling world that is increasingly characterized by darkness and decay.