CCOU 202 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY Lay Counseling Essay Assignment_2024.pdf

Lay Counseling Essay Assignment

Wes Clevinger

L31613310

Liberty University

CCOU202: Issues of Christian Counseling

Professor Charles Rife

7/22/2024

What are advantages of lay counseling?

There are many advantages in my eyes of a lay counselor. When doing secular counseling

as a psychotherapist you are bound by law to many regulations such as extensive training,

limitations on what you can decide, and the methods that you decide alone with the techniques.

But when it comes to Christian lay counseling you have considerations that are suggested but not

mandatory in certain situations. Lay counselors can spread the gospel if consent is given, as well

as able to use their spiritual gifts in helping someone turn from their sin and guiding them

spiritually back to God (I find and see this very rewarding).

Another good advantage is that psychological testing is not performed nor is it mandatory

when selecting a lay counselor (Sanders, 2013). Another advantage when lay counseling is you

are allowed to do formal (office, church) and informal (house calls, hospitals, nursing homes,

etc.) session when counseling (Sanders, 2013) Lastly, I find it gratifying to not receive

compensation for reconnecting what God has created back to himself (saving the sheep)

(Sanders, 2013).

What are the disadvantages?

Personally, the only disadvantage I can see so far as a lay counselor is the fact that you

must be supervised in some form or fashion. I do not agree with the supervision.

Expound on one ethical consideration for the lay counselor discussed in the Sanders text.

An ethically right consideration could be referring clients to an appropriate counselor

who has been trained in the certain field of psychology if you will, that will better suit the

counselor’s client’s needs (Sanders, 2013). Competency is everything in this field. Sometimes

the training of certain lay counselors is incompetent in certain fields of study regarding certain

aspects of the psyche. It is morally ethical to refer people, so we do not mislead them or set them

and ourselves off for a false misrepresentation of the word and mind. “Study to show thyself

approved” is what Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:15 of the King James Version.

Review and analyze chapter 20 in the Sanders text. What are some of the areas discussed in

which lay counselor training is needed? All of these are important, but which one would

you say is most important and why?

What are your overall thoughts on lay counseling at this point in the course?

While lay counseling is not mandatory it should be offered. This means studying of the

bible as well as different psychological theories and techniques should be taken into

consideration when counseling anyone’s soul.

Are you planning to be a lay counselor?

I honestly don’t know. When I first started this journey here at Liberty University, I had

signed of to work on a baccalaureate in biblical counseling. I was receiving aid from Vocational

Rehabilitation as far as tuition. They stated that I needed to change degree majors due to my

felonious criminal background stating, “You will never be able to become a Christian counselor

let alone a counselor due to your background.”

This deterred me so I changed majors to biblical teaching. Found out when I took my

background check for teaching practicum class that I was red flagged and would not be able to

teach. Then I changed my major over to a B.S. in Bible: Theology and have kept it that way ever

since. I feel like I want to be a pastor just not in a church, if that makes any sense.

With my extensive background in abuse, adoption, homelessness, drug addiction, and

prison I feel called to go out into the streets and share the life saving gospel to the least of these

who don’t go to church. I did not get saved in a church. God met me in my wilderness. So, I do

personally believe that God has called me to counsel others who I used to be like. I just don’t

believe it is in the sense of a building or office.