EP. 170 Equipping the Next Generation of Biblical Counselors: ABC's ETC Curriculum at Heritage College W/Jeemin Moon

Mike:

Welcome to Speak the Truth, a podcast devoted to giving Biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the individual and local church and counseling and discipleship.

Mike:

Hello. Hello. Hello. We are still in Ontario at the biblical counseling coalition Canada conference where the theme is identity. This is officially our first podcast where I've got Emily on here as an ABC team member because I am officially a part of the ABC team.

Emily:

What?

Mike:

Yes. I'm excited about that. So Shauna's downstairs working the ABC booth, and Emily's up here with a special guest.

Emily:

Hey. I gotta say, yo yo yo.

Mike:

Oh, yeah. You go.

Emily:

But not with a southern drawl. Yes.

Mike:

So, Shauna, when you listen to this, Emily just stole your yo yo yo yo. Alright. Emily, you wanna introduce our guest?

Emily:

Yes. I'm happy to introduce our guest. This is Jimin Moon, and he is a friend of mine now. We've met a couple at a couple conferences. But he is also a professor at Heritage College, the director of

Jeemin:

Biblical Care and Counseling Ministry.

Emily:

Biblical Care and Counseling Ministry.

Jeemin:

Quite mouthful, right? Yes.

Emily:

So this is exciting because in Canada, this college is one of the first colleges in Canada to have a bachelor's degree in biblical counseling and a graduate certificate in biblical counseling. And ABC gets to partner with them so that the students Yeah. Can have certification after they go through their program. So this is pretty cool.

Mike:

That is really cool. Jim, and you wanna talk a little bit about just the program, how it came together, and it's officially kicked off. So there are students in it right now, right?

Jeemin:

That's right. Yep. So as of today, we're having 12 students in the program and it just got kicked off last fall, fall twenty four with two degrees available, Bachelor of Religious Education, BRE Honors Degree, that's the four year, or Bachelor of Theology, so BTH, so if you want to become more like a pastor or more like a religious worker or minister. Two different pathways and both same name with Biblical Care and Counseling Ministries in Cambridge, Ontario, Southern Ontario.

Mike:

Yep. Cambridge, Ontario. That's really huge considering some of the seminaries most of the seminaries in The States in America don't have these type of programs. So to be kicking that off in one of the most difficult places to share the gospel is pretty awesome.

Jeemin:

And I got to mention a few names, but first name would be Betty Ann Van Rhys. She has been one of the pioneers in Canada in terms of biblical counseling ever since early mid-2000s with few other guys like David Robinson or Wendy Bowman and without their help and their pioneering groundwork, I can't see the school or even Canada as coming up with this kind of program or even CBCC, Canadian Biblical Counseling Coalition. So I got to shout out their names because they're awesome men and women of God. Really appreciate them.

Mike:

No, thank you. We actually will be having Betty Ann on tomorrow. So we'll talk more about that. Emily, share a little bit about just you alluded to there in passing a minute ago, just your involvement in the process and ABC partnering at the academic level that it is.

Emily:

Yeah. And we're excited about being able to do more partnerships like this. So this was really a trial test run for us as a certification.

Jeemin:

I didn't know that.

Emily:

In that GMEN and then you're partnering with Curtis.

Jeemin:

That's right.

Emily:

Who's the executive director of the Canadian Biblical Counseling Conference in teaching our Equip to Counsel course as part of your senior year.

Jeemin:

That's

Emily:

right. So tell us how that's working for you as a seminary. Tell our

Jeemin:

listeners. Yeah, so we're offering this ABC curriculum for the first time. So I teach the first semester. In other degree programs we have internship one and two. Their students actually go in the field administering to music or children or pastoral.

Jeemin:

But in case of counseling, we thought that for 21 year olds, would they be ready and equipped to counsel, let's say, a 50 year old with marriage problems? Probably not. Probably they wouldn't want to be counseled by freshly minted seniors. So we thought that what would be better for our students and serving them and equipping them for their future ministry. And I thought that because I am certified through ABC with my advanced degree certificate, I just found the value of this program and I had John Henderson as my professor at the Southern Baptist Seminary and I thought that this would lay a really good cornerstone.

Jeemin:

This is again starting from the intro to biblical counseling and having so many different issues dealt in this curriculum eight months long, but it's just so packed and tons of articles and videos and ten hours of supervised counseling session, I thought that this is a no brainer and also Betty Ann who back then taught at the college, we said let's make this as our practicum one and two in the place of internship which will prepare our students but also not just prepared but excelling in their knowledge and understanding which will be a great starting point and cornerstone for furthering their biblical counseling ministry. Our school is also fully on board and we're just so excited with this program and I taught practicum one last semester. We had started really small for students. They loved it. They chewed it, they digested it, they spoke about one another in counseling and now Curtis, our brother, who is also director at CBCC, he's teaching finishing part two.

Jeemin:

So soon, we're having actually one graduate this April. She will be certified through ABC level one and also Bachelor of Religious Education and gotta shout her name, Jaden Kendrick. She's

Mike:

bachelor Yeah, Jaden, little shout out there.

Jeemin:

I know, Jaden, you are the gem. And we call each other guinea pig or the pioneers but these are just wonderful bunch of students.

Emily:

And so you take Equip to Council and you divide it into two semesters.

Jeemin:

That's right.

Emily:

So one half and then finish with the exam,

Jeemin:

and

Emily:

then finish with the exam in the mini practicum.

Jeemin:

That's right.

Emily:

And are hoping to develop this program,

Jeemin:

to

Emily:

grow this program over time. This was just your first year with just the seniors that were in So now these students coming up through the pipe are going to hit the senior year and this will be their practicum experience using ETC Level one with the option getting certified afterwards. That's right. So we've worked out an agreement with Heritage where if they go through and they're graded and they've passed all their assignments that you guys are assigning the same as our assignments, they

Jeemin:

Actually more, yeah, Far

Emily:

and more.

Mike:

Yeah. So as far as just a really quick ask a couple questions with that because, obviously, it's a training center, but how how that interacts at the academic level with the organized institution, a seminary, or a college where as a southern student myself but just understanding going through those classes and having those credit hours, but still missing, as you alluded to, Jimin, just the ten hour mini practicum of actually having a consolee that you can walk with. Not just walk with, but actually through the equip to counsel curriculum in the journal the counseling journals. Those provide a good methodology and framework Oh, absolutely. Beginning so even when you think about that, just to put that in perspective, when individual comes out with an undergrad, they've arguably done more counseling than some pastors.

Mike:

Probably, yeah. And so it's just so to your point, the pioneering work and just the implication and fruitfulness of that work is tremendous. And so It

Jeemin:

sure is. Yeah.

Mike:

That's awesome.

Jeemin:

I I got to shout out for ABC as well because you guys done the hard work. I just adopted it and further developed it and offer it with a class form, but without you guys being there and doing the hard work, I would have come up with all these things from ground zero but I'm just so happy that myself as certified through ABC and as now someone who's training and overseeing the program, this is just so amazing and I know Doctor. Henderson in person and he is one of the best teachers I've ever had and I can hear his voice through the material and his personality and how Bible saturated it is. It just amazes me as teacher. This is so good.

Jeemin:

This is so thorough. Praise the Lord.

Mike:

Yeah. And that's good. I appreciate it because I I think one of the again, just to brag on ABC a little bit. Right?

Jeemin:

Go ahead.

Mike:

Yeah. But I think what's what you pointed out, Jim, in a moment ago is it anyone can take the core fundamentals that ETC provides and build off it. And it's contextualized. It is. So what's fundamental and universal everywhere, but to be like in Canada and some of the cultural issues that are being dealt with here Yeah.

Mike:

And seeing how that's able to now be built into the process of biblical counseling, into where now it just makes it customizable. And it sounds like that's exactly what you did, and adding far more to it as you saw and were convicted in and things that needed to be added to it for the sake of the program that you were offering.

Jeemin:

And then again, yes, gospel is transcultural and transgenerational. It's a global gospel because God is bigger than Canada or The States or even ABC. And we're seeing how curriculum is designed and really fine tuned to bring this gospel to the contemporary people. So even after twenty, thirty years, I believe this material will remain classic and relevant and even contemporary after we're all gone because it is the Word of God and how we bring it, we build a bridge between the broken world and their stories and the Bible's meta narrative. We're the bridge builders.

Jeemin:

There's a clash of stories happening in the counseling room. People open their own book, we open the book of God and then we just collide the two together. And in doing so, we just need some kind of framework and helpful measures and I believe ETC offers it really well. So it's certainly more than just foundational. It goes deep and wide.

Jeemin:

So I'm just so happy whenever I got to teach that.

Mike:

Yeah. That's really good, Jimin. And just to wrap it up here a little bit, but just to speak on how would you encourage because, again, as a training center for ABC, we get a lot of inquiries where they just finished Southern or wherever they were coming from, and they're trying to figure out what to do with what they've done. And so how would you encourage, brothers and sisters who share the same convictions you do, who are maybe at that academic level

Jeemin:

Yeah.

Mike:

Where they that's their pursuit, but they're trying to they're trying to reconcile how they take what they've studied, marry that with their local church context or the academic. Like, how would you encourage just those different listeners and just pursuing what you obviously had conviction in and now surprised of how you're applying what you've were so diligent in studying?

Jeemin:

Wow. That's a big question. Just to let you know, this is not really rehearsed.

Mike:

This is No. This is an ad hoc episode. Oh my gosh.

Jeemin:

Could you clarify the question? Is it for the local church folks or the people from seminary training how they're gonna use their theology in life?

Mike:

Right. Like both. So let me because you're right. That was a loaded question that was about that was flying at about 30,000 feet. So let me descend a little bit.

Mike:

What I'm saying is you had two, arguably, two different audiences. You got the people that pursued studies like you did who are PhD students, who are now trying to remain in academia and try to figure out how do I take this conviction of biblical counseling, the local church, and equip ministers and pastors, but then also in the students. So just in other words, how many yous out there that there might be of like encouraging you five years ago who needs encouragement of, man, what am I gonna do with all this? I'm not even quite sure what I wanna do with this.

Jeemin:

Exactly. Literally me five years ago, because I've worked at Heritage for four years. I was graduating with my THM and I didn't know what next. I thought that I'll be going to full time ministry because I did my MDiv in worship leadership. I'm a musician so I thought that maybe that's God's calling.

Jeemin:

But then with finishing THM, God opened the door of teaching one course at Heritage that was general psychology but more like a comparative psychology and biblical counseling and win people toward biblical counseling. And honestly, if it is God who called you to this pursuit and this path, it is He who is responsible to lead you and provide you the means and the people and curriculum. And I still remember that I first bought into this movement when I first take my Intro to BC course with Jeremy Peer. Yep. I was, yeah, my second year seminary and I knew biblical counseling was a thing but I thought that I will become a psychologist because my undergrad shook

Mike:

you a little bit,

Jeemin:

didn't Yeah, right there. Yeah, it was psychology and counseling. Anybody who's getting out of their theological education or continuing their education, God knows your path. And what I found surprising is that He only showed me a step further. And that one step further is always the best plan possible.

Jeemin:

I want to see some more steps. Lord, just show me. Tell me I'll be faithful. But his kind of faithfulness or the faithfulness that he asks is, I'll tell you one more step. Would you be follow me like blindfold?

Jeemin:

Would you be okay seeing only one or like half step further? Would you be okay with that? Because I love you, I know you, and I know what's best for you. So as a school, now we're growing and having more students and this is everything is God's work. Of course, I shout out a few names but if I got to say one name, is Yahweh.

Jeemin:

He is the one who pre planned and written down all the days of our lives in His book of life and knowing that my conviction is God started this good work of biblical counseling from The States now in Canada and in my home country Korea as well and if He started it no one can stop it. And we have different organizations and schools and what and whatnot but I believe ABC is just a really good fit for myself and our school. And so anybody who's interested in certification process, I'd highly recommend ABC is a way to go. Guys, yeah, please join us. It's a great curriculum.

Jeemin:

It'll equip you more than you think you could be.

Mike:

Okay, great. So for those who are like, alright, Jimin, that sounds great. Now I'm interested. Do you have anything online? Do you guys offer?

Mike:

Are you online or is it all in person

Jeemin:

So every course that we offer, we have dash one that's in person, -twenty three that's online. Even our degrees could be taken fully online. And we have our seminary part graduate certificate of biblical care and counseling, which can be done online. This is multimodal or modular or hybrid. So, we gather for two weekends per semester and people can come or fly or join online, taking five courses within a year and a half.

Jeemin:

And it will be certified through us. It's not certification, but it is a graduate certificate. So that can be done in personal online as well. So we're available pretty much in any different formats. So contact us or contact me.

Mike:

Awesome. I will put that in the show notes. Jimin, thank you.

Jeemin:

Thank you so much.

Mike:

And I know you guys can't see, but he's very passionate if you couldn't hear it coming through the microphone. Jimmy, thank you for your time and just your excitement and what you're doing here in Canada. And, Emily, any final thoughts just ABC wise for those who are thinking along the same lines of how can how do I connect with ABC if they want to go that route?

Emily:

Many people don't know that we can do a training center partnership in a university, college, or seminary, and we have been having more of those conversations and we're thankful for GMEN that's piloting this out for us here in Canada so that we can continue to do these with other seminaries. Reach out if you're a professor, a biblical care professor somewhere else and you want to talk about how your student could get certified through going through a class that you offer.

Mike:

Yeah. That's great. I'll put that on the show notes. Guys, thank you for listening. Jimin, thank you for your time.

Jeemin:

Thank you, guys. Thank you.

Mike:

We appreciate it. Guys, if you have any other topics you'd like for us to talk about, please email us at topics@speakthetruth.org. We thank you for listening. We'll see you next time.