Aging in a fallen, broken world can be disheartening. Some of us try to deny the inevitable; others feel dehumanized by the troubles that afflict our bodies and minds. Most of us don’t start thinking seriously about aging, weakness, or decline until it’s forced on us. However, Scripture doesn’t treat these considerations as “later in life” topics. They are a significant aspect of what it means to be human right now. Whether we are in our teens, twenties, or twilight years, this session will consider how 2 Corinthians 3–4 offers a biblical vision for flourishing, showing us how to take heart as we steward our body and soul—from cradle to grave.

We were designed to live life in close relationship with God. The New Testament promises a restored experience of that kind of intimacy: “we live in him and he in us” (1 John 4:13). But how do we grow in the lived experience of that intimacy and invite others to grow in it too? This session will consider how hearing Scripture as words from our Father enables us to bring him our words in prayer with a confidence that he hears us. We’ll consider how our postures toward his world, and our imitation of Christ in it, lead us to know him even better.

Power is often viewed with suspicion, especially in conversations about marriage. Yet Scripture presents power as something that can be used to bless, strengthen, and serve others. This session will present a biblical vision of marital power rooted in Christlike love and the “one another” commands in Scripture. It will help couples, both husband and wife, to learn to use their unique God-given power in ways that foster trust, safety, and growth.

Many believers—and those who walk with them—struggle to understand experiences of gender and romantic attraction that bring a sense of isolation, confusion, shame, or not fitting in. This session will engage both those who feel “other” and those who offer care. Together, we will explore the nature of this suffering and how identity in Christ shapes our self-understanding, desires, and experiences of belonging. We’ll learn how to apply the gospel with practical wisdom specific to the struggler, which can help the church grow as a welcoming place of care and discipleship.

Shame, suffering, and confusion often shape women’s struggles with sexual sin, as well as associated distorted desires and beliefs. This session will help church leaders and counselors—and the women they want to help—understand how sinful patterns develop in the heart, the nature of temptation, and how lasting change flows from union with Christ. The goal is to learn how to shepherd women toward repentance, renewal, and growth as sexually faithful disciples of Jesus. 

God created us in his image and invited us into a relationship where faith could thrive. When sin entered, fear and mistrust followed. Anyone who has faced deep adversity knows that suffering can challenge faith. In hard times, the connection between pain and faith becomes clear. We may question God’s goodness or whether his promises are really for us. In this session, we’ll explore practical ways to rebuild faith after trauma by examining biblical stories and promises related to faith struggles.

The design of many US cities, neighborhoods, and churches makes it difficult to know people or help each other. In communities built for fast driving, people have to schedule physical movement, experiences of beauty, and church-life connection. This isolated way of life threatens our health, harms us spiritually, and makes counseling problems worse. In this session, we’ll consider what it looks like to inhabit our spaces differently, in incremental and practical ways, orienting all of life toward the love of God and neighbor.

In 1 Corinthians 6:12–20, Paul highlights the Trinity’s involvement with the body to confront anti-body thinking and call Christians to live as embodied beings for God’s glory. This session will explore a theology of the body as seen in this passage of Scripture. When we understand why our bodies matter to God, we can then see why they should matter to us—because a right view of body image and stewardship only makes sense when we understand God’s design.

We were made to behold God in the face of Jesus Christ. Every longing of our hearts, every disappointment in our lives, and every question that lingers in our minds finds resolution as we set our gaze on Christ. Yet sin distorts our desires and our ability to behold him, leaving us in need of renewed vision toward the person of Jesus. This session will consider ways we can catch glimpses of the beauty of the Lord throughout Scripture. We’ll explore what it means to behold Christ now, even as we look forward to the day we’ll see him face-to-face.

When our soul is enslaved to substances, the body is part of that slavery. Ignoring the interplay between body and soul is a detriment to those we serve, yet understanding the role of the body in addiction helps us represent God’s care more fully. In this session, we will consider the ways our bodies adapt to substance abuse and the implications for biblical counselors offering care through their local church. 

Parents often want a script for talking to their kids about difficult things, but what they need first is a vision. Drawing from Talking to Kids About Hard Things by Rebekah Hannah and Michael Keller, this session will equip biblical counselors and ministry leaders to help parents understand the theological “why” behind honest, gospel-rooted conversations with children. When parents see hard conversations as part of God's beautiful design for human flourishing, everything changes—not just what they say, but who they are becoming alongside their kids.

Identity in Christ answers the question: Who am I? It is unchanging and declarative: the stunning truth of what God has said about us in the gospel. But without confidence in Christ, we tend to use that identity as a self-help tool or a way to feel better about ourselves rather than as a reason to worship. This session will consider how confidence is what allows us to wear our identity the way Christ intended. It is the lived, functional trust that moves identity from a concept we affirm to a reality we inhabit.

Our view of people with disabilities reveals our deeper beliefs about what it means to be human. Unfortunately, many of us have unrecognised theological errors that emerge when we engage people with disabilities. These false beliefs create pain, confusion, and isolation—preventing us from including and caring for those impacted by disability. In this session, we will work to untangle ourselves from these false beliefs by exploring how the Bible gives us a theology of disability. Being renewed by God’s Word, our hope is to become wiser in our efforts to love, include, and care for people with disabilities.

God designed human beings to rule—to author life under his authority. Yet since Genesis 3, authority has become one of the most contested gifts we bear, used as often to wound as to bless. This session will offer a biblical framework for what good authority looks like: It creates rather than steals, submits rather than stands unaccountable, seeks wisdom, disciplines without crushing, and bears costs rather than pushing them downward. We'll consider what this means for counselors caring for those harmed by authority and those called to exercise it.

In a Christian culture that often equates peace with the absence of struggle, those who battle anxiety can feel marginalized. We often expect God to take away our anxiety instead of meeting us in it. This session will move beyond surface-level spirituality to explore the beauty of chronic dependence on God. Drawing from Linne’s book Made to Tremble, this session will examine how trembling can become a pathway to deeper intimacy with Christ.

Our culture tells us that the path to human flourishing is found in some version of success and accomplishment. We measure our worth by our resume, our usefulness, and our output. This way of being human can leave us exhausted, anxious, and lost. But Scripture offers a different path to human flourishing—one that entails humility. This session will address the temptations of climbing the ladder of success and instead consider what it looks like to climb the ladder of humility. We’ll look to Jesus and get a glimpse of the beauty of becoming human in the truest, fullest sense of the word.

God designed the local church to be a healing and helping community that reflects the care of Christ. But what happens when someone experiences harm instead of grace, abuse instead of protection, or manipulation instead of shepherding? Church hurt often leaves people spiritually disoriented, isolated, and fearful of trusting God’s people again. Rather than running toward Christ and his church, many feel tempted to withdraw completely. This session will help counselors better understand the nature and effects of church hurt while offering biblical guidance for healing, rebuilding trust, and wisely helping people reenter a healthy church community.

God created human beings with emotions that expose both the worship of the heart and our experience of the world around us (Psalm 42:10–11). Counselors must therefore learn to engage emotions with both compassion and biblical wisdom. How do we care for suffering people without minimizing pain or unintentionally cultivating victim identities? How do we honor emotions without allowing feelings to govern truth? This session will equip counselors to enter a person’s emotional world with compassion and discernment, patiently guiding them toward a steady posture of Christ-centered hope.

There are things we don’t fully appreciate until their absence reveals just how important they really are. This is never more true than when it comes to a child experiencing a consistent, dependable, and loving relationship in their formative years. This session will engage attachment theory through a biblical lens, focusing on how experiencing love in formative relationships actively shapes the reality we inhabit. It explores how being loved—by both God and faithful caregivers—establishes the basic framework through which we come to rightly understand God, ourselves, and those around us.

In a world groaning under sin and suffering, many people aren’t stuck because they lack faith, but because they just can't find ways forward. We can experience brokenness so deeply that the ability to change or impact our circumstances feels impossible. But the Christian life makes movement possible, even here. God invites us to participate with him in the work of restoration. This session will help counselors and helpers explore a biblical vision of human agency, equipping them to walk with others toward small, meaningful steps of movement and hope, even within real, human limits.