Christian Counseling Concentration
Become a minister of grace and reconciliation
by leading hurting people into the Presence of the Wonderful Counselor. When they hear His words of life and see Him actively working to fulfill His purposes for them, they will be healed and their lives will be transformed.
Your heart is moved by the brokenness and suffering you see all around you, both in the world and in the Church, and you want to help
Because you are a good listener, people are already coming to you with their problems and you have been able to offer some help.
But you want to do more.
You don’t want to just put on Band-Aids that cover the symptoms but don’t heal the infection. You want to see changes that last because root issues have been dealt with.
There is only one Wonderful Counselor, and our purpose as human counselors is to bring people into His Presence where He will heal their hearts. All of the counseling courses at CLU are focused to training you how to more effectively help others hear what God is saying to them and see what He is doing in their lives.
Our desire is to equip biblically-based, Spirit-anointed, compassionate counselors who can discern the needs of the heart and usher in the grace of God to meet those needs.
You will experience the joy of teaching your counselees how to connect with the Wonderful Counselor through two-way journaling so they can hear His voice every single day and soak in His unconditional love and acceptance of them.
You will be equipped in Christian dream interpretation so that you can help your counselee understand how the Lord is counseling them and what their own hearts are teaching them every night (Ps. 16:7).
You will become a minister of grace who can impart a revelation of their identity in Christ that overcomes the lies of the enemy that hold them in bondage. You will pour the healing oil of the Holy Spirit into the festering memories of traumatic experiences through the ministry of inner healing. You will be by their side as the Spirit reveals the lies they have believed and help them embrace the Truth He declares over them.
Together you will destroy demonic strongholds and oppressions that have led them to destruction.
As a Spirit- anointed counselor, you will minister heart to heart and see lifetime bondages quickly broken and lives radically changed. You will have the great joy of participating in Christ’s work of setting the captives free!
The Counseling Curriculum at CLU has been absolutely priceless… Instead of getting caught in endless talks about ‘the problem’ you learn to minister to people on a heart-to-heart level and not a head-to-head level.
I just completed my Doctorate of Christian Counseling through Christian Leadership University. I can’t even begin to tell you how amazing this experience was for me in terms of healing, personal growth, and growing as close to God as I have ever been.
I’ve learned to discern the voice of God through dialoguing and dreams. To think, all of these years He may have been trying to speak to me and I didn’t know how to listen to Him. Hearing God and allowing Him to be the Wonderful Counselor He truly is has totally changed my life. Thank you to the Virklers and to Christian Leadership University for your amazing ministry. May God richly bless you.
Online Christian Counseling Degrees
The courses listed below may be taken as a Christian Counseling Certificate or applied as a major concentration toward any of the following online Bible Degrees:
- Associate of Christian Counseling
- Bachelor of Christian Counseling
- Master of Christian Counseling
- Doctor of Christian Counseling
Additional work is required when an undergraduate-level course is taken on the graduate level. Course substitutions and combining major concentrations are possible when working toward your Christian Counseling Degree online. Discuss these options with the Dean. The key is to follow God’s passion within your heart. Students in the Master’s and Doctoral programs earn approximately 30 credits for each degree from specific courses, and the remaining 10 credits by doing practical ministry work and earning “practica” credits.
Courses
Communion With God - REN103/503
Have you ever wished you could sit down and have a long talk with the Lord? When you’re worried or confused, wouldn’t you love to see the situation from His perspective and hear how He wants you to respond? When things don’t seem to be going your way and your prayers aren’t answered the way you had hoped, wouldn’t it be great to hear Him tell you where He is in the midst of it, and what He is working out in your life?
Jesus promised that “My sheep hear My voice” (Jn. 10:27). If you are one of His sheep, then He is speaking to you and you are hearing His voice! The problem is that we have not learned how to recognize His voice and differentiate it from all of the other voices that bombard our hearts and minds. This course will help you discern the voice of the Lord within your heart, clearly and consistently, leading to a deeper intimacy with Him as well as greater faith, hope and joy. Your life will be transformed! (3 credits for REN103; 4 credits for REN503) (Course syllabus: REN103; REN503)
“I’m taking Communion With God. I am so blessed so far. My life is already completely transformed. I went from hearing God speak to me once in a while to hearing Him not just in my journaling times but even throughout the rest of the day. What a difference this has made.” — Andrew Steck
“We have been using Communion With God for some months now in all our home groups and one after another people whose prayer lives were dry difficult affairs have blossomed as they have heard the Heavenly Father commune with them, His children.” — Rev. Bill A. VanZutphen, Baptist Church, Wollongong, Australia
“Oh my, I am speechless…I have completed only the first several lessons in Communion With God and my life has been totally, totally transformed. He is such a wonderful, wonderful God. A few months ago I told Him I was desperate for more of Him…I had no idea His answer to my prayer would be so exceedingly abundantly above anything I could ever have imagined. My days and nights are now filled with His presence. Thank you for your service to Him, Mr. Virkler. I will be in touch as I progress through the course….” — Amy
Counseled by God - COU202
We will let God speak to our hearts and counsel us about the basic emotional pressures of life. These include anger, doubt, depression, condemnation and inferiority. We will learn to let God replace these with His opposites, as His voice releases His grace within our hearts. Those whom the Son sets free are free indeed. (3 credits) Course Syllabus
Cornerstones of Communication - COU203
Prayers That Heal the Heart - COU301
Naturally Supernatural - REN204
Prerequisite: REN103 Communion With God.
Wisdom Through Dream Interpretation - REN310/REN510
Prerequisite: REN103 Communion With God.
Pneumatology and Life in the Spirit - REN210
It is only as we minister in the anointing of the Holy Spirit that we can effectively touch the hearts of others. This practical course trains you how to sense the Holy Spirit Who lives within you, how to get to know Him as a Person, and how to release His power to heal a hurting people. (3 credits) Course Syllabus
Fulfill Your Financial Destiny - BUS102/BUS502
This course will give you Scriptural support for the belief that God delights in the prosperity of His children (Ps. 35:27). It is His desire that we lend and not borrow. We are to be the head and not the tail, above and not underneath (Deut. 28:12,13). God Himself teaches us to profit (Is. 48:17) and has given us the power to make wealth (Deut. 8:18). Several hundred verses on silver and gold will be examined, showing that we are to create and release wealth into the kingdom of God. (3 credits for BUS102; 4 credits for BUS502) (Course syllabus: BUS102; BUS502)
Take Charge of Your Health - HEA102
Gifted to Succeed - LEA103
“To each of us grace has been given according to the measure of Christ’s gift…And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints.” Do you know which of these heart motivations God has given to you? Is God asking you to express this heart motivation within or outside the structured church, or both? Which ministry or vocation is He asking you to express yourself through? What kinds of people do you need next to you to make you most effective? These questions and many others will be answered. (3 credits) Course Syllabus
“These last 12 weeks have been like looking into a mirror and seeing things in me that I have never seen before. Then taking those things, learning more about them and pruning them to work most effectively for and in myself, my life and my ministry.” — Student taking Gifted to Succeed
Father Heart of God - REN105
Prerequisite: REN103 Communion With God.
Marriage in the Kingdom Age - COU204/504
This course will develop your skills and bring out your greater understanding the covenantal significance and power of a marriage in today’s Kingdom Age. You will learn how to apply grace as was modeled by the Savior. You will learn to allow God to lead you and your spouse in your decisions in marriage. Working as a team, you and your spouse can use greater Kingdom authority to stand against the enemy. In unity, God moves mightily on the earth through married couples. You will understand more fully the freedom and ignite passion within marriage in accordance with God’s way. Overcome any hurts and resentments in your marriage by working through grace-filled processes. This course will motivate and develop your heart for building a Christ-centered marriage. (3 credits) Course Syllabus
Parenting for Success - COU305
The Power of Kingdom Emotions - HEA302
The central principle of this course is that our heart (emotions) must be in alignment with our mind (beliefs) in order to experience a miracle of divine healing. If our mind says, “I believe,” and our heart feels, “This is not going to happen,” the power of God is short-circuited. Visionary meditations are included to lead people into their own personal encounters with Jesus, allowing them to feel His emotions of love, joy and peace for themselves, thereby turning on healthy genes and unleashing healing power throughout their body. (3 credits) Course Syllabus
Secrets of the Spirit - PRO101
In this course you will learn how to flow in the full manifestation of the Holy Spirit, just like Jesus and Paul. This course trains you through the example of powerful testimonies, a study of the teaching of other leaders, and extensive biblical research to arrive at a theological summary of what is required for you to not only experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit, but to release all of His gifts as well. This class will teach you how every believer can flow in every spiritual gift and you will be equipped to more easily and daily live and walk by the Spirit! (3 credits) Course Syllabus
Don’t wait another day
Dramatically improve the quality and effectiveness of your counseling today by putting the power of the voice of God at the center of the process.
Specialized training opportunities which transfer easily into CLU:
- The Net Institute – Addiction recovery
- Christian Healing Certification Program