{"id":1069,"date":"2020-07-22T18:40:42","date_gmt":"2020-07-22T18:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vxbd7vrmeo.wpdns.site\/?p=1069"},"modified":"2026-09-30T15:00:52","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T15:00:52","slug":"the-universal-need-for-gods-counsel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bcmw.org\/es\/the-universal-need-for-gods-counsel\/","title":{"rendered":"The Universal Need for God’s Counsel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrei Murzin is the Ukraine National Coordinator for BCM Worldwide (BCMW)<\/a> and the Assistant Director of the Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling program at Kyiv Theological Seminary (KTS)<\/a>.\u00a0 He is married to Olya and has three grown children.\u00a0 He also co-pastors a local church in Kyiv.<\/p>\n

Andrei was interviewed at the BCMW Missionary Training Conference held in October 2019 and shared a few of his thoughts, experiences, and hopes for the future regarding his ministry with BCMW as well as personally.<\/p>\n

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Andrei came to realize Biblical counseling as vital to the life of the church having carefully studied what Biblical counseling is and seeing all its ramifications for the church of Christ. \u00a0After finding himself at a crossroad regarding his ministry\u2019s trajectory, he sought God\u2019s face about what to do next and unexpectedly received an invitation to serve with BCMW at the seminary in Kyiv, Ukraine. \u00a0He has become even more passionate about Biblical counseling having served with BCMW\u2019s ministry for almost seven years, commenting, \u201cIt\u2019s very exciting to watch how Biblical counseling, the ministry of BCMW particularly, answers very acute, very relevant issues and needs in the church today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrei testified that since his involvement with BCMW\u2019s training ministry at KTS, he has seen the Lord do amazing things. \u00a0For instance, he finds it intriguing that although the required prerequisites in theological studies limits those the school can accept into their MA in Biblical Counseling cohort programs, more and more people are showing interest in this field of study. \u00a0This reality was reflected in admission stats from the recent academic year.<\/p>\n

When asked why he thought this was the case, Andrei enthusiastically commented he sees more people seeking this kind of training because there is a vast need arising from a lack of intensive, intentional, and personal instruction (or discipleship\/soul care) within the church generally. \u00a0He noted that among those seeking training in this field are experienced pastors, stating that \u201cmore than half of the twenty people we admitted into our new cohort were pastors.\u00a0 Which is very exciting! \u00a0And a lot of them are graduates of Kyiv Theological Seminary\u2019s undergraduate programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For instance, he was surprised and encouraged that some faculty members of KTS recently enrolled in the BCMW-led Master of Arts program. \u00a0Andrei related that a former Dean at KTS, who is an American missionary with a PhD degree in Theology, a current pastor of the local English-speaking church, and the individual currently responsible for developing post-graduate programs at KTS, approached him and said he and his wife wanted to enroll in the MABC program. \u00a0This is a small example of the faithfulness of the Lord in making fruitful the work of BCMW in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Andrei shared many desires and hopes as he looks to the future regarding the BCMW team in Ukraine. \u00a0He was specific in stating that it is his desire to help develop the BCMW Ukraine team, including seeing more KTS MABC graduates joining the BCMW team to foster effective growth both in the Church Leadership Training modular programs (CLTs) as well as at the Seminary.<\/p>\n

It is also his desire to implement the principles that are taught through BCMW\u2019s Biblical counseling training in his own church. \u00a0Andrei revealed he \u201cwould love to develop this open, sincere relationship between Christians where these \u2018one another\u2019 principles would be practiced more and more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, in order to be more faithful in his own work and pastoral calling, Andrei is personally praying about pursuing a PhD degree in Biblical Counseling. \u00a0He recognizes the apparent need for more academic work to be done in this field. \u00a0He is very optimistic about the future, trusting the Lord for many hopes and desires as the BCMW team seeks to be faithful to the ministry\u2019s mission and vision. \u00a0\u201cIt is very exciting to see what the Lord will do through BCMW\u2019s ministry in Ukraine and the rest of the world in the future,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n

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In concluding his thoughts, Andrei strongly emphasized the commitment of BCMW\u2019s people and training to the local church.\u00a0 He made it clear that BCMW\u2019s overarching goal is to \u201cdevelop Biblical counseling, not as detached from the local church\u2014not the clinical model\u2014but with the focus in and on local churches so that Biblical counseling would be happening as a normal part of everyday church life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Andrei affirmed his understanding that the need for and fruit of the ministry of BCMW in Ukraine reflects a greater reality around the world \u2013 everyone everywhere needs the whole counsel of God passed down by wise and faithful men and women so that the local church is built up and grows as the Lord commands and desires.\u00a0 As such, he would strongly encourage anyone who has a burden to address the great need for deep, purposeful, multiplying discipleship in the church to consider partnering with BCMW\u2019s ministry.<\/p>\n

Andrei is an example of how the Lord has graciously worked and continues to work through BCMW\u2019s ministry and training to teach and equip committed Biblical counseling trainers around the world.<\/p>\n

July 2020 update: Andrei has been accepted into the Ph.D. program with emphasis in Biblical Counseling at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, MO, with his studies to begin in January 2021.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrei Murzin is the Ukraine National Coordinator for BCM Worldwide (BCMW) and the Assistant Director of the Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling program at Kyiv Theological Seminary (KTS).\u00a0 He is married to Olya and has three grown children.\u00a0 He also co-pastors a local church in Kyiv. Andrei was interviewed at the BCMW Missionary Training […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1308,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sq_banner_image_id":1419,"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[78,77,89],"class_list":["post-1069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories-from-the-field","tag-field-stories","tag-stories-from-the-field-biblical-counselling-around-the-world","tag-ukraine"],"meta_box":{"group_4rft1b1l2tt":[],"video_id_or_url":"","itunes_url":"","language":"","duration":"","type":"post","featured":"0"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcmw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcmw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcmw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcmw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcmw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1069"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bcmw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1574,"href":"https:\/\/bcmw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1069\/revisions\/1574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcmw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcmw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcmw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcmw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}