BCMW offers three ways to learn biblical counseling, each designed to provide varying depths of theological education and practical training:

• Life & Godliness Conferences:  Five one-hour sessions on a chosen topic of cultural relevance, showing the sufficiency of God’s Word for addressing all of life’s challenges for the glory of God.
• Church Leadership Training: Four multi-day modules, moving from foundational theology toward the practical skill of starting a counseling ministry inside your own church.
• Academic Degrees: New degree programs are being developed, with a Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling the main program available (39-credit-hour graduate degree for those pursuing counseling or teaching as a vocation, completed over roughly five years in a modular, cohort-based format that lets students keep serving their churches between sessions). 

None of these paths requires prior counseling experience, only a willingness to learn and the time to commit to the level chosen. To get started on your biblical counseling journey, check out our upcoming events to find an event near you.

BCMW relies on four kinds of people to do the actual work of training and caring for people on the ground:

• Associate Teacher: Travels to teach one or more sessions at a Church Leadership Training event. Affirms the BCMW Doctrinal Statement and ACBC's Standard of Conduct, real ministry experience, and a presentation style engaging enough to hold a room for a full day. No minimum number of trips per year, though consistent availability matters more than any single trip.
• Country Coordinator: Manages training relationships within a specific region, often for years at a time, building the kind of trust with local pastors that lets a program take root rather than visit once and disappear.
• Missionary Counselor: Serves within BCMW's Missionary Soul Care Network, providing care to missionaries and disaster relief workers who rarely have anyone trained to care for them. Requires ACBC or IABC certification and significant cross-cultural experience.
• Academic Training Professor: Teaches graduate-level biblical counseling courses that we offer with our partner seminaries. Holds doctoral-level theological or counseling education, ACBC or IABC certification, and hands-on ministry experience.

If BCMW's mission speaks to you and you're interested in contributing in one of the capacities listed above, we'd love to hear from you.

While BCMW teachers may be offering training in different locations, our translated materials remain with local host churches to share and study between modules. Nearly every time BCMW commits to training in a new region, someone spends months turning English curriculum into Arabic, Portuguese, Russian, or whatever language those students learn best in. That work costs money, requires translators who understand both the language and the theology, and takes longer than almost any other part of preparing for a module.

• Curriculum translation: Converting PowerPoint presentations, student notes, and course materials into the local language before a module begins.
• Live interpretation: Funding in-class interpreters who translate lectures for students still building their English comprehension.
• Book translation: Supporting translation of key biblical counseling resources, like Paul Tripp's Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands, into languages where no equivalent resource exists yet.

If you're willing to participate in BCMW's efforts to bring biblical counseling training across language barriers, reach out today to learn how you can help.

Certification through the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC) or the International Association of Biblical Counselors (IABC) gives a counselor a recognized standard to train toward and a body to hold them accountable to it long after the training ends. BCMW's training builds the same competencies both bodies require.

Certification often involves:

• A written exam covering counseling methodology and theology.
• Documented counseling experience, supervised rather than self-reported.
• An application reviewed by the certifying body itself.

Most candidates take a year or more to complete the process alongside their regular ministry work. Certification isn't required to serve with BCMW in most roles, but it does open the door to roles like Associate Teacher that ask for it specifically, since teaching other counselors carries a higher bar than counseling on your own.

If you'd like to grow into one of BCMW's biblical counseling trainers, certification is a great place to start.

If you're a missionary or disaster relief worker carrying something heavy, you can request care from our Missionary Soul Care Network. Our Missionary Soul Care Network connects missionaries and disaster relief workers with biblical counselors who understand the specific weight of serving far from home.

How it works:

• Roughly 40 counselors currently serve in the network, spread across a range of countries and languages.
• A request gets matched to a counselor suited to your context and language. All of our counselors are certified and have significant cross-cultural experience either as relief workers, missionaries, or both.
• You’ll connect directly with that counselor, at no cost to you.

This network exists to benefit you. Don't underestimate the value of wise counsel, encouragement, or just a listening ear—reach out today.