Blog Tour Morsels, Part Three: Equipping Counselors for Your Church
I’m very grateful for the many bloggers who have reviewed Equipping Counselors for Your Church. 
I’ve collated links to a dozen of the reviews and interviews. They’ll be running throughout this first week of 2012 with brief “snippets” from each review and a link back to the full review.
In Part One, I posted samplers from David Murray, Brad Hambrick, and Thabiti Anyabwile.
In Part Two, I posted summaries from Jonathan Holmes, Paul Tautges, and Andy Naselli.
Today you can enjoy review “morsels” from Mark Tubbs, Phil Monroe, and Mark Kelly.
Discerning Reader/Mark Tubbs, Part One
“Equipping Counselors for Your Church is the climax of Bob’s many decades of work in the biblical counseling and pastoring fields. What this book is not: a resource only for senior pastors and denominational executives. It is also not a book about creating and equipping a ‘professional’ corps of biblical counselors. No, Bob’s vision is far more sweeping than that. Rather, this book is an apology for both formal and informal biblical counseling in the church, which Bob defines biblically as every member speaking the truth in love to each another. The aim is to cultivate Christians who are ‘4C’ disciples: biblically convicted, Christlike in character, competent in counseling, and an integral part of Christian community.”
Discerning Reader/Mark Tubbs, Part Two
“This section on enlisting was refreshing on numerous levels. Kellemen employs Nehemiah’s leadership qualities in a fresher and more faithful way than many preachers through the decades have done. He uses Old Testament Nehemiah and New Testament Paul in harmonious counterpoint, demonstrating how these two leaders were themselves changed people so that they in turn could shepherd others through change. The primary change being, as Kellemen is at pains to point out, reconciliation with God leading to whole-life worship.”
“Dr. Kellemen is a dear friend from whom I have learned much through his resources he’s printed, email conversations we’ve had, and face to face discussions about a variety of topics. I pray that our own church, Calvary Baptist, would consider using Equipping Counselors for Your Church as we move forward in evangelism and discipleship.”
“Why is Equipping Counselors for Your Church an important book? Here’s why:
• Most prior books on this topic present lay counseling either as an anemic listening only task or speak only in theological terms and fail to actually train lay counselors to listen well. This book considers both the biblical basis for lay counseling AND is concerned about listening skills as well.
• Most prior books forget to bring the WHOLE church along in the vision of biblical counseling. Bob has the readers consider the church culture and health. If the church (leaders)aren’t buying in to this, there won’t be a counseling ministry.
• Bob focuses on the character of the counselor. This is HUGE. What’s worse than a poorly trained counselor? One who is well-trained but arrogant and un-reflective.
• Bob covers practical matters of a counseling ministry including the ethics of lay counseling. This is extremely important if a church doesn’t want to make mistakes that could lead to lawsuits.”
The Rest of the Story
Tomorrow you can read some “samplers” from Elizabeth Hankins, Julie Ganschow, and Conrad Yap.
Join the Conversation
What resources do you recommend for equipping one-another ministers in the local church?
Note: If you are a blogger and would like to review Equipping Counselors for Your Church, email rpm dot ministries @ gmail dot com
RPM Ministries: Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth
