Almost a year ago, our counseling pastor at church told me of a annual conference/seminar held at a church and that a group from our church goes to it every year for training. I was charged with thinking about it for a year, and I have. We'll go into why I've been thinking about counseling training later on as it's getting late and even the blog prep work I did last night for that post isn't enough.
The training is being held at Faith Baptist Church in Lafayette Indiana. FBC's counseling ministry hosts this counseling conference every year. It's main goal is to equip lay and pastoral church members for reaching out in love with the gospel through counseling and discipleship. The training, which continues to expand and improve, is also geared towards prepping folks for NANC certification, if they so choose. NANC stands for the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors.
Captain Tyler - "Goooood morning everybody this is your captain speaking. On behalf of Bethany Baptist church let me welcome you to our non-stop rocket service toooo Lafayette Indiana." He never missed an opportunity to get a cheap chuckle out of all of us. We've got about 30 folks on the trip. If you look at the Conference website you'll see six tracks. The first few seem to be mostly informative, like classroom stuff, though I believe we have break-out time. The fourth one, I'm too lazy to look at it again and tell you so read it yourself. The fifth has to do with prep for the NANC certification exam. Quite an ordeal from what I've heard. Track six is all about observation of counseling, which works toward your certification. Of our 30ish people, we have someone in every track. It's pretty exciting. I am in track one with about 15 other newbies.
FBC isn't that much larger than my church. Track one spends all of their time in the main auditorium/sanctuary of the church. Other tracks are spread throughout the church and the church's huge community center on the other end of the campus.
Several folks have been to this training multiple years, and they are quite serious about having their Sunday night DQ run. It was a must for Janna and Christine since DQ has treats worth zero points. I wasn't going to get anything until I saw mint oreos. Worth it.
No clues found on the Huse baby name front, but I'll keep checking.
At the end of each night, we will enjoy a rap session with the team in order to help assimilate the information from the day and share knowledge. We have an awesome budding counseling ministry at church headed up by Pastor Joel, who is as usual putting in alot of time and energy to help us to grow and get the most out of the week.
Roxanne in the house!! We were both hanging around the back doors of the church this morning waiting for the buss to leave when we realized each other was going. I've already blogged about her fam plenty in the past. What I may not have mentioned was Roxanne's New York craziness a few years ago on my first trip with NYC ministries. Twas a blast. Word Jasmine!
The opportunities never cease as I have also been able to meet plenty of new people already. Josh (on the left) is a fellow who goes to our sister church in Washington. He's the only other single guy on the trip, and we will be living under the same roof with a seriously awesome couple who are hosting us this week, Bob and Joan. The guy on the right, who wasn't quite ready for the picture, is Ralph from Philadelphia and is also being hosted by Bob and Joan.
Bob and Joan have been involved in ministry with the church for 30 years as the school principal and secretary, and continue to serve in various ways during sudo-retirement. Good news Mom. Joan promises to have a wife picked out for me by the end of the week.
Good night!
2 comments:
Looks like you are going to have a great week. That had to be a fun ride to Lafayette! Interesting group of people indeed. And, I hope too that you find your bride this week :-)
Bob and Joan seem like a very caring couple. Like having another Mom and Dad around while you're there! Just make sure Joan doesn't chose someone who lives a 1,000 miles away from here. :-} Praying for you to have a very fruitful week in the Lord.
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