A few years ago, I sat with a man in despair. His marriage was coming apart, and his church had just told him they weren’t willing to help any further.
What he relayed to me was this: the leadership had told him and his wife that they wouldn’t decide what the couple should do, and that whatever they chose was okay with them. This was not a church you’d expect that from. It was a conservative, Bible-preaching church — not the kind you’d guess would be apathetic toward a divorcing couple.
I asked if I could meet with the elders, and they agreed.
In that meeting they told me something I haven’t forgotten. In the thirty-year history of their church, they had never seen a true marriage restoration. Not one. As far as they could tell, the only real options for a struggling couple were misery or divorce. For years they had made couples choose misery or face the consequences. Over time that felt too harsh — misery seemed like punishment enough. So they softened. They decided the elders would leave the decision to each couple and support them, whatever they chose.
I don’t tell that story to shame those men. They were honest, and they were tired. They had reached the end of what they knew how to do. But I’ve thought about that meeting many times since, because I don’t believe misery and divorce are the only two doors. And I don’t think they believed it either. They just hadn’t seen the third one.
That marriage was not restored. Yet at Biblical Counseling Center, we have also seen deeply troubled marriages rebuilt through repentance, forgiveness, and patient biblical support. Many of the couples who come to us walk in believing those are the only two options. They sit on opposite ends of the couch and can’t imagine a third. And over and over, as they let God’s Word speak to the real issues in their hearts, they find a different path forward — not misery, not divorce, but repentance, forgiveness and a marriage rebuilt on something sturdier than it had before. Those elders had never seen it because no one in their church had ever been equipped to walk a couple there.
Why we rebuilt our training
That conversation is one of the reasons Biblical Counseling Center has spent the last few years revising and strengthening our training for marriages and families.
God has a better plan than misery or divorce. A better plan than conflict or callousness, distance or dysfunction. He designed marriage and family, and His design is good. The trouble is that when we walk through marriage and family breakdown alone, we rarely find a peaceful path forward on our own. We need someone to walk with us — someone who knows where the path is.
Imagine if every church had a few people equipped to do that. Not professionals on retainer, but members and leaders who could sit with a hurting couple and have a productive, eye-opening conversation. A conversation that reveals how God meets us in the painful circumstances of marriage and family, and how He uses that very pain to bring us back to Himself.
That is what we want for your church. It’s what those elders wanted too; they just didn’t know where to start.
What the new certificate is
Our new Marriage and Family Counseling Certificate is a tool someone in every church needs to have. Five modules cover the ground where families break — marriage, the harder marriage cases, family counseling, children and teens, young adults and premarital couples — and you can take them in the order your ministry needs them. Most of the reading is built into the lessons, the instructors are working counselors who grade your work and answer your questions, and the whole thing is included in one BCC Cares membership. (The details are at the bottom of this post.)
I’ll be honest with you: this is a challenging certificate program. You have to really think about how to help hurting people with God’s truth and God’s compassion at the same time. We don’t hand you a script. We give you a ton of tools — printable resources, case studies, strong reading assignments, and honest feedback from instructors who counsel these cases every week. Every lesson has an exercise, because nobody learns to counsel by watching.
We do all of that for one reason: so you’ll be ready to help the next hurting couple or family that God brings your way.
The question for your church
Every Sunday, in just about every church, there are hurting marriages and families in the room. Many churches care deeply but feel unsure how to help, leaving couples feeling that misery and divorce are their only options.
Perhaps God is moving in your heart to make sure that could never be said about your church.
Learn more about the Marriage and Family Counseling Certificate
About the Marriage and Family Counseling Certificate
- Five modules, fifty lessons.
- Essentials of Marriage Counseling (Dr. Ron Allchin)
- Advanced Topics in Marriage Counseling (Mark Johnson)
- Family Counseling (Dr. Tim Allchin)
- Counseling Children and Teens (Dr. Tim Allchin, Rebekah Salazar, Esther St. John, Jon Scurtu)
- Counseling Young Adults and Pre-Marital Couples (Theron St. John, Matt Black, Luke Trifilio, Jack Lezza)
- Any order. Start with the course your ministry needs most.
- Textbooks included. Piper’s This Momentary Marriage, Köstenberger on marriage and family, and Kellemen’s Gospel-Centered Family Counseling, hosted inside the lessons — plus a printable course notebook and nearly 100 printable resources.
- Real practice, real feedback. An exercise on every lesson, case studies, interactive “counselor’s chair” cases, live Q&A, and instructors who grade your work.
- One membership price. Included in BCC Cares Care Pro — $37.50 a month, or $375 for the year — with every micro-course, care plan, live event and monthly case consultation on the site.
- No prerequisite. Prior biblical counseling training is recommended, not required.
- Took Marriage & Family modules with BCC before? They count. Email us and we’ll start you where you left off.
Enroll in the Marriage and Family Counseling Certificate
