Consider Your Counsel: Addressing Ten Mistakes in Our Biblical Counseling

by Robert W. Kellemen

Biblical counseling is not an easy calling. How do you effectively communicate the gospel to hurting people? Theological training and learning from other counselors are both key to growing in the wisdom, love, and skill needed to apply Scripture to yourself and others. Preparation is key, but sometimes the most effective training comes after you’ve jumped into the ring—when a coach puts his arm around your shoulder and helps you take a look at what you’ve done well and where you can grow.
In Consider Your Counsel, Bob Kellemen comes alongside counselors and shares where he and others have missed the mark. Drawing on more than three decades of counseling supervision experience, he unpacks ten of the most common missteps that he has noticed in his own counseling, as well as those he has mentored.
From teaching before listening to targeting sin but not suffering, Kellemen helps counselors of all ages see where they may need to reassess their methods and continue to grow. Each chapter briefly discusses a typical counseling mistake, then delves into a discussion of alternative approaches and practical suggestions for maturing as biblical counselor. This uniquely helpful book will help readers do an honest assessment of their counseling and encourage them to grow as counselors and friends.

Genres: Counselling, Christian, Theology

88 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 2, 2021

About the author

My passion is to write, speak, and consult on Christ-centered comprehensive, compassioante, culturally-informed biblical counseling and spiritual formation that changes lives with Christ's changeless truth

My web site is: www.rpmministries.org

I have authored:

Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direciton

Soul Physicians: A Theology of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction

Spiritual Friends: A Methodology of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction

Sacred Friendships: Celebrating the Legacy of Women Heroes of the Faith

My wife, Shirley, and I have been married for 28 years. We have a married son, Josh (to Andi), and a young adult daughter, Marie, who is a college Senior.

Reviews

[Wagner Floriani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the insights in this work. Kelleman is thoughtful throughout, and leverages decades of supervision to highlight areas of growth for biblical counselors. The biblical counseling movement needs more constructively self-critical works like this one.

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kellemen wrote this book as a result of questions asked of him by his students. He identifies areas of biblical counseling that may be blind spots, needing assessment and correcting. This book is by no means a critique of biblical counseling but rather an encouragement to grow in the technique to be the best counselors possible.

I really like Kellemen asking counselors to not rush to use Scripture as an antidote before listening to one's whole story. He notes we are to be both parakaletic, coming alongside to help, and nouthetic, confronting sin out a concern for change. (595/1858) When a client mentions fear, for example, rather than jumping to the verse describing the faith cure for fear, listen to find out why the client has fear, such as a physically abusive spouse. God gave us emotions for a reason. They should not be ignored nor discounted out of hand.

I also like Kellemen's suggestion for a trialogue. Rather than just you and me in dialogue, we also include God's Spirit. We can both listen to the Spirit, the divine comforter and helper. The Spirit will come alongside, helping us to comfort others in their suffering rather than just focusing on correcting a sin or spiritual misconception or identifying an idol of the heart.

This is a good book for biblical counselors, encouraging them to take a look at their work and asses it and themselves. Kellemen adds great assessment questions at the end of each chapter as well as good examples of the problems and practical ideas to grow through them. There is a good deal of helpful information in this book for every biblical counselor to consider and implement in their counseling journey.

I received a complimentary digital copy of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

[Nitoy Gonzales · Rating 4 out of 5]

In every ministry there will always be flaws. No matter how good the method or program it administers, there will be some shortcomings. We are finite beings and sinners. No ministry is foolproof. It is by God’s grace that He allows us to work on a ministry. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t address those we can see and polish it to be better. Specifically, in biblical counseling, as we engage to fellow image bearers and helping them to be connected to the Scriptures. Resources are welcome to fix what we are already practicing. And that’s were Consider Your Counsel steps in.

This book wont get you lost on what it’s trying to say. Whether you don’t know about biblical counseling or what part it is trying to troubleshoot, Kellemen won’t leave you scratching your head. Whether your just starting or had a long experience in biblical counseling, you’ll find this book appealing. For a casual reader, it’s a bit of introduction to this type of couseling, although this is not a primer. I suggest that you’ll get the books recommended in this volume.

The ten mistakes are reminders that our counseling has blind spots and it takes another Christian to check it out and show you what these flaws are and gives the right prescription to handle your ministry well. Kellemen provided the prescription from God’s Word and his years of experience.

The downside of this book is that it feels like an extended listacle or an appendix of a book. Though Kellemen is helpful in navigating the proper context of this book, you can’t just jump into it without getting other resources. It has an element of being a stand alone book nevertheless the experience won’t be complete if this is just the main resource you have in counseling. I strongly suggest to pick up recommended books that are mentioned in this volume.

Consider Your Counsel is a good suppliment to biblical counseling books that you might encounter from the author or similar ones but it’s good to know that being a companion book doesn’t end the usefulness of this book. Along the way you’ll pick up ample nuggets of truth that you can apply in your ministry. Glad to know theirs a book that will ground biblical counseling into what matters most, that is standing in God’s Word while looking in the different aspects of the counselee. Though it’s a brief volume and can be dismissed as an appendix or a listacle, it still brings some insight for your counseling ministry. As for readability, I can give it a two thumbs up.

My verdict:

4 out of 5

Review copy of this book was provided by New Growth Press.

Read my favorite quotes from the book by clicking here.

Did you like what you read? Did this article helped you? Then you can share some love by buying me a coffee.)

[Cory Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short little book on common mistakes in the counseling process. This book would be good for not only pastors and those who consider themselves biblical counselors, but all Christina who provide counsel to others. He draws from his own experience to address broad issues and then corrects them with scripture.

Wouldn’t suggest this as the first book someone reads on biblical counseling. It is a helpful guide to correct and guard against common errors as the title says.

[Evan Magelssen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I will be returning to this regularly.

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good information to consider with each chapter ending with questions to answer for self-assessment as a counselor.

[Lauren DuPrez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Consider Your Counsel by Bob Kelleman is one of the best biblical counseling books I’ve ever read. It is essentially a primer on how to disciple others. The book’s content is based on ten mistakes that Kelleman has witnessed counselors, including himself, make. The book’s chapters consist of the ten mistakes which are:

1. We Elevate Data Collection above Soul Connection
2. We Share God’s Eternal Story before Listening to People’s Earthly Story
3. We Talk at Counselees Rather Than Exploring Scripture with Counselees
4. We Target Sin but Diminish Suffering
5. We Fail to Follow the Trinity’s Model of Comforting Care
6. We View People One Dimensionally Instead of Comprehensively
7. We Devalue Emotions Instead of Seeing Emotions as God’s Idea
8. We Minimize the Complexity of the Body-Soul Interconnection
9. We Maximize Sin While Minimizing Grace
10. We Confuse the Sufficiency of Scripture with the Competency of the Counselor

Each chapter’s conclusion contains four questions for counselors to consider. I found the questions convicting and encouraging and believe they provide a good heart check to ensure that counsel comes from a place of humility and compassion. Consider Your Counsel begins with the author’s vital observation that, “We use a ‘concordance approach’ to Scripture that makes the Bible a shallow answer book rather than the redemptive gospel story it is,” (pg. 11). He then draws from Scripture to help readers understand how to rightly use Scripture in the care and counsel of others.

On page 14 he wrote, “Biblical counseling is the personal ministry of the Word where we explore together the specific biblical passages and scriptural principles that best relate to this particular person. Biblical counseling is God’s wisdom for life in a broken world—a fallen, messy world that requires depth of insight, not shallow platitudes.”

In many ways, this book provided healing from some unhealthy spiritual situations I experienced in which God’s word was wielded like a weapon and rarely presented as a beautiful story of redemption. My heart was encouraged upon reading the author’s observation, ” . . . I continue to detect a pattern of viewing fellow Christians predominantly through the grid of depravity and thinking of counseling primarily as ‘spotting the idols of the heart’. This is one-dimensional and can cause great harm.”

I also deeply appreciated his thoughts in chapter 9 on making the mistake of maximizing sin while minimizing grace. He wrote, “If we maximize sin while minimizing grace, then we are actually joining Satan’s condemning scheme,” (pg. 72). On the same page, he asked, “As biblical counselors, do we emphasize sin or grace? In our concern for confronting sin, do we sometimes inadvertently become sin-sniffers, idol-spotters, and sin-maximizers? Or as we confront sin, do we consciously communicate Christ’s superabounding, amazing, infinite grace?”

Consider Your Counsel was written to help biblical counselors but is a great manual for anyone serving in any ministry capacity. The book is only 87 pages long making it a very accessible read for individuals or groups.

Consider Your Counsel is one of my favorite Christian books. It is rich with biblical wisdom and I strongly believe it is a must read for all Christians.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kellerman has decades of experience in biblical counseling, and is the founder of the Biblical Counseling Coalition. He brings that knowledge and wisdom to bear in this succinct book which addresses what he considers to be the ten main mistakes in biblical counseling, and areas requiring growth.

He then turns to the issues, which include lacking empathy, not spending enough time listening to people, talking at people rather than exploring scriptures with them, and the tendency to target sin but diminish suffering and grace. He encourages counselors to view people comprehensively, considering body, mind and soul care; and to look to the compassion, comforting, care of the Father, Son and Spirit as our model.

This is a very helpful book for those that seek to pastorally care for or counsel believers. It’s a quick and easy read, yet very insightful. In essence, it is not about the content of counseling, but rather on “the process, the journey, the relationship between the counselor and the counselee, and the mindset embedded behind the art of counseling.” I found much of value within.

(For a more comprehensive review see: https://musingsinadelaide.blogspot.co...)

[Drew Brads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kelleman's brief book (103 pages counting the endnotes!) points out ten common mistakes made by biblical counselors. These are drawn from his own experience of teaching and supervising counselors, and amount to "supervision in writing" (page 3). Several of the mistakes emphasize a failure to appropriately relate to counselees - speaking before listening, oversimplifying human complexity, etc. Others are more methodological - devaluing emotions, maximizing sin and minimizing grace. Kelleman summarizes his advice in a 40-question self-assessment tool at the end of the book. This short read probably won't be revolutionary, but will be a useful read for anyone interested in biblical counseling.

[Sarah Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a refreshing read.
The tone was very encouraging even though it was structured around pointing out mistakes biblical counselors can fall into. It used solid biblical truths to gently and wisely point out those errors, but more than that, to point to how to correct them and what to do instead, to counsel in a more Christ-like and Trinitarian way.
If you have any misgivings about biblical counseling, or even bad experiences with it, I strongly encourage reading this book to see that sometimes missteps in how biblical counseling may be applied doesn’t necessarily mean that the model itself is flawed in that way.
This book brings fresh light and hope into a ministry that sometimes, against the best intentions, can become rote and mechanical.

[Gabriel Magill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a very helpful resource for men like me who are only occasionally called on to do biblical counseling or weigh in on a counseling situation. When you don’t do it often, you tend to more rigidly follow the model’s you learned and your counseling approach can become wooden. This book does a great job of pointing out some areas we can become impersonal or over-emphasize one aspect of the Gospel to the neglect of another.

[Danna Dykema · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a challenging book with helpful insights into my Biblical counseling. I feel so inadequate and am so thankful that God is sovereign, and there are many wise people that give wise counsel so we can rightly divide God's Word into the lives of others. Excellent and challenging book.

[Alan Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Consider Your Counsel is a valuable work that gives insight on common mistakes from a highly educated and experienced point of view. For a pastor like myself who is not formally trained in counseling, but does a lot of counseling, this little book was very useful.

[Jake Auton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great little read that helped clarify some of the mistakes early counselors make. Very direct and accurate to the point the author is trying to make. Very well organized which helped the flow. Simple argument, tremendous help.

[Brooke Hutto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great and wonderful resource for counselors. I already want to reread it!!

[Lucas Nosal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a nice little book to read. It caused me to reflect on areas where I can grow as I seek to become better in the area of counselling. The first chapters were the best ones.

[Kelton Zacharias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall good course corrections, but felt too brief.

[Rev Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Watch my full review at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7eWj...

This is a great guides for everyone who gives counsel in the church and at a length of only 95 pages. I read one chapter a morning with my devotions for 10 days to get through it. This should be an annual read for pastors and Biblical counselors to help us from sliding back into bad habits as we consider our counsel given to others.
I give an enthusiastic recommendation for the mature in God’s Church to read Consider Your Counsel, buy it, keep it on your shelf and set a schedule to go back to it again and again to sharpen your counseling. I know it will help me the next time I sit down to help someone in my church walk through this cursed world.

[Lisa Horne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought-provoking

As a pastor-counselor, this is a good book for self-assessment. Many get wrapped up in whether they did “enough” (whatever that is). However, Kellemen provides comprehensive explanation with follow-up self-assessment of ten common counseling mistakes.

[Troy Nevitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good and simple book that helps people sort through counselling and the ways that we should be wise about the counselling we give, and the mistakes to avoid that are more common among biblical counselling.