Our Core Values

 

These Core Values will help you understand our heart as it pertains to theology and practice. The first constellation of values has to do with our understanding of theological doctrine. The second section is our high view regarding a local church counseling ministry.

 

• Core Values regarding: Statement of Faith
• Core Values regarding: Christian Counseling

 

Our Statement of Faith
The following is a brief summary of the doctrinal core beliefs of Grace Harbor Counseling Ministries. It is not an exhaustive statement, but a framework to give you a point of reference regarding our beliefs about God and we who live in His world:

About the Bible: We believe in the verbal, plenary inspiration of the Bible; that it has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without mixture of error, for its matter; that it reveals the principles by which God will judge us; and therefore, is the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct and beliefs should be judged.

 

About God: We believe that the One and only true God is triune; that He exists as three persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; that all three are eternally equal in nature, attributes and perfection and as such are equally worthy of our worship, love and obedience.

 

About Man: We believe that man was created in the image of God, but because of his fall into sin, this image is marred, his nature depraved, and he is separated from God and thus, can be said to be spiritually dead.

 

About Jesus Christ:

His birth: We believe that Jesus of Nazareth was conceived of the Holy Spirit by the Virgin Mary and that He received a human body and a sinless human nature.

 

His life: We believe that Jesus Christ experienced all the normal temptations of human existence, yet was without sin. We believe that He showed Himself to be the Messiah of Israel and the divine Son of God by His teachings and His miracles.

 

His death: We believe that when Jesus Christ died on the cross, He provided the substitutionary, vicarious atonement for man’s sin.

His resurrection: We believe that after being dead for three days, Jesus Christ arose physically and bodily from the grave.

 

His return: We believe in the visible and personal return of Jesus Christ.

About Salvation: We believe that salvation is by grace, plus nothing and minus nothing. The conditions to salvation are repentance and faith, which are granted by God as a part of his divine kindness to those whom he chooses.

About the Local Church: We believe that the local church is God’s primary instrument for His work today; that every believer should be an active member in a local assembly, supporting its worship, ministry, fellowship, discipleship, and evangelism by his/her time, talents and offerings. The ordinances of the local church are baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and belong exclusively to the local church.

About the Eternal State: We believe in the everlasting conscious blessedness of the saved and the everlasting conscious punishment of the lost.

Christian Counseling Core Values

 

Core Values: Section One

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. –Romans 12:1-2.

A Christian counseling ministry is unique in mending relational and/or situational difficulties in which people are exposed. The unique components of a Christian counseling ministry are set apart from secular or integrated models by the following ways:

 

• We recognize the essential workings of the mercies of God in the life of the believer.
• The most important of these workings is salvation through Jesus Christ–2 Corinthians 6:14c.
• Another of these mercies is the promise Jesus makes to send the Comforter, Who ministers to us as well as teaches us in our sanctification. (See John 16:7-13)
• We strive to help the believer to think and live a lifestyle that is acceptable to God. We do this by helping him/her recognize a proper view of God and how that view should manifest itself as we grow in knowledge, confess, repent, seek forgiveness, and put on Christ. A proper view of God will, among other things, facilitate His desire for us to be conformed to the image of Christ.
• We believe lives can be transformed by the renewing of the mind. We believe first, because God tells us so and second because of what we have witnessed in our own lives and the lives of others.
• We believe that God uses Christian counseling to help prove what the will of God is. We believe that Scripture shows us that the will of God is always good, acceptable and perfect.

 

 

Core Values: Section Two

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceptions, according to the traditions of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in him you have been made complete, and he is the head over all rule and authority. –Colossians 2:8-10

The essential core value of a Christian counseling ministry is Jesus Christ and the teachings of Scripture. This value is contrary to the philosophy and traditions of secular counseling which are based on some very specific principles:

 

• Man is his own god; therefore, man is the source of his own answers.
• There is no God—at best a higher power.
• There are no absolutes.
• Guilt is not real, merely a feeling, which has been projected by the out-of-date mores of the church.
• The self-actualized, self-gratifying person is the desired result of counseling.
• There are other views, but these will suffice to demonstrate the difference between secular and Christian counseling. Our answers to the secular on these points are the following:
• Man is a sinner in need of a Savior and, as such, is powerless to initiate or implement a complete, life-changing direction on his own. –Romans 3:10-12, 23, 5:5-8; Ephesians 2:8-10
• There is a God—the God revealed in the Bible, Who, in His manifestations as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, can create complete, life changing directions in a person’s life. –Genesis 1:1, 26-27, 2:7; 2 Corinthians 5:17; 1 Timothy 1:12-17
• God, in His grace and mercy, has established certain absolutes which guide us in our walk in this life. –Exodus 20:2; John 3:16, 14:6; 1 John 1:7-10; Galatians 6:7
• Guilt is a real entity, experienced when we sin against God and/or our fellow man. It can only be eliminated by humble confession, repentance, and by seeking restoration of fellowship with God and/or our fellow man. –Romans 2:14-15; 2 Corinthians 7:8-10; James 4:10; 1 John 1:9
• The desired result of Christian counseling is to see the individual live a life conformed to the image of Christ. –Romans 12:1-2; Colossians 1:28; Ephesians 4:22-24; 2 Corinthians 3:18
  

 

1 David G. Benner & Peter C. Hill, Ed., Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology & Counseling, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), pp 792-794.