Orlando Master of Arts Counseling
Our approach to training for soul care is characterized by the following values:
C-ommunity Life
A-cademic Relevance
R-elational Orientation
E-xperiential Learning
COMMUNITY LIFE
"Life in Christ is by nature communal." - J. Knox Chamblin
Community is rooted in the Trinity--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--in eternal union and communion with one another. Because we are made in God's image, we cannot begin to understand ourselves, let alone God, apart from one another. While the Fall damaged human union with each other and with God, the work of Christ enacted a community-restoration project that continues in and through His redeemed sons and daughters. Together, as professors, supervisors, and students, our learning community becomes a means to living out God's restorative work in Christ, through honesty, humility, shared ideas, fruitful discussions, and even conflict. As we learn to care for one another, we can better care for those to whom we minister as counselors.
The MAC program at RTS strongly emphasizes learning in a community atmosphere. There are four main ways we seek to accomplish this:
1. We have limited and selective enrollment.
Our enrollment is limited to 20 students per class with approximately one in four applicants being admitted to the counseling program. We keep our classes small in order to facilitate relationships among the students, enhance the classroom experience, and provide intensive supervision once students enter the clinical component of the program.
2. We offer a full-time program.
This is a full-time program where the core counseling courses are taken by the students together as a group. Most of the courses have interactive and small group components that enhance not only personal growth and development, but also class cohesion. The program is not designed to meet the needs of persons who are looking to complete a degree by taking classes on a part-time basis.
3. Students complete their clinic requirement as a group.
The students enter their clinic practicum and internship at the same time in our on-site clinic. By going through this experience together, students have the opportunity to counsel together and provide peer consultation on an ongoing basis.
4. We emphasize Gospel life-in-community.
Modeling the incarnation of Christ, students engage in immersive community activities - process groups, retreats, and group classroom activities. Relationships are built through student camping trips, pancake breakfasts, fishing trips, and more. This reflects the conviction that God works and restores in and through relationships.
ACEDEMIC RELEVANCE
“[A seminary is] a safe place where great issues can be explored—where you can bring the gospel to life.” - Liam Atchinson
Academic refers to our rigorous and relevant course of study. Four principles guide our training process:
1. The Reformation principle of the connection between knowing God and knowing ourselves
Theology and psychology are two sides of the same coin, reflecting God’s commitment to a relational theology. Courses that emphasize the inherent relationship between psychology and theology deepen the student’s capacity to think and live theologically.
2. All truth is God’s truth
Whether in an academic psychological journal or a biblical text, truth is truth. Students learn to discern God’s truth by being exposed to a wide range of literature.
3. Counseling is a theological enterprise
Counselors are theological practitioners, working out the implications of God’s creative intentions, the impact of sin, the nature of redemption and sanctification, and the reality of Christ’s ultimate purposes in the lives of ordinary people.
4. Academic integrity
The training prepares students to be excellent practitioners in the church, the counseling room, and the classroom. Because the program meets or exceeds national accreditation requirements, students are equipped for a wide range of vocational options. Students are challenged to the highest level of professional and ethical practice. Students have gone on to be pastors, mental health counselors, missionaries, doctoral students, consultants, and professors.
RELATIONAL ORIENTATION
“Praying is no easy matter. It demands a relationship in which you allow someone other than yourself to enter into the very center of your person, to see there what you would rather leave in darkness, and to touch there what you would rather leave untouched.” – Henri Nouwen
The importance of a relational orientation is reflected in at least three ways:
1. God made us in and for relationship, and it is in relationships that our sin-damaged souls are healed
Unlike the dominant secular models which emphasize quick-fix remedies, we view counseling as a relational process where Gospel realities are realized not only in the relationship, but because of the relationship. Relationships free us from our need for self-sufficiency, and call us out of hiding into the glorious light of God’s grace.
2. Redemptive relationships reflect God’s original design
As the Trinity, God has lived forever as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in perfect union and communion. As image-bearers of a Triune God, we have the extraordinary privilege of participating in this eternal joy. Counseling helps to unleash these Garden-grown desires.
3. Jesus lived and ministered in relationship
The doctrine of the incarnation reflects God’s heart to enter in to redemptive relationship with His people. Rather than leaving us alone or prescribing a quick-fix, He became human, entering into the mess of sinful humanity in order to invite redemption and restoration. This becomes a model for our restorative work in the counseling room.
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences…will have resonances with our own innermost being, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” – Joseph Campbell
Experiential refers to the intensive and highly practical clinical experience that distinguishes our counseling program. Unlike many counseling programs, students counsel people from the community on-site at RTS through the Oviedo Counseling Center. Students are supervised individually, in groups, and in live sessions by some of the best Christian counselors in the greater Orlando area. Students find the clinical experience to be profoundly challenging and rewarding, as students, professors and supervisors engage together in the sacred privilege of ministering to hurting souls. At least three convictions represent our commitment to experiential learning:
1. The “participatory” nature of Gospel living
The Apostle Paul says, “I want to know Christ – the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings” (Phil. 3:10). The life of faith is developed in the wilderness of human suffering and the constant dependence on God’s faithfulness. This is how maturity and character is formed in the Christian. Thus, the MAC program emphasizes more than intellectual or skill development. Our desire is to see men and women formed through an honest journey with God and each other. Students will be challenged on every level, and will experience a vast array of emotions in the classroom, the clinic, and the student community.
2. Soul-churning compassion for others
A Greek word often used in the New Testament for human compassion is splanchizomai, a word that refers to the human heart’s capacity to be deeply moved toward another in need. The word implies a soul-churning experience. Counselors are not emotionless conduits of information, but participants in a person’s struggle to become more whole. Clinical interns are exposed to a wide range of human suffering, and are guided into understanding their own emotions as they relate to clients. This happens vis-à-vis clinical supervision with experienced licensed mental health counselors, men and women who meet regularly in individual and group settings to process the clinical experience and plot a course for the client’s growth.
3. The enlivening of the human heart
Among Reformed and Puritan pastors, the growing life of the Spirit in Christians was called “vivification,” a heart’s deepening desire for new-creation life in Christ. The church father Iranaeus once wrote, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” Aliveness in Jesus stands in stark contrast to the death-grip of addiction and idolatry. Students find that their own hearts grow increasingly alive in relationship with others and greater intimacy with God. Through experiential retreats, classroom activities, clinical experiences, journaling, group activities, and more, students are challenged to become more of who they were created to be in Christ. This aliveness spills over into rich and rewarding counseling relationships.
Through our commitment to Community Life, Academic Relevance, Relational Orientation, and Experiential Learning, we believe that Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando offers one of the most unique and complete Christian training programs for mental health counseling in the country. We invite you to explore the program through one of our Review Weekends. Contact our Counseling Coordinator, Earlene Harvey, for more information. She can be reached at 407-366-9493, extension 290 or by email at eharvey@rts.edu.
