Welcome to the very first blog post for the Christ and Counseling podcast. We are three friends who are eager to invite you into a conversation about the ideas currently shaping the next generation of biblical counselors. Our mission is rooted in a simple conviction: ultimately, all our counseling labors must be laid at the feet of Christ.

Who We Are

In our introductory episode, we spent some time sharing how the Lord brought each of us to this movement:

• Lucas Sabatier joins us from Brazil, where he serves as a professor at Palavra da Vida Bible Seminary (Word of Life), and is a council member of the Biblical Counseling Coalition. Originally trained as a lawyer, Lucas found that the gospel is relevant to every part of existence, leading him to pursue a PhD at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary with a research focus on union with Christ and its implications for spiritual formation and personal ethics.

• Jared Poulton is the Executive Director of the Institute for Reformed Biblical Counseling (IRBC) and a pastor in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His academic background includes a comprehensive analysis of Jay Adams’s adaptation of the thought of Cornelius Van Til, and he is passionate about putting the best of biblical counseling in conversation with the broader Reformed tradition. His book based on his dissertation is due out this fall.

• Joe Hussung serves as the Director of Ministry Partnerships and Recruitment at Fieldstone Counseling, where he oversees a postgraduate residency program and Fieldstone’s fellowship program. Joe is also the author of Learning to Listen, a book focused on the theology, heart posture, and skills of listening well in counseling.

Why This Podcast?

While there are many excellent podcasts that offer practical advice for laypeople, we believe there is a need for a “higher conversation” conducted in a longer format. The biblical counseling movement is continuing to mature, and many researchers are spending years in THM, DMin, and PhD programs producing new work that often stays buried in their dissertations.

Our goal is to provide a window into these research institutions as well as creating a space here on this Substack channel where scholarship can happen in community. We want to move beyond the “clickbaity” nature of social media to think critically and theologically about the human experience. By bringing these academic discussions back to the person and work of Jesus, we hope to redeem these debates for the purpose of worship.

Season One: A Movement or a Discipline?

This first season is specifically designed to explore whether biblical counseling has become a formal academic discipline or if it remains primarily a grassroots movement. To answer this, we will be interviewing leaders from various institutions across the movement to spotlight the research coming downstream.

We will be asking these guests to weigh in on:

• The evolving definition of biblical counseling.

• The “flavors” and nuances of different academic programs and organizations.

• How we can maintain the integrity of a grassroots movement while maturing into a rigorous field of study.

• And more!

Here are the names you should expect to hear from the first half of this season, this Fall 2026 (not in order). In Spring 2027, we hope to have several more guests from other seminaries and institutions to complete this first season.

Dr. Jeremy Pierre - Dean and Professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Biblical Counseling Coalition Board Member

Dr. Dale Johnson - Executive Director of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC) and Professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Dr. Kristin Kellen - Professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

Dr. Lilly Park - Professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Biblical Counseling Coalition Council Member

Dr. Gunner Gundersen - Dean of Faculty at the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF)

Dr. Kevin Carson - Executive Director of the Biblical Counseling Coalition

We will also be dropping bonus episodes throughout the year as our schedules and topics dictate.

Don’t forget to Subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts (Apple, Spotify, etc.) and make sure you like/subscribe/follow on social media (Instagram/Facebook/Twitter)

Join the Dialogue

We don’t want this to be a one-way conversation. Alongside this podcast, we have launched a Substack channel called “Christ and Counseling”. If you are a writer with a research background, we invite you to check out our submission guide and contribute your own ideas to this community-based dialogue.

We are confident that as we wrestle with these big ideas, the Spirit will guide us to reflect more clearly on the Word of God. Subscribe and join us as we strive to keep Christ at the center of every conversation and every counseling room.