April 24, 2025
WAKE FOREST, N.C. — Southeastern Seminary hosted its first Redeem and Restore Counseling conference last week, designed to encourage and equip Christians to counsel with care and to think redemptively about the ministry of counseling. Over the course of three main sessions, over 250 attendees heard from Southeastern counseling faculty Kristin Kellen, Nate Brooks, Brad Hambrick, and Sam Williams (retired).
“The Redeem and Restore conference was a wonderful experience,” commented Hambrick, assistant professor of biblical counseling. “It provided warm fellowship among like-minded (or aspiring) counselors who want to be missional with the way they engage the mental health profession. The main sessions and breakouts provided attendees with a solid theological foundation, equipping them to serve as salt and light toward those facing significant hardships — whether they, as counselors, serve in local churches or clinical settings.”
The Redeem and Restore conference offered a unique opportunity to further equip students, counselors, and church members to minister to those in need by applying biblical truth and wisdom while engaging with the best of clinical insights. Learning alongside current students at Southeastern, attendees experienced for themselves the kind of training that the Southeastern community regularly receives from its counseling faculty.
As Southeastern students, faculty, and alumni practice biblical counseling, they do so as a practical, tangible expression of Southeastern’s mission to equip students to serve the local church and fulfill the Great Commission. In serving the hurting and heavy laden, Christian counselors play a direct role in the restoration of relationships and souls, obeying Jesus’s command to care for the least of these.
Between main sessions on Friday and Saturday, the conference featured numerous rotating breakout sessions covering practical topics ranging from confrontation and conflict to grief and trauma as well as worldview in counseling and the counselor’s character.
Kellen, associate professor of biblical counseling, said that many attendees “expressed directly to me how thankful they were to learn how to think well about the role of the Bible in addressing life’s struggles, whether in how we assess secular counseling knowledge, who we are as people made in the image of God, or how to apply the Bible to specific issues like marriage or trauma. Several shared that they felt much more equipped to serve in the places God has called them to counsel.”
She added, “I spoke with several attendees who knew nothing about Southeastern before this conference, but they expressed such appreciation for our missional view of counseling ministries. I’m so excited to see what the Lord does with this conference in the years to come!”
In its mission to train students to counsel from a Great Commission perspective, Southeastern offers eight counseling degrees, including a five-year BA to MA program; numerous graduate degrees; and doctoral programs in DMin, EdD, and PhD studies. Learn more by visiting sebts.edu/counseling.
