This counseling program within the local church setting helps achieve three incredible goals for me and my congregation. First, it helps me as a pastor to be a good and useful tool in God’s hands as it encourages me not only to serve people’s souls in the right way, but also to explore my own heart before God. Secondly, it corrects any potential flaws in the theology, redirecting a person from outward thinking to the inward one – just like the Wonderful Counselor Himself taught and practiced. Thirdly, by involving members of the church in the education process, I, as a pastor, have acquired a great number of like-minded people; we speak the same language, understand each other, and serve each other, perfecting our skills. Thus, a real, practical sanctification of us and our counselees is taking place.

Studying as part of the ‘Coram Deo’ program has become a special experience for me. God began to uncover my true motives for doing ministry: my fears, my dependence on people’s opinions, which ruled and enslaved me. This has been a great help and a true blessing for me personally! I have discovered the riches of Scripture for serving the needy, especially those in complicated, confusing situations, for resolving family conflicts, and for dealing with other difficulties.

‘The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind’ (1 Peter 5:1-2)

‘Coram Deo’ program is the best one I have encountered in the Russian-speaking world if what you are looking for is a practical application of theology to a man’s soul. It explores the incredible riches of God’s Word to help the saints in the area of diagnosing their problems and finding solutions.

I had previously been trained in the area of discipleship, mentoring; we helped others develop teams of church ministers. But counseling! We were not taught to do it, and so we did not really do it. There was no time for it and we did not know how to do it anyway.