Do You Know The AACC?
The American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC) is an organization that is committed to assisting Christian counselors, the entire “community of care,” licensed professionals, pastors, and lay church members with little or no formal training. Members of the AACC include both licensed mental health professionals as well as ministry leaders, and caring church members with little or no formal training. It is the AACC’s intention to equip clinical, pastoral, and lay care-givers with biblical truth and psychosocial insights that minister to hurting persons and helps them move to personal wholeness, interpersonal competence, mental stability, and spiritual maturity.
Partners For Referral
Many Christian mental health professions are member of the AACC. These are professionals who live in our communities and who can be a valuable asset as referral partners for people in your congregation struggling with mental health issues. Many of the mental health professionals who serve as advisors to us at LifeSupport are AACC members. The AACC website provides a Find A Counselor feature listing professionals based on location.
Resource Partners
We are pleased that the AACC recognizes LifeSupport as an official AACC Resource Partner. The AACC provides opportunities for us to share LifeSupport resources with new churches and ministry leaders from all over the United States and world. We’ve seen firsthand that the leadership and staff of the AACC reflect Christ. We have confidence to affiliate with the AACC in part because of the guardrails they profess in their Vision and Values as presented on the AACC website.
AACC Vision and Values
“The vision of AACC has two critical dimensions. First, we want to serve the worldwide Christian church by helping it become more mature in Christ, while taking on His heart of love and sacrificial care. Secondly, we want to be serving, educating, and equipping 100,000 professional clinicians, pastoral counselors, and lay helpers in the near future.
We are committed to helping the church equip God’s people to love and care for each other in the same spirit that Christ loves and cares for us. We recognize Christian counseling as a unique and case-based form of Christian discipleship, assisting the church in its call to bring believers to maturity in the lifelong process of sanctification- of growing to maturity in Christ.
We recognize that some are gifted to do so in the context of a clinical, professional and/or pastoral manner. We also believe that selected lay people are gifted to care for others and that they need the appropriate training and mentoring to do so. We believe that the ‘seat’ of helping ministry in the church is supported—must be supported—by three strong legs. These legs are the pastor, the lay helper, and the clinical professional, and it is to these three roles that AACC is dedicated to serve.
“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Ephesians 4:11-13 NIV
Core Values
“In all of my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:4-6 NIV
OUR SOURCE: We are committed to honor Jesus Christ and glorify God, remaining flexible and responsive to the Holy Spirit in all that He has called us to be and do.
OUR STRENGTH: We are committed to Biblical truths, and to clinical excellence and unity in the delivery of all our resources, services, training and benefits.
OUR SERVICE: We are committed to effectively and competently serve the community of care worldwide—both our membership and the church at large—with excellence and timeliness, and by over-delivery on our promises.
OUR STAFF: We are committed to value and invest in our people as partners in our mission to help others effectively provide Christ-centered counseling and soul-care for hurting people.
OUR STEWARDSHIP: We are committed to profitably steward the resources God gives to us in order to continue serving the needs of hurting people.”
Stay Tuned!
Our relationship with the AACC presents opportunities to provide you with more mental health resource options. Stay tuned as these are developed.
We invite you to explore all of the benefits of AACC membership and the resources they offer at https://www.aacc.net/