Christian Counseling Center in Nanjing
In November of last year, we welcomed Al Dueck, a professor from Fuller Theological Seminary. He led a team from Fuller that visited the Zhi Mian Institute for Psychotherapy, conducted case study workshops, and taught the intensive course on pastoral counseling at Zhongnan Seminary in Wuhan, Hubei Province. Professor Dueck also donated books to the Zhi Mian Resource Center for Pastoral Counseling. May God bless him and his team.
Our activities in 2012 included editing Becoming a Religious Therapist in Chinese Culture (to be published) with Professor Dueck and Professor Lewis Rambo of San Francisco Seminary, the chief editor of Pastoral Counseling. We organized a series of lectures on "Parenting and Child Development" by Fuller Seminary's team of professors and psychology students. Over 70 people from churches as well as other fields across China attended the three-day lectures.
Rev. Zhu Qingchu from Henan Seminary also visited the Zhi Mian Institute. Rev. Zhu requested that Wang Xuefu's Pastoral Counseling in China be used as a textbook for seminary students and churches. The website for pastoral counseling for China (www.acpc.org.cn) is now open to the public and will accomplish a vital objective in our commitment to providing professional resources in the area of pastoral care and counseling.
From 2011 to present, we recruited and extended services to 111 Christian ECP (Extended Counseling Program) students. Among them 96% applied for scholarships and were approved. We continue to maintain our counseling service (interview and hotline counseling and counseling through email communication) to Christian clients with counseling provided either free of charge or for a minimum fee. We edited the Zhi Mian Report with reflections of our counseling ideas and experiences, and we send it to churches, seminaries, and Christian caregivers as well as to other individuals and organizations. We continue to pray and plan for the training center to be built in Nanjing to provide systematic training in the area of pastoral care and counseling. We will put this in God's hands and move step-by-step to realize the mission set before us.
My plan is to keep you updated on what is happening here at Zhi Mian. We are, as always, extremely grateful for the support you have shown in many ways. Keep in touch, and I hope we will have the chance to meet in person in the near future.
Blessings,
Wang Xuefu, PhD, Director of Zhi Mian Institute for Psychotherapy