Joshua Cuellar, CFC, Apstl
Family Counseling and Mental Health are terms that often result in conversations about credentials, licensing, experience, training, and certifications. This varies in different parts of the world and people value different things. In the USA, the APA is the primary credential issuer through a Psy.D. which is a Doctorate of Psychology or Psychology Doctorate. Currently, the APA also approves of, but doesn’t necessarily certify credentials such as Applied Behavioural Analyst, Sociologist, Social Worker, Clinical Counselor, and Clinical Mental Health Care. The goal is to reduce the number of credentials and certifications without losing quality of care. The main degrees or certificates in a college or university are Psychology, Sociology, Social Worker, Clinical Counselor, and Therapist. The MFT, which is, marriage and family therapy, is a Master of Arts degree with a transcript signifying qualifications to provide therapy; which is different than counseling.
Christian Counseling has a lot of the same tenets of APA psychological services but the foundations are different. With over 77 major Christian denominations, its difficult to discuss in a brief blog post or web page. Christian Counseling does not have to mention Jesus or the Bible during counseling, but it can. The counseling can be based on religious, spiritual, or salvation based topics; or, it can be based on human behaviours, social norms, family expectations, and the law such as penalties for conduct a person likes to engage in. Many of the same rules of confidentiality and treatment of care are followed; most of the confidentiality rules have origins in not being judgemental, understanding a person needing counseling has free will, that they are in need of assistance, and that free will is not always free of consequences outside the context of religion, spirituality, and/or a belief system. The CFC credential stands for Christian Family Counseling.
An apostle has many contexts in the aspects of law, business, medicine, and professional conduct. Professional conduct is often explained as friendship and breach of trust to a child as they are learning social norms; this grows into separating friendships from responsibilities, such as doing chores, and can include context in deciding if its appropriate or desirable to share chores with a friend, and if the allowance should be shared if the chores are shared. As an adolescent and young adult, the concept of apostleship grows to contexts in communication, legislative comparisons reviewed as church rules in different areas, professional responsibilities in medicine covered as miracles, and review of court trials and legal hearings such as facing an accuser or having a friend turned into the authorities by another friend. The final steps for an apostle happen around the mid twenties to early thirties but can happen at any age. For some, a family circumstance may require they finish their training while still an adolescent or early adult; and for others not being introduced to apostleship until later in life can result learning about the responsibilities of an apostle much later in life. A document signed by an Apostle is often known as an Apostile and more recently carries a digital certification and is accepted by various governments as a certificate of authority.
Most apostle stories begin in the Gospel, which are the first 4 books of the new testament. They are testimonies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John on the accounts of Jesus, his behaviours, his family background, his arrest, trial, and ultimate cruxifiction. In the new testament there are 12 disciples who abandoned their jobs to follow Jesus and where therefore disciples of Jesus who himself left his carpentry internship as an adolescent and was not heard from until he was an adult. Four of the Twelve disciples were also evangelists and their professions where Luke the Doctor, Matthew the Tax Collector who was viewed as a Lawyer due to being a Publican, John the Business Person, and Mark the Writer. John was thought to be Business Partners with Peter in a fishing operation, and they were casting nets, not reeling in fish one at a time with a reel. The 12 Disciples followed Jesus throughout his earthly ministry and the 4 evangelists wrote the Gospels; it is believed that Mark did most of the writing because he was a writer. In the Book of Acts, Paul has a conversion, he was initially named Saul and was a Prosecutor and Roman Citizen. Most of the rest of the book is based on Paul and his books are known as the Epistles. The only people eligible to be Apostles in the new testament were Matthew, Luke, and Paul.
Although an argument can be made that Mark, Peter, and John were eligible to be Apostles, that would be in a more modern context and they would not have qualified at the time of their writing and testimony on the activities of Jesus. John’s Books and Marks writing would later provide stipulation as to their qualifications as an Apostle and if Mark qualified, Peter would have qualified as a business partner but none of the other fishers would have qualified as laborers or apprentices. In the book of Mark, Jesus ordains the disciples as preachers after his cruxifiction and tombstone resurrection done to comfort his mother. Matthews testimony states that Jesus declared him their disciples after he’d been cruxified and that he authorized the disciples of Jesus to baptize unto the holy spirit. Simon Peter, the Pharisee would have also have been eligible to be an Apostle as he would have had to explain the context of his religion as it pertained to Jesus; it is implied that Simon Peter waived the temple tax of two drachmas for Jesus. Pharisee and Sadducee are often viewed in the context of Pharoah See and Saudi See and have great stature in various temples.
Studies like these are in part, what is required to receive an Apostleship and to be certified as a Christian Counselor, the certification is often done through a church certificate and through acceptance of professional responsibilities. It is not required to be or remain a Christian in order to be an Apostle or Christian Counselor in the USA. However, it is very difficult for an individual to complete the studies who has not grown up in a Christian household or spent significant amount of time in Church; most often as a Student Member, Church Visitor, or Scholar.