I affirm my agreement with the following Practices and Core Values:

• The Sovereignty of God: I believe that God is the author of life and that He works in the affairs of people to bring about His pleasure and glory (Eph. 1:11; Rom. 8:28). He is the Hope of the world (Rom. 15:3; Eph. 2:12). He created every human being and is the best and only authority on what each person needs.

• Sufficiency of Scripture: I believe that the Bible is the divinely inspired, infallible, and authoritative Word of God (2 Tim. 3:15-17, 2 Pet. 1:21). God has revealed both the human problem with sin and the divine solution through Jesus Christ. Therefore, my counseling methods, practices, and techniques will be based upon clear biblical principles and not upon theories of personality, model of man, psychotherapies, or philosophies derived from secular sources (1 Corinthians 3:19).

• The Necessity of Jesus Christ: I believe that Jesus is God’s only hope for life and sanity. Jesus is the only way to God the Father and a right relationship with Him. There is no other Name given under heaven by which we can be saved (Acts 4:12). Therefore, I will encourage my counselees to have a relationship with Him.

• The active ministry of the Holy Spirit in the heart of individuals: I believe that the Holy Spirit was sent by Jesus from God the Father. He draws people to Christ and seals them as His own. He is active in guiding Believers through the sanctification process as He conforms each Believer in Jesus into His image (Rom. 8:29)

• Biblical Counseling: I believe that God’s Word is the instrument that the Holy Spirit uses to accomplish His work. The Bible is sufficient for counseling, discipleship, and for revealing the wisdom of God to individuals. God’s Word is alive and powerful and is able to discern the condition of the heart and thereby cause inner transformation that reveals itself in outward change (Heb.4:12).

• Lordship of Christ: I agree to counsel and teach the lordship of Jesus Christ in order to lead counselees away from a humanistic focus on self to a proper focus on Him (Luke 9:23; Romans 12:1-2).

• I agree to honor the scriptural sanctity of life, marriage, and family and to do my utmost in counseling to reinforce these beliefs (Psalm 139:13-14; Genesis 2:24; Malachi 2:16; Proverbs 23:25; Colossians 3:20).

• The Local Church: I agree that being involved in a local church is important. I will evidence this by my involvement in a local church and by instructing those whom I counsel to involve themselves in a church also, thus working in concert with it rather than in competition against it (Hebrews 10:25).

• Affirmations and Denials: I agree with the Affirmations & Denials: A Proposed Definition of Biblical Counseling written byDavid Powlison.

Biblical counseling is based on the inerrancy, authority, and sufficiency of the Word of God. To safeguard against misguided and imbalanced practices of counseling that some may label “biblical,” some standards of practice need to be established. The following criteria are chosen as stimulants for excellence and, at the time, to be a means of providing some measure of trustworthiness for general referral. Accordingly, BCCI members and counselors are asked to affirm the following: