Quick Program Facts

Program Duration: 4 short courses

Program Format: Seminar, Online, Practicum

Program Cost:

• Continuing Ed. Level: $50 per course + materials
• Non-Credit: Determined by your local church/Resource Center

Credit Upgrade Options

Each of the four courses can be upgraded for graduate credit by doing additional coursework within one year.  Total tuition is $285 + materials (tuition paid for PC 101 is applied toward total tuition charge of $285).

Pastoral Care Specialist Certificate

What is the Pastoral Care Specialist Certificate?

Develop skills and knowledge so you can help improve the world. Find the type of caring ministry that is the right one for you, and—with God’s empowerment—you can help people change the quality of their lives. The program has four learning modules. Each module...

• Moves you forward quickly. We support your eagerness to become capable of great servanthood.
• Enhances your knowledge through reading, and audio and video discussion and demonstrations.
• Engages you in experiential/interactive modes of step-by-step learning for all skill competencies.
• Guides you into practical application—under supervision—in the “real world” of your life.
• Coaches you with small group consultation so that learning and growth fits your specific needs.

Here's How You'll Learn in the PCS Program:

A mix of five learning methods helps you soak up information and increase your skills rapidly and, frankly, it makes the process a lot more fun. 

1. Seminar. Taught by an instructor who has extensive “done that” experience as a professional in the topic. These are seven hours long, usually Friday evening and Saturday morning. They enable learning by presentation and coaching from an expert, and by enjoyable activities with other students.
2. Independent study, at your pace and on your schedule. This may include reading, listening to audio lectures, watching DVDs, or interactive learning on the computer using CDs that are part of some texts.
3. Application: Using what you learn expands your understanding and locks it in—and you begin to improve the part of the world that you touch during your training! You will choose your style and place of service.
4. Personal coaching from a local mentor of your choice. (We’ll help you with that if you want us to.)
5. Interaction on the VIU blogsite.
   

Courses You'll Take for the PCS Certificate...

• PC 101 Communication Skills That Connect

Communication Skills That Connect

Understand other people so you can show them how to improve their life. You can have high levels of influence and persuasion with other people only when you have the skills of high-quality communication—the process that regulates almost everything you do. This course will help you learn skills of active listening, gaining and sharing empathy, giving information and direct help, and being assertive. It shows you how to connect meaningfully with other persons no matter how different their life experiences may be from yours. With a bond of rapport and insight in their motivations, you can build strong personal friendships, become effective in administrative or other workplace relationships, or be useful as a life skills mentor or as a guide in the resolution of personal distress.
Credit Hours: 3
Instructor: Richard P. Walters, Ph.D.


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• PC 102 Life Builder Counseling

Life Builder Counseling

You know that each person in the world is different, yet you realize that people are more alike than different. Learn why: Understand how personalities develop and where problems come from, and master the basics of a system of counseling based upon biblical principles. This will help you comprehend your own motivations and actions and provide the foundation upon which you can learn and use Life Builder Counseling strategies to help other persons become more like Christ. You can learn how to apply biblical principles to help others resolve ordinary cognitive and emotional conflicts or habits that have diminished their quality of life. (It does not prepare you to engage in licensed mental health counseling.)
Credit Hours: 3
Instructor: Richard P. Walters, Ph.D.


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• PC 103 Bold Answers for Today’s Problems

Bold Answers for Today’s Problems

Increase your influence by understanding the worldviews of people who believe differently than you. (A worldview is a set of beliefs about the nature of the world and one's place within it, and it guides everything a person does.) After you learn how the traditional Christian worldview compares with the central elements of seven other common worldviews, you can more fully and successfully understand and care for people whose worldview differs from yours. This is rewarding because Christianity is about relationships, and the church is fully alive only when, in the spirit of Christ, it finds and cares for those who are unable or unwilling to reach toward it. After the survey of worldviews, the course examines innovative approaches of ministry to those new to the church, the unchurched, the incarcerated, and to those who are angry toward the church. Learning activities allow you to emphasize the application that interests you most.
Credit Hours: 3
Instructor: Prof. Roxane Kohout


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• PC 104 Issues in Aging and Elder Ministries

Issues in Aging and Elder Ministries

Feel secure when you respond to people in grief; find joy in visiting the ill or those confined at home or in a care facility; be confident when you talk with people who are near death or face a long-term incurable condition. The number of elderly in our society is growing rapidly, and with that comes greater demand for services. This course describes changes that typically take place during aging, and offers practical information and strategies for effective visitation, worship, and evangelism with the elderly. A multitude of experiences—aging, job change, retirement, or death of a loved one—lead to grief and loss. The spiritual and physical phenomena of death and dying are examined so that you learn how to provide meaningful comfort and support in ways consistent with the spirit of Christ. The course will also help you to understand your own responses to loss, grief, and death so that those experiences support, rather than interfere with, caring for others.
Credit Hours: 3
Instructor: Prof. Diana Walters


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Here's Why Students Love the Pastoral Care Specialist Certificate!

The certificate attests that you have completed academic coursework and applied experience under qualified instruction and with verifiable standards. It does not license or otherwise approve you for the practice of counseling or similar human services occupations that are under governmental regulation. 

Competence to Minister   You’ll grow in confidence and enthusiasm as you develop skills of pastoral care by learning the principles through interesting study and interaction with others, and from coaching by a capable mentor in your community. If God is calling you to activities of pastoral care, he will shepherd you and lead you into experiences that benefit people in distress and that reward you with a sense of participation in the work of God’s Kingdom on Earth. What can be better than that?

American Association of Pastoral Counselors   Upon completion you will have fulfilled the training requirements at the level of Pastoral Care Specialist of the AAPC and eligible to apply to them for membership. (Pastoral Care Specialists are not qualified to deliver long-term counseling or pastoral psychotherapy.) This recognition is more and more useful in opening doors of opportunity for service in hospitals and other care centers. 

Continuing Education Credit   You also have the option of earning contiuing education credit for the course via the Vision International Institute for Continuing Education and Training.

You're Eligible for the Program If...

You have a high school diploma and a desire to relate to people in distress as Jesus would relate to them.

Here's How to Get Started!

Enroll now in the first course, Communication Skills That Connect!  Additional courses coming soon.

Understand other people so you can show them how to improve their life. You can have high levels of influence and persuasion with other people only when you have the skills of high-quality communication—the process that regulates almost everything you do. This course will help you learn skills of active listening, gaining and sharing empathy, giving information and direct help, and being assertive. It shows you how to connect meaningfully with other persons no matter how different their life experiences may be from yours. With a bond of rapport and insight in their motivations, you can build strong personal friendships, become effective in administrative or other workplace relationships, or be useful as a life skills mentor or as a guide in the resolution of personal distress.
Credit Hours: 3
Instructor: Richard P. Walters, Ph.D.

Click Here to Enroll Now Online