This past April, I spoke at the TGC Women’s conference in Indianapolis. I also spent a good bit of time talking to women at the RTS booth about their hopes and dreams for ministry education.
I was asked repeatedly about which degree program would be helpful for women wanting to go to seminary. Although all our programs are great, I think the RTS Charlotte Master of Arts in Christian Counseling degree (MACC) is a wonderful option.
Here are a few important facts about Charlotte’s MACC:
1. Half of the MACC’s 66 credit hours are in Bible and theology. That means the degree is not filled only with counseling courses, but also with Bible and theology courses. After all, how can you have a biblical counseling degree without studying the Bible?
Thus, MACC students not only know how to counsel, they know the crucial content of their counseling.
2. You can get the MACC in four years without relocating. Let me say that again. You can get the MACC without moving. How do we do it? We offer the MACC degree in a flexible Summer/Winter format so that all the counseling classes can be taken in-person, face-to-face.
To be clear, this means our MACC degree is not an online degree like so many other degrees today. All our counseling classes are residential and in-person. They are simply done in intensive formats during the winter and summer.
Given that counseling is inherently a relational exercise, we think it is a bit counter-intuitive to get a counseling degree by only plugging in the head phones and looking at a computer screen. Instead, counseling is best taught and learned in a face-to-face environment where students can interact with each other and with the professors.
3. You can get the MACC more quickly if you already have a seminary degree. If you have already graduated from seminary, but wished you had had more counseling classes, then we have good news for you. You can transfer much of your previous course credits into the MACC degree so that you can complete the MACC even faster.
So if you are already out in ministry and want to get a counseling degree without starting completely over (and without moving!) then Charlotte’s MACC is the one for you.
4. As a full-time residential student, you can get both the MDiv and MACC in four years. If you are thinking about going to seminary and can’t decide between a MDiv and a MACC, here’s something to consider: at Charlotte you can get them both in four years. That’s right, our dual-degree option allows you to get two Masters degrees at once.
In addition to the considerations above, Charlotte’s biblical counseling degree has a number of other distinctives:
- Committed to the gospel message and the sufficiency of God’s Word as the basis of all counseling
- Our program shares the same biblical perspective on the counseling task as modeled in organizations like the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF) and the Biblical Counseling Coalition (BCC).
- Phenomenal visiting faculty including Ed Welch, Rod Mays, Jeremy Pierre, Heath Lambert, Deepak Reju, and Bob Kellemen
- Great residential faculty of Jim Newheiser and Nate Brooks.
- Located in beautiful city of Charlotte on a gorgeous 17 acre campus
To read more about the new program, see here. Hope to see you in a counseling class soon!