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Book Recommendation: Gospel Conversations: How to Care Like Christ

Dr. Robert Kellemen, Chair of the Biblical Counseling and Discipleship Department at Crossroads Bible College, is the author of Gospel Conversations: How to Care Like Christ. Published by Zondervan, Gospel Conversations is part of the Equipping Biblical Counselors Series, and is the follow up to Kellemen's previous book, also from Zondervan, Gospel Centered Counseling: How Christ Changes Lives (you can read my recommendation of that book HERE).

As part of the Equipping Series, Gospel Conversations is concerned with providing biblical counselors with the skills they need to use the gospel in the context of soul care for teaching others how to resist temptation and respond to suffering with love for God and one another (p.15). Kellemen wrote that "Gospel Conversations provides an intensive, relational, hands-on equipping manual" designed to develop in the counselor "twenty-one biblical counseling relational skills" to care like Christ (p.15).

Kellemen succeeds in meeting his stated purposes for Gospel Conversations by providing twelve in-depth chapters and helpful appendices that unpack the one thing he asks his reader to not forget throughout the book:

We learn to become competent biblical counselors by giving and receiving biblical counseling in the context of real and raw community (p.17).

In keeping with the spirit of Kellemen's other works, Gospel Conversations is not merely a theoretical treatment of the critically important task of providing biblical soul care. It is a hands-on, practical teaching tool designed to equip the body of Christ for "face-to-face gospel ministry where we speak the truth in love to one another" (p.17). With extensive follow up questions designed for small group or individual application, Gospel Conversations has the biblical counselor's growth and maturity in full view.

The strength of Gospel Conversations is of course found in its gospel-centeredness, but the reader also benefits greatly from Kellemen's writing style and experience as a teacher. The book is accessible to most readers, yet appropriate for any setting in which training for biblical counseling is occurring. The net result, then, of a thorough reading of Gospel Conversations is a biblical counselor who is better prepared to care like Christ.

"Christ's vision for the church involves the whole body sharing Scripture and soul in gospel conversations where we help one another to become more like Christ as we endure suffering as overcomers and battle and defeat sin as more than conquerors." Dr. Robert Kellemen (p.354)

To purchase a copy of Gospel Conversations, visit Dr. Kellemen's ministry website HERE.