Classes.

Acting on Hope

Winter 2025 Course Registration

Acting on Hope: Peace, Comfort, and Hope in Christ Crucified and Arisen is the basic course in the Acting on Hope/Bible-Based Counseling Curriculum. It is designed to be a course in which students learn from each other as well as from the teacher and the textbooks. The basic intent of the course is to help students develop their own way of using God’s Word in a counseling session or series of sessions that will best honor the Word of God, best help their clients, and that will respect and use evidence-based counseling best practices and methods.

Now in session: MLC PSY9501 Acting on Hope 1, Semester 2, 2024-2025

Look for info on upcoming offerings

Acting on Hope online course

Select the tabs below to view more information about the course.

REGISTRATION & FEES

$340.00 tuition – payable to Martin Luther College
Counselors employed by Christian Family Solutions will have their tuition fee paid by the agency

There are two parts to the registration. You are responsible to complete both parts by deadline. More information coming!

Part 1: Register online to make payment on the Martin Luther College website before deadline passed – December 15, 2024 for the MLC PSY9501 Acting on Hope 1, Semester 2, 2024–2025 course.

Part 2: Complete your course registration form deadline passed – December 15, 2025, which will alert your instructor.

Important! You must complete both parts above.

Once you are registered

Review the Moodle tutorial to prepare student for use of the Moodle platform for the course. MLC provides this free tutorial.
Order your books

FORMAT

The course will be offered through Martin Luther College (MLC). It will be on a Moodle platform. It will be a one-credit online course for graduate-level students. It will be worth 25 clock hours.
Each two-part lesson will be finished in one week.
The course will last for 10 consecutive weeks.
The course will begin on January 23, 2024, and will go until April 3, 2025.
There are no course videos or sessions that require all students to be present at any given time, however, Zoom discussion groups will be available to encourage student growth and practical application of the material presented.
This interactive course depends upon the critique that each student gives to the submissions of his or her classmates and his or her response to that critique.
Grading will be done on submissions and participation in Moodle discussions.
Class size will be limited, so enroll early.
The ideal mix would be several experienced WELS or ELS Christian counselors taking the course with several counselors who are less experienced in Christian counseling.

CEUs

This course has not been approved to provide CEUs by any national boards. However, it is offered by an accredited college. Participants will be provided with a certificate of attendance. In some states, a certificate of attendance can be counted toward your required CEUs. Your course grade report, which you will receive from MLC, may also serve as proof that you have taken the course. MLC notes that the course is equal to 25 clock hours. We know that this certificate will allow you to apply up to 15 CEUs to your requirement in the states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Please check with your state licensing department if you reside in a state other than Wisconsin or Minnesota.

METHOD

Acting on Hope will be taught in a distance learning format. Students are required to read assigned material from several essays and from the book by Armin Schuetze, Basic Doctrines of the Bible. One week is allowed for each lesson. Each lesson is divided into two assignments. Each lesson will require the student to read assigned material, submit comments or discussion, or a case study, and then critique and discuss the material submitted by others. The teacher is involved in the comment and discussion process.

OBJECTIVES

The student will make a review of basic Bible doctrines based on the book by Armin Schuetze, Basic Doctrines of the Bible.
The student will demonstrate the ability to do clinical interviewing using the Bible as a resource tool, at the same time using and respecting the best practices of evidence-based counseling.
The student will be able to help his or her clients use the Bible to provide comfort and hope in situations of loss and grieving.
The student will demonstrate preparedness to use the Bible with Solution-Focused Therapy.
The student will demonstrate that he/she is capable of using the Bible with Cognitive Behavioral approaches to counseling.
The student will learn how to use the Bible with depressed and anxious clients, offering hope in connection with various evidence-based counseling theories.
The student will demonstrate the ability to help depressed and anxious clients who are experiencing feelings of shame and guilt by using the Bible in connection with various clinical evidence-based approaches to counseling.
The student will understand the Law and Gospel approach to pastoral counseling used by many pastors.
The student will understand the tensions that can develop between pastors and therapists and demonstrate that he or she has learned ways to alleviate those tensions.
Upon completion of the course or its equivalent, the student will be qualified to take graduate-level courses in the Acting on Hope/Bible-Based Counseling curriculum.

MATERIALS

The following materials are supplied:

Five Essays by Alan Siggelkow:
1. Acting on Hope: Peace, Comfort, and Hope in Christ Crucified and Arisen
2. The Repentance Model
3. The Forgiveness Process
4. Hopeful Solutions
5. Using God’s Word in a Counseling Session
Schuetze, Armin, Basic Doctrines of the Bible, Northwestern Publishing House, Milwaukee, WI, 1969.
The Website: https://christiantherapistnetwork.com/ will be a valuable resource for the course.

The student will need to purchase:
Church-Mission-Ministry, The Family of God, by Armin Schuetze, Northwestern Publishing House (NPH), Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1999.
Marrs, Rick W., Making Christian Counseling More Christ Centered, Westbow Press, Bloomington, IN: 2019
Luther’s Catechism, 2017 edition, Northwestern Publishing House, Milwaukee: 2017.

It will also be helpful for students to own a copy of and Quick Scripture Reference for Counselors, by John G. Kruis, Baker Books, which can be obtained from NPH or Amazon. These books may also be purchased through the MLC Bookstore.

INSTRUCTOR

Alan Sigglekow

Alan H. Siggelkow is currently serving as a Christian therapist at Christian Family Solutions in Germantown, Wisconsin. He has an LCSW license. He has a Master of Divinity degree and a Sacred Theology Master’s from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. He also has a Master of Social Work degree and a certificate in Marriage and Family Therapy from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

He served as a professor of pastoral counseling at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Mequon, Wisconsin for nearly 20 years. Prior to that he served as a pastor for 18 years in parishes in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

He is married with two children and three grandchildren.

Classes.

Acting on Hope

Winter 2025 Course Registration

Acting on Hope online course

Important! You must complete both parts above.

What others are saying about Acting on Hope

FIND A CHRISTIAN THERAPIST

PARTNER WITH US

A MINISTRY OF WELS SPECIAL MINISTRIES

Classes.

Acting on Hope

Winter 2025 Course Registration

Acting on Hope online course

Important! You must complete both parts above.

What others are saying about Acting on Hope

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FIND A CHRISTIAN THERAPIST

PARTNER WITH US

A MINISTRY OF WELS SPECIAL MINISTRIES