Education has been a crucial part in Christianity. Since God was so affectionate toward Korea, He sent missionaries and let them establish institutes to educate His unenlightened people. Those mission schools were more than just formal schools; they w...
Education has been a crucial part in Christianity. Since God was so affectionate toward Korea, He sent missionaries and let them establish institutes to educate His unenlightened people. Those mission schools were more than just formal schools; they were established to preach the gospel and to teach how to serve with the love of God.
However, the present mission schools almost lost their identities. They intensively teach their students to be the winner on the race of the exam-hell, while the fundamental aim of mission schools degenerated as the subordinate one. A student refused to attend service at a mission school, crying for his noble freedom of religion, and many sympathized with his assertion. In this variated situation, educators, who take part in mission schools, should retrieve the identity of mission schools and move away from the formal service to substantial Christianity education.
Particularly, the counselling service in school is getting more important nowadays, and several psychological assessments and psychological-approaching counselling are becoming prevalent. The problem is, the counselling service in mission schools also approaches in the same way as the other institutes, despite their Christian identities. Counselling in mission schools needs to be firmly based on the biblical approaches in accordance with their Christian identities and the purpose to preach gospel. Nevertheless, still the most students in mission schools never encounter the biblical-approaching counselling, according to the survey on students in 6 mission schools. Thus I focus on the practical application of biblical approaches in counselling at mission schools, and thesis on the outcome of biblical counselling based on several cases.
Since mission schools officially hold service and teach Christianity as a normal subject, it was quite natural to apply biblical approaches in counselling. Although there were some students never been to church, they didn't feel uncomfortable with talking about Jesus Christ and the Bible, because they have been already familiar with Christianity through religious classes and service. This factor affects positively to apply biblical approaches in counselling.
Furthermore, it should be considered that the purpose of biblical counselling is identical with that of preaching gospel in mission schools. Biblical counselling not only leads Christian students to be more faithful, but also provides great opportunities to preach the gospel to non-Christian students. Based on the thesis, I find out that the biblical counselling can substantively apply to anti-Christian students in mission schools, not limited to Christian students in church.
"...until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." (Ephesians 4:13) shows the exact purpose of Christian education. Also "We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ." (Colossians 1:28) represents the object of biblical counselling. As two verses above explain, the ultimate aim of biblical counselling in mission schools is to set students steadfast in faith and to be completed in Jesus Christ. I desire this thesis be helpful to establish the biblical counselling in mission schools and other ordinary schools as well.