TIL 555: What To Do in the First Session (feat. Jonathan Moorhead)
Truth in Love
Association of Certified Biblical Counselors
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 16 February 2026
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
1. What are some of the things you are thinking about as you step into the first session.
2. What is guiding how you set the trajectory from the first session?
3. How are you helping the counselees to get on board with this trajectory?
4. What fruit have you seen from approaching counseling this way?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What to do in the first session on this edition of Truth and Love. |
| 0:11.0 | I'm Dale Johnson, and you're listening to Truth and Love, a podcast of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, |
| 0:15.9 | where we seek to provide biblical solutions to the problems that people face. |
| 0:20.0 | This week on the podcast, I'm grateful to have |
| 0:22.0 | with me, Dr. Jonathan Morehead. He served for 17 years in Russia and the Czech Republic and is now |
| 0:28.0 | a pastor of Geneva Bible Church in Switzerland. He teaches for the Master's Academy International and |
| 0:33.4 | is a fellow with ACBC. He has an MDIV and a THM from the Master's Seminary and a Ph.D. |
| 0:38.7 | from Dallas Theological Seminary. He's published the trial of the 16th century Calvin and |
| 0:43.5 | Servetus. And next year, Christian Focus will publish his book Directive Biblical Counseling, |
| 0:48.9 | six steps to counseling yourselves and others. Jonathan and his wife, Sharon, have five children, and Sharon is also |
| 0:55.3 | certified with ACBC. Brother, it's so good to have you on the podcast, looking forward to our time |
| 1:00.6 | together today. Thank you for having me. Now, at our recent annual conference, you had an opportunity |
| 1:05.2 | to present a breakout, and this was the subject. And it's so good to revisit these key elements, |
| 1:10.5 | because I think sometimes we forget these. |
| 1:12.8 | Even for those who've been doing counseling for a long time, we get in ruts and we forget some of the most important pieces. |
| 1:19.4 | So as you're a counselor walking in the first session, describe to me some of the things that you're thinking, the things that are preparing you, your heart to walk |
| 1:28.0 | into that first session that are critical for you to understand what's happening. |
| 1:32.9 | Right. So before I go into the first session, there's a little bit of paperwork that I do with |
| 1:36.9 | people as far as what we traditionally know is the PDI personal data inventory intake forms. |
| 1:43.0 | And so I would have already familiarized myself with the case |
| 1:46.9 | and the problems using the intake form that I use. And I also require before the first session |
| 1:53.6 | every counselorie to read Stuart Scott's little pamphlet from pride to humility. Because if there's |
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