The Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, a member of the World Reformed Fellowship, is beginning a Biblical Counseling Institute. Its design is to supplement what we do in the classroom in the field of Biblical counseling. In some ways, it is modeled after the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation (CCEF) in Philadelphia, which was started in conjunction with Westminster Seminary.

We have selected Dr. George Scipione, who worked at CCEF in its early days and later started a similar program in San Diego, to be our first director. The big difference is that we have chosen to keep the governance of the counseling institute directly under the oversight of the seminary's board and administration. Our goal is to enhance the training of those who will do counseling in the context of the local church; and we hope that the stability of a seminary now in its 199th year will enable the counseling institute to thrive and to continue deeply rooted in the theology and practice of the sponsoring denomination. Only the Lord knows how this will develop, but we hope that we can in future years testify to the anticipated reality that having the counseling institute rooted within the seminary itself will have provided a stable, close working relationship between the pastoral theology staff of the Seminary and the counseling institute, producing trained pastors and lay counselors that the church so desperately needs. For further information, contact Dr. Jerry O’Neill; President; Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary; 7418 Penn Avenue; Pittsburgh, PA 15208; telephone: 412-731-8690; e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..