Multicultural Competence and the Christian
Multicultural competencies are essential aspects among the counselors since they are encouraged in Christian teachings. The successful development of multicultural competence ensures effective counseling between the counselor and the client. Therefore, we have different types of multicultural competences but I will only discuss my experience on the counselor’s awareness of the client’s worldview.
By reading various assignments, I have realized and experienced several reactions regarding the underpinnings of social justice and multicultural counseling. The first experience that has come across me is the feeling of becoming overwhelmed. Hay (2018) has done a significant work of explaining to me how to deal with people who are from different ethnicity and cultures. Hay argues about developing a client’s awareness so that we can accommodate them despite the negative emotions of some clients. Such arguments seem very difficult to me but Moitinho (2019) presentation made me learn how to accommodate others.
Moitinho’s (2019) presentation teaches me how to deal with the overwhelming situation when am offering services to others. Furthermore, his teachings made me learn how to engage with other people who we share different characteristics such as race and ethnicity. As a Christian, I learned that I should never become tired to offer any human services to other people regardless of cultural differences.
Moitinho (2019) presentation reminded me that we are called by the highest to love others regardless of the differences. Besides, God himself has already modeled loving behavior through His incarnation (Moitinho, 2019). The holy bible teaches us that we can achieve peace in society after offering essential services to those in need. Hebrews 6: 10 says “ God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.” This verse teaches that God will continue loving us if we serve others despite the differences since we are created in God’s likeness and image. God provides us with biblical anthropology to remind us of our duty to love. He also created every human being in His likeness and image thus proving that we should continue with love mission. “So God created mankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27 NIV). Moreover, Moitinho (2019) points out that Jesus come into earth to bring peace and he went into the darkness to show the truth about love to the people despite his sinless nature. (1 peter 2:22, NIV) says that “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” The suffering and death of Jesus for the whole world show that we have the Supreme Being who can strengthen our weakness. Jesus teaches us to relate well with every person since he interacted and related well with individuals who did not share cultural values with him (Hebrews 4:15, ESV). The principle I can add about counseling from the Christian point of view is developing non-judgmental decisions when relating to others. The Bible teaches me to avoid judgment and discrimination when serving others with love as Jesus our savior. James 4:12 says “there is only one judge, who can destroy and save. But who are you to judge your neighbor?”
Developing the client’s worldview among counselors is the competency that I predict to be very challenging in counseling. This is because it is difficult to cope with the negative emotions of people from different ethnicities and racial groups. Even though, it a desire for every counselor to do good, multicultural counseling includes many obstacles that are difficult to overcome. Selfishness, laziness, fear and also being a father or husband can be enough excuse that I can use while opting to not offer counseling services to those in need. However, the Christian teachings tell us to avoid such excuses and follow Jesus’ advocacy and his significant commission of social justice (Matthew 28:20 KJV). Therefore, I believe a counselor’s awareness of the client’s worldview is more of a Christian worldview calling rather a requirement of professional counseling.
References
Hays, D. G., & Erford, B. T. (2018). Developing multicultural counseling competence: A systems approach.
Moitinho, E. (2019) Multicultural counseling competencies and the Christian. Liberty University.