Course Introduction

In chaplaincy, people often come to you carrying deep emotional pain, unresolved trauma, confusion, and brokenness they don’t know how to articulate. In those moments, your role is not to diagnose, fix, or counsel beyond your calling—but to provide safe, wise, Spirit-led care that leads people toward healing and restoration. Chaplaincy: Care and Counseling equips you to walk with people through difficult conversations with clarity, confidence, and compassion.

In this course, Dr. Mike Cowen provides a practical and biblical framework for chaplain care and counseling, helping you understand your role, your boundaries, and your authority. You will learn how to create safety, identify underlying issues, apply God’s Word with wisdom, and guide people toward healthy next steps—without crossing legal, emotional, or spiritual lines.

What You’ll Learn

In this five-session course, you will discover:

Know Your Rights – Learn the legal and ethical foundations of chaplain care, including confidentiality, mandatory reporting, and the unique protections and responsibilities that come with chaplaincy. This session helps you minister confidently while protecting both yourself and those you serve.

What’s the Goal? – Understand how to clarify purpose in care and counseling conversations. You’ll learn the difference between counseling, mentoring, and coaching, and how to establish clear direction using the 5Ws Model so conversations lead toward healing rather than confusion.

Obstacles and Symptoms – Discover how to identify what is really happening beneath the surface. This session trains you to recognize symptoms versus root causes, avoid assumptions, ask effective questions, and create safety through skilled listening and validation.

What Does the Word, Wisdom, and Experience Say? – Learn how to apply Scripture with wisdom and discernment. You’ll discover how to use God’s Word as a tool for healing rather than pressure, identify key signal words, and help people realign their thinking with truth without overwhelming or spiritualizing pain.

Next Steps, Validation, and Permission – Understand how to properly close care conversations. You’ll learn how to assign healthy next steps, validate progress, release people from dependence, and help transform pain into growth and testimony while keeping responsibility where it belongs.

Why This Course Matters

Many chaplains feel called to care but struggle with uncertainty when conversations become heavy, emotional, or complex. Without structure and clarity, it is easy to overstep boundaries, take on responsibility that isn’t yours, or feel ineffective in moments that require wisdom and restraint.

This provides a clear framework that allows you to minister with confidence and integrity—helping you walk people through pain without becoming their solution. This course equips you to provide care that is compassionate, biblical, and sustainable, ensuring that healing flows from God rather than dependence on the chaplain.

Course Features

• 5 video sessions with Dr. Mike Cowen
• Downloadable course overview with practical application guide
• Certificate of completion
• 1 credit hour toward a Warrior Notes School of Ministry degree
• Taught in the Spirit-filled, practical teaching style you expect from Warrior Notes

If you are called to walk with people through pain, confusion, and emotional hardship, Chaplaincy: Care and Counseling will strengthen your ability to serve with clarity and compassion.