This summer, Dr. John Street will be transitioning to a full-time role at The Master’s Seminary as their Distinguished Lecturer and Research Fellow in Biblical Counseling.
Street, the longtime chair of TMU’s Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling (MABC) program, will continue to teach biblical counseling courses for the University, where he has served for 26 years. He joined the institution in 1999, first as a professor of biblical counseling and eventually in a leadership position over TMU’s graduate and doctoral biblical counseling programs.
“Though he is not finished, for 26 years Dr. Street invested his life at TMU, carrying on a legacy of fidelity to Scripture, fervent nurturing of students, and faithfulness to equip the church worldwide with competent and caring biblical counselors,” says Dr. Mitch Hopewell, TMU’s provost and chief academic officer. “More than a professor, he is a mentor who has led his students in devotion to Christ and Scripture. His influence will echo in churches around the world through countless graduates of the MABC program.”
During his tenure at TMU, Street has not only taught countless courses, but has also overseen the tremendous growth of the MABC program and spearheaded the creation of TMU’s doctoral program in biblical counseling.
“It’s been a real blessing to be able to train people up with confidence in the sufficiency of Scripture,” Street says. “There is a deep hunger in the students at TMU — a hunger for understanding the Word of God well — that I did not experience in the previous two institutions that I taught in. And I think that says a lot about The Master’s University and the direction in which we’re going. We have a very unique thing going on there. That’s what has kept me here for 26 years.”
While Street has long been involved at TMS through teaching biblical counseling classes, this transition opens up opportunities for him to develop new courses and focus on writing projects he has long desired to finish.
“My desire is to crank out a lot of books that have been in the queue,” he says. “They’ve been backed up, and I’ve not been able to do them because I’m too busy with my teaching load.”
But even more than that, Street is excited to get back, in some ways, to his pastoral roots.
“I always tell people that I’m really a pastor trapped in a counselor’s body,” he says. “For the first 25 years of my ministry I was in pastoral ministry. The second half of it I’ve been in teaching ministry, but I’ve never lost that zeal for pastoral ministry or for pastoral work.”
As he looks ahead to the transition, Street is deeply thankful for the opportunities he’s had to serve at TMU.
“I am extremely grateful to the Lord to have been a part of it,” he says. “I pinch myself every day. I told Dr. Hopewell, ‘You know, I would have loved doing this whether I received a paycheck or not. But my wife’s really happy you gave me a paycheck.’”
Those who have worked with Street over the years are likewise very grateful for his service and influence at the University.
Mark Smith, director of MABC, says, “He has been and continues to be a godly brother, counselor, friend, leader, mentor, and pastor who exudes joy in and love for the Lord and His Word that is contagious and encouraging like few others.”
Jamaica Groover-Skelton, administrative assistant and adjunct professor for the MABC program, agrees entirely.
“He has been my professor, my pastor, and my supervisor,” she says. “His leadership is treasured to me. It’s not common to have someone fulfill all three of these important roles so well in one person’s life — everyone gets a little bit of it, but not all three. So I feel really unique to be in that situation. It’s a great honor that the Lord allowed me to work with him.”
Dr. Keith Palmer, a counseling instructor at TMU, emphasizes how Street has safeguarded the programs’ biblical convictions.
He says, “As the counseling landscape in Christian higher education is in constant flux, Dr. Street has ensured that the biblical counseling programs at TMU have remained steadfast in their adherence to the superiority and sufficiency of Christ and His Word for soul care.”
He’s done this, in part, by always reiterating this biblical hermeneutic to his fellow faculty in the counseling programs, including Dr. Shelbi Cullen:
“Dr. Street instilled in us the importance of proper hermeneutics,” Cullen says. “His passion for rightly handling the Word of God shaped the way I approach both Scripture and counseling. Because of his influence, I’ve learned to be an exegetical thinker — carefully studying the text in its context and applying it meaningfully in counseling conversations. His care and concern for God’s truth will be his lasting legacy at TMU.”
James Street, who serves as an admissions coordinator for the MABC program, has seen up close Dr. Street’s invaluable contribution to TMU’s mission.
“TMU is a passionate defender of the inerrancy and authority of Scripture,” James says. “But there is no clearer place these doctrines are put to test than in the discipline of biblical counseling, because it is there that one’s adherence to inerrancy and authority are revealed by one’s adherence to biblical sufficiency. Dr. Street has led the charge to guard the vital doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture at TMU over the past 25 years in the biblical counseling department. We take biblical sufficiency at TMU for granted every day, because he has protected it so well.”
With the foundation that has been laid, Dr. Street has high hopes for this next era of biblical counseling at TMU.
“The potential of these programs growing in influence, especially with the doctoral program, is even greater than it was before,” he says. “Now we’re influencing church leaders and pastors from all around the world. And when you influence them, they in turn will influence their people.
“We’re going to see a lot more people, I think, coming to The Master’s University because they’ll be influenced by people coming out of our graduate and doctoral programs. I think that growth is going to be tremendous.”
