Liberty professors honored by American Association of Christian Counselors

Drs. Elias Moitinho and Gary Sibcy, professors in the Liberty University School of Behavioral Sciences, have been recognized by the American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC) for their decades of work in clinical and classroom settings in the mental health field.

Moitinho, a counseling professor and residential chair of the Department of Counselor Education & Family Studies, received the AACC Caregiver Award for Excellence in Christian Caregiving. Sibcy, a psychology professor and director of Liberty’s Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology program, was awarded the Michael Lyles Award for Excellence in Clinical Practice.

The awards were presented last month during the organization’s World Conference in Nashville, Tenn., where Liberty faculty, including Sibcy and Moitinho, gave 21 presentations throughout the conference.

The AACC assists Christian counselors, licensed professionals, pastors, and lay church members by equipping them with biblical truth and psychosocial insights that minister to hurting persons and help them move to personal wholeness, interpersonal competence, mental stability, and spiritual maturity.

“I was so encouraged by the level and variety of scholarship of our faculty at the conference,” said Dr. Kenyon Knapp, dean of the School of Behavioral Sciences. “They represented Liberty and our Lord well at the conference, and Dr. Moitinho and Dr. Sibcy were honored for their leadership in the counseling field. I am encouraged by the way our faculty continues to influence their field for the Lord.”

Sibcy, a Licensed Clinical Psychologist (LCP), has taught at Liberty for almost 20 years and has spent the last 25 years in clinical practice at the Piedmont Psychiatric Center within Centra Virginia Baptist Hospital in Lynchburg, Va. Sibcy has supervised many Liberty students in the department as they complete their practicums and internships, and he continues to do research, publish, and speak nationally and internationally.

Last fall, Sibcy was appointed to the Board of Psychology for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

“I was really delighted (by the award),” Sibcy said. “I’ve worked with AACC and (AACC President) Tim Clinton for years, and it was nice to be recognized and hopefully use it to continue to build our clinical programs here at Liberty.”

“I’m a psychologist because I feel like it’s a calling,” he added. “I really encourage our faculty in the clinical psychology program to stay clinically active while they teach, because your practice can influence your teaching and your teaching can influence your practice.”

Moitinho received the Excellence in Christian Caregiving award in recognition of his years as a pastor, counselor, seminary professor, author, and director of a Christian counseling center. He has taught for 20 years, the past 12 at Liberty, with a focus on mental health counseling and marriage and family counseling. He assisted the AACC in developing a Mental Health Coaching curriculum, in both English and Spanish, designed for members of the Church to address mental health issues.

“I felt honored because I know a lot of the members of the AACC are top leaders in the Christian counseling and mental health field, so to be recognized for my work was very special,” Moitinho said. “I’m very thankful to the Lord. The glory goes to Him. The vision I have that God has given me is to use any gifts and talents I have received to minister to others, including through the Church.”

Moitinho and his wife, Dr. Denise Moitinho, an associate professor in the Department of Community Care & Counseling, published a book in 2020 titled “The Dream Home: How to Create an Intimate Christian Marriage.” The couple leads the Spanish marriage and family ministry at Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg. They also have a YouTube channel, Motivation and Growth, where they post videos on the topics of marriage, relationships, mental health, and spiritual growth.

Both Sibcy and Moitinho shared how they approach their roles of serving patients and students with a Christian worldview and allow the Holy Spirit to use them, whether their actions are outspoken or implied.

“It’s embedded into what you do and who you are, but you sometimes have to make a distinction about how your faith and worldview play themselves out in your clinical setting,” Sibcy said. “If I’m practicing in an explicitly Christian environment, I can talk to them about faith, Christian values, their relationship with God, and so on. But if you’re in non-Christian settings … it’s about finding how being a Christian can implicitly inform what you do, and that’s an important piece. We pray for our patients, we ask God for direction and wisdom for helping them, and we allow the Holy Spirit to influence how we treat those we meet.”

“With everything I do, it starts with the basic question of, ‘What does the Bible say about this?’” Moitinho said. “With whatever issue people bring, I have that question in the back of my mind because then it’s not just using human wisdom to help people, it’s bringing God and His wisdom to the situation. Every time I’m in front of the classroom, I integrate that biblical worldview into the subject of counseling. I try to convey to the students the importance of using the Word of God to speak into the lives of people.”