IDr. Richard Ganz was born in New York City, and raised in a Jewish home. He graduated from the City University of New York with a degree in Psychology. He then earned his master’s degree and his Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Wayne State University. After a year’s internship in the department of psychiatry at Wayne State University Medical Center, in Detroit, Michigan, he followed that with a year of Post-Doctoral study in the department of child psychiatry at Upstate Medical Center, in Syracuse, New York, where he was later on the Clinical Faculty of the Department of Psychiatry, as well as teaching at Syracuse University. Following his conversion to Jesus Christ, Dr. Ganz went on to receive his theological training at Westminster Theological Seminary, where he received his Master of Divinity degree. Dr. Ganz has lectured at major secular universities and Christian
Seminaries around the world such as Tokyo, including Moscow State University, Harvard University, University of Maryland, The Free Evangelical Theological Academy in Switzerland, The Institute Biblique in Belgium and The Free Theological Academy in Germany. He has also had an extensive conference and seminar ministry in many countries around the world. He is the Senior Pastor of the Ottawa Reformed Presbyterian Church and the President of Ottawa Theological Hall, where he is Professor of Biblical Psychology and Counseling. He and his wife Nancy, the author of the “Herein is Love” Old Testament commentary series for children have four daughters and live on "Son Flower Farm" in the Ottawa valley.
In this website, I will attempt to provide all kinds of resources to help you grow into the likeness of Jesus Christ. In the next several months I will be developing a theme that I hope will be of great help to you, as I speak of Biblical Counseling. Today, I just want to take a few minutes of your time, to help you see just what I mean when I speak about Biblical Counseling.
When I speak about Biblical Counseling, I am talking about doing counseling God’s way. In its simplest sense, this means that when God uses us to bring about restoration in people’s lives, Jesus is at the center of such ministry. It is realizing that in everything we do, we do it to and for the glory of God. The restoration of broken people is near the heart of such glory-filled endeavors.
This means that Biblical Counseling is invariably Christ centered as well as Bible centered. Since the Bible is the Spirit inspired Word of God, Biblical Counseling is also Spirit centered. The goal of Biblical Counseling is to help people accomplish that very glory of God in their lives. This is accomplished as they experience themselves being conformed into the ‘same image as Christ, from glory to ever increasing glory, just as the Lord’ (2Corinthians 3:18).
Next time, I hope to spend a few moments explaining how and why the Bible receives such centrality in all that I do.