Tania Hilton is a Luther House of Study graduate who is using her education in ways that extend beyond the traditional pastoral context. As director of the Unite Leadership Collective (ULC), she helps equip leaders to serve their churches with confidence and faithfulness.
She also serves as a Lutheran biblical counselor—a role that’s still relatively rare within Lutheran churches—and is working to train others in that calling.
We sat down with Tania to talk about her path to Luther House of Study, how her theological formation continues to shape her ministry, and her vision for expanding access to distinctly Lutheran biblical counseling through her work with Kairos University.
Tell us a little about yourself and your ministry today.
Right now, I’m actually doing two things. I am the director for the Unite Leadership Collective. We do leadership development training for churches, mostly in a Lutheran context, and then we teach leadership development through Luther House of Study—we have a leadership development class and a missions class. We’re very passionate about pastoral formation. There are so many churches that need pastors, so we want to help create alternative pathways for equipping leaders. But at the heart of it, the ULC is equipping the priesthood of all believers. We believe that every congregation member, every lay leader, any Christian is the priesthood of all believers, and we want to fully equip them so that they can go out and do whatever God’s work is in their life, whether that’s in ministry or in their vocation.
I’m also the founder and director of Anchored Biblical Counseling, which started in January 2026 as an LLC and officially became a non profit 501(c)3 in June. My passion has always been to start a Lutheran counseling center.
My research has been that non-denominational and Baptist churches put a lot into biblical counseling, so when I first got the call from the Lord to get into biblical counseling, I researched certification programs, and none of them were Lutheran. So I’m doing a doctorate program right now through Kairos University, and through that, I’m developing a Lutheran certification program, so I can teach, equip and educate lay leaders on how to provide biblical counseling, but with a Lutheran lens. That’s a big thing that I think is missing.
Why is the Lutheran lens so important when it comes to counseling?
I have run into issues where a lot of the biblical counseling programs that are out there completely renounce anything science-based. Some of the programs I’ve researched, if you have any psychology background or any clinical background, they won’t even allow you to be certified. My research and my belief is that we should have some understanding of science, and then as a wise leader, we can look at everything through a Christian lens.
If I’m working with somebody, and they come to me and say, “Well, my psychiatrist said that I have depression,” or “I’m a depressed person,” I would then filter that through the lens of Scripture. What does Scripture say about you? Scripture says that you are a sinner, but you’re also forgiven, and Christ forgiven you of all your sins. And so, while you have symptoms of depression—and as somebody who had postpartum depression, I understand that very deeply—that’s not your identity because that’s not what Christ says about you. He doesn’t say, “I’m going to make you a depressed person.” It’s the sin of the world that makes us depressed. So I’m very passionate about that: our identity lies in Christ.
How did God lead you into ministry—and eventually to Luther House of Study?
I felt the call from the Lord to get into counseling. I’ve always had a passion for understanding the way that the brain works. I remember when I was in high school—and I was a non-believer back then until about 2014—I took a psychology class, and I just had a passion for the way the brain worked, and I wanted to learn more about it and to become a licensed counselor.
I wanted to go to college for that, but I was speaking to my guidance counselor, and she dissuaded me from it, which I was upset about for many decades, until I realized this was all the Lord’s doing. If I had gone into licensure, it would have been very different from being a biblical counselor.
I became a believer in 2014, and by 2020 I had the calling to go back to school to learn how to counsel people through Scripture, and I thought, “How am I going to do that if I don’t even know what I don’t know.” I got connected through Kairos University, where I completed my bachelor’s degree, before beginning my M.Div. through Luther House of Study.
What was your experience like as a student at Luther House of Study?
The M.Div process took me about two and a half years. I’m very motivated, I love to learn, and because I didn’t have a Christian backpack coming into Luther House, I was just like a sponge. “Teach me everything, I don’t know anything.”
I didn’t have any embarrassment about asking questions because I didn’t grow up with Jesus in my household growing up.
In that process, I also became certified as a biblical counselor through another organization. Thankfully, I was getting my M.Div at the same time because that program was not Lutheran. That’s when I knew I had to create something because we need to equip Lutherans on how to do biblical counseling—and this is not it.
What are some of the biggest theological lessons you took away from your time at Luther House of Study?
Understanding the law and gospel distinction is probably the biggest thing. There’s no shame in saying that we’re sinners. It’s actually a beautiful thing because only sinners need Jesus. You can’t say you need Jesus unless you’re a sinner—to be able to just say, “I am a broken sinner, and I’m so grateful that through the blood of Jesus, He’s washed me clean every single day. Every single day, I’m washed and renewed.”
It’s just one of the things I didn’t understand the depth of as a new believer. Knowing that even though I mess up every single day, my identity is in Christ. There’s a lot of pressure as a biblical counselor, and every single day I have to recognize that there’s nothing I will say to an individual that will ever impact their life. I have to fully trust in the Holy Spirit.
Holy Spirit, give me the words. Holy Spirit, give me a clean heart. Holy Spirit, give them clarity. Give them ears to hear and eyes to see. There’s so much freedom in that.
What would you say to someone who’s considering taking their first class through Luther House of Study?
If there’s anybody who’s reading this that’s ever questioned whether going to Luther House would be fruitful, I would say, just take the Reformation class. If you’re not apocalypsed by the end of the class, then you don’t need it. But if you have ever had the desire to just see if there’s another layer, I’d say, just try it.
It’s all so good—the classes, the reading, everything. I even took the Reformation class twice. After I graduated, I audited it again because it’s just so good.