I am now in my second year as a faculty member at À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ’s Talbot School of Theology. Prior to this, I’ve spent the last 16 years of my life doing primarily two things: 1) attending three different universities, and; 2) working for local churches in a variety of capacities. You would think that after that amount of time invested in both theological higher education and church service, I would have learned quite a bit about the local church. Yet, this is anything but the case and not because the curriculum of my seminary lacked adequate focus on ecclesiology. Rather, teaching at a Christian university has opened up an amazing new curriculum for me and afforded me a unique and fresh vista from which to view the Church and learn from one of her most precious treasures – young people – and in this case, undergraduate students.

I would like to share some of the greatest lessons this new curriculum has taught me as I seek to teach undergraduates.

Failing the Exam

The Exam Questions

1. Where are 18-25 year old young people being discipled?

2. Where are they learning to share their faith?

3. Where are they entering into accountability?

4. Where are they experiencing genuine, authentic relationships?

5. Where are they experiencing help in their sins by having people carry their burdens as Gal 6.1-2 instructs?

Sadly, from my perspective, the answer to each of these questions far too often is not “the Church.â€

The Situation

  • As a professor I have done more pastoral ministry than I have ever done as a pastor. This may seem incredibly counter-intuitive, but reflects a number of realities and deficiencies that as a church we really need to get serious about.

    Dr Donna Theonnes, professor in Biola’s Torrey Honors Institute and wife of my Biblical and Theological Studies colleague Dr Eric Theonnes, once remarked that every undergraduate is two questions away from tears. My experience as a professor has so far confirmed her profound observation in ways that I never knew possible. I simply cannot believe some of the issues that my students either are currently in the midst of or have come out of. In my class on the Pentateuch I require my students to write an end of the semester paper reflecting on what theme or topic found in the Pentateuch most impacted their lives in the course of working through the first five books of the Bible. As I read some