Back to School

 As I finished up my B.A. in History at the University of Southern California in 2002, I began filling out applications and seriously praying about going to seminary. One of my best friends and I prayed together consistently and we were considering the same school. We had great plans to further our education, which would prepare us for lives of ministry. We were going to be missionaries. He was going to serve in inner city New York and I was headed to some jungle somewhere. After a lot of prayer we decided that formal education was not the route to take. We didn't want to keep reading. We just wanted to start applying what we already knew. He began working as a janitor at his church and I began working as a warehouseman at a Christian relief and development organization. We were going to learn humility in the school of service. And we did. Since then, both of us got married, we increased our responsibilities serving in our local churches, I traveled to over 20 countries teaching and learning from church leaders and missionaries all over the world all while serving children in need by providing for their most basic physical needs and teaching them about the God who loves them.

For the past 10 years I've thought often about returning to college and pursuing a graduate degree in history or some related field. I love learning and using what I learn to encourage others. But I've never been able to justify going back to school. It seems too much like an easy way out for me. I've known that I can't go back to school until I know exactly why I'm there. I would have to be studying something that could be directly applied to work, or that would really equip me for some new kind of work.

In September, I went back to school. But it wasn't in the way i was expecting. I started a new job serving in an administrative role at Eternity Bible College as the Director of Institutional Assessment. I have the awesome privilege and responsibility of helping gather data and improve our processes of administration, teaching and learning to make sure we are accomplishing our mission and values in everything we do as an institution.

I am back in school in a way I never imagined...and I love it.