Chris PalmerI am often asked a version of the same question. A parent leans in and says, “If my child goes to seminary, will their faith hold up?” It is a fair question. People imagine a classroom where professors dismantle everything they ever believed, and...
Nathan J. McKannaAccording to the latest statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), there are just over three million graduate students in the United States. Nearly 75,000 of these students (2%) are enrolled in a seminary, which is a type...
Ben PhillipsA syllabus is like the Ten Commandments: delivered from on high as a rule for life (or at least for one semester). It seems chiseled in stone, yet—at best—is imperfectly followed. More seriously, a syllabus is a foundational document for academic...
Jeanette PiferI love teaching and I know well why I chose this as my vocation. Yet it can be easy to get caught up in the day-to-day grind. So I find it helpful to regularly revisit why—the telos of teaching. To that end, allow me to provide five bedrock reasons...
David I. SmithWhat does faith have to do with teaching? I do not mean the content being taught (whether you are teaching piously inflected material) or the motivation for teaching (how your faith led you to teach), but the teaching itself—the moves you make with...
Logos StaffIn the shifting landscape of higher education, where enrollment pressures, cultural changes, and technological disruptions press in, a school’s core values can function as a compass. For Christian institutions, they’re not just guiding principles...
In my first year of teaching, I was on my knees praying about every class. I knew I needed help, and God was indeed faithful. Sure, I made mistakes, as any novice does. But when I reflect on that first year of teaching, the faithfulness of God was...
Daniel ViezbickeMinisters are like plants, or so I suggested in my last article. Like any living thing, plants must grow. While some plants stay indoors for the entirety of their lifespan, most plants that begin indoors need to go through a process called hardening...
Andrew WilliamsCharismatic and Pentecostal universities and seminaries seek to blend rigorous academics with Spirit-empowered formation. This guide profiles a selection of these institutions. Though far from exhaustive, it provides a representative list of the...
By now you’ve probably heard about the impending demographic cliff that is expected to impact colleges and universities as early as next year. This as many institutions are already experiencing shrinking enrollment. Yet despite the challenges in the...
Sean McGeverIf we want students to care about evangelism, we need to stop training them like cold-callers and start forming them like everyday apprentices of Jesus. Evangelism doesn’t start with a script. It starts with compassion, with listening, with...
Graham StantonWhen I imagine the classroom of my dreams, I picture me seeding a free-flowing discussion with my well-crafted discussion questions and the occasional gem of theological wisdom. My students are all leaning forward in their seats, and I can see the...
JoAnna HoytFor many, college is an opportunity to learn how to be a responsible and independent adult, often while living away from family for the first time. During these years, students face more choices than they might have experienced before, and the...
Simon KennedyThe Christian worldview is a crucial—but also flawed—concept. It appears frequently in Christian apologetics and discussions of Christian ethics. It holds a central place in how many Christians approach education. The idea of a Christian worldview...
David KotterWhen I first read about a large language model called ChatGPT from OpenAI, I knew that my life as the dean of the School of Theology at Colorado Christian University had forever changed. I understood that this would be yet another reason for...
Every year new students walk into classrooms ready to build upon their first-year biblical language skills by learning how to exegete the Hebrew or Greek text. They are taught how to examine the nuances of words, the rules of grammar. They discover...
John Mark YeatsIf we are honest, theological education has a persistent PR problem. Some pastors may even discourage a potential seminarian from attending a school because of their own difficult journey. But there’s a reason seminary has long been a standard...
George HillmanGrowing up, my family had a weekend farm just north of the town where we lived. As a kid, it was a great place to explore nature and learn many life skills. It was on that farm, for example, where I learned how to drive a manual transmission even...
Daniel ZachariasYou, like me, may have taught biblical studies, hermeneutics, and foundational Greek courses for many years. You, like me, may have become deeply familiar with the text, the stories, the methods, the paradigms. But such familiarity can actually tank...
I have the privilege of teaching Greek. It’s one of my favorite classes to teach. But for many of my students, it is one of the hardest classes they take for their degree. Thus, one of my primary pedagogical goals is to instill a conviction in my...
John D. HarveyDuring my ten years in our seminary dean’s office, one of my responsibilities was observing faculty members in the classroom. It was an encouraging activity, because I was visiting classes in different disciplines and was observing excellent...
Douglas EstesTeaching is a form of research, observes William A. Dyrness, senior professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. To teach students well, we must always discover what they know and where they come from. Dyrness is the author of...
A Conversation with Thomas R. Schreiner Respect for our students and for our schools is what undergirds a meaningful calling to teach, observes Thomas R. Schreiner, the James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation and associate...
Adam J. HowellGraded Implementation for Using Digital Tools in Original-Language Courses The speed with which digital technology has swept through our society has certainly made an impact on original-language learning. Whereas it was previously unthinkable to...
There I was, standing in front of a classroom filled with a wide mixture of generations. Most were training for ministry of some kind, though some were seasoned pastors. Ages ranged from early twenties to late sixties. I was still a seminary student...
Timothy GabrielsonThere might seem to be little need to explain the genre of epistle in the New Testament. The adjustments between modern expectations and ancient conventions appear minor, requiring little more than moving the sender’s name from the end to the...
Anthony Oladayo FáwọléA seminary is simply defined in this article as an institution established primarily for the training of ministers for the church and other church-related or church-allied or parachurch ministries and organizations. Missionary societies, chaplaincy...
David McKayWhen I was at theological college, it was a great privilege to learn Greek and Hebrew. It was hard work, especially the Hebrew, but I took all the classes Kenmore Christian College would let me take during my four years there. Afterwards, I did my...
Tavis BohlingerThe hardest lesson for me to learn in my nine-year academic journey was patience. My goal in this article is to prepare you, the budding Bible academic, for an endurance race of mind and spirit. Hold this thought: academia is hard, but it is harder...
Karen EngleSeminary will challenge you beyond what you might imagine—spiritually, intellectually, and even physically. For me, going to seminary was the hardest and most wonderful experience of my life. Whether you are already going to seminary or plan to...