Theology in the Raw - 797: The Future of Christian Education: Spencer MacCuish

Episode Date: June 22, 2020

Spencer is a longtime friend, former boss, and the president of Eternity Bible College. We first met way back in Seminary nearly 20 years ago and have been friends ever since. Spencer is known for his towering height, shiny head, inability to be outwitted, but most of all for his imaginative and integrative approach to Christian education. In this episode, we talk about some of the things that are broken in our current models of education and explore fresh avenues for education which will be especially pertinent in the wake of Covid-19. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

All right, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I'm Preston Sprinkle. I am the host of today's show and pretty much every show that occurs on this podcast because it's, I don't know, it's my podcast. I'm the host. Today, I have a guest who is a longtime friend of mine, Spencer McCush, the one and only Spencer McCush. He's the president of Eternity Bible College, where I used to teach. And I met Spencer way back in seminary. And he's just a really unique guy. He's a sharp thinker. He's a creative thinker. And he's got a lot of, I would say, worked out thoughts on Christian education. He likes to think outside the box. He's a very forward thinker. He's a very, I want to say imaginative thinker, not in a like making up stuff way, but like he just thinks creatively about better ways of Sprinkle, where you can get access to all kinds of content, video content that I'm uploading weekly, sometimes even daily,

including a recent series I started called Old Testament in the Raw. If you want to go back and work through the Old Testament, check it out. I'm trying to produce somewhat high quality videos within my very limited knowledge of how to even do that. But I'm, yeah, I'm learning as I go. If you would like to support the show, please go to patreon.com forward slash Theology Narah. A massive, massive thank you to all of you who are supporting the show. It really, really means a lot. I see supporters coming in usually every week. And it's been so fun getting to know you on the Patreon platform. If you would like to be part of the Patreon theology in the raw community, please go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw.

Support the show for as little as five bucks a month and get access to premium content like once a month blogs and podcasts and just the knowledge that you are supporting a very good cause. Okay, without further ado, let's get to know the one and only Spencer McCush. All right. Hey, friends. We are here with my friend and former boss, Spencer McCush from Eternity Bible College. And we just so you know, up front, as always, we've had some glitches with the technology. So I hope that things work out OK. But we are live on the YouTube. And what we want to do is, you know, as some of you know, I taught at Eternity Bible College for a number of years. that eternity is known for is just trying to reimagine Christian education in a way that's more holistic, more praxis-centered, more church-based, for lack of better terms. I want to tease that out a little bit because I think that term could be misunderstood. But Spencer,

while we start, just give us a little background about who you are. Tell us about the college. And then I just want to get into a conversation about what are some things that we should be rethinking in light of COVID-19 about Christian education. Sure. Yeah. So, yeah, Spencer McCush, that's who I am. Yeah, it's funny, man. We've been at this 17 years now. Yeah.

this 17 years now. Yeah. So 17 years ago, Francis Chan, myself, handful of other guys started the school. My background prior to this, I was in public education and then kind of took a little bit of a detour, did some grad school, worked at a church, was a youth pastor at a church for a long time. And my wife and I thought we were going to end up overseas. And then that didn't work out. And along the way, learned that the number one reason, now this is back, you know, early 2000s, that the number one reason that missions agencies at that time were rejecting applicants was because of student related debt. And the missions agency that my wife and I were looking to go out with, they had just appointed a new director, and I was talking with him, and I said, I said, so how do you guys navigate this? And he goes, well, we stopped requiring any kind of

biblical training for our missionaries, because we would require a certain number of units of biblical training, and then, you know, a missionary candidate would get that training, but then he would come back and they would exceed their debt threshold. And so the missions organization dropped any kind of formal Bible training to send out their church planting teams. And so my wife and I were, you know, love that organization. And they're still really good friends of ours. But I looked at the director and went, that doesn't make any sense. And he goes, I know. And he goes, but we're going to do the best we can while we're on the field. And it was in that time that a buddy of mine, Francis Chan, had called and said, hey, what are you doing now? And my wife and I were

kind of just as in the season of being really unsure. And I said, well, I'm going to go back into public education. And he goes, hey, could you come over to Cornerstone Church and teach in our Bible Institute? And I said, absolutely. Sure. I said, I'd love to. I love to teach. And he said, but I don't want to be on staff at the church. And he goes, great.

We don't want to pay you. It was awesome. Why does that sound so Francis? Oh, my gosh. Exactly. And so we launched. And he goes, oh, by the way. And he threw this little caveat disclaimer at the end.

He goes, oh, by the way, we're talking about putting on a Bible, you know, starting a Bible college. He goes, what do you think? And I was like, Francis, do we need another Bible college out there? And he goes, no, but this one will be different. And so in my head, I had just come off this experience with this missions agency. I had just come off this experience with this missions agency. I had come out of a background of education where I'd seen kind of the, some of the flaws and the gaps and just kind of the general, you know, model of education that we've adopted in the U S and I said, well, what are you thinking? How will it be different? He goes, I don't know,

but something just needs to change. And so my wife and I jumped on board and handful of other guys and your old, you know, your brother-in-law jumped in board. And then, you know, I think, I think your whole family has taught with us at some point or another. Yeah. It's pretty, um, yeah. Well, yeah. Big, uh, what's the nepotism? Yeah. Pretty nepotistic. Yeah. It's alive and well.

Um, so yeah, well, I remember when I, cause I was at Cedarville university from 07 to 09 i came out and i think i want to say december of 07 maybe it was 08 and did a winter um class and just uh you know cedarville's is big i mean big in terms of christian schools very just a beautiful campus you know amazing just huge and and then ebc you know is this strip mall gutted out just is just the most minimalistic kind of campus possible and uh i remember teaching that class it was on pauline pauline theology i think and just you know you got some people that are all tatted up other people wearing like head coverings and

sitting next to each other like just one you know homeschool kid from montana that's never like seen civilization um and then this other guy that just got out of prison from knocking off banks and they're like sitting next to each other in class the one commonality that they have is they can't afford expensive christian education and and i just fell in love with i was I was like, dude, this is raw. This is like the real deal. Um, so yeah, so I came, you know, I came out and taught for five years and long, you know, long story short. Um, but the, you know, one of the things that was, we were so passionate about, it was, um, a debt-free education,

which is what you're saying about the whole foundation of UBC of, of producing where students can get a high quality, holistic, integrative Christian education without the school debt. Have you, so I haven't been involved in the school for a few years now. Have you maintained that? Is that still a major heartbeat? Yeah, no, absolutely. It's still one of our driving principles, right?

Or early on, when we first started, I would say you know, institutions are immature. And so we didn't know how to necessarily communicate it well. So we were just like, hey, it's a cheap Bible college, you know, then you realize that messaging probably doesn't quite, you know, it's like, maybe affordable, you know, but then you realize that affordable even doesn't mean anything. And then we were like, well, maybe it's more debt free, which is still true. But then we realized the principle behind all of that is really the issue of accessibility. And what we really are driving after is making things accessible. And we want to see biblical education accessible, both financially accessible. We want to see it geographically accessible.

geographically accessible. You know, the, the, the, the, the model of education that we've, we've historically adopted in the, in the U S is, is really limited to someone who doesn't have the capacity to relocate somewhere. Um, and so, yeah, accessibility is, I would say that the, the word that I would say is really what drives us, but it's, it's both financial accessibility, geographic accessibility, but that's, that's kind of something that really drives. Yeah. Yeah. And that, yeah, I was right in the, well, it was like, it was like around 2010 when we explored, I think around then, uh, whether or not we would have an online program. And, um, I had taught online in a couple of different schools.

And so I was more on the side of it at first. You didn't, you weren't on board. Right? And now you're like the biggest proponent. Can you tell me? I was not. I actually... And why? Yeah, unpack that. We'll go back to the old Spencer. Why were you not for online education? And why are you now very much for it? Right. No, that's a great question. And man, it's been a while since someone's actually reminded me of that. I was so dead set against it. I think the actual words to one of my colleagues, Josh Walker, actually, was that that will do online education over my dead body, I think is what I said. And so here you are still alive.

Exactly. But what and I think that was born of a good heart. Because of my background in education, I knew there was a link between the quality of education and the quality of transformation and the need for relationship. And what started to happen for me was probably some of my arrogance got exposed. I historically had thought that that relationship needed to be with me, the teacher. And what I started to realize was, as an institution, we said we were committed to partnering with the local church. And I really do, as I read through the New Testament, man, I have such a commitment to the Bride of Christ and that being expressed through the church and specifically the local church. And we may not always get that right in the expression and what that looks like.

And I think there's some flexibility as far as what that looks like. But the commitment to the local church really is a significant marker for us as an institution, but a lot of us as individuals. And as we started wrestling through this idea of online, and I remember you were a part of that conversation in saying, well, how are we serving the church in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska, or somewhere else in the world, if we're making them relocate to Southern California? And there was like this epiphany where it was like, wow, we're not serving the church if we're taking their up and coming leaders and people desiring biblical training and we're gutting the church of their prospective leaders and the next generation

of people to carry the baton, at least for a couple of years and just went, there's got to be a better way. And this is where I would say God just convicted my heart of the arrogance that I had and going, oh, the relationship doesn't need to be with me, the teacher. The relationship needs to be with their local church. Discipleship is anchored in the church. That's a mandate to the church, not to the academic institution. And so just that really probably trite and trivial cliche of, you know, Jesus didn't leave behind a Bible college or something else. He left behind the church to advance the kingdom. And that really focused, that caused a lot of us to just shift our thinking and our approach to the institution and going, wow, the primary agent of kingdom advancement is the church, and the school needs to be in a subservient role to the church.

So we need to do everything we can to keep the church primary and put the school in a secondary role. I would say that was the one thing that, there's several things, probably the main thing that stood out with the uniqueness of the education at eternity Bible college. What was that genuine, sometimes almost messy, you know, submission to the local church where,

you know, we saw our role as, as coming alongside and in submission to the, the discipleship and mentoring process that's going on in local churches. Now, of course the biggest question is, is it going on? And that's sometimes the hard tension. Sometimes we could look at what's going on in the church. You're like, you guys aren't doing it.

And yet at the same time, we don't want to do it for the church. We want to still encourage the church to take the lead on discipling their people so that we would have students. They were required to have a mentor and to go and identify a mentor at the church. church to take the lead on discipling their people so that we would have students. They were required to have a mentor and to go and identify a mentor at the church. Like, wow, I have a mentor at the church. And we're like, well, you need to have a mentor at the church. So we would help even the church that maybe didn't have those structures in place to ask those questions. But I just, I love that idea of education being a part of the discipleship journey.

And yet the discipleship journey is to be happening within local communities in the church, not in an educational institution. In the last 10 years of really pressing into that kind of vision, what have been some of the pros and cons, the wins, the good stories of like, man, here's an example of how that's just really flourished and maybe some challenges in submitting to the local church and their discipleship avenues. Yeah, it's, you hit the nail on the head. The first statement you made in that transition was saying, yeah, you remember that this can be messy. And it is, it really is messy because we as an institution don't know how to do it. We don't know how to be, we know what we want to be doing, which is to be nimble and responsive

to the needs of the church. But then we overstep at times and then, you know, and so, yeah, I would say it's been a journey that's been messy. But man, churches have been gracious and some churches, um, they catch a vision of what could be and, and they take a lead role with that. And, um, there's a couple of churches, we have one church, um, we actually have a couple of churches now that have more of a robust intern program. Um, and the, and the church is providing the experiential side of the internship. And then they're integrating EBC content into some of their kind of maybe the content side and the learning side of their internship.

And so we provide coursework, but their mentor in the church is the one talking about how that content plays itself out practically. And they have this little intern cohort that goes through and discusses things. And so the church is more facilitating the content we provide, but the church is really, you know, hosting and they are the center of learning in that regard. And then you have another model that's up in Portland area. There's a network of program up there for their interns where they're they want their interns to actually have a full bachelor's degree so they actually share some of the teaching load and and so some of their you know for the students that are in that church some of the things that are

actually taught from pastors that are on staff at the church who are you know appropriately degreed and whatnot and subject matter kind of experts if you want to say it that way. And then they supplement everything else with content from ABC. But that, it just depends on the church and what the churches are trying to do. But those are two of the wins. But man, the difficulties have been many because, you know, what do you do if a student, if a church is struggling to figure out how to walk with a student who's, I mean, it's just, it's messy. And so we're trying to learn and we're thankful that churches are gracious with us, trying to create a new model that I think is actually really healthy. But I think it all comes back to this really interesting statement that a buddy of mine kind of framed it out this way and said that historically, every academic institution, whether it's a kindergarten all the way up through a collegiate program or a post-collegiate,

the goal of education is to produce graduates. I mean, that's almost by definition. That's what we're saying we're about. And he said, you know, he goes, what if the goal of education wasn't to produce graduates, though? He goes, what if the goal was to actually make disciples? And he said, you know, he goes, what if the goal of education wasn't to produce graduates, though? He goes, what if the goal was to actually make disciples? And he goes, all of a sudden, he goes, it's not the school's job to make disciples. It's the church's job. And if we're not careful, what happens is if the goal is to produce graduates. the school can inadvertently, even with good intentions, they start to view the church as a lab and as a means of giving their students practical experience so that they can produce graduates. But if you shift that prioritization to making disciples, and we realize that the

primary agency of disciple making is the church, then the school is in a subservient role to actually the church making disciples. And so it's just that continual reminder for us of going, hey, let's keep the church in a primary place. Let's make the goal to produce disciples, not producing graduates. Because what I'm absolutely convinced of is that every believer, every follower of Jesus probably needs a season of intentional Bible training, but they don't necessarily need a degree. You know what I mean? I'm not convinced that every believer needs to have a Bible college degree, but every believer needs to have some degree of intentional Bible training. Do you see that happening more or less in churches? I have my perception, but.

So the church in the U.S. is an interesting spot. And this is going to it's a limited data point. Right. I mean, I can only speak to the to the areas that I interact with is we're coming out of a robust season where there was almost an embracing of an anti-intellectualism. We don't want to actually put time in to, to think deeply. We don't want to actually, you know, put the time into study and learn. And part of that is, is maybe laziness. And then part of it, I don't even want to ascribe to bad motives. part of that is maybe laziness. And then part of it, I don't even want to ascribe to bad motives.

Some of it is just zeal. You know, we want to go out and do something. And so, you know, I get so excited about going to change the world, I forget that I don't know how to change the world, you know, and going. But, you know, the apostles spent three years with Jesus. Paul, upon conversion, set aside a significant period of time to go out. And he was taught by God, right? But he was still, there was a season set aside for nurturing and cultivating and instruction and learning about how to actually go and participate in gospel, you know, kingdom advancement.

Yeah, Yeah. Hey, real quick for those who had joined us a little late, I'm talking with Spencer McCush. He's the president of Eternity Bible College, my friend and former boss. We go back pretty far. We go back to seminary. We are proud graduates, even though some might not want to acknowledge it, but graduates of the master seminary. Yeah. We, we hung out our third year in seminary a little bit. I remember seeing this six foot four, six foot five bald guy having these, um,

provocative, maybe stirring kind of conversations in the hallway. I'm like, I kind of liked that guy. He's not afraid to ask really hard questions out loud. Yeah, a long time ago. Not on the alumni list, right? Yeah, we're talking about kind of the future of Christian education, and we just kind of getting a lot of backstory of Eternity Bible College and how it's tried to partner with local churches in really robust, messy, organic ways to come alongside the discipleship process that is or should be happening in churches. So that education isn't some separate thing, but it's a subset of a larger discipleship journey. As you look at COVID-19, the shutdown of everything,

I mean, there's so many different questions people are asking. Let's just assume that there is another side of COVID-19. Let's just say in a year, life will be back to where it was completely. back to where it was completely. What would you hope to see educators maybe be rethinking on the other side? Because I think a lot of people will just go back to the, they're racing to go back to the way it was. If we just get back to the way it was, other people are like, I'm almost glad that this thing is going to just blow up the system so we can start new. And maybe there's, that's, you know, that kind of ends of the spectrum of, of perspectives on what's going to happen as you think past COVID-19, what are your hopes for educators and the type of education that's going to

happen? Yeah, I think it's a really good question. It's a big question. I think, I don't think we're going to be able to go back. And I think that's exciting. I don't think there will be a return to what was. Maybe, maybe glimpses of it and maybe, but not a hundred percent. There's just too many things that have been uncorked, you know, currently. And I don't think that's a bad thing, but, but I would say significant seasons of disruption provide opportunity for innovation. And I don't think that's a bad thing, but, but I would say significant seasons of disruption, um, provide opportunity for innovation and like anything, you know, necessity drives innovation. And so we're going to see probably new thought and new, uh, innovative approaches

to learning. I hope, I think that's happening. Um, but yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be a little bit messy. Um, I think what's currently happening in the world of education is you're seeing schools clinging on to an old model. And so what they're doing historically is a lot of schools have done distance education or online learning as a means of supporting the main thing. And the main thing is always that campus residential experience. And I think what's happening now, and that's both students and administration are guilty of emphasizing the campus experience

over and above education. Sometimes I would even say that. But I think what's happening is when you're thrust into an environment where you can no longer have that residential experience, all of a sudden there's a different set of questions being asked. Now there's probably a lot higher emphasis on student learning exclusively because the reality is I'm not able to be distracted or participate in all these other ancillary activities that might happen on campus.

You know, I can't go and hang out with all these people. So really the quality of what a school is providing is really, and this will sound weird, it's being reduced to education. You know, and so what kind of education is actually being provided? What kind of education is actually being provided? And now schools are going, well, how do we do that in a way that's actually going to be robust? Can I stand before a video camera and actually lecture for, you know, an hour and expect people to stay with me? And some of the justification I've heard is, well, people will watch Netflix for an hour and it's like, well, that's different. I mean, that's passive participation as opposed to active learning. And so what I hope, I hope, I hope people actually think through pedagogy, you know,

their approach to education and their approach to learning. I hope they actually think through the emphasis on not teaching subjects and not just presenting information, but actually teaching students and wanting to see student learning happen. Yeah. Being okay with being flexible as far as how to deliver information, maybe shorten it up and crisp it up a little bit. So it's, you know, I haven't thought about this as thoroughly as you have. But I, you know, I've thought about this in various other areas that you have this. And I just got off to another conversation with another guy. It'll probably go up on YouTube in a couple of days.

But, you know, I've I've been saying and I'm not the only one, but I mean, a lot of our structures, maybe in church or in education, were formed and maybe even succeeded in a pre-internet world. That world doesn't exist anymore. And so the whole, you mentioned that the model of education, it hasn't changed too much. You have a teacher in a classroom, everybody sits forward, they have to sit still and quiet. They are given information. They have to kind of memorize that information. Then they're given a standardized test. And the student isn't that concerned about learning material. They're more concerned about, you know, what's the number one question we all get as teachers? Is this going to be on the test? There's grades. Then in a capitalistic individualistic society, that's going to

feed into competition or in honor-shame cultures, it's going to feed into honor-shame. I mean, the automobile has changed in the last 100 years. Relationships have changed. Cities have changed. Economics have changed. But 100 years ago, the education largely is not too different now right i mean it's it hasn't evolved that much i just i don't know i just wonder if our gen and maybe i'm completely wrong so you educators out there maybe you're just fuming and thinking i don't know what i'm talking

about but i we live in a world today where a 19-year-old can become a millionaire off posting funny cat videos on YouTube. Many people can make a living from like I am. I'm in my basement. I haven't left my home in weeks. I've been preparing for COVID for years. I've been social distancing for a while as an introvert. I've been working from home and homeschooling my kids. distancing for a while as an introvert and I've been working from home and homeschooling my kids.

And I, you know, I, um, I just wonder if in the past we had to go spend a lot of money, get an education, and then you got a job in that field of study. What do you know off the hand? What's the percentage of people that go into a career field that's related to their major? Is it 10%, 20%? Directly out of college, I haven't checked the most recent numbers, but check this. This one is fascinating. By the time someone's 40, less than 85% of people are practicing professionally what their college major was in.

By the time someone's 40, they're already – 85% of people are practicing professionally what they studied in college by the time they're 40, 85%. And I would say, I don't know, in the last few years, just with how much people can do their shopping on Amazon or make money on eBay or off YouTube or podcasting and all these things. We've seen the traditional media outlets are dropping in numbers because people are getting their information from, you know, their favorite YouTube or a podcast or for

good or for ill. I mean, I get all my news from Joe Rogan and others. I just I just wonder if if the fundamental structures of of our society are so disruptive right now it's so different that education needs to really i just don't know if education is really being formed around the very new and different structures it does seem like they're still from an uh again from from a world that just doesn't exist anymore is that that too right? I mean, I don't – maybe I'm being too sensational. No, I think you're actually on to something there. I think there's actually – I've been writing a fair bit.

There's – I've been writing a bit on this issue. on this issue. And really what I would say, what I'm passionate about is seeing the center of learning shift away from the school and away from the academic institution. And I think the fundamental thing that needs to happen is we need to stop making the school, I mean, this is crazy for me. I'm like, I'm a college president. And I'm saying the center of learning needs to shift away from producing graduates and shift away from actually the school being primary and actually shift towards, you know, for me, because I'm at a Bible college, I would say shift the center of learning towards, you know, the church or a nonprofit, ideally the church and make those places the center of learning. You know, if I was in a school that had a business program, I would actually shift the

center of learning to partnering organizations and partnering businesses. There's a great book, author, his name is Ryan Craig, wrote a book called College Disrupted or University Disrupted. No, New You is the most recent book. And the one prior to that was College Disrupted. And he's arguing for alternative models to education where we go into the workplace. And I wish he would just close the loop and go, no, you can actually create a model where a school is responsive to the needs of a business and actually provide the necessary, you know, kind of soft skills so that they can actually learn the hard skills in the workplace. Because most people already acknowledge, no, you actually learn on the job.

That's where you learn the skills. And so it's like, man, imagine a school that actually worked in conjunction with an organization to actually create a robust learning approach that actually hit the needs of a student or, you know, that were, you know, the skill sets of a student based on the needs of an organization. And I mean, we were talking about it before, you know, even looking at more of an outcomes-based learning approach and saying, hey, if we know that this church or this missions organization or this business, here's the profile of their employee. And we see that Preston already has half of those skill sets. Why would we make you take those classes if you're already proficient in it?

You know, and actually moving towards more of an outcomes-based approach. And yeah, I just think, man, I think we're in a season where we can reimagine all of that. But it starts by moving the needle away from the school being the center of learning and getting the learning to happen outside of the education institutions. Outcomes-based. Why don't schools do that? And my one assumption is, well, we've never done it that way, A, or B, it's not as efficient, right? I mean, I just think really concretely, like,

it's much easier to create a multiple choice exam. You know, I've got four classes on my teaching load. I'm trying to manage that. I'm trying to develop fresh content, trying to do all this. And I got these quizzes that I already wrote multiple choice based on the reading. It's just more efficient for me to do that. I can't sit down with every student and really sit down for a two hour and see if they've really absorbed the material or maybe they already knew it and they don't even need to take my class. They can just test out of it or whatever is is that the pushback or what why aren't people doing more outcomes based because it just makes more sense like if you know the material you know the material we don't need to have you memorize it again or right right it's not exactly you don't need to re-memorize it if you already know it

no i mean you're asking a question there that that is really good it's i think part of it is um I mean, you're asking a question there that is really good. It's, I think part of it is, um, we're, we're banking on tradition and saying that, um, if we have a certain set of outcomes for a graduate, one of the ways that we, uh, you know, in a historic model, we say, oh, the way you demonstrate proficiency is by taking these, you know, these certain classes will get you to these proficiencies or these skill sets. And we've kind of created a model where the, it's about taking classes. It's not about demonstrating, you know, competencies. If you look at most schools, it's, it's how many units you need to graduate and what classes you need to take to graduate.

And I think there's a definite space in there for us to reimagine. Yeah, like you said, outcomes based and saying, hey, what's what are the skills or the proficiencies we want people to have? And then the difficulty in going to this model, though, to answer your question. Is it will take a really robust assessment on the front end to, okay, how is Preston going to show me that he is actually proficient in, you know, your knowledge and application of New Testament studies? You know, and going, that's a, if I say, well, if he takes this class and does these assignments there, there, there, I can assume that he's proficient. But if you're not taking that class, how do I actually know that you're proficient in that? And, and just, it's a lot

of work to put together that framework, but I think it's doable, but it just requires a different approach on the institutional side. Yeah. And another, And this is what I love about UBC is like I feel like the traditional educational model is geared towards a certain type of person, a very analytical or cerebral or whatever. And oftentimes the artistic, the Enneagram 4s, get frustrated or they don't get good grades or whatever because their knowledge base their their wiring as a image of god bearer in their unique ways just doesn't get tested in a sense in the same way um i've got you know four kids you know um and my

oldest is off the chart you know creative and just not off the chart not you know, creative and just not off the chart, not analytical. And I mean, we homeschool our kids for various reasons, but one of it's like, our kids are so vastly different that if they try to be stuffed in this little box of like this educational model, they're going to die. They probably won't even graduate. Like they just can't do that. But like, you know, as a home for, for our homeschool curriculum, Friday is a creative day. So we want them to go out and observe, you know, insects or butterflies or go out and paint a tree or go out in nature and just do, you know, learn. It's, it's not, not school. It's just, it's more holistic and more conducive for the way they're wired.

But that, I just don't see that as much in traditional models. And I just don't know if there can be, can, I mean, can you cater to, again, maybe the nine different kind of Enneagram personalities so that you're really drawing out the way they're wired and assessing them maybe differently or in a more tailor-made fashion, or is that just kind of an impossible goal? Well, I think if we go to an, if you can go to an outcomes-based model, then it's less about how they learn and more about does somebody know the material? Did they learn the material? And how they learned it, man, lock yourself in a library, go talk to somebody, sit through a class, you know, pray that God would just speak to you directly, you know, strap books to your head and try to learn by osmosis,

how you acquire the information doesn't matter. As long as you demonstrate that you know it, um, man, that's, I think that is a huge opportunity for education, not just higher education, but, but really, uh, you know, man, once you, once you hit, you know, later elementary school and definitely by middle school, I think moving towards outcomes based is a, is a great viable option. But yeah, it's, it requires us to really rethink how we do, because we put so much emphasis on, on, on receiving both giving and receiving instruction and, and, and not recognizing

the varied approach to learning. Two of my favorite stories on the creative note, one was John Marshall. Yeah. Okay, so I might get some of the details wrong, so correct me if I'm wrong, but he's teaching a class on ecclesiology. What does it mean to be the church? A big emphasis in that course was corporate solidarity or just community that you are not an isolated individual what you do for good or for ill affects others basic new testament ecclesiology

and this is just one reading in the new testament it's like okay that's not it's not really debated so for the final right he he had um one person take the final on behalf of everybody else, meaning their grade would apply to everybody else. And everybody was up in an uproar. Oh, and everybody else was to pray or help that person study and pray for them while they're taking the exam. And people were, well, no, that's not my, all this. And all of a sudden all of their factual classroom knowledge went out the door because he actually gave in a final examination. It was based on the very principles that he's been teaching all semester. And he had to remind them of that. And then they were like, oh my gosh,

do we actually believe what we, so right. They, then they, they elected somebody. Okay okay name out of a hat they took the final and they helped them study and then they prayed for i mean all these principles in the very final is that was that is that about the is that a correct retelling of how it went or um i think it's i think you combine two different classes there but yeah pretty much i mean all those things did happen i just don't remember if it all happened in one class okay but yeah i know that they would be, yeah, given assignments like that. And I know that he had one person

designated to take a final. And I don't remember if that was the kind of the life of Jesus class or the New Testament ecclesiology. But I know all of those things happened in those two classes. And then my brother-in-law, my brother-in-law taught a class on Isaiah

and a major theme of Isaiah is the servant of the Lord. So for their final, they had a widow in the neighborhood who had a busted up roof that was like leaking i mean it was really like third world you know like really in this middle class neighborhood this one lady was just in shambles and so for the final he had the whole entire class go and remodel and redo their roof and that was their final to show that what does it mean to live out, to embody this essence of being,

being a servant of the Lord? Can you get away with that? And then that was kind of pre-accreditation, I think. We probably, there was a season where I was a little bit of the wild west. I love that though. But, but, but I think the, the issue is, I love that, though. But but but I think the issue is, can you tie activity and experiential learning to the outcomes in the classroom? And I think that's really the key in going there. There has to be an experiential component to what we're doing. And. And that's I don't think anybody's going to push back on that one.

As long as you can tie the experiential side to the outcomes of the class, absolutely. But again, the robust responsibility of us as the academic institution is making sure that we are assessing that the student learning is actually evidenced. that the student learning is actually evidence, that someone actually is learning the content, how they learn the content, whether it's through taking a test or going to fix someone's house, that's secondary. But are they... Go ahead.

I was going to say, from a Christian perspective, you don't have to be a Christian more than five seconds to know if you just know it up here, that's not enough. It has to work itself out in, in, in your living. And yet, can I say, I don't want to come down hard on Christian. I've, you know, I, every Christian institution is going to say, no, that obviously that's our goal is to produce disciples that are more robust in our living. But how do you, is there a way to build that into the very assessment? Cause right

now it's all cerebral. Like you can be, you can grow in your arrogance during New Testament survey and get and answer all the right questions. And you will, your Christian teacher will give you an A. Like you excelled in this class and this person could be more arrogant, less humble by the end. And that is irrelevant for the assessment of, you know, their performance. Now, if that was a secular education, we would say, well, yeah, it is what it is. But this is a Christian education. Like how something has to be kind of broken if that kind of thing can happen. And I know we've even dealt with that with students, you know, that we didn't sense them growing in humility. And we actually did try to figure out ways to like, say, yeah, I don't know if you're going to pass this class

because your heart is more arrogant than when you started, you know? Right. No, absolutely. But I think that goes back to the center of learning bit, right? Of going, if you keep the church primary, um, and actually, actually have a robust posture of not using the church, but actually keeping the church in a primary role, then that practice, there's a context for students to actually apply the things they're learning. But there's also a mechanism to, and not trying to burden the church, but going, man, if the church I'm a part of is taking an active role in shepherding these students as they're learning, part of the thing that they're, the way we frame even some of our assignments is, hey, talk with your, the mentor in your local church and figure out how this content actually practically works itself

out in your community through the church body that you're a part of. And so we try to actually build out assignments even that get fleshed out in the context of their church. And then we also put in mechanisms in place so that before students can continue on and taking more classes, that the church actually, their local church and their mentor actually speaks into, hey, yeah, Preston, yeah, let him go. He can keep taking classes. He's doing a great job. Or man, you know what, Preston's, he may know a lot, but he's certainly not applying any of that in the context of the church. Maybe slow him down on the number of units he's taken so he can actually practically apply some of this stuff. So yeah, we try to put those things into place. But like we said earlier, that's messy. But that's the posture we want to

take is allowing the church to be primary in the place of doing. Do you have a concrete example of that sort of mentor, like church mentor, student, EBC education, kind of that triangular relationship between the student, church, school? Do you have a good maybe concrete example of how that has gone well? Like where that really flourished with a mentor's challenge and blast? The student was not just educated in his mind, but was really growing in his Christian maturity? Yeah.

Yeah, there's a, there's a handful of examples. There's a, there's a gentleman that, um, he came to EBC because the, uh, gentleman in his pastor in his church, uh, said, Hey, this would be a good opportunity for you to grow and mature. And he's a mid, you know, middle-aged guy kind of, uh, you know, middle of his professional career. And, and, um, but growing in his, you know, middle of his professional career and, and, um, but growing in his, you know, kind of maybe he became a believer a little bit later in life, but, but as he's growing in his discipleship, he realized, man, in order for me to think about my business and think about how I advance the gospel in both my business and in my neighborhood, I need to learn, learn the Bible a

little bit better. And so his pastor told him to come over this way. And every assignment that that guy does, he's basically talking with his pastor about how does this apply to my business? Or how does this apply in what our church is doing in our neighborhood here in Thousand Oaks? And it's, and I love that. And so the pastor then on the other side, you know, he and I are pretty good friends. He goes, he goes, man, he goes, this guy's challenging me all the time. He goes, because he, he's wanting to apply biblical principles to his life, business, family, you know? Yeah. Just, and so that, that's just kind of the, and we hear stories like that, you know, varied. There's also messy stories where it's like, you know, Hey, this, you know, this 20 year-year-old kid is, you know, he's learning the Bible and functioning from this biblical idealism. And that's kind of a pain in the backside, you know, for some of us because he's always asking these questions about why don't we do this?

And, you know, and so I know that some of the things we're doing, it creates burden and difficulty for the church. And we just need grace from the church as we're trying to figure out how to do that too. But it happens both sides. We have success stories, but even those are good, you know, and, and churches that are, churches that are gracious and humble and kind towards us and charitable. They understand that there's a learning curve for us institutionally, but that also that, that students are also in process and learning. You know, we don't give them a refined product.

I forgot. We haven't even really talked about the unique way that Eternity Bible College approaches biblical education. And, you know, when I know we I think we went through a major curriculum revamp. I think right before or right after I got there in 2009, where, you know, the traditional Bible education is you kind of teach a lot of like theology up front. And then while they're kind of learning the Bible and then it's it's you end up in this kind of inevitable thing where students have these theological lenses on. lenses on. And then they unintentionally sometimes will kind of read the Bible through that lens rather than letting the Bible itself, a fresh encounter with the text of scripture actually form their theological conclusions or theological framework. And we,

you know, and so we, EBC kind of inverted that system to where we're going to just, just, just saturate the student in the text of Scripture without telling them what conclusions they have to come to, so that when they do form their theology, it is from an honest look at Scripture. And sometimes a graduate might end up more Presbyterian reformed. One might end up more dispensational. One might end up older at or young earth or whatever. Like we're not as interested in these kind of pet doctrines as much as the student being completely reshaped, reconfigured through a genuine encounter with scripture.

I don't know, maybe I already said it, but maybe just give us a soundbite of what the actual biblical theological education looks like at Eternity Bible College. Yeah. education looks like at eternity Bible college. Yeah, I would say it gets summed up in, um, in, in three, three kind of macro principles. Um, one is what you just articulated that this robust commitment to studying the story of God. And so we, we are absolutely committed to, to biblical theology. We want students, I mean, we spend, you know, the entire second year of someone's, you know, kind of program is just studying the Old Testament, and they work through

it in Hebrew canonical order, and to understand that flow from Genesis all the way through, and then year three, they start the New Testament, right? And so, I mean, it's, we're really spending a ton of time developing that commitment to understanding the story of God. And then there's a second principle, which I would say is understanding the story of people, having the ability to do cultural acquisition and really learning the questions that a given individual was asking, individual or community. the questions that a given individual was asking, individual or community. And that's going to be varied because if someone's planning on going back to the community and culture with which they are from or they're staying in their context, okay, maybe you know these things intuitively, but if you are ever moving into a new community or moving to a new town or moving to the other side of the world, or if you're just, if your neighborhood and community are in transition, do you have the ability to learn the story of the

person sitting across from you? And we really put a high value on, yeah, intercultural intelligence is what I would say it is, and developing that idea of, yeah, just cultural awareness and intelligence and acquisition. And then we would say the third principle is having the ability to bring that biblical story and that intercultural intelligence and bring those things into redemptive tension, which is where we think that's where gospel advancement really happens, right? When you give students those skill sets. And so that's kind of a macro level of things there. Hey, real quick, we do have people watching in right now.

If you guys have any questions, go ahead and punch them into the comment sections. I see a few people. Katri, I don't know if you're still there. I don't want Katri to ask a question because I won't be serious. Looks like Luke Thompson might have failed. Hey, Michael, if you're there, you can ask a question. Whoever else is out there, you can ask a question if you want us to kind of wrestle with it. And we have maybe – how much more time do you have?

I usually go about an hour. We have like 10 or 15 more minutes. Is that cool, Spence? Yeah, 10 or 15 more minutes. Just while you're waiting for a question, there's one thing that I want to put on everyone's radar here, though. This is a COVID-related issue. April is an interesting season for colleges and universities. This is both public and private. This is where they're putting out their college schedule for the fall. And there's fascinating

articles right now that are coming out. Schools across the country are putting together their fall calendar. And because of the uncertainty of COVID, whether classes are going to be able to resume in a traditional fashion, schools are having to put the disclaimer in and saying these classes may or may not be on campus. They might be online. And schools are starting to see students push back on that and go, well, if students, if classes are going to be online, I'm going to take a semester off. if students, if classes are going to be online, I'm going to take a semester off. I'm going to sit out a year or I'm going to go do a gap year type of a program, which I don't know if, I don't know who your intended audience is,

but if you guys are people in local churches, there will be potentially an influx of college students in your towns. If you don't historically live in a college town because college students probably there's a, there's going to be a growing number of people who are not going away to school. And there's a couple of schools in California that have already determined that they're going to be online in the fall.

They've already made that determination. So anyways, just to put it on people's radar, be prepared to interact with college students. They think differently. Yeah, you haven't put me up to this at all. We just organized this just to have the conversation. But if people are interested in looking at Eternity Bible College, you have a whole range of credit online offerings and also just non-credit, just opportunities to

learn, right? Can you just give a quick 30-second pitch on where people can go if they want to engage Christianity, the text of scripture in more robust ways? Yeah, no, absolutely. I think you'll find at a four credit level, you know, eternity.edu is the best place where you can get all that information. But we have students who are doing certificate type things, students doing gap year type things,

you know, a full four year bachelor's degree, if that's something that people desire. The difference for us is, and even people audit classes, we have a lot of people who are not interested in taking things for credit. They just want to sit through and have access to content. But the thing I would tell people is we produce content for the online environment. It's not an, it's not a video of a class, produce content for the online environment. It's not a video of a class, someone teaching a class. And we actually try to design our instructional kind of environment and our structural experience for an online environment. So you'll see content that's produced for the camera with a high degree of quality. This isn't plan B for us. Being in the online digital space, this is our primary – I mean, this is what we do.

This is what we've been doing. This is the way we kind of positioned ourselves a while ago. And so it's not like we're functioning in a responsive plan B because of a pandemic. That's great. So I do have a theological story that I think is just so beautiful and brilliant but i don't want to get you in trouble um so just give me one of these if you're like stop um i was at eternity bible college because i tell people the story and they flip out i told of all people greg boyd this story and he just like that's incredible he was so impressed. You know, I was at EBC as a professor and I started to

really dig into what the Bible says about violence and nonviolence and everything. And I kind of, I don't want to say changed my view. I don't think I had a firm position before, but I, you know, I felt like I saw a lot more biblical justification for what I would consider a non-violent, a Christocentric, non-violent approach to living in a violent world. And, uh, that, that wasn't all, that wasn't well received by everybody who was associated with the school. And I know the school got, um, pushed back for that. Um, because you're, I can't believe you have a, you know, a professor that, you know, tells their students that they need to love their enemies, whatever, tongue in cheek. But I just, I loved, I remember going through that and the school was so adamantly behind me, not necessarily my view necessarily, but the idea that I can hold my view and that the biggest thing is,

is he deriving his view from scripture? Is he being biblically centered? If he is, then the act that the precise theological conclusion is not the primary thing as much as is he truly demonstrating a submission to the authority of scripture. And I just, I remember being so you guys didn't even bat an eye.

You were like, look, y'all can take a hike and this guy's staying. you need to, whatever. Like that was just so brilliant. Um, and also when it came to, um, even my shifting view on hell, um, and again, here's where, if you need to cut me off, you can cut me off. But I remember you guys made a caveat when I came forward and says, look, I'm seeing more biblical evidence for the annihilation view of hell. And the way the doctrinal statement is worded seems to deliberately exclude that. And that's really difficult for me. And you guys said, well, our relationship with you is primary. And if you can demonstrate that we need to make room for this in the doctrinal

statement, then we'll do that. And you guys did that. You didn't change. I don't think you changed the statement, but you added some caveats that allowed me to stay at the school rather than say, well, yeah, this doctrinal statement says you're gone, even though it was written in 1983. And, you know, it doesn't matter what biblical evidence you give for your position. We're not even going to have a biblical comment. Like you actually, we met, right? We looked at script. I said, Hey, look, here's what I'm seeing. You're like, you and Josh were like, I'm not sure we agree with you necessarily but man you're clearly going to the text of scripture so court we're not gonna like get rid of you because you have some right right right i would throw one caveat there i mean our commitment was to the text not to you yes okay thank you

the reason we were open to actually putting a caveat statement is there is because there's a there's a there's a just there's a biblical rationale and justification and saying, hey, there's space here biblically. Not because, hey, we're going to change a doctrinal statement because we really like Preston. Good. That's that's that's that was that's my point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the relationship to me in as much as I was holding to the really center of Eternity Bible College, which was submitting to the text of Scripture and letting the text of Scripture dictate what you believe. But, yeah, I tell people that story. They're like, I don't have a category for that, you know, in a good way. They're like, that's really remarkable.

Yeah. Like that's really remarkable. Yeah. The thing for us is, I mean, we've said it a couple of times, is going, if what we're really passionate about is seeing the kingdom of God, like truly see kingdom citizens bring gospel transformation to every aspect of society, right? And going, I hope that people enter into their businesses and think differently because of what the Holy Spirit is empowering them to do to think differently. I hope our churches look differently. And all we're trying to do is go, man, what does education look like if you actually allow the Holy Spirit to transform the way you think about education, what the goals of education are? And I feel like one of our partnering organizations, he made this comment, and I've kind of hijacked it from him. He said, be really careful. He goes,

he goes, a lot of institutions of higher education, he goes, they're actually really worldly structures that have a very thin biblical veneer on them. He goes, man, he goes, continue to allow the gospel to transform the very essence of the structure you have. Don't embrace a worldly structure and put a biblical veneer on it. And so that's something I'm just really, I don't ever want to change for the sake of change. I want to be sensitive to what the kingdom of God is calling us to live out when it comes to issues of education. And so that does mean we're going to actually look at the text, look at the biblical principles and go, man,

we got to love people. How do we equip them in the context of God's church to advance God's kingdom and go, man, that's what we're about. And I hope that's what all of us are about, right? And I hope all of us are doing that in our respective spheres. Well, Spencer, thank you so much for being on. It's good to catch up. And again, it's eternity.edu if you want to check out the educational offerings. And I promise you guys didn't set me up to do that. I just truly believe in what you guys are doing. And yeah, I hope that you'll continue to kind of blaze a path forward in how to do Christian education.

It is messy. There's no simple answers. But I do think that we do need to revisit the structures of what we're doing. So thank you for that challenge. Really appreciate it. Oh, absolutely. It's a privilege. And Matt, I hope it didn't come across like we've got this figured out.

We certainly don't. We need people who are going to help us refine this and think through it better. And, yeah, we're just in a spot where we're trying to help and serve. And so, man, thank you. Appreciate it. All right, man. Take care. We'll see you guys.

Thanks for tuning in. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thank you.