Summary

Joined by the Presidents of Mid South Christian College, Larry Griffin and Nick Griffin, Jeff Sherrod and Institute for Global Outreach Developments president; Gregg Garner discuss spiritual formation in students featuring a discussion on spiritual formation at Mid South Christian College. Speakers focus on the challenges of assessing and prioritizing spiritual growth in students. They emphasize the importance of defining benchmarks, balancing denominational teachings with spiritual practices, and integrating faith into daily life. They highlight the shift towards individual spiritual development and collaboration between educational institutions, churches, and communities. The conversation underscores the need for schools to prioritize spiritual development and demonstrate the transformative power of God in shaping young people. The speakers promote Mid South Christian College's bilingual program and encourage viewers to engage with their content.

S2E13: College Conversations Podcast - “What Bible Colleges Miss In Spiritual Formation” (Transcript)

[00:00:11.00] - Jeff Sherrod

Hey, everyone, and welcome to College Conversations, the podcast about all things related to difficult higher education. My name is Jeff Sherrod. I'm joined with president of the Institute for Global Outreach Developments, Mr. Gregg Garner. And today, we have on the show with us, the president of Mid South Christian College, mister Larry Griffin, and, Nick Griffin. So, yeah, thanks guys for coming to the show and hanging out with us.

[00:00:31.80] - Nick Griffin

Absolutely. Thanks for having us.

[00:00:33.39] - Gregg Garner

Yeah. So Nick, what's your official title?

[00:00:35.60] - Nick Griffin

Dude, it's weird. It sounds more it sounds more cool than it is, but I'm the Director of Strategic Initiatives for the school.

[00:00:43.70] - Gregg Garner

Yeah. That is I like that. Yeah.

[00:00:45.60] - Nick Griffin

Yeah. It’s cool. It sounds fancy.

[00:00:46.89] - Jeff Sherrod

You just, like, come into different departments and, like, we're changing stuff.

[00:00:49.60] - Larry Griffin

That's a hundred percent it.

[00:00:50.89] - Nick Griffin

I'm like, exactly, I’m like the project manager for future oriented projects at the school

[00:00:54.29] - Gregg Garner

So I guess DSI

[00:00:56.50] - Nick Griffin

DSi. Yeah.

[00:00:57.00] - Gregg Garner

It makes you sound like like you're unique here on TV show. Right. DSI Memphis. Super. Yeah.

[00:01:04.20] - Jeff Sherrod

So so you guys are are in Memphis. But, Larry, maybe you could just tell us a little bit about the school. When did it get started?

[00:01:11.59] - Larry Griffin

Yeah. Mid South Christian College was started as Memphis Christian College back in 1959.

[00:01:17.40] - Jeff Sherrod

Mhmm.

[00:01:17.70] - Larry Griffin

So it's got a long history, but at one point, it moved out of Memphis because of the growing urban problems back in the seventies, and changed the name to Mid South Christian College because they moved down to Mississippi. Then we eventually moved back to Memphis and, kind of embraced the urban. Yeah.

[00:01:36.00] - Jeff Sherrod

And did you guys move back on was it the same campus?

[00:01:38.59] - Nick Griffin

Yeah.

[00:01:38.90] - Jeff Sherrod

Was that the same?

[00:01:39.59] - Larry Griffin

Yeah. We event eventually actually, the college moved back close to Graceland and bought a church building. But then I won't go into all the details, but, the original campus became available again. We moved back to the original campus.

[00:01:53.29] - Nick Griffin

The same campus that start on nineteen fifty nine.

[00:01:55.40] - Jeff Sherrod

Yeah. That's where you guys are today. Yeah. And so that's cool. Yeah. Still some of the same buildings and all of the

[00:02:00.00] - Larry Griffin

Exact same buildings. Yeah.

[00:02:02.29] - Jeff Sherrod

Yeah. So so what's that? Tell us a little bit about your guys' school, though. Like, what what would you say is a major focus, at Mid South?

[00:02:07.90] - Nick Griffin

So, we've got kind of two major focuses with a lot of what we do. The the big thing is it's a ministry school. Ministry focused school. So we're focused on training people for, ministry. It started, you know, just kind of as a exclusively preacher an accredited preacher training school, and it's just kind of grown to be more just generally for whatever ministry might look like for you. And so all our degrees are focused on that all. We have Bible at the core of all of our courses, and so that's been a big part of our focus. But, ever since, Larry is my dad. You might have noticed this one.

[00:02:44.40] - Jeff Sherrod

So I let people say that themselves.

[00:02:46.09] - Nick Griffin

Yeah. Right. So ever since, ever ever since my dad came to be the president, his his background was in mission work in Latin America. So he came in and was just like, there's a huge opportunity to offer the same ministry education in Spanish. And so, all our degrees have been, you know, ported into Spanish, so we offer them both in Spanish and English. And that's actually probably a big major aspect of our focus now. We do ministry training in Spanish for, Latino, Hispanic students. Yeah. The majority of our students right now are Hispanic, and a lot of them come from overseas to to study. It's an opportunity to come to the US, but still can study in Spanish. And, you know, it's it's been a really rewarding thing for us.

[00:03:30.90] - Jeff Sherrod

That's awesome.

[00:03:31.50] - Nick Griffin

Yeah. Having that part of the DNA.

[00:03:33.90] - Jeff Sherrod

Yeah. And and, Gregg, you met Larry. I don't I don't know when you guys met, but some years ago.

[00:03:37.19] - Gregg Garner

Gosh. Maybe ‘17, ‘18, around that time. Yeah. Yeah. I'd imagine. Yeah. And what was cool about meeting Larry was that I found out he did have that missions background. Mhmm. He's part of team missions in the eighties, I believe. Right?

[00:03:53.69] - Larry Griffin

Yeah. I, went to Uruguay in South America in 1982. And spent, thirteen years in South America and then five years in Miami, Florida Mhmm. Also working with Hispanic church planting.

[00:04:06.00] - Gregg Garner

Yeah. And, married one, I believe. Yeah.

[00:04:09.50] - Nick Griffin

I believe. So this guy

[00:04:10.69] - Gregg Garner

Right. Exactly right.

[00:04:12.80] - Nick Griffin

My mom is from Chile. She was also a missionary in Uruguay at the same time that my dad was. We both met on the mission field, and I remember my dad picking me up from school when I was in high school. My buddy looked at me. He's like, dude, are you adopted? And he looked like, you look nothing like your dad. It's like, Hispanic genes are pretty strong. Yeah.

[00:04:33.00] - Gregg Garner

That's awesome. Yeah. But that's that's that's how we connected and just got to talk. We also have a a mutual friend named John Savage, who I I think you know as well. Right. And, he helped connect us, and we just got to have presidents talk.

[00:04:45.89] - Jeff Sherrod

Yeah. Yep. Larry's been able to come out to the school a couple times. We've had Nick, over to not the campus, but at least to Nashville before. Yeah. To hang out. And every time it's I've always looked forward to getting to hang out with you guys. Right.

[00:04:56.19] - Nick Griffin

And we're we're excited about being here. Ever since my dad came years ago, he's been telling me, dude, you gotta come check out this place in Nashville. And so this is the first time we've gotten to make it happen.

[00:05:05.69] - Jeff Sherrod

But Yeah. And we need to return the favor. I'd love to I'd love to head out to Memphis.

[00:05:08.80] - Larry Griffin

We'd love to have you. Yeah. Certainly.

[00:05:11.19] - Jeff Sherrod

So one of the things that we were talking about before the episode was that you guys have been talking a little bit about spiritual formation.

[00:05:16.39] - Nick Griffin

Mhmm.

[00:05:17.00] - Jeff Sherrod

I I think that this is a fun topic to talk about. I do think that this is when people are going to Bible college, I think that they probably have a perception that they're gonna grow in their relationship with the Lord. Right? Andyou know, be spiritually encouraged, develop a deeper prayer life, a a greater sense of, you know, God's presence in their life. And we were kinda noting that, like, that can happen a little unevenly. Sometimes even at Christian colleges, and I think I'm being kind by saying unevenly, you know, where some people can kinda go for it and they find maybe a right mentor or a right professor, but does it hit every student, and, you know, and is it an emphasis for everyone? So I think that's something to talk about. You know? Also, I know that the accreditor has even come up with they're trying to come up with, like, how do we even assess Right. Spiritual formation.

[00:06:05.80] - Gregg Garner

Both of our schools are with the ABHE. And so there has been an overarching inquiry into how Christian colleges are doing with spiritual formation.

[00:06:15.89] - Jeff Sherrod

Because every college is saying to some degree, this is an emphasis that we have.

[00:06:19.89] - Gregg Garner

Everybody's saying we do this, but the accrediting association is like how do we create benchmarks to prove that it’s actually happening?

[00:06:30.39] - Nick Griffin

Because I’ll say we were struggling to figure that out ourselves. And we had a funny realization where we we kinda developed this spiritual growth assessment that students take when they first come into school, and they take it again when they graduate. And this is our benchmark to show their growth. And our students started scoring lower upon exiting the school than they did when they first came. And I was just like, that's not what we thought we were gonna get out of those results.

[00:06:59.39] - Gregg Garner

I did not expect that.

[00:07:00.69] - Nick Griffin

Yeah. And so it it was interesting as we started to, like, delve into why that is. We realized there's a couple of reasons for that. One, they come in. A lot of our students would come, like, they felt a real call in the ministry, maybe at a camp or at a youth conference or something like that. They come in spiritual mountain top, super excited. They're like, me and God, we're we're tight. We're gonna change the world. Is great. Gonna change the world. And throughout their time in school, they learn how much of the Bible they don't know, how much of their own, like, spiritual growth and maturity they've realized is still lacking and there's still room to grow. And so they often and we we often felt like their self assessment as they were graduating was probably a little more accurate to where they actually were spiritually. But it still looks awful to me. Like, you decreased in your in spiritual growth in your time here.

[00:07:49.39] - Jeff Sherrod

I've looked at some of these tools. They seem to be they're almost all self reported. It is self assessment. You know, the the questions are about church engagement. Often, they're about, like, self reporting, how often you're in the scripture. How often you pray. Maybe how often you give to churches. I think it's another metric I've seen. And maybe how often you're involved in some kind of missions effort. I've seen that one too. So maybe that's the question too. Like, do you guys I you know, there's this has been a harder thing for people to kinda say because we wanna make the claim. When students come here, you're gonna grow in your relationship with the Lord. But do you think it's helpful? I'm asking maybe anybody here to come up with some of these real objective metrics, or have we just, like, really reduced spirituality to you? How often how many times a week do you pray?

[00:08:34.79] - Larry Griffin

I can remember back, when it first came on my radar was at an ABHE annual meeting when Francis Chan spoke. I don't know if you were there at that time, but he he said when he went to Bible college, he dropped out his first year because for the first time in his life, he was studying the Bible to know it rather than to do it. He he had always grown up in his youth group. Okay. So what do we do about this? And now he's in this four years supposedly where it's like, can I pass a test on this knowledge? And and I thought, you know, that's that's really true. Sometimes we're more focused on, you

[00:09:12.79] - Nick Griffin

The Bible becomes a textbook for you.

[00:09:14.70] - Larry Griffin

Becomes an academic exercise. And so so you do have to try to figure out, well, where's the spiritual component, and how do you how do you identify it and measure it or see it or show that it's happening. And it's been a real challenge for us.

[00:09:31.79] - Jeff Sherrod

When you when you guys are thinking about, like, assessing it, maybe even just looking for your own students, like, what are the things you're like, I'm most concerned that they are. You know, what what would you do? Are there specific things you would say?

[00:09:44.60] - Nick Griffin

Well, so, we just recently brought a consultant in to work with us for a week, kind of interview our students, interview our staff, do a little bit of a triage on what's going on in in this situation, and give us some some recommendations on that. And I think one of the realizations we had was that we don't have, like, clearly defined, like, benchmarks that we're shooting for. You know, or even, like, a goal. You know? And so, he was helping us think through a lot of it, asking good questions and stuff like that. We really realized we have these things. We call them our academic core learning threads. They're the the threads that weave their way through all of our programs through everything we do. And those are probably the closest thing we have to sort of the benchmarks of what we're looking for.

[00:10:29.39] - Gregg Garner

And and what would they be? What were some examples?

[00:10:31.10] - Nick Griffin

Yeah. So it's things like yeah. So it's things like, you know, cross cultural, competency. And, you know, we really think that an example of maturity in Christ is learning to, you know, value other cultures, value the nations, and value, you know, how to step into those spaces in a, like, wise way. So that's something we measure with them, something that runs through all of our courses. Like I said, that missions DNA is definitely a big part of our school too. Most of our professors are former missionaries. And so it's some things like that, but it could also be, you know

[00:11:03.60] - Larry Griffin

Bible knowledge, spiritual gift awareness. Are they aware of what their spiritual gift

[00:11:09.79] - Larry Griffin

That's one of, one of them. And then one of them is spiritual growth. That's one of the the, core learning threads. Yeah. And that's where we assess on that and find that, that either they're assessing themselves really well before they come in and then more realistically when they leave, or maybe they really are becoming student Bible scholars rather than doers. I don't know. That's what we're trying to figure out right now. We're just trying to assess them.

[00:11:39.00] - Gregg Garner

Yeah. And that's a that's a very humble

[00:11:41.20] - Larry Griffin

It is.

[00:11:41.70] - Gregg Garner

Way of, letting the results give you options to consider what could be happening, but also gives you reason to refine the process so that you don't have to wonde. About those kinds of things. But, yeah, there's a Mhmm. That's a challenge. Yeah.

[00:11:55.50] - Nick Griffin

So we're figuring it out. If we're, you know, completely honest, we're just I mean we're figuring it out.

[00:11:59.00] - Gregg Garner

My question. Like, do you guys think that people at large just, you know, Christians out there, parents who are sending their kids to school, do you think they have a rubric for spiritual formation? What do you think they're looking for? Like, if their kid goes to Bible college or to any Christian school, when they're done with the Christian education. What do they expect spiritual formation to look like? I I'm curious because I wonder if they if they would even like what they would say. Like, I imagine they would say, I guess so. After they're done, I'd they'd be praying all the time and reading their Bible all the time and going to church frequently and raising money to go on mission trips several times a year. But then I think as they were talking, they'd go, wow, that'd be a weird kid.

[00:12:48.89] - Gregg Garner

So I think sometimes people are altogether familiar with the phrase or the term spiritual formation, spiritual development. But we don't share a definition. There's no universal definition for what it looks like for a person in Christ to be mature.

[00:13:06.60] - Jeff Sherrod

Yeah. Because, like, the church that I grew up in, there was hesitancy to send kids to Christian colleges because there was kind of an anti intellectual thing. But I think in part, they would say they would walk away, and have, like, liberal tendencies. It's really, like, they they're gonna question something.

[00:13:29.50] - Gregg Garner

When I went to bible school, my grandmother, I I I called her during, like, the third or fourth week at school and was just telling her about my experience, just kinda updating her. And her big, caution for me was to not let all that learning take away my spirituality. That that was her caution. She was concerned that my my whatever spiritual development I had was going to be reduced as a result.

[00:13:52.10] - Nick Griffin

Mhmm. Yeah. And sadly, you know, I think I think that is informed by experience for a lot of these people. They had people that went off to schools that claimed to be, you know, a school that's gonna prepare them for, bible learning and ended up just, you know, they ended up coming back with just a lot of, like, doubts, a lot of questions about their faith, and just a lot of, just

[00:14:15.60] - Larry Griffin

Or different interpretations of the scripture than what their denominational

[00:14:20.29] - Gregg Garner

Yeah.

[00:14:21.10] - Larry Griffin

Interpretation has to be, and that scares them. It's like, well, we didn't we thought you were gonna be indoctrinated more. I think I think that might be the rubric that you're that they're looking for, indoctrination. Solid in what we believe. Yeah. Yeah. And so if they question that, it's like, oh, wow. What did that college

[00:14:41.29] - Gregg Garner

Which is the opposite of an academic experience. But you're saying you think that a default expectation for spiritual formation is that young people come into an institution and get indoctrinated with the, maybe we can call them core values that the denomination that they belong to insist upon.

[00:15:03.20] - Larry Griffin

Right? Exactly.

[00:15:05.10] - Larry Griffin

And so if you question that, then it's, well, you're going liberal Mhmm. Which, you know, is is just a whole different thing, but it's just, I think that's the way a lot of of parents, at least, or preachers and church leaders feel like. And so if they see their their young people going off to a college a it sounds like when you had this kind of experiences, it would be a question. Have Have

[00:15:35.89] - Gregg Garner

In your experience, what what what kind of conversations are you having with parents? What's it sound like? How's the parent approaching you, and what are you saying.

[00:15:41.79] - Larry Griffin

I think it's we in our case, at least, it's more with preachers and church leaders. Who are, you know, like, what kind of role do women have? You know? Or are you letting women do this in your school? Whereas we don't do that in our church. And so, you know, those sorts of things. And then I've had I've I've had the opposite effect where we've had students that come from a different denominational background than ours. And when we begin to try to open them up to some other ways of looking at passages, then they're like, oh, well, that I didn't know you believed that. And they'll drop out or, you know, they just they they don't feel comfortable. And so I I remember having conversations with students like, you're in an academic situation where we want you to question things. And you don't have to believe what we believe. Just defend why you believe what you believe based on the scriptures. That's why why we're here. And so don't feel like your professor is gonna fail you because you don't agree with him on that as long as you can say, well, this is why I believe it. That's what we want. And we're we're not threatened to buy that.

[00:16:51.79] - Gregg Garner

Right. I don't I don't know if there's any legitimate academic institution that's gonna be threatened by someone trying to take, an approach that's different than what the institution is trying to teach as long as they fulfill those expectations that we do have. Like, we had one student, this is probably fifteen years ago. But he was expected to write a ten page paper at the culmination of a class. He skipped a lot of classes. He turns in the paper late, and the the the paper you can't forget the title. It's such a creative title. It's called Burnt Bread and Bitter Wine, The Horse Supper. It was about the book of Hosea. And instead of writing a ten page paper, he wrote, like, a thirty stanza poem.

[00:17:35.20] - Larry Griffin

Yeah.

[00:17:35.79] - Gregg Garner

And there's he took no hermeneutical approach whatsoever. So every once in a while, you do get somebody whose idea as to how they're going to respond to the educational experience is so out of left field. You're like, okay, buddy. They dropped out. But, you know, outside of that, if the person's going to apply a hermeneutic to ry to support their thesis with respect to what they're thinking, I think that's all we want.

[00:18:02.50] - Nick Griffin

Right? Exactly. Yeah. Because we actually say as a school, we don't have some sort of creed, some sort of statement of faith that you have to at the end of this our time at the school, you will agree with all of these things and all these particular interpretations. What we always say is we wanna teach you how to study the Bible, how to study the word, how to do it well. Yeah. And we're gonna let the Holy Spirit guide you wherever Yeah. You know, he does through the through the scripture. Riskier. So

[00:18:27.59] - Larry Griffin

Yeah. It is. And that and that goes back to one of the things we were talking about. Rubrics is, this consultant asked me one of the things. He said, well, what do, you know, what do you not see that you would like to see among the student body as far as spiritual growth? And I said, the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, I I and that's risky because the Holy Spirit may lead them to you know? And I think going back to what parents would say, you know, well, okay. We want your student to learn to depend and follow and obey what the Holy Spirit leads. Well, what if that leads them to Africa or Asia or somewhere? Well, okay. That's part of the deal.

[00:19:12.40] - Gregg Garner

But there there is an an fear sometimes that exists in families when they are allowing their young person to experience some kind of authoritative teaching with respect to their faith. Yeah. And I think this is probably why most people try to attend their denominational schools.

[00:19:35.79] - Larry Griffin

Yeah.

[00:19:36.00] - Gregg Garner

But when when they don't, there there is this potential conflict that emerges. And so when it comes back to spiritual formation, can you have a generalized spiritual formation rubric, or is it always going to be maybe we can use the term just denomination. Is it always gonna be denominationally affiliated based upon the core belief systems of that institution?

[00:19:58.40] - Nick Griffin

Yeah. Because I def I think I wanna affirm that. You know? Like, I think that there is a valid fear there. I'm not trying to say, oh, don't worry about it. Trust us. You know? Like, I I and I, They have a concern, and there's, you know, there's valid reason to to feel that way. You wanna do the thing that's best for your kids. You don't wanna send them off somewhere and have them, you know, go direction that you think is wrong. So I definitely think that there is, something to that. But I do think a little bit of the core, we're starting to discover a little bit. We've been doing a lot of study ourselves and reading. Dallas Willard, wrote a lot on spiritual formation. He's kind of a philosopher that worked on some of that. And, more recently, John Mark Homer has written a lot of books, and he John Mark Homer even, self identifies as a Dallas Willard popularizer. He always says, you know, he's like, Dallas Willard is hard to read. It's like it's like tough. And so he's like, I'm gonna take those ideas and make them a little more simple. And what he's focused on is, more rhythms and practices that extend throughout Christian history and throughout every denomination. You know, we've always done prayer, you know, Sabbath, fasting, worship, these sorts of things that are rhythm practices.

[00:21:15.20] - Gregg Garner

Spiritual disciplines?

[00:21:17.90] - Nick Griffin

Or yeah, spiritual disciplines is would be the, you know, traditional term uses for some of that. And so, some of that has been some of our focus is just focusing on, like, what have Christians always been doing? What can we learn from the history of, across denominations? And, and, you know, that feels like a a safe place to start with some of that. You know? And so he's been talking a lot about some of those, like, just rhythms and practices of daily life that, help keep you connected to the Lord and, you know, listening to God Well, that's the decisions you're making. So that's been that

[00:21:52.29] - Gregg Garner

So you guys are extracting from those works, these spiritual disciplines as a way to start your benchmarking process?

[00:22:00.70] - Nick Griffin

Correct. That's kind of the direction we think we're gonna go a little bit with some of that, you know, see how we can structure what we're doing at the school so that, like, those rhythms are just a part of what we do.

[00:22:12.79] - Gregg Garner

I sometimes wonder for families who are putting their kids into bible school, Christian school, if I like how much they actually care about spiritual formation. Like, I'm I'm not altogether sure they care about that more than questions like, what job is my kid gonna do? How much money are they gonna make? Will they be able to visit me during holidays? I feel like those would be the more positive questions and considerations. Which I think things were different maybe fifteen, twenty years ago. You would have more spiritual formation questions. But I don't I just don't get them these days anymore. I I only hear spiritual formation issues come up when there is some disagreement. That exists between what the parents thought the child should be learning and what they did learn. And, usually, it's because we're taking an academic approach and asking questions.

[00:23:05.70] - Nick Griffin

Right.

[00:23:06.00] - Gregg Garner

And not even sometimes coming to conclusions, but asking the question is the dangerous moment. So outside of that, I just I I don't hear. Have you had a parent in the last 10-15 years come to you and be like, I'm really concerned about spiritual formation. What do you guys got going on there?

[00:23:23.40] - Jeff Sherrod

I have not heard this.

[00:23:24.79] - Gregg Garner

I really haven't.

[00:23:26.79] - Jeff Sherrod

I think even for students evaluate. It might even catch you know, because I I think as a school, this is this is a big emphasis for us so you know, for all of our students, they they're required to do morning prayer every day. Get together with their houses. We do a lot of corporate times of prayer and worship, and worship is a big emphasis for us. And we I think that there's been a lot of students that have come here, and that's been a surprise actually for them. Like, oh, I'm praying and I'm I'm worshiping. And, I think it's freeing for them, you know, once they kind of accept and be like, this is part of what it is to be a person in Christ. But I don't think it's the thing that they're looking for even that sometimes as a student.

[00:24:03.59] - Gregg Garner

I think the the the closest we come to giving our students an idea as to what it is they could become culminating their education here is just comes colloquially. They'll be like Jesus. And the interesting part about making a statement like that is that people have their preconceived ideas about who Jesus is. And what he's about. And they often are like I guess, I could say sometimes do not match actually who Jesus was and is. And, when considering, like, a spiritually mature person, I think we all agree Jesus is the one. Romans 8:9. Yeah. For those whom God foreknew, he'd predestined. They'd become conformed to the image of his son.

[00:24:50.09] - Nick Griffin

Absolutely.

[00:24:50.70] - Gregg Garner

So to become like Jesus is is definitely, the goal. Right. But you're again having to define what that means.

[00:24:58.00] - Nick Griffin

Yeah. Because, the questioning thing that we've talked about that's present in academics is is interestingly something I'm recently learning that was a part of Jesus, you know. There's a book I was introduced to by a friend that's, it's called Jesus is the Question. And it just kinda subverts that whole idea of Jesus to answer. And he points out that in the gospels, most of the time when people ask Jesus a question, he responds with another question. You know? He's just like, you know, well, who do you say your neighbor is? You know? What is that? And then he, he will respond either with a question or with a story. And he's like, this whole idea of Jesus, like, directly answering a question, based on this guy, I think the way he calculated it, he says it was several hundred questions that Jesus has asked in the gospels, and he directly answers four, I think. The rest of the time, he's just asking questions.

[00:25:50.59] - Gregg Garner

And in a faith based community at large, like Christian schools, that right there is going to be for many people issue. If you don't answer me directly as to what it is that I'm asking you right now, like, do you believe in Right. Statement statement statement statement statement statement. Yes or no. It just that didn't even work with Jesus. Yeah. But I do think we're, as academic institutions who have Christian faith as the the cornerstone of of our existence, I do think that people expect us to answer the question just so directly.

[00:26:27.09] - Jeff Sherrod

They do. Yeah. I'm thinking about your question about, like, the generality or the specifics that maybe we find with denominational schools. Denominational schools obviously can be more specific in their in their faith and practices. And you know, we do see differences in communities in New Testament, like John's community, produces the, the gospel and the writings of John. That's obviously different theological concerns and emphasis than what we find from, like, Luke's community? It's like or Paul's community. And I I don't think that we're supposed to put those and say one was right and one was wrong, but for the moments that they had and the audiences that they were speaking to and what guy to call them to at a particular time, that felt appropriate. So I'm I would be concerned, I guess, all that to say. I'll be concerned if the effort is to say, let's make our school as general as possible. In order to be the least offensive. To the most amount of people and really take away any specific theological, takes or, you know, maybe not takes us away way right way, but emphases or perspectives that we might have. That God has equipped us for to be the body of Christ in this particular moment, in this particular place, you know, a real embodied, real embodied faith. And I would be, yeah, I would be concerned about that. I think that it's it's helpful for us to say.

[00:27:44.40] - Gregg Garner

People are doing that. Yeah. Right? That's that's why the biblical or the Bible school is, dying at large. Right? Bible school institutions, and they're either just closing or they're turning into a Christian school with that becomes a liberal arts college. Isn't that the process there? Like, generalized, generalized, generalized And

[00:28:06.59] - Jeff Sherrod

until you're not saying anything anymore.

[00:28:08.00] - Nick Griffin

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:28:09.20] - Gregg Garner

And now you're Princeton. Right.

[00:28:11.90] - Jeff Sherrod

Harvard. Right.

[00:28:13.00] - Larry Griffin

One of the questions that the Vanderbilt. That this consultant that we were working with asked us, which I think is is very interesting is are what is what is your goal as an institution? Is it to develop their and mature them in their spiritual life, or is it to prepare them for a vocation?

[00:28:31.20] - Nick Griffin

Mhmm.

[00:28:31.59] - Larry Griffin

And what what he found as he asked is that almost all of our faculty and staff thinks we're preparing them for a vocation in Christian ministry, whereas most of the students weren't sure what their vocation was gonna be. They just wanted to be in a Christian atmosphere. And I think that's a shift from I mean, I I went forty years ago to Bible College, so it's been several decades. But in in my time as a student, to say that it was the college's purpose to form our spiritually form us spiritually, we would have said, no. That that's the church's purpose. And I came from the church, and they formed me spiritually. Your job now is to prepare me to be a missionary or a preacher or a youth minister or whatever it is my vocation is. Whereas today, I I do think that I don't know if it's a if it's a lack of spiritual formation in the local congregations or if it's just a difference in the in the generations and the the maturity levels and delayed adolescence and all that sort of thing. I don't know. But The synthesis of it all. Yeah. Our students are coming to us, at least in our institution, less clear on exactly what they're being called to do Mhmm. And needing help to form Yeah. A call.

[00:29:48.50] - Nick Griffin

They need some pastoring to help them, you know, figure out where they're going. Because I I agree, you know, you have to speak specifically to this to the specific situation, specific context. I've always been motivated. That's one of my favorite things about the Bible. You know? God didn't just speak abstractly to all people all time. Really, anytime we're reading the Bible, we're listening in on a conversation between God and a specific group of people Yeah. In a specific time, in a specific context, with specific problems. We were just talking about this reworking some of our courses. And one of our courses on the book of Romans in the past, Romans was taught just kind of as this, like, abstract systematic theology. And I've been really, really convicted of, like, no. This is written Paul was writing to a specific church in Rome with specific questions about how to follow God better. And can you imagine if Paul would not have given them specific answers and would have just been like, well, just trust God. He'll help you figure it out. And he was like, well, some of you guys are wondering about, like, should I eat meat? Should I not eat meat? Should I eat only vegetables? And he's given them some specific help and instruction. And so I think we're realizing that a big part of our job as a school now is to to help directly speak into, you know, where are you trying to go? How are you trying to get there? How is what is God telling you in this season? Mhmm. And, you know, what's the the the sort of greater level of maturity that you can achieve? We wanna help you get there.

[00:31:19.29] - Jeff Sherrod

Yeah. Yeah. I think there's probably an emphasis that more and more schools are going towards. Right? Like, they're trying to get involved in the spiritual development, maybe because of all the reasons you said or, and I do think that that's a big part. You know, we've, one of the thing the conversations that we've had a lot on this podcast is, it's not like an either or, you know, with college, church. It's like there needs to be greater cooperation

[00:31:42.40] - Larry Griffin

Exactly.

[00:31:43.00] - Jeff Sherrod

And partnership where they're not churches may be like, alright. Now they're gonna do the next four years, and then we'll take back over, but Mhmm.

[00:31:49.40] - Nick Griffin

How

[00:31:49.59] - Jeff Sherrod

can we support one another?

[00:31:50.59] - Nick Griffin

Mhmm. Yeah. That's the dream for sure is just integrating all of it together. So yeah.

[00:31:57.59] - Gregg Garner

I think to speak towards your your take and what you guys are trying to do even with your example with Romans that Paul speaking to a specific context of a specific community of people, I do believe that if all of our Christian institutions could become comfortable with each of us being responsible for that measure we've been given Mhmm. And the very specific communities and context that we're having to teach and speak into, we will recognize that we are actually doing our job the more specific we get.

[00:32:29.59] - Jeff Sherrod

That's right. Yeah.

[00:32:30.20] - Gregg Garner

Because the the universal appeal thing is is more, along the lines of, like, a Babel construct. Right? Let's build something that is gonna be marketable from the heavens. We're gonna call all of them. Everybody's gonna come here to this place because we speak a universal language. Right? Everybody's gonna speak what we speak. We have all the same symbols. Come on, everybody. Come out to this project. Yeah. And we already know that God finds that confusing and will will reveal its confusingness, and that kind of a project needs to be disassembled. And I think if anything, you get when you get the inverse or the reverse of that in, the book of Acts during Pentecost, it's the idea that you have these these different communities. They have their own languages. They have their own context. They've all come together. Now they can hear the praise of God in all these different languages. But then after the celebration, they're all gonna go back Yeah. To their respective communities. And if anything, there's this sign that God is affirming even to the Jews that he's moving in these different contexts with these different people. So I I think that we as, Christian institutions have to be comfortable with the differences that we have, respect each other for those differences. Of course, we don't want any differences that lead to danger or detrimental anything. Right? But at the same time, we can identify that Yeah. There are aspects of of belief within our Christian history that vary, like, diversely. You you have some communities who are going to be very concerned with what clothes you're wearing Mhmm. As part of your spiritual development. Right? Right. Where you have other communities, they they won't even believe you're filled with the holy spirit unless you have an ecstatic utterance in the tongue. Like, there's so there's gotta be room, though.

[00:34:17.40] - Nick Griffin

Yeah. Mhmm.

[00:34:17.90] - Gregg Garner

For all kinds of people who are, journeying with Jesus and and making sense of this life. And and we would just do better to support each other Exactly. Rather than

[00:34:30.09] - Larry Griffin

It's interesting that you would use the Bible, Moses there because I I, I listened to a podcast by, a rabbi, Jewish rabbi, Daniel Lapin. I don't know if you've listened to

[00:34:42.30] - Nick Griffin

that, but,

[00:34:43.50] - Larry Griffin

he spoke once about that particular story and he said, do you know what the main sin was that they committed? And he said if you At Babel. At Babel. He said, you you read the scriptures, and the first thing that it says when it starts when it introduces that story, the very first thing it says, they came together and they said, let's build bricks. And he said that was the problem because always before that, everything was built by natural stones. And in fact, God says, when you build an altar for me, don't don't work the stone. You know? And he said, stones are made by God and they're all different and they're all unique and you have to figure out how to put them together. But but bricks are the same. They're all exactly the same. They're uniform. And and so the idea was, well, let's just make everything the same, and we'll we'll get to heaven. This way, you know, we'll build, greater structures. And I think that's true. If we have in in biblical higher education or in church life in general or as we're talking about in spiritual formation, If we just have this, like, everybody's gonna be this way

[00:35:47.50] - Nick Griffin

Yeah.

[00:35:47.80] - Larry Griffin

We're making bricks. We're not making we're not we're not celebrating the unique stone, the living stone Yeah. That God made. Yeah. And so every student's different, and their spiritual formation is gonna be different. Yeah. Now how we assess that for accreditation, I don't know. But somehow, you have to find out where they are when they come in.

[00:36:10.19] - Gregg Garner

There's one rubric of consideration that I think we try to use that, maybe has some universal aspect to it, but I I think it will become specific anytime a community implements it. And that would be this idea that, the book of loop, for example, it has, it it starts off with the narratives concerning the births of Jesus and John. Right? It has that diptych device where their lives are compared. And then in chapter three, you get a short genealogy, and then we get introduced to Jesus' public ministry. And, in Luke, it's during a time of prayer that the father speaks to him. But then right after that, it says the Holy Spirit leads him out into the wilderness. Mhmm. And then we see that in the wilderness, this this experience that is in many ways mirroring the exodus and Mhmm. The the, wilderness experience of Israel, Jesus now is out there, and he's contending with temptation related to very specific things concerning his vocational identity in Christ, like, as a son of God. And we learned that his capacity to respond is via scripture every time.

[00:37:18.00] - Larry Griffin

Mhmm.

[00:37:18.30] - Gregg Garner

He responds with the knowledge of the word of God. Mhmm. And what Luke does at the end of that is he is he notes that Jesus is now full of the Holy Spirit. That's it. That he leaves the wilderness and enters in the Galilee full of the Holy Spirit. So to me, that text is is highlighting or giving us at least a clue into what it means to be a person who's spiritually mature. Mhmm. And that would be a person who knows how to respond to the various challenges in life with scripture.

[00:37:45.90] - Larry Griffin

Mhmm.

[00:37:46.59] - Gregg Garner

And so I think that for our our young people, one of the markers that we have with respect to their maturation in Christ as a spiritual person is their capacity to use scripture in such a way that it becomes the filter for how they intake information

[00:38:03.00] - Nick Griffin

Mhmm.

[00:38:03.30] - Gregg Garner

As well as the filter for what comes out of their mouth in terms of how they speak to others, build the world that they're part of. And and I I think that's probably for us the one that we're most concerned with in in

[00:38:14.09] - Nick Griffin

in the spirit

[00:38:14.40] - Jeff Sherrod

of the arts. We do even, we do an exit interview when students graduate. Mhmm. And then we collect forms from, students because every student has a mentor that they kinda work with through the through the program. So we send out this form to mentors, to people who facilitate their, mission trips.

[00:38:31.19] - Larry Griffin

Mhmm.

[00:38:31.40] - Jeff Sherrod

And so they're on the field with them.

[00:38:32.80] - Larry Griffin

Mhmm.

[00:38:33.40] - Jeff Sherrod

To professors and then other kind of maybe adults in their life and staff. And those are that's, like, the kind of the principal questions. Like, do you have specific instances where this person was able to relate scripture when they were working through something? And this person can either say yes or no. You know? Like, I can't think of anything. But it's been great for us, I think, to be able to tell these students, like, so then I meet with them at the end compiles back. Hey. Here's five instances where someone was able to relate that you use scripture.

[00:39:01.50] - Nick Griffin

Mhmm.

[00:39:02.09] - Jeff Sherrod

And they're like, yeah. It came out of me. I wasn't even thinking about it.

[00:39:04.69] - Nick Griffin

That's awesome.

[00:39:05.09] - Jeff Sherrod

I was like, dude, that's that's when you that's when you're doing it, man. Yeah. Because Because

[00:39:07.50] - Gregg Garner

Because I mean, it comes from the the what I believe to be a fundamental understanding about God that he's invisible. Mhmm. And that the way that we know God is since the foundation of the world has been through his word. Mhmm. Yeah. And then the beginning of John, the in the beginning was the word. In fourteen, that word became flesh.

[00:39:23.59] - Nick Griffin

Mhmm.

[00:39:24.30] - Gregg Garner

And so if he's the image of the invisible God and we still can't see him, we know him still, Jesus, as the living word.

[00:39:30.50] - Nick Griffin

Mhmm.

[00:39:31.00] - Gregg Garner

And in that case, if we're going to image God, who's invisible, it's not gonna be through the way we look.

[00:39:37.19] - Nick Griffin

Right. It's It's

[00:39:37.59] - Gregg Garner

It's gonna be by the word that we put into the world. So we wanna see that word come out of our students, and we wanna know that that word comes from God.

[00:39:46.69] - Nick Griffin

Absolutely.

[00:39:47.09] - Gregg Garner

And that is probably, I think, our our biggest Yeah. Marker, benchmark, consideration.

[00:39:53.50] - Nick Griffin

Yeah. We, I've that's kind of always, you know, been the case with Christian history. I realized I recently was reading a book talking about the very first few centuries of the of the church, and this author was pointing out that, you know, widespread illiteracy was kind of the con the norm in the first few centuries of the church. And the church was like, no. You need to know scripture. We will teach you to read so that you can read scripture. And so they said some of the first widespread literacy campaigns were from some of the first Christians because they were like, we you need it. It's important. It's essential, to what we're doing. And this author was even pointing out, these days, we kind of take it for granted that any sort of religion is going to have, like, its holy book. You know? But he said, really, before Christianity and Judaism, that was not ever a thing. He talked about the most famous, most widespread religion, of that time with a lot of the, like, emperor worship in Rome. He says, we know that was a thing because of other people writing about it and because of their temples and altars that they left. Yeah. We have no idea what they taught. They didn't write anything down. They didn't have any scriptures. We have no idea what their teachings were. But he says that's never been the case for, you know, God has always spoken through scripture. Yeah. And so, it's it, you know, it's that thread that

[00:41:17.50] - Gregg Garner

runs all the way through Christianity. This isn't a new idea by any means. Right? But I think that sometimes, like as I I brought up earlier, when parents are sending their kids to school or maybe even the kids coming to school themselves, they may not have an understanding or even clear expectation as to what it is they're going to become as a result.

[00:41:39.80] - Jeff Sherrod

Right.

[00:41:40.19] - Gregg Garner

Like, they may merely think about it in terms of the occupation they'll hold afterwards. Mhmm. I'm going to school because I wanna become a pastor. Instead of, I'm going to school because I wanna become more like Jesus. Mhmm. Yeah. Which which I think there are also a good handful of students who are wanting that as well, but maybe not recognizing the academic literacy part of it.

[00:42:01.19] - Nick Griffin

Right.

[00:42:01.69] - Gregg Garner

That's the part of becoming like Jesus. Becoming like Jesus. I mean, in that same in that same, right after the episode in the wilderness, Jesus goes back into Nazareth. Right? That's when we learn he's literate. He gets the scroll from the attendant, opens up Isaiah, and reads for himself.

[00:42:14.80] - Nick Griffin

Yeah.

[00:42:15.19] - Gregg Garner

So part of being like Jesus is is being a biblically literate person.

[00:42:19.69] - Jeff Sherrod

And recognizing that when you speak with God's word, you're it might even be misunderstood by people who claim to know God. Mhmm.

[00:42:27.00] - Gregg Garner

Who don't know the word.

[00:42:28.00] - Jeff Sherrod

Who don't know the word.

[00:42:28.90] - Gregg Garner

Yeah. And so And that's a direct from Jesus. Right.

[00:42:32.50] - Jeff Sherrod

You know, he he gave us a a manna that neither, you know, we nor ancestors knew this as a new, thing. It felt foreign. And then, even as people you know, because when we start speaking that way, that's where you kinda people can go back to their family. Yeah. What do you what is this language different because right

[00:42:49.30] - Gregg Garner

now, you're quoting Deuteronomy eight. Yeah. Right? That that that

[00:42:51.19] - Larry Griffin

that that and he fed you manna that manna that

[00:42:51.40] - Gregg Garner

Manna that manna that you did not know nor your fathers Mhmm. Didn't know so that you might know that man does not live by bread alone, but by everywhere that comes from the mouth of God. So, like, that that manna being foreign to them, you're saying, puts people in a position where they don't even have accurate criteria to make a judgment Mhmm. With respect to spiritual formation.

[00:43:14.00] - Jeff Sherrod

Right.

[00:43:14.80] - Gregg Garner

Just feels different. Interesting because in it's but still in Christian higher education and training institutions, we we still have, a constituency of we don't call them customers, but, definitely, the students and their families make a choice Mhmm. To come to our school, and then we have to uphold what it is that they're expecting. And they will say things like, we're spending good money

[00:43:34.69] - Larry Griffin

Yeah.

[00:43:35.09] - Gregg Garner

On being here. But it's interesting when you're sometimes your customer or your client or your student

[00:43:40.59] - Nick Griffin

Right.

[00:43:41.00] - Gregg Garner

Doesn't have an appropriate rubric for what a a a great medical education would produce.

[00:43:47.19] - Nick Griffin

Yeah. We were just talking about on the way up here that that difficulty of, like, you wanna deliver on what they expected, but, I always have loved this quote. It's a Henry Ford quote that I learned through Steve Jobs, which he was talking about. He was talking about, you know, Henry Ford said, if I'd asked people what they wanted, they would've said a faster horse. He's like, sometimes people don't know what they want, and you have to kinda show them. You know? And so I'm like, I I know you think this is what you want out of this time here. But there's this greater thing that we've that, you know, could be so much more better for you. And part of our goal, I think, what we're trying to do is be better about communicating that. Yeah. Be better about, like, communicating that vision of how, like, exciting and how awesome this can look to be like Jesus. You know? What's better than that?

[00:44:33.69] - Gregg Garner

Yeah. Right. Yeah.

[00:44:35.30] - Jeff Sherrod

Yeah. It is hard to communicate. You know, like, we one of our, like, central things that we try to do for outcomes and it's in our mission statement is that we want students to be spiritually mature.

[00:44:42.00] - Nick Griffin

Mhmm.

[00:44:42.40] - Larry Griffin

But

[00:44:42.50] - Jeff Sherrod

I think everyone hearing that, whether they're prospective student, they're gonna be like, sounds good. Yeah. You know, like but you don't know what you don't know. Yeah. You know? Mhmm.

[00:44:49.90] - Gregg Garner

Yeah. Because according to Jesus, like, if you take the Sermon on the Mountain, those beatitudes, a spiritually mature person is someone who's persecuted. Right. They're mocked and

[00:44:58.59] - Nick Griffin

they're lied about

[00:44:59.30] - Gregg Garner

and they're reviled and things are said about them falsely. And amidst all that, they know how to rejoice. Mhmm. Right. That's a spiritual mature person, which looks like a crazy person. Right? Like a person who's rejoicing over the fact of being lied about and ridiculed and mocked. But Mhmm. According to the Jesus', maturation rubric that exists there, the beatitudes, it's like, yeah. This is where it's all heading.

[00:45:21.50] - Nick Griffin

Yeah. Yeah. I remember as real young being in church and really being taken by the passage that talks about in Acts when the, apostles are beat are, like, whipped and beaten for Yeah. And they leave. They're, like, stoked. Yeah. They're just like, this is amazing.

[00:45:39.90] - Gregg Garner

Yeah. I

[00:45:40.30] - Larry Griffin

I mean, she's

[00:45:40.80] - Nick Griffin

Just being like, what? That was the reaction to it. Not

[00:45:44.59] - Gregg Garner

Yeah. But that would be a a a point where we could identify their progress. Yeah. Exactly. In spiritual development.

[00:45:51.40] - Larry Griffin

But

[00:45:51.59] - Gregg Garner

to the an undiscerning group of people, they just look crazy.

[00:45:55.30] - Nick Griffin

Yeah.

[00:45:55.90] - Gregg Garner

Right? And and I mean, mean, even the on the the Pentecost, that's what Peter has to inform the entire community. Right? Like, they're not drunk. Drunk.

[00:46:03.00] - Jeff Sherrod

It's only 9AM.

[00:46:04.00] - Gregg Garner

Yeah. But it is interesting though that we are in a space where we're having to accommodate the expectations of people who are even we could even say are good people, sweet people, kind people, but they don't know what it is that they actually want out of what it is that we have to offer. Yeah. So it does become our, need to

[00:46:22.90] - Jeff Sherrod

show them.

[00:46:23.30] - Gregg Garner

Right. Just like you said, like, we gotta we gotta I I I think in the biblical vernacular, demonstration would be the the term there that we have to demonstrate that, power of God that that is changing lives and bringing about mature young people who want to image God through a watching world.

[00:46:45.59] - Jeff Sherrod

Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:46:46.80] - Larry Griffin

Yeah. And while we may say, you know, Paul Paul was bold enough to say imitate me because I imitate Christ.

[00:46:54.90] - Gregg Garner

Right.

[00:46:55.40] - Larry Griffin

And while we wouldn't want a student to say, oh, I wanna be just like professor Smith, in a way we do. Our professors and our faculty need to be the models and the demonstration things that we've also talked about in this in evaluation of our spiritual formation program is do our professors and our faculty, do they really know themselves what their job is

[00:47:27.59] - Nick Griffin

Yeah.

[00:47:28.00] - Larry Griffin

Other than just getting up and teaching a class on critical thinking? Do they do they understand and know that it's their model of maturity in Christ

[00:47:39.50] - Nick Griffin

Yeah.

[00:47:39.90] - Larry Griffin

That is also part of their job description.

[00:47:42.09] - Jeff Sherrod

Right.

[00:47:42.80] - Gregg Garner

Right. Right. Yeah.

[00:47:44.00] - Nick Griffin

But I think you've given us a I like your your metric. We might use it in our it would say crazy metric. Like, how crazy do you see?

[00:47:51.90] - Gregg Garner

Good. You reexperience, like, porn.

[00:47:55.19] - Nick Griffin

People out there think yours is super crazy. Alright.

[00:47:57.69] - Larry Griffin

Doing great. Doing good.

[00:48:00.90] - Nick Griffin

So Yeah.

[00:48:01.40] - Jeff Sherrod

I'm I'm hoping that for people listening to this that they're hearing that spiritual formation is not like an ancillary thing, for it's not like I'm gonna go and do some other stuff, and I hope along the way, I pick up some spiritual you know, this is what we're talking about. Mhmm. Like, when we're like, what are we in this for? This is this is really and so schools, we do need to all of us. Right? Like, put together serious thought of, how are we how are we doing it? How are we equipping it? How are we looking at ourselves to think about how we could this better, supporting one another in our local context, so we can, really follow the Lord where he's called us to follow. It's it's a it's a high task and needs serious thought. Mhmm. Yeah. I appreciate you guys, joining us today.

[00:48:39.80] - Gregg Garner

Well, it's been great.

[00:48:41.00] - Larry Griffin

Thank you for inviting

[00:48:42.40] - Gregg Garner

Thank you so much for coming.

[00:48:43.50] - Nick Griffin

Yeah. Always love an opportunity to nerd out about stuff. I can't talk to most people about this. They're like, what? I don't know. No frame of reference for that. So love being able to talk to some other people.

[00:48:54.00] - Gregg Garner

Before before we, sign off here, why don't you guys, tell our audience where they can find out about Mid South?

[00:49:00.00] - Nick Griffin

Yeah. Please don't. Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:49:02.09] - Larry Griffin

Yeah. Mid South Christian College is, located in Memphis, Tennessee. And, mid south christian dot edu is our website. It has all of the information. And, like we mentioned at the beginning, we're a bilingual school. So for those that, speak Spanish or know of people who would like to get a higher education, a lot of our first generation, or second generation Hispanics, A lot of times, they don't understand the higher education process in the United States. It's not like their home countries. A lot of parents of Hispanics don't believe their children could go and get a a college education in the United States. So check us out at midsouthchristian.edu. We'd love to.

[00:49:45.40] - Jeff Sherrod

Absolutely. Thanks again, everybody. Like always, like and subscribe, share