Episode Synopsis
Join Gregg and Jeff as they are joined by Jennifer Nyago, Director of Community and Student Life at The Institute for GOD, for a thought-provoking discussion on a unique aspect of college life: the formation of meaningful friendships within a faith community. They explore the significant role friendship played in Jesus' ministry and how college serves as an excellent platform to emulate his teachings on companionship. This conversation sheds light on the importance of building relationships for both spiritual and academic enrichment during college.

College Conversations - Season 1, Episode 3: Friendship Goals - Still have Friends at 30 like Jesus (Podcast Transcript)

Gregg Garner 0:02

And we're back with College Conversations. My name is Gregg Garner, and I'm here with Professor Jeffrey Sherrod everyone. And soon life and community life director for the Institute for God International. Ms. Jennifer Nyago.

Jen Nyago 0:17

Hello.

Gregg Garner 0:20

That’s what Siri calls you.

Jen Nyago 0:23

It was trying to like, keep going. I couldn't do it.

Gregg Garner 0:26

But really, it's Nyago Yeah. Which is Ugandan, right? It is a Ugandan, man. Yes,

Jen Nyago 0:32

I do. Proud. Yes. It's fantastic.

Gregg Garner 0:35

And you guys actually met through the missions that are connected to the college, right?

Jen Nyago 0:42

Yeah. Yeah, we certainly did back in 2005. I got to experience my internship through the ministry, and that is where we initially met. And you know, of course, it was a year later before the sparks really flew. But yeah, internship was wearing

Jeff Sherrod 1:00

international internship. Yeah.

Gregg Garner 1:01

The sparks flying? Yes,

Jen Nyago 1:05

They did. Because we have three children now.

Gregg Garner 1:10

Wonderful. Well, let's have a conversation.

Jeff Sherrod 1:13

Yeah. So this week, I think that both of us and even with Jen's job, we are interested in talking to you about Christian community as it relates to college campuses, I think that this is something that a lot of people are looking for, is community when they think about college. So I'm gonna let Jen kind of kick us off here with the first prompt for discussion.

Jen Nyago 1:33

Yeah, well, recently, we had an alumni testified to the quality of his relationships or friendships that he gained, having come to the institute, he was sharing how when he came, you know, he only had one best friend, a childhood best friend he'd known for the majority of his life. But you know, part of his testimony was that years later, he now has dozens of, you know, quality people that he knew he could count on in life, which is pretty phenomenal in and of itself. But now, you know, having all of these lifelong friends, I know that the Institute, you know, of course, with my involvement, and having watched it over the years, morph and change and grow, that we really do urge our students to deepen their friendships, and to really work hard to move past, you know, superficial friendships, which is obviously a challenge in and of itself. But I was wondering what are some ways, even as the founder of our school that you've intentionally tried to build into Institute programs, like the avenues for deepening those relationships? And then kind of a second follow up question would be, what kind of advice would you give, even to those that maybe aren't planning to come to the institute, but they're going to embark on their own college experience? How can they intentionally develop quality relationships like that?

Gregg Garner 2:57

When the time comes, you can bring up that second question again, yeah, I'll deal with the first one. That, for me, if I can't find the impetus for an initiative in Scripture, I have a hard time implementing anything. And when I look at the biblical communities that have some potential to thrive, there are certain components to them that are real similar all the way throughout. And I guess, making those observations, whatever program I wanted to put into place for our college, I then had to make sure that it served the purpose of accomplishing ensuring that we had that specific component as to what could make for good friendships and get it in there. So take for example, aloneness is not a good thing, Genesis 2:18 Yeah, right. And it technology, those animals are not going to be sufficient to solve that issue. So there then needs to be other people, specifically, people who can help out and who can mirror back to you and, and ultimately, a partner in life to have family with Sure. And to that's at the basis of any strong community is a healthy family.

So you start you look at the fact that there's a lot of people who in life, they long for people to be covenantal the close to them. And the clearest avenue for that, with respect to their own life would be getting married and having kids and that's like a guarantee these people are covenant elite close to right, right. But what we learn, especially in Christ through the New Testament, is that the one Father we have whom we call upon for daily provisions and leadership, away from temptation. is also the one that we're asking for His kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. And that would include us acknowledging the miracle that has been given to us as the body of Christ, in that we are now covenant committed, kind of people, like our God covenants with us. And he says, Well, if you'd like to fulfill what it is that the Bible expects of you, the Law and the Prophets, then you're going to learn to love one another. And that love is a really covenantal committed kind of love that was, according to Romans five, it was something it was a demonstration of the love of God for him, to give himself even unto a cross for us.

And so when you see demonstrative covenant love, you're looking at the very godly components. And the question becomes, how do you cultivate that, for people who come from various subcultures where the most natural thing they know with covenantal? Love is the DNA nuclear family? Right? So I think an objective for any Christian community is to emphasize the father ship, the parent ship of God, and the fact that turns us into brothers and sisters, and help folks transition into that reality through programs and practice. Yeah, so to me, the first component is going to be proximity. You gotta be around folks. You can people know that with their families, they can have siblings, but if they're not around them, yeah, their relationships go stale. Yeah, there's there's something diminishing about a lack of proximity. The technology that we have allows us to bridge some of those gaps. But it seems without some concrete, visceral experience with another person, you almost have. You've had very little to work off of.

Yeah. And that's why the on campus education is a really cool opportunity to develop solutions. Well, you can do some of it virtually through online community, probably the best part about being part of our online community are the invitations today, annually come out and have this physical experience. So I'd say proximity is a really big component, the next would be time spent. I'm not even sure quality versus quantity makes that big of a difference in this type of consideration. Because I know that growing up with my sister, who's my younger sibling, I'm not sure all of our time spent was quality. But I know we had quantity. Yeah. And it could have been just like, sitting in our van while we were driving up to Yosemite from Southern California, and maybe not talking to each other. But we're in the van together. We made the same stops together. Yeah, we ate the same meals together. We probably didn't have any any conversation too deep. Probably just listening to music, maybe. But those experiences created the context for the strong bond that we have. So while quality is always wonderful quantity counts for something. Yeah. And I know that for me and my college experience.

The my best friend, for the last 25 years of my life was a result of us being in proximity as roommates. And a really awesome thing about that is because we still shared our values in Christ. I never lived further than across the street from the guy. Yeah, for over 25 years. But it's like that proximity component. timespan component can be facilitated. Yeah, it's countercultural. Now people want to have this like incredible diversity of networks that they're attached to. They got these friends here, those friends there and, and it's it goes back to that, that metaphor that you're real wide, but you've got no depth, right? And it's the deep relationships that lasts. Yeah. The shallow friend network is almost seems like inexhaustible. You just keep adding them who I met that one person at that place, they got my IG, they DM me the other day, like, big deal, what's what's that about? Right? If it's not rooted in some kind of lasting, meaningful covenantal relationship? And so that leads to the concept of shared values. It's one thing to share cultural values, those are civically or, or through customs and practices and culture ate into us. In other words, we bond over these like shared pursuits prescribed to us by the world we live in. So hey, have you taken a vacation this year?

Yeah, in our culture vacation is a A thing that happens every year, we want to know where you're going, you're going to go to the beach. Yeah, what are you going to do? And it's like a way to connect with just everybody. But it's, it's a value that folks share. I can't wait to take vacation, I was watching this one comedy. And they were talking about meeting the parents of their, their kids classmates. So their kid had a classmate that she really liked, and the kids in like, kindergarten, and so the parents met the parents of that kid. And they hung out with them at like a PTO kind of thing. And when they got home, they're like, Hey, I think these are the kind of friends that we could actually have that we'd get somewhere. And then the wife's like, like vacation friends, going out to dinner friends. He's like, I'm thinking it's vacation. Yeah, like, whoa. So the shared values of that culture makes vacation friends a pretty Hi, yeah, high level, right. But the Bible gives us our values.

And so for Christian communities and Christian friendships, you now have a new checklist of consideration that comes from scripture that gets you evaluating the quality of your friendship. But if you don't share that mind, yeah, because you could be a Christian and someone else be a Christian, and they share some biblical illiteracy, create an ocean, between you in terms of shared values. But if you both are learning the word together, and you have discussions about it, and you come to the place where you can agree, yeah, there's no greater love than a man lay down his life for his friends. If you really do love me, yeah, you would, you would drop your agenda right now to give me some time because I'm hurting, or I need this moment. And I know you're busy, but like I'm in need. But I know you have that kind of love that Jesus demonstrated for us, like having that value that's biblically based, gives everyone the permissions to engage the relationship beyond the shallow, right, like, you get to go really deep. Yeah. And Jesus in that same chapter 15, he would highlight that, with respect to his relationship, even with his disciples, it for him culminated in the fact they became friends. Yeah. And he enters another component. He's like, I don't call you servants, because the master doesn't confide in a service by call your friends, which the implication there is he has confidence in them, finds in them. So you have to kind of give people the experiences that allow them to develop confidence in one another for Jesus and his disciples. They work together. That's why he said no longer call you servants to call you. Friends, right?

Because it even highlights if he was the master. And still is. But in that, in that situation, he's showing that through working together, and being on mission together, and serving the Lord together, they developed friendships. So giving students opportunities to do just that work together, to serve together. So now you got again, people spending time being in proximity together, spending time together, whether it's quality or quantitative, sharing values together, and then doing mission together, work together. All of this is increasing your confidence in the relationship that you have with the other so that ultimately it culminates in the kind of love that allows you to drop your agenda to lay down your life for your friend, right? This text is not to communicate like, like, I've often thought about the Bruno Mars Mars song or like, he jump on a grenade for you, oh, he put his head on a blade for you to jump in front of a train for you. This is not what Lena in your life means in this text. It's not like I'm gonna catch a bullet for you kind of thing. But it really has to do with setting aside your personal ambitions. And what it is that you think you deserve, you're, you are making that other person a priority in your life. And this is a deep friendship. And this is the kind of friendship Jesus had. It's the kind that he demonstrated with his love. And it's the kind that we could have, because it's coming into the base, right? So when you ask that question, as the founder of the college and everything, all of the programs that we've implemented, take into consideration these components. And the goal is to get our students to be friends that have depth, where they have confidence in one another. And they really love one another and are able to drop even personal ambition so as to serve each other. And you saw that embody just a couple of chapters earlier in the book of Jama Jesus in terms of washing their feet, that he knew who he was, and he knew where he's going where he came from. And in that moment, the agenda becomes practically serving his friends whom he loved by even giving them a memory that he would even in that moment remind them you just got to remember this Yeah. and set them up for a tomorrow that they really had no idea write about. Yeah. So there's, there's so much in Scripture that gives us again, the value points that we need to ensure become the ornamentation on our lives. Yeah.

Jeff Sherrod 15:05

Yeah, I think that even I think it's a great point. Because sometimes I do think that when people think about going to school or going to college and making friends, it almost seems like a passive or an easy thing to do. Like, I'm just gonna go there and have a community. Yeah. Which maybe just means like be around people that are similarly situated in terms of your culture, right. But you know, what you're talking about is this is hard work, to it's not bad or unenjoyable work, but it's work

Gregg Garner 15:32

I agree with you. It's work. But I would say it's a spiritual work. Because we're talking about the kinds of friendships characterized by revelation from God. Yeah, we're not talking about, as you said, just getting around people who kind of share our interests and are kind of like us and have our same culture. That's that's easy, right. But to get around people who come from a diversity of backgrounds and who are being encouraged to be an individual to be yourself, right, there's an inherent conflict with that. Yeah. So how do you how do you resolve all of that? Well, you need that shared value system that comes from God, right, that allows you to deny yourself and to pick up that cross and to engage in God's mission and his agenda. So while it is work, it's we have to remember it's really not our work. It's God working on us. Yeah.

Because we are His workmanship. And as we let him work on us, we turn into the kind of people who do what it is we were supposed to do, right? So it's my opinion that the work that people end up doing is a work of submission. It's a work of obedience. It's a work of just doing what God says. Yeah. And as you do that, the friendships come, right. So I would hold that you're not really working at developing friendships. Yeah. You're working at developing a relationship with the Lord, and becoming the kind of person that does what he says. That's what John 15 is all about. If you love me, you'll do what I say. Yeah. And I command you to love one another verse 17. That it's the first time five it's not that we love God, but he loved us first. Like our priorities have to be there, right? And that's the kind of friends you want anyways, right? You want the kind of friends who support, first and foremost, your relationship with the Lord. And who wants to see you embody his spirit in such a way that you live out the values that are promoted in Scripture, which includes becoming a person who is committed, covenanted, who loves sacrificially, who's generous, who demonstrates kindness, but also can tell the truth and love. Yeah, so as to build someone up then, where confrontation is seen as an opportunity to be sharpened just to be better people. But all of this is according to God's agenda, because he's working on us. Yeah. And even uses us with each other to further, as he was saying, 15 either prune us so we're more productive or to help us understand how we may even disqualify ourselves and be cut away. Yeah, from what it is that he wants to do. But the key operative term in the first few verses of John 15 was a bind or the Greek word Mundo Yeah. Which, again, means staying in proximity. Spend some time, yeah, stay connected. I

Jeff Sherrod 18:35

think one of the cooler things that we do at the institute along those lines is our practice of morning prayer, in the houses and just ensuring that this is not, we're not just saying, Alright, go to your own separate rooms, and at a time, but like, Let's get together in the morning and talk to one another, talk to the Lord share our burdens with one another. And trust the Lord, I think that even those kinds of things are the work of growing closer to the Lord. Then, there are the subsequent kinds of relationships that come out of just time and prayer with one another. Yeah,

Jen Nyago 19:08

I mean, it's such an important distinction. I feel like more and more and more, to point people to the Lord, and help them recognize that he's the one we're all pursuing. And that if we are really doing that wholeheartedly, we're inevitably going to find each other shoulder to shoulder in life, you know, and no matter what comes at us, we're going to do it together because we've got our eyes fixed on him.

Gregg Garner 19:34

Yeah, I mean, the Christian College is the ideal environment, to experience this kind of community. Yeah, because you've typically got a bunch of young adults who now have the capacity to make genuine commitments that belong to them and not their parents or anyone else. And that they are now learning together and doing missions together. Hmm, that they are working together, spending time quality quantity. And it just seems like such a waste not to see that time as an investment into what will be in your lifetime the most important asset you have, right? Outside of your spouse, in case right, which is your friends.

Yeah. Jen, when you started this out, you reminded me of something I had heard a couple of years ago, where the person was saying one of the most overlooked miracles of Jesus was that he had 12 friends in his 30s. That's awesome. That is pretty profound and uncommon in our world at this time. And we're definitely not talking about shallow friendships here, right?

So important than that, we highlight that. Yeah. And I think it would seem for a lot of people just kind of crazy to think that you could go to college and have a bunch of deep friendships. But the institute is now 17-18 years old. And we have seen, yeah, we have seen these friendships emerge. Yeah. And that people, because they do have all those previously mentioned components, really learn to love one another.

And this was what Jesus provided as evidence to the world that we belong to him, that we were his disciples, and that we love one another. So how could a Christian college education culminate in anything other than a bunch of disciples who really know how to love one another, I'm not just talking about, again, shallow cordiality or just cultural niceness? Yeah, we're talking about the kind of friendships that make you brothers and sisters in Christ where you can argue and resolve, where you can have an opinion and not need anyone to agree with you, or vice versa, where you then are always also bound by the command of the Father. So that just like siblings, right, like, I want to go to McDonald's. I want to go to Carl's Jr. I want to go to Panda Express. And dad's like, we're going to Arby's Right, right? And that's it. And everybody's like, dang it. Get it right. Yeah.

So, as siblings, we all know we can argue we can do all kinds of things. But it's so nice to be around people who have value. What is God saying? Yeah. What does God want? Yeah. What I love about our college is that our students have learned? What is God saying his word about this? Yeah. How can we resolve our differences outside of the unity we have in Christ? I just don't know. But people figure out funny ways to do that. Yeah. I just think it's, it's been my testimony that it was in college, I developed my longest standing relationships. Yeah, me too. Yeah. And, and I'm so blessed to continue to work and play. Yeah. And do mission, and live life with these brothers and sisters of mine that were my friends. And it's because of Jesus that there's so meaningful. I mean, even now, they have kids. And their kids are like family too. It's it's a really powerful thing that God's doing in the world through his body whenever we discover that we can indeed love one another and love one another the way God's loved us.

So it's my hope for any college student going to your second question that they can find that kind of community, but they will have to consider the intentionality of the institution. Right, create those opportunities. Yeah, I know, in my college, there were like social mixers. There were sports events. And you could find a club maybe where you had a shared interest. But I do think what was missing at the college I went to, which was a Christian, private college, what was missing? There was the teaching. That helped us understand how these things meant what they were supposed to write. Significant. Yeah. And then and then the accountability as well. So our at our college, we have student accountability groups, right? Yeah. And they're led through a curriculum that even teaches them what accountability means. And it's through that scriptural education that they even learn permissions for how to behave within the context of a relationship.

I mean, how many people expect something from a friend that they think they are really close to, but when they see their friend act differently, they just have to wane off the relationship because they have no recourse? Yeah. where our students are taught confrontation. Right. Why did you say this when you didn't mean it? Your yes is supposed to be a yes. And I had I had a sad ending to a friendship some years ago, of I knew we were never going to have a relationship because with what she was saying, she and her husband wanted to do Do it just came. What came out of my mouth was like where'd you learn to love like this? A love that doesn't confide a love that doesn't share burdens a love, that I had so many scriptures that I was sharing. I was like, Where'd you learn love, I guess? And she just sat there silent. It's heartbreaking. Yeah. And I knew that that relationship was over. Yeah. Because if we, if we try to love in and of ourselves, right? It will. It's it's like, what is that? You know, it can't be an enduring love. Yeah, sure. Again, back to John's, not that we love God, but He loves us first. And that's a strong communication to say God is the model for love. Right?

He is the one who shows us how we're to love, and he is indeed faithful, loyal, committed, and dependable. Jesus was upset with the leaders of his day, and, you can hear it, how he talks about the shepherds. And he says, for a lot of these folks in these institutions is his day where they're supposed to be shepherding the flock of God. They're just hirelings. Yeah, how do we know they're hirelings? Because anytime there's any kind of danger, they just run away. But the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, and you get the laying down your life. Again, there is no greater love than this that a man lays down his life for his friends. Yeah. First, John three says that because Jesus laid down his life for us, we should also lay down our lives for one another. And these are scriptures. Yeah. And so when you're in a relationship with someone and try to lay down the Scripture, but they don't share that love, they don't have that. You don't really have a relationship. And I think that there wasn't enough scripture to teach all this stuff when I was in college even to call anybody out. And so what ends up happening is you did end up still being with those whom you shared something with. Right, but but so many people just became your friends from college? Yeah.

Jeff Sherrod 26:54

Used to know them. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to explore kind of a different element of this and about community. And I think sometimes when students think about college and being a community, they only think about community with other students or people that are peers. And I know for us, we've really tried to give students a lot of interactions with God, the adults, I mean, I guess, college kids or adults, you know, older. Sure, different demographics have generations, right? Yeah. And this for us has been even like, you know, faculty and staff and alumni participating in things like intramural sports, we've been in plays together, you know, musicals, …

Jen Nyago 27:28

functioning as mentors, mentors,

Jeff Sherrod 27:31

right? I mean, traveling abroad together. Yeah, that's a big thing. And why do you think that these kinds of interactions are critical for students looking for a college? the reason I'm saying this is that I know that I did have some interactions with the faculty of the college I went to, but I would just say, overall, it was pretty limited. They lived outside the city where where I lived, and so they all commuted about an hour away. And that's just not the experience that students have here. And, you know, how do you think that that plays into a student's experience from regarding community, we're always…

Gregg Garner 28:07

looking for models, as human beings. Right. And it's one thing for someone to speak a concept. Then, we can mentally move through the concept and feel like we have a sense of understanding. It's a whole other thing to see that word incarnate, right? The benefit that disciples received that all of us are a little jealous over right, is they got to see that word incarnate. They got to see the Bible played out. Jesus said it in John six: he's like Moses wrote about me, saying He is the embodiment of biblical literacy. Yeah. And I think it's so important for students to be able to witness an incarnation of the word through the practices of those who are ahead of him. Yeah, even if it's just a few years ahead of him, right. And I think we try to charge our students with that responsibility to recognize everybody's in a different place. But as you continue to grow and mature in the Lord, you enter into the responsibility of carrying his name, which means that we become models. Yeah. And I think it's hard to be a model if you're not in proximity. Right. So yeah, at our college, all of our teachers want the exception of one faculty member, which is a temporary scenario right now.

All of our faculty live within walking distance of the college campus. Yeah. Yeah. And it is common for our professors, or the admin like yourself, Student Life Director to have students over to our houses. Yeah. They know our kids. Yeah. We know their parents, right? It's a really special thing. And I think for some folks are like, well, that's, that's something when you have a small college, but if you start having 1000s of students, you can't do that. And it's like, well, maybe you shouldn't have 1000s of students then. Right? Yeah, change. Or maybe you should, or you know, if you have 1000s of students, break down the college into separate sectors, which people do like a school of music, but you still want to have a strong sense of community where it's not just peer to peer. Right? But that you have models. Yeah. And you have people who can say, Hey, listen, I walked that path you're about to do? Yeah, it's rough. Yeah, you can walk it if you want. But I think you need to consider taking this route. Yeah, it's so nice.

Jeff Sherrod 30:27

It’s so nice. Because I remember for me, I remember being a freshman. And looking at juniors, who would have been 20? And thinking, man, these guys have really taken the path and figured this out, you know, and now looking, I was like, I don't know what they were, they were making stuff up this whole time. And

Gregg Garner 30:43

A lot of institutions, they purposefully separate the age groups so as to prevent any of this from even happening, right? Like I knew that there were married at our school, and I knew there was married housing and this one apartment complex, but I didn't really know any married, or the same for how many classes? Yeah,

Jen Nyago 31:03

I don't even remember seeing them actually. There was no separate No, they do it…

Gregg Garner 31:07

Do it on purpose. Yeah, the institutions do it on purpose. So that they're everybody's kind of in the same place at the same time. And it apparently makes things a little less complicated, I guess, for the leadership and institutions because it's much easier to appeal to a narrow demographic. But in a community like ours, where you consider the fact that our college students, campus even has on it a K through 12, with volunteer opportunities, right kids, that the the, the, again, elders, even of our community at large, volunteer as professors, they volunteer in the lunch program, there's all there's all kinds of people of different demographic, that are all part of this Christian community, that's a part of our college, like our alumni involvement. I would I would like to argue, but poor ratio is probably one of the highest in Christian colleges, I feel like it has to be Yeah, it has to be because because we're talking like over 90% of graduates still participate in the functioning of our institution. It's a fantastic, fantastic paradigm for modeling. And that kind of modeling also comes with accountability and protection. So I think when we remember that no education is effective without some kind of real-world simulation to some degree, and I utilize the term simulation because, in the Christian community, there's it's characterized by grace, mercy, and forgiveness. So it's real safe. It's like, we do simulator planes, because when you crash and burn, you don't actually die. Right? And in a Christian community with people who are guided by those values, you could really mess up conflict resolution and not crash, burn, and die. Yeah, right. But you do that stuff out in the world. Oh, yeah. could cost you your job, crash, burn and die. Right. Right. Right.

So I think, I think the safety that comes with knowing everybody in your environment is consciously involved. Yeah, in giving you the freedom to grow, to make mistakes, and to fail. Because that's one of the hardest things for students who come here is they don't want to fail there was like, I don't want to fail. Yeah. But then it's like, well, you're gonna have to risk failing, because you're about to do something new. Right? You're about to try something, right. I don't want to be I don't want to fail. They get paralyzed. It's always cool to have someone who says, Hey, listen, I failed at this before, but I finally got it. Yeah, let me hold your hand through this. Right. So let's go. Yeah, I'm saying that in my college experience, I did not have Yeah, I would say the closest I had to someone guiding me at something was my rd. And he put me on probation. And then, basically, one time, he invited me into his house, where we had dinner, and that was to just further explain my probation. And I just had no respect for the guy. He just, he just seemed like a hireling. Because when I really needed them that year, my mom was going through cancer. And so I was acting out. I was like, you know, 18 years old, and I was concerned for I didn't know what was gonna happen. It seemed like it was really bad. And even more important, my dad called me and said, hey, you need to come home and spend time with your mom. We got her prognosis, and it doesn't look good. And I just cried on my bed. And I went to the party, and I just said, Can you pray for me? And he just looked at me goes Yeah, I'll put you on my list, like I do the other students, and I'm sorry that your mom's going through this. He was you had nice words, but like, gosh, I mean around here, something like that happen. We'd be laying hands on and praying for him. There'd be a care package and mail to the family, there'd be an invitation to any kind of help that's needed. Because we don't got hirelings around you. Yeah. And I really think that leadership is a very important component of the community. Right? Great. And if you don't have servant leadership that's based upon the word of God, you will never get to experience the fullness that God intends versus human beings with respect to community. Absolutely.

Jeff Sherrod 35:40

Yeah. Awesome.

Jen Nyago 35:41

Yeah, I think, you know, even just to part of what that motivation is, behind those models, and this is something that I get to witness all the time is how our alumni because in fact, we've had so many different visitors that have come through our school, you know, even other folks who work in higher education. And that often becomes a question they ask is like, how are you? How do you get your alumni to be so involved with what you guys have going on around here, but because they're alumni, and they've truly you know, they've really committed themselves to learning God's word, not just for their college education, but even on and beyond what they gain at the institute. They've learned how to study God's Word themselves. They really believe it. Yeah. And obey it. So when you call them and you say, Hey, can you you know, lead prayer for our students tomorrow morning at 6am? Their first response is, yeah, let me figure it out. I'll be there. I'm excited. It's so amazing, but I love all of this. I think it's so wonderful. I think you actually really answered another question that I was just thinking through is the way that the concept of community has really morphed over the last decade or so. Even like what are you know, maybe grandparents had with like, shows like Leave It to Beaver when they heard community, it was one thing versus like, even our own parents with, you know, other social media forums, when they think of community, it's so different. But you know, the way that's challenged our concept of you know, quote, unquote, friends, you know, if I'm doing quote, fingers here are likes and who likes us? How, how can we really transition to a more biblical definition of community and then carry those into our college experience? I think you've touched on it a lot. But I think even just considering that this is a reality, we have to contend with the social media part. Yeah. And how do students that are looking for schools to go to, and really trying to combat, you know, this idea of, like, what it means to have real friends? How should they be thinking about their college experience? When it comes to ascertaining those? And I think you've answered it a lot really, in your first flow…

Gregg Garner 37:45

You know, to be more explicit: we do have on online program. Yeah. And I love it, I, I'd love to see it grow even more. And I think online is fantastic. For folks who have non traditional experiences, right? You're you're older, you have family, sure you're located for work in a someplace that's not near the destination where you'd like to go to school. There's a lot of practical reasons for it. I think, at the traditional age, doing online school, if anything, that should just be a way for you to, to get a taste of what the institution could offer and should be a bridge into the traditional experience. But for those who are part of online educational communities, one of the very important things that you must be responsible for is how do you take the principles you're learning? If it's a Bible school from God's word, and apply them to your existing relationships? Yeah. Play them to your existing sphere and your existing network? Yeah. So it could be a very interesting conversation to get with your friends. Maybe you see him once a month, you guys had dinner together, and you just bring up Hey, what do you guys think about this concept of covenant with respect to friendships? I was learning about covenant and, and you just share? Yeah, and see what they say. And then ask the question, like, do you guys think that we have deep friendships? Or do you think we're shallow and then hear opinions? Yeah, you start implementing your education. Yeah. If you could the Holy Spirit, some room to work in those relationships, you might find the incredible benefit of hearing and obeying, doing what God says, making your faith into a work and and experiencing the benefit of it. So I think for folks who can't have an on campus experience, you definitely have your family and you have people at work. And and God is at work. Amen. As you implement his word, the right people will show up. And everybody deserves to have that kind of deep friendship that Jesus even got to experience and wants us to have, and has given us a spirit so that we can even tap into that truth. We Are you can have those really authentic relationships.

Jeff Sherrod 40:03

Amen

Jen Nyago 40:04

Amen That's so good

Gregg Garner 40:06

All right well you guys thanks for the conversation yeah thank you I'll talk to you next time all right

Also see: 

Gregg Garner
The Institute for GOD

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