As seminaries face shrinking enrollments, rising costs, and shifting demographics, what models of theological education will carry the church forward? In this episode, Loren talks with Bekah Buchterkirchen, a writer, speaker, and former dean of students with nearly a decade in Christian higher education. Drawing from her experiences in seminary leadership—and as a seminary spouse—Bekah offers a thoughtful look at what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to change for theological education to stay relevant and form faithful leaders. Bekah also shares about her own spiritual rhythms as a mother and ministry partner, what she’d do if she were pope for a day, and why the legacy of Tim Keller continues to shape her hopes for the church.
Together they explore:
-
The shift away from traditional seminary students to older, working adults
-
The growing presence of women in seminary—and the challenges they still face
-
Creative cohort-based and hybrid models that foster both learning and community
-
The need for deeper church-seminary partnerships and real-time ministry formation
-
Stackable certificates, lay education, and the future of non-traditional theological training
-
Why poor digital presence is a turnoff—and how seminaries can adapt
Bekah Buchterkirchen is a writer, speaker, and creative collaborator passionate about cultivating joy and faith in every season. With nearly a decade in Christian higher education and ministry alongside her pastor-husband, she seeks to create spaces where curiosity, hospitality, and the love of Jesus meet. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with their two, almost three, young kids and writes to encourage moms in the trenches of motherhood to seek the Lord daily—even when they feel like it's not enough.
Mentioned Resources:
📱 Follow @bekahbuck
🌐 Website: https://www.bekahbuck.com
🎧 Arianna Malloy: https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-gb5yr-18a44c5
🎧 John Hawthorne: https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-zgqq8-18c307a
🎧 Ulysses Allen: https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-iumm4-1502da4
🎧 Ted Smith: https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-w4nrb-15d747b
Presenting Sponsor:
Phillips Seminary Join conversations that expose you to new ideas, deepen your commitment and give insights to how we can minister in a changing world.
Supporting Sponsors:
Restore Clergy If you are clergy in need of tailored, professional support to help you manage the demands of ministry, Restore Clergy is for you!
Kokoro Join in for heartfelt journeys that challenges the way we see ourselves, each other, and the world we share.
Future Christian Team:
Loren Richmond Jr. – Host & Executive Producer
Martha Tatarnic – Co-Host
Paul Romig–Leavitt – Associate Producer
Dennis Sanders – Producer
Alexander Lang - Production Assistant
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Loren Richmond (00:07):
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast, your
source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church in
the 21st century. At the Future Christian
Podcast, we talk to pastors, authors
and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical
wisdom to help you and your community of faith
walk boldly into the future. Whether
(00:27):
you're a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member
of your faith community, this podcast is
designed to challenge, inspire, and equip
you with the tools you need for impactful ministry.
And now for a little bit about the guest for this episode.
>> Martha Tatarnic (00:44):
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today,
Loren Richmond Jr. Is in conversation
with Becca Buchter Kirkhan.
Becca is a writer, speaker and creative
collaborator passionate about cultivating joy
and faith in every season. With
nearly a decade in Christian higher education
and ministry, alongside her pastor husband,
(01:06):
she seeks to create spaces where curiosity,
hospitality, and the love of Jesus meet.
She lives in the Pacific Northwest with
their two, almost three young kids and
writes to encourage moms in the trenches of
motherhood to seek the Lord daily, even when
they feel like it's not enough.
(01:27):
A reminder. Before we start today's conversation,
please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast,
leave a review and share Future Christian with
a friend. Connect with Loren, Martha and
Future Christian on Instagram. Shoot
us an email at, uh, laurensonatemediapro
uh.com
with comments, questions or ideas for future
(01:49):
episodes. We appreciate your
voice in how we faithfully discern the future
of the church.
>> Loren (02:05):
Hello and welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. My name is Loren
Richmond Jr. And today I'm pleased to be joined by
Becca Buckturkin. Thanks so much for
being here.
>> Speaker D (02:15):
Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.
>> Loren (02:17):
Yeah. Looking forward to having this conversation.
Is there anything else you want listeners to know about you?
>> Speaker D (02:24):
Yeah. When thinking about the conversation we're going to dive into,
I was thinking it might be helpful for listeners to know
that I worked, uh, for nearly a
decade in Christian higher education at three different
institutions. Um, and
all during eight of those years, my husband
has also been in seminary alongside
pastoral ministry. So for the two of
(02:46):
us, we have been deeply formed by
theological education. Um, um, and we
also really believe in the local church despite all
the chaos of the past several years. And,
and so I think for me, how I try to always approach
conversations like these is to not show
up thinking I, I have the answers,
(03:07):
but with a heart that's still being formed and is gen
generally curious. So I'm looking forward to what we'll
be discussing today.
>> Loren (03:14):
Absolutely appreciate that perspective.
Do you want to share a bit about your faith journey, what that's looked like in the
past and what that looks like today.
>> Speaker D (03:21):
Yeah. So I was really fortunate to
grow up in, um, an entire
family, including all of my extended family that
have known Jesus, walked with Jesus for decades.
And so I like to say that I
really feel like I have known and
loved Jesus ever since I was a little girl.
(03:42):
And it has just been this gradual process of
getting to know him on a deeper level all throughout my life.
And, um, surprisingly, I didn't
really have this falling away sort of season.
Um, and for me, I think, in
the past, looking back on it, I grew up in public
school my whole life until I went away to
(04:03):
a private Christian college. And that's when the
Bible just became very real to me and I
gained a lot of head knowledge. But then
I think where I struggled was, wait a second, now that
I have all this head knowledge, how is it supposed
to impact my heart? And how do I.
I, uh, don't know. It's kind of strange to me that I think a lot of the times when
(04:24):
we grow in our knowledge of God and the
Scriptures, a lot of time, pride can get in
there. And, um. And so
what it means for me to be a Christian now, it has looked
a lot more like, um,
soul care. And I think with my husband having served
in pastoral ministry, getting to sit
(04:45):
in front of people and listen and hear their stories
and see the way that God has been moving in their life,
that's really been a beautiful opportunity
for me to try to experience not just head
knowledge, but also heart knowledge. And how does it impact everything we
do?
>> Loren (05:01):
Yeah. Yeah, that's great.
I'm curious just because this is a theme that I've been
following a lot, even if informally
with guests, too, as I've followed this
sort of on the broader trend. Like,
obviously, there's no, like, formula. Right. This is, I think, a
mistake that often happens in some Christian circles is,
like, we have the formula for raising our kids so they will not
(05:22):
depart from the faith. Like, is there anything, like you
think that your parents or your
Christian faith context did, right, to kind of
help you not have that typical,
like, falling away?
>> Speaker D (05:36):
Gosh, I think about that often, too. Especially now,
raising my own kids.
>> Loren (05:40):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (05:40):
Where I'm like, what? Okay, what was it? Because I have two
siblings, and similarly, they both love
Jesus. And, um, the only
thing that I can think of in my own personal life is I like to
say that I'm a product of mentorship, like, very
intentional discipleship, and my Parents
didn't assume that they were going
(06:01):
to be the sole tenders
of making sure that they pass on the generation of faith.
And so I had several men and women
within our local church context
that poured into me and that were just
present in my life and I looked up to
them. And so because of that, I think it helped
(06:22):
me stay rooted when situations
arose where it would have been easy for me to stray.
>> Loren (06:28):
Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. Thanks for sharing that.
What kind of, uh, spiritual practice do you find
meaningful today or help you sustain your faith?
>> Speaker D (06:37):
M. Yeah, so right now for me, I,
um, I made the really hard decision a
year ago to not return to full time work outside
of the home after my second, uh, kiddo was
born. And I
think being a full time
caretaker now to little kids, I
grieved how much my relationship with God
(06:59):
changed. Uh, my husband and I were married for
seven years before we became parents. And
that gave me a lot of time to develop practices
and rhythms that helped me feel
healthy. And then once I
had kids, all of that just got thrown out the window where you're like, wait a
second, uh, I don't have time to just sit,
(07:20):
um, in stillness and read scripture
or journal or whatever. So for me
it's been over the last several years, a
practice that I regularly return to has been
breath prayers. And those are
just, they're monumental for me. They're like
my lifeline throughout the day when I start to feel
frustrated or like I'm losing my patience just to
(07:42):
have some sort of scripture that I can breathe in,
breathe out, and rest
in the knowledge that God is with me, the Spirit is
present, and I can continue about my day.
>> Loren (07:54):
Yeah, that's great. That's great. Thank you for sharing that.
Well, I had Becca on to talk about her
experience in
theological education. This is a topic that I
think is incredibly important to the future of the church.
You know, broadly speaking, for our context
in America's sake. And
(08:15):
uh, we're undergoing like, obviously a, uh, serious time of just
change and disruption with
attendance, institutional
stability. I mean, you name the disruption,
like we're experiencing it. And
I've primarily approached this conversation just
from my current most, my most
(08:36):
recent situation or context being in mainline
prosthetism. But certainly I follow
evangelical institutions. And so I'm curious, like,
to talk about how these same dynamics or challenges are
playing out in those contexts. So, uh, I guess first of
all, you know, I think it's interesting like, like you said, like you worked
in a seminary Your husband attended it.
(08:57):
So you really saw like both sides,
Both sides of it very well. Like,
what do you think? Like, are the, just to start out, like, what are the
biggest challenges facing seminaries
as, as institutions today?
>> Speaker D (09:11):
Mhm. Oh man, it's such a good question.
And I think the hardest part about it is like you're saying
it's not just one thing which makes it so
challenging, but a few things that really have stood out to
me are,
um, I think, correct
me if I'm wrong, but I believe the seminary and
theological education was born out of the church.
(09:33):
And I think over the years we have seen that kind
of start to divide a little bit where
it's no longer integrated as thoughtfully
as it maybe once was. I know even for my
husband, with, um, applying to
different churches, and it's no longer,
um, a requirement at many churches that you
(09:53):
have to have theological training. And that has
even been a really interesting shift to see. So I feel
like at kind of like the broader level, it's
churches who um, need
to almost be convinced, like, why does theological education
still matter and how can it actually
impact our congregation?
Um, because then what it ends
(10:16):
up lending itself to is the seminary that I
worked at. We didn't have a large endowment
that was able to offset the significant
rising costs.
>> Loren (10:26):
Right.
>> Speaker D (10:27):
And when that's the case, you have
to partner with the church to be able to say, hey,
what about cohort based models? Are you open to
doing that? Hey, could we use your facilities to be able
to host classes? Or if you have
a pastor, um, or even
like a person on staff that is helping
(10:48):
to care for your flock, um, would you be
willing to financially contribute a little bit? And then our
seminary would be happy to match that
to make it more affordable for the student.
So I think those are just like some of the
initial things that come to mind. But
um, yeah, I mean, what are your thoughts on that?
>> Loren (11:08):
Well, that's good. Uh, you're kind of stealing our thunder here. So
I'm glad you just hinted at, I guess you gave a little teaser there to
cohorts and endowments. So we'll hopefully come back
and explore that here in a little bit.
Something I think you can especially speak to,
I'm hoping, as you served, what Dean of
students, right? Is that correct? Yeah, yeah. So
(11:29):
one of my previous guests was John Hawthorne, who wrote
about, had a long history
or career in Christian education
and talked about how the, I can't remember
exactly how it said the current student or the future
student is not white,
not male. I Can't remember exactly what it said, but it's basically making the point
(11:50):
the era of 20 something white
guy student, uh, and I imagine
to some extent in seminary, uh, what
are, what are you seeing about how the student body has
changed, whether not just in demographics but also
in age, in, I don't know, social
income. Yeah, talk about that.
>> Speaker D (12:10):
Yeah. Oh, I'm so glad you brought that up because,
um, in my role as Dean of Students, one
of my favorite things that we got to do was we
hosted, um, or we put on different
uh, questionnaires to the entire student body to
be able to see, like what, what are the changes that are
occurring. And if you looked back 10 years,
(12:31):
could see that exact trend where the age
of student has significantly
increased.
>> Loren (12:37):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (12:38):
And this wasn't something that was just at our
seminary. Um, we were able to
see with the association of Theological
Schools, um, what are the trends that
are going on nationwide.
And a lot of seminaries were seeing that. So even
at my local seminary, what was happening was
(12:58):
it was no longer like young, 20 something
white, uh, male. It was actually our average
student was a 34 year old male
who was working full time
and attending seminary part time.
And so that was a huge shift. We also saw a
significant increase of more female
(13:20):
students that were attending seminary.
But what was really fascinating about that was when
we asked a male and a female
seminary student like, what, what is your
career outcome? Or what's your trajectory? Where are
you headed? More often than not
the male students were, were able to have a clear
answer to that. And they said, this is exactly what I plan to
(13:42):
do. Our female students, not the
faintest clue. Because I think in the
churches there's not always a clear,
um, outcome for what women can do
with a theological degree.
>> Loren (13:56):
Right.
>> Speaker D (13:56):
And that was really fascinating to see too.
Um, but I loved the fact that we
had so many, um,
older students that were in their 50s
and 60s that had lived these long
careers and were now coming back and saying,
I just want to grow in my faith and
(14:17):
serve my local body. And that was really, really
beautiful.
>> Loren (14:21):
Yeah, that's so interesting because again, that even matches
what I've seen again in mainline context where it's like
second and even sometimes, like you said, I think
third career. I guess if you're 50s or 60s, you could define
it like as a third career, almost. Students coming
back, certainly an increase
in female, non male.
(14:43):
I'm curious about too,
how you saw this challenge play out. I'm
assuming it's a challenge. Again, you talked about that
the age increase of the 34 year old
male working full time. Whether
someone's male or female, if they're in their 30s
or 40s, they probably have kids or
(15:03):
jobs or responsibilities, relationships.
And I imagine that makes this whole
seminary experience a lot more complicated.
Like I remember even just, I
mean, I was in my late 20s when I did seminary, just thinking about,
I didn't have kids yet, but just like the
strain on my marriage, relationship and there weren't
(15:24):
kids in the picture yet. Uh,
I mean, obviously there's some kind of growing and
changing during seminary.
How did you experience it or how did your seminary
experience like working with students and their families
to help support the whole unit.
>> Speaker D (15:42):
Oh, man. Yeah, that was
probably the number one thing that we heard from
students. Piece of feedback was, I
am juggling so much right now.
And so no longer was it assumed
that all of their attention was going to be fixated
on the degree that they were receiving. Like, oh, come
(16:02):
for four years and then you'll be done. A lot
of our students, like my husband, eight years
in seminary because he's been working
full time and doing this part time.
Um, so it's, it was a
challenge. And I think it's also
because of that reality of having
(16:23):
older students, they're not as willing to
uproot their families and move to attend
seminary. So then you have these brick and
mortar campuses that are not being
filled by a student body, which is
another challenge of, okay, so how do you pivot
to online theological education
but not lose the importance of
(16:46):
spiritual formation? And that was a
tension that we really saw where our faculty
deeply cared about. I want to know who these
students are. M. If we are
giving our stamp of approval and saying they're going to go
pastor, we want to make sure that we feel
good about their character too.
>> Loren (17:04):
Yeah, let's talk about that brick and mortar
challenge because I just saw the news
yesterday or this week of a seminary.
I follow, like my next guest
hopefully will be a, uh, professor from Luther
Seminary in, I think Minneapolis.
And I just saw that they're selling their campus or
making plans to sell their campus. I
(17:27):
mean, again, it's. Nothing shocks me anymore.
>> Speaker D (17:30):
Yeah.
>> Loren (17:30):
Just because, like you, you talked about like the financial
challenges and feel free to, to go into this too,
if you want to. But, you know, you mentioned endowments.
Some schools have bigger endowments than others. I know
my alma mater, Phillips Seminary, uh, shout
out. They support the pod like they have, I think a fairly
healthy endowment, which is very much
(17:52):
strengthened
their impact and their ability to be sustainable.
Like I gave you a lot there. So respond to what
you want to respond to.
>> Speaker D (18:03):
Oh yeah, I'm seeing
that same thing. And I remember even when I was in that role,
it almost felt like monthly is too strong.
But certainly quarterly or twice a year you
would hear the news. I mean even Ted's University
where you're just like, what happened? And
how did we not see this coming?
(18:24):
Um, and how do we try to stay
nimble enough to where you can pivot
and make those pivots so that way you're not having
to sell your campus or
um, I don't know, like merge with another
seminary and. But I,
I don't know.
Um, yeah, I
(18:45):
don't have a clear cut answer for that. But I think going
to the funding piece.
>> Loren (18:51):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (18:52):
That's, that's really huge. And
again, I think it has to be this
creative opportunity to try to see like
our students don't have thousands of dollars that they can
pour into seminary education on their own when they
know the role that they likely carry
is not going to help them pay off their debt anytime
(19:13):
soon.
>> Loren (19:14):
Yeah, let's dive into that more
because I was just listening to a conversation with Chuck De Groat
and he was talking about like when he's. It's funny because
I looked up Chuck De Groat also teaches a Western
Seminary, but it's the one in Michigan, not the one
you're associated with.
>> Speaker D (19:31):
Uh-huh.
>> Loren (19:31):
Uh, but he was talking about in this
conversation like how he's encouraging students like
hey, it's likely it can be bivocationality or co.
Vocationality or whatever, you name it.
Certainly I think gone are the
days in the vast majority context where you
can expect to go out and get like a top of the market
type job. So
(19:54):
there's these dynamics of colleges in higher
education is not getting any cheaper,
while conversely like the pay is.
So let's talk about kind of like, you know, you hinted at earlier
like these, these cohort models, what are some,
some alternative models of higher
education that, that you've seen or you think should be explored
more?
>> Speaker D (20:15):
Yeah, I, I love the cohort
based model. And that was something that Western Seminary
did a phenomenal job with.
And it really was when they went to
faculty members and enabled them to have some
creativity and to say, hey, what are you
passionate about? Um, what's a
program that we could develop that would be
(20:37):
appealing to different students? Um,
and so what they ended up doing is they would actually
partner with specific churches, um, who
were kind of larger based churches, but they said, hey, if
you can find 20 students
that was give, um, or take, that was around the
number that would make it feasible for professors to be
(20:58):
able to engage in it. And then the local church
would be able to find those students,
open up, in a lot of cases, their own facilities
for our professors to come and they would meet once a
month. Um, and all the rest of it was online,
so it was a far easier sell to students as
well. Where it was like, hey, give us one
(21:19):
day a month where it's an eight hour day, it's very long.
Um, but the rest of it will be online. But
you'll have this like, beautiful thriving
community. And another seminary I've seen
do really well with that is actually Denver Seminary.
>> Loren (21:33):
Okay.
>> Speaker D (21:34):
There's a whole group of
Christian female authors, speakers,
Bible teachers that are in a
cohort actively right now at Denver Seminary.
And the stories that they're sharing about just like
the life transformation that's happening has been really
cool. And for me, I'm like, I want to keep an eye
(21:55):
on that because I think that's going to be a really strategic
model moving forward. And
um, the other option that
I know, um, a lot of seminaries are exploring
are stackable certifications.
Instead of having like this huge M. Div. Program
that takes five years, it's like, hey, what if you
(22:15):
were to come in and you could get a certificate in
like Bible transformation or whatever. Um,
and a lot of times for students, all it takes is them to
experience the fruit of what they
receive from seminary that then they say, I want to
continue on. So then it's great, let's just continue
stacking. And if you stack this many,
(22:36):
then you end up with an MDIV or you can
just get a certificate and call it good.
>> Loren (22:42):
Yeah, I think that's a great idea because I think
the market, so to speak, is trending in that model
certainly towards like graduate certificates. Like, I'm even
thinking of like Coursera and these online learning models
where you get a professional certificate or a graduate certificate.
And like you said, like, it's not like immediately
taking out a huge student loan.
>> Speaker D (23:03):
Yeah.
>> Loren (23:03):
You know, committing five years, like
four, five, six years, eight years. Like your husband.
Uh, and like you said, if you're like, man, I cannot
finish this, like you can walk away with
something. Uh, again,
I have to give a shout out to my
alma mater. They've been exploring this model too
(23:24):
through different programs. They have. I think it's so good.
The other side of this I want to ask about because again, you kind of
mentioned it this Lack of integration with churches, which
I think, I think is a
problem in many different ways, if anything,
because from my experience there
can be a disconnect to like what the people in the
(23:45):
pews are experiencing and
where they're at versus like where the
professors or students are at.
So I don't remember if we talked about this.
I wonder, uh, maybe in our email exchanges. But I
was thinking about, and I'm curious if you've had an
experience of this or thoughts on this. But like I was thinking about
(24:05):
years ago when I was in Bible college, like
the professors were often like local church pastors.
And obviously that's going to be variable based
on like the region. Like if there's a, you
know, if it's in a small town, there can only be so many like local
church pastors. Right.
I mean there can be a twofold advantage, certainly more like,
(24:27):
obviously, A, there's integration with the churches. B, like you're not
necessarily like, again, for the cost of the seminar, like you're not like
expecting that professor's not expecting a full
time salary. Like, what else have you seen? What else have
you seen in that regard?
>> Speaker D (24:44):
Yeah, I, I think that's such
a great selling point also is for
students to know that, oh, the professors that I'm learning from
have been church planters or they're an elder at their
current church. Um, and they get
it, they have a finger on the pulse to what the
body is experiencing. Um, and
(25:04):
I mean shout out to Western Seminary. That's
one of their main, um, selling
points is the fact that nearly every
single full time seminary faculty member
is actively involved and serving in their church.
And one of my favorite classes
that they held and my husband got to be a part of this was
(25:25):
um, it was a professor who
continued to serve for decades in youth
ministry. And he would
ask every single student to bring in a case study
from their local church. And he would say, because
none of us like attend the same churches
here, it's a safe space for you to be able to
come and wrestle through. Like,
(25:48):
how do I navigate this? And what, how should
I respond? So they were doing this in real time.
And I loved when my husband came home from
those classes and, and he would just say, man, this
case study was so helpful to hear. Like,
I've never experienced that before, but it got me thinking,
how would I respond? And um,
(26:09):
so I think being able to have opportunities like
that or I've also seen
sometimes it's a requirement for
first year seminary students to have a
pastor in their Local church that's willing
to mentor them.
>> Loren (26:24):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (26:25):
And, yeah, that's really cool, too, because it's almost this,
like, apprenticeship type thing.
>> Loren (26:30):
Right.
>> Speaker D (26:30):
Um, where the professor has different
points throughout the semester where they.
It requires, like, the pastor to submit a
form or maybe have a quick phone call,
check in just to see how are they doing. What are you noticing? What
should I be noticing and paying attention to inside the classroom?
>> Loren (26:49):
Yeah. The apprenticeship, uh, model is interesting because, again,
like, there's,
broadly speaking, in our society, there seems to be,
hopefully, a growing need and hopefully
growing rise in
kind of the trades thing. And again, I'm
someone who really appreciates theological education, but also,
(27:10):
I think we can both agree there's some students who.
That's not their strength and still
are deeply called to love and. And
serve others to the local church. Also
feel strongly about their relationship with God and theology. But
I, uh, want there to be models, I guess, for them to be
(27:31):
like, I don't know, value is the right word,
but recognized. Um, certified. That's
not the right word, but hopefully. You get what I'm saying.
>> Speaker D (27:39):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think
that's one of the unique
opportunities that seminary professors get
to enter into with students. I remember one
faculty member, he actually really struggled
with the word calling because he said, I see
so many of these students come in and they say, I'm
called to be a senior pastor. And
(28:02):
he's like, wow, well, what
happens if you're not actually very
skilled in it or it's not something that
I see for you in the future? And so, um,
to their credit, they were willing to have those hard
conversations. Um, and it wasn't just like a. Ah,
let me tell you, this will never be the case for you, but
(28:22):
more so, hey, let's take a step back. And what is that
rooted in? And what is your first
calling? Uh, it's to love God and love
others. And let's just take it one step at a time.
>> Loren (28:33):
Yeah. I'm called to make, you know, 200k as a
pastor, so.
>> Speaker D (28:37):
Right.
>> Loren (28:37):
I'm gonna speak that into existence.
>> Speaker D (28:40):
Uh-huh.
>> Loren (28:40):
Uh, it reminds me of sort of how we got connected.
Is it Ariana? Is that how you say her name?
Previous guest, Ariana Malloy, who
really recommend her book. Uh, I'll
make sure to link in the show notes, our conversation,
but she talked about that. I can't
remember the word calling. Burnout or calling shame.
When your title doesn't
(29:03):
necessarily
attach or correlate with what you're
doing or your calling. I should say and
how to bridge that disconnect. I thought that was so helpful. And again,
I think that's where that's the
challenge, I suppose, of these online learning models where it's
just like fill a discussion post,
(29:23):
look at slideshows and write
papers. And again, that's very m.
Boiled down. But
in the online learning models,
what have you seen? What works well to kind of stay. Because
like you said, professors want to invest in students.
They don't want to just read discussion posts. I
(29:44):
can imagine.
>> Speaker D (29:45):
Oh, absolutely.
Well, briefly, uh, Ariana's book Healthy Calling
is phenomenal. And uh, I've talked to my
husband about it a lot where he's like, as a pastor,
that disconnect that can happen between.
I used to feel called to this, but now I'm so burnt
out. Like, how do you bridge that gap? So, um, she
is a dear friend of mine. Um, so I'm so glad that
(30:08):
she connected us. But, um, thinking
about online education, like how, how
do you do that? Well, and I think a lot
of it is students who are willing
to show up and actively participate, even
in a zoom format. And I know that there's
this whole like asynchronous versus synchronous
(30:28):
learning and the broader
that your student body gets you, you start to
encounter significant challenges with people who are halfway
across the world in different time zones. So it
becomes more and more challenging. But I
do think that there's a way to do it. Um,
and even like how you and I are connecting right now via,
uh, this platform, it's like, okay,
(30:51):
you can start to get a sense for who is this
person and are they who they say they are?
Um, so I think it's possible. I know at,
uh, our seminary, what they offered was,
they offered a, it was one week, four times
a year. They called it Threshold. And they would
invite students who were distance learners
to come to campus and have an in
(31:14):
person experience where they would receive
credit for their courses. And it was kind of an intensive
process. But I know even for myself, when I was in
grad school, I actually went to, um,
Gonzaga University. As an online student.
>> Loren (31:27):
Sure, yeah.
>> Speaker D (31:28):
And that was a requirement. Was, hey, it's
a fully online program. However, during
your second year, you have to be willing to come to
campus, um, for a week long intensive.
So that way you could get to meet the professors face to
face. And I actually, I really like that
model. Um, I know it's, it can be a deterrent
(31:49):
to some students who are like, that's so expensive.
Um, but there's There's a great value to it.
>> Loren (31:56):
Yeah, I've got to agree with you. When I was starting
seminary, I did online. In the first semester I didn't
go to the campus. And the second, like, I didn't feel like.
I didn't feel like I was really a seminary student
until that second
semester where I did a week long
intensive. Like that's when it hit home.
(32:16):
I'm thinking of another example. Like I think
it's Southern Seminary.
Can't remember. South. Can't remember. It's not Southern
Seminary. It's like somewhere in Tennessee there's
like a South. Something
Southwestern. No, because it's like
uh, it's like a. Anyway, they invited
me to like speak up. They just do like these weekly
(32:39):
like zoom cohorts where they have a speaker
like once a week and students can pop in and get credit
for popping in and engaging. Like you said in the
conversation or the. What happens?
Uh, like I said, another example I think of what you're talking about
of these Zoom or online participation
cohorts.
>> Speaker D (32:59):
Oh, I love that. That's so creative too.
Mhm.
>> Loren (33:05):
I want to ask this too because I think it's related. You mentioned
the challenges of jobs and
different time zones and family responsibilities,
socioeconomic demographics, so to speak.
What do you think schools,
what have you seen? What do you think schools still need to do?
Let's talk about this way, like to help
(33:28):
these non traditional students.
>> Speaker D (33:32):
Yeah. Oh man.
I really feel like a lot of it kind of has to go back
to de
centering the western white male voice,
um, and seeing like what can we learn from the global
church. And a lot of that has to start at
the m
(33:52):
leadership level. Like being willing
to invite people who represent
the student body and faculty members who
more so reflect the student body. Because
really you can shape a classroom,
um, based on the type of faculty that
you have. And I think
(34:13):
that's something that I would love to see just continue
in that direction. Um, and
I don't know if this is exactly, um, related
or not, but something that's coming to mind is even trying
to enhance like lay education,
lay theological education for people
(34:33):
who are leading Bible studies in
their church or maybe their community group leaders.
And they love deep
study. But for them they're like, I would never go to
seminary because I work full time and it's, it's
not in the cards for me. Um, and that is
something where I feel like the Bible project has done a
(34:53):
phenomenal job. Um, as kind of
this. They, they offer
seminary level education. Um, but
it's at a very reduced cost or even
free. So I don't know. I wonder if
there's an opportunity for seminaries to start trying to think
strategically along those lines.
>> Loren (35:13):
I think that's a great point, because if we think about
the traditional. I shouldn't say traditional. What's become
the church model, I suppose, over the last 10,
20 years? It's just like that one hour Sunday
morning, maybe you're in a small group, but the
whole traditional Sunday school and then
the worship service where you're getting
(35:34):
In Sunday school, 30, 40 minutes of
biblical education discussion, like, that's not happening.
Like, probably in a small group. Right. It's like, let's talk about
this verse for, you know, 15, 20
minutes. Maybe there's. Maybe there's some kind of
curriculum. But again, I really like your idea about some
kind of lay education program
(35:56):
and, uh, how that could. Oh, and then again, like, your
point about the Bible project,
like, certainly, I think
seminaries, like, they have, like, what's the,
what's the business word? Like, they have the, the market.
Like, they have the, the resources to be able, like, do
that. Well, like, I can't think of, like, the, the businessy
(36:18):
word, so to speak, but, like, uh, they should be able to,
like, again, it's just kind of thinking outside the box, thinking,
you know, long term, how can we engage with different
people in different ways because of, like you said, these different challenges.
>> Speaker D (36:30):
Yeah, I know. You just reminded me. There were two
professors, um, that were so
creative, and they came up with a podcast
that they wanted to start.
>> Loren (36:39):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (36:40):
And they titled it Food Trucks in Babylon because
our seminary is based in Portland. And so
it was a lot of, like, we are in a
very interesting,
uh, place, culturally speaking,
where we're still, like, we have a
seminary on a hill inside of Portland,
which was really fascinating. And so they said, what if we just
(37:02):
got professors to be able to talk through,
like, what are some of these challenges that we're facing alongside
the church? And how do you do that? Well, and it was
really fun because it ended up becoming this really
cool admissions piece too, where our
admissions team, when talking to students who were like, well,
I kind of want to get a feel for what's it like to be a student
there. It was like, hey, check out our podcast.
>> Loren (37:24):
Yes.
>> Speaker D (37:25):
Um, and so I feel like, yeah, just
infusing creativity with that
could be really cool. But going back to the piece
about, um, churches, when you
were saying, no longer is it, like, oh, 45
minutes to an hour of deep, rich theological
Study, um, the church that
my husband is currently serving in, they have even seen
(37:47):
themselves a trend of like, no longer is
it a standard practice for most
churchgoers to attend every single Sunday
month.
>> Loren (37:56):
Right.
>> Speaker D (37:58):
Our average that we're seeing is a lot of
people attend one or two Sundays
out of a month.
>> Loren (38:04):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (38:05):
So then it's kind of taking even a further step
back. Um, yeah. Where you're like, okay,
things are shifting.
>> Loren (38:12):
Yeah. I was recently talking to a UMC
denominational leader in Louisiana. He's saying like, his data
is like one out of every six weeks, which is just,
you know, it's not. I would have said once a
month. But I mean, one out of, uh, six weeks doesn't shock
me just because again, what we're seeing from
trends, I, uh, gotta give a shameless plug there. I guess
(38:33):
this too. Like, I do podcast producing. So
if you're, if you're seminary, another seminary wants to
get a podcast back in action, I can help
you. Shameless plug over.
Uh, last question here before we take a break.
What do you think we're not talking about
enough in theological education that we need to talk
about more?
>> Speaker D (38:54):
Ooh, this, um, is
something that may just be like a personal piece for me
because I've worked a lot in marketing as
well, and I think it's poor digital
presence, um, where
a lot of theological education
is like 10 to 20 years
(39:14):
behind the times, digitally speaking.
And um, so then I think that's a
massive turnoff to students where,
um, there's clunky websites,
there's unclear admissions processes.
Um, sometimes when you get inside of
student portals, there's just a lot of
(39:35):
confusion of like, I'm sorry, how do I submit
a project? And so
that, that is something that I feel like
I understand the financial component to that,
which is why it's challenging to be able to change those things.
But I do feel like in today's day and culture,
it's something that uh, we need prioritize to be
(39:55):
able to meet the students where they're at and try to make it
as easy as possible for them to,
um, attend.
>> Loren (40:02):
Well, I'm just glad you didn't say like a better social media presence.
Oh, maybe, maybe you're
thinking that. But I could, I could do
without like seminary posting regularly on
TikTok. Like I just. Right, that's another
conversation. Uh, I appreciate your.
>> Speaker D (40:20):
You don't like faculty members doing TikTok dances?
>> Loren (40:22):
You know, I don't. Maybe I'm just too snobby.
Like, I don't need My professor doing
TikTok dances. And I think maybe
I'm soapboxing here. But I think, you know, I
think some spaces, right, like, they just don't lend themselves
to like. I
remember five, seven years ago, I was starting a new church and
I. I bought this, like, social media advertising
(40:45):
planner for the church. And I quickly realized, like, this kind
of like, you know, you've been in marketing. Like, I kind of realized,
like, this kind of marketing vibe is not the kind of vibe that I want
from my church, you know?
So, uh, you know, you have some
marketing experience. I have some marketing experience. Like,
marketing can be like, oh, can be really ill
(41:05):
if it's not done with, I think, some
intentionality and integrity. Right, agreed.
>> Speaker D (41:11):
Ah, absolutely. Both for churches
and seminaries and.
>> Loren (41:15):
Yeah, right, right. Uh, well,
let's take a quick break here and let's come back with some
closing questions.
All right, we're back with Becca Buchterkirchen.
Great to have this conversation. Appreciate your time.
And, uh, I think I've gotten your name right both times, so
hopefully that was the case. Closing questions. You're
(41:37):
welcome to take these as seriously or not as you'd like to, but if
you're pope for a day, what
might that day look like for you?
>> Speaker D (41:45):
Oh, I love that.
Um, I feel like two thoughts came
to mind and just based on where I'm at in
life, I'm like, oh, man, it would be so great to implement,
like, high quality, affordable childcare for
ministry families. Um, that would be
phenomenal. But thinking about it, just from a
fun, light hearted standpoint, I think it would be
(42:08):
awesome to host an, an epic barbecue
with lawn games on the Vatican lawn and
just be like, come one, come all,
let's. Let's get everyone together and have some fun.
>> Loren (42:20):
Okay. That is fun. Yeah. Lawn
games. I like that. St. Peter's
Square. Like, I've never been there, but.
>> Speaker D (42:27):
Right.
>> Loren (42:29):
Just a bunch of lawn games. Some, you know,
smokers. Because. And I guess I have to clarify this. Like,
are we talking like hot dogs and hamburgers
cookout or are we talking barbecue, which is like meat.
Smoked barbecue.
>> Speaker D (42:42):
Oh, uh, smoked meat.
>> Loren (42:43):
Okay.
>> Speaker D (42:44):
For sure.
>> Loren (42:44):
Good.
>> Speaker D (42:45):
Yep.
>> Loren (42:46):
Um, I like that. That's
fun.
Okay. A theologian or historical Christian figure you'd want
to meet or bring back to life.
>> Speaker D (42:55):
M. I think the first person that comes to
mind for me is Timothy, ah, Keller.
>> Loren (43:01):
Okay.
>> Speaker D (43:01):
I know he hasn't been gone for all that long, but
being a family that works in
ministry, I feel like he was such a
phenomenal example of being a pastor. Theologian.
And I also really appreciated
how he passed the baton. Well, he
didn't stay the senior pastor at
(43:22):
his church for forever, and he took a step
back, I felt like, at a great time,
and instead sought to, um,
raise up the next generation.
And for me, I'm just like, wow, I need more examples
like that. Um, in today's church.
>> Loren (43:39):
What do you think about Tim Keller? When
I'm thinking about through the lens of. We've seen so many, like,
church leaders, whether it's moral failings, whether
it's narcissistic trips, whether
it's. I, uh, mean, obviously,
nobody's perfect. I'm sure Tim Keller has his
flaws. Certainly there's things that I disagreed with him about,
(44:00):
but I also recognize he's a very wise man.
Like, what do you think? What. What are some
traits that you think he showed that are worth
emphasizing, that are especially important for leaders today?
>> Speaker D (44:13):
M. I feel like he showed up
remaining curious. He didn't strike me
as someone that was really prideful. I feel
like how he approached the scriptures was
with a willingness to. To say,
here's what I believe, but I could be wrong,
and to welcome different perspectives in
a way that I miss that.
(44:35):
Um, from what we're seeing in
today's context. Um, and I also liked that.
As far as I could tell, it seemed like
he didn't just covet the pulpit all by himself.
He wasn't the primary teacher 95%
of the time. And I think there's something to that.
Um, and I crave that in my own local church
(44:57):
setting of, like, I want to see different people,
um, sharing about their insights with who God
is.
>> Loren (45:03):
Yeah, that's good. Uh, what do you think history will
remember from our current time and place?
>> Speaker D (45:09):
Oof, man, that
one. That's so tricky. I.
I feel like it'll probably remember that we
lived in a time of, like, deep cultural
polarization and digital noise,
um, but that I feel like
a lot of people were quietly longing for something
(45:30):
deeper.
>> Loren (45:30):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (45:31):
Um, and I can sense that
just seeing where things
are headed right now, it's like, you can see that there's a deep
level of sadness, but people don't know exactly what to do with
it.
>> Loren (45:43):
All right, I've got to give another shout out then for my next guest,
Nandra Root, whose book is. And if you haven't read it, I
really recommend it. Evangelism in the Age of Despair.
>> Speaker D (45:53):
Amazing.
>> Loren (45:53):
And it's just basically that. That our world is
just deeply sad.
And, I mean, I think it's heartbroken. And I Think one of the
things that,
I mean, I think people are so. There's so many people who
are nihilistic to a point, and they're
hungering for something more, and they're. They're like,
(46:15):
they're chasing it in these
dangerous, you know,
dangerous patterns. So I don't
want to take too long on that. But, um,
yeah, appreciate you sharing that. Something more
positive. What are your hopes for the future of Christianity?
>> Speaker D (46:34):
Yeah, I have a lot of hope that we would
learn to truly embody what it means to
love God and love others, and I think to
not get so caught up in who's wrong or who's right,
especially about secondary theological issues.
If there's anything about living in today's
cultural, uh, context that I'm sensing, it's like, you
(46:55):
know what? We need to go back to the basics and even
though it sounds so simple to preach the
gospel and to not get so sidelined about all of these
other things.
>> Loren (47:05):
Yeah, yeah. Well, share where folks
can connect with you and, um, reach out to you
if so desired.
>> Speaker D (47:12):
Yeah. Uh, the best place to do that is at my
website, beccabuck.com. um, I have
a lot of ks in my name too, so. Ah, B E
K A H B U C K dot com.
And, uh, now I predominantly do a lot
of writing, um, speaking to moms who
are kind of in the trenches of motherhood, but still want to
(47:33):
pursue the Lord daily, even when they worry it's not
enough. So that's where they can find me.
>> Loren (47:39):
Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. I really
appreciate the conversation. Uh, we always leave folks
with a word of peace, so may God's peace be with you.
>> Speaker D (47:48):
Oh, thank you. Well, I received that and thank you.
Likewise for having me. It was a wonderful discussion.
>> Loren Richmond (48:00):
Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian Podcast.
The Future Christian Podcast is produced by Resonate
Media. We love to hear from our listeners with questions,
questions, comments, and ideas for future episodes.
Visit our website at, uh, future-christian.com
and find the Connect with Us form at the bottom of
the page to get in touch with Martha or Loren.
(48:21):
But before you go, do us a favor, subscribe to
the POD to leave a review. It really helps us get
this out to more people.
>> Loren (48:29):
Thanks.
>> Loren Richmond (48:29):
And go in PE.
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast, your
source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church in
the 21st century. At the Future Christian
Podcast, we talk to pastors, authors
and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical
wisdom to help you and your community of faith
walk boldly into the future. Whether
(00:27):
you're a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member
of your faith community, this podcast is
designed to challenge, inspire, and equip
you with the tools you need for impactful ministry.
And now for a little bit about the guest for this episode.
>> Martha Tatarnic (00:44):
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today,
Loren Richmond Jr. Is in conversation
with Becca Buchter Kirkhan.
Becca is a writer, speaker and creative
collaborator passionate about cultivating joy
and faith in every season. With
nearly a decade in Christian higher education
and ministry, alongside her pastor husband,
(01:06):
she seeks to create spaces where curiosity,
hospitality, and the love of Jesus meet.
She lives in the Pacific Northwest with
their two, almost three young kids and
writes to encourage moms in the trenches of
motherhood to seek the Lord daily, even when
they feel like it's not enough.
(01:27):
A reminder. Before we start today's conversation,
please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast,
leave a review and share Future Christian with
a friend. Connect with Loren, Martha and
Future Christian on Instagram. Shoot
us an email at, uh, laurensonatemediapro
uh.com
with comments, questions or ideas for future
(01:49):
episodes. We appreciate your
voice in how we faithfully discern the future
of the church.
>> Loren (02:05):
Hello and welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. My name is Loren
Richmond Jr. And today I'm pleased to be joined by
Becca Buckturkin. Thanks so much for
being here.
>> Speaker D (02:15):
Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.
>> Loren (02:17):
Yeah. Looking forward to having this conversation.
Is there anything else you want listeners to know about you?
>> Speaker D (02:24):
Yeah. When thinking about the conversation we're going to dive into,
I was thinking it might be helpful for listeners to know
that I worked, uh, for nearly a
decade in Christian higher education at three different
institutions. Um, and
all during eight of those years, my husband
has also been in seminary alongside
pastoral ministry. So for the two of
(02:46):
us, we have been deeply formed by
theological education. Um, um, and we
also really believe in the local church despite all
the chaos of the past several years. And,
and so I think for me, how I try to always approach
conversations like these is to not show
up thinking I, I have the answers,
(03:07):
but with a heart that's still being formed and is gen
generally curious. So I'm looking forward to what we'll
be discussing today.
>> Loren (03:14):
Absolutely appreciate that perspective.
Do you want to share a bit about your faith journey, what that's looked like in the
past and what that looks like today.
>> Speaker D (03:21):
Yeah. So I was really fortunate to
grow up in, um, an entire
family, including all of my extended family that
have known Jesus, walked with Jesus for decades.
And so I like to say that I
really feel like I have known and
loved Jesus ever since I was a little girl.
(03:42):
And it has just been this gradual process of
getting to know him on a deeper level all throughout my life.
And, um, surprisingly, I didn't
really have this falling away sort of season.
Um, and for me, I think, in
the past, looking back on it, I grew up in public
school my whole life until I went away to
(04:03):
a private Christian college. And that's when the
Bible just became very real to me and I
gained a lot of head knowledge. But then
I think where I struggled was, wait a second, now that
I have all this head knowledge, how is it supposed
to impact my heart? And how do I.
I, uh, don't know. It's kind of strange to me that I think a lot of the times when
(04:24):
we grow in our knowledge of God and the
Scriptures, a lot of time, pride can get in
there. And, um. And so
what it means for me to be a Christian now, it has looked
a lot more like, um,
soul care. And I think with my husband having served
in pastoral ministry, getting to sit
(04:45):
in front of people and listen and hear their stories
and see the way that God has been moving in their life,
that's really been a beautiful opportunity
for me to try to experience not just head
knowledge, but also heart knowledge. And how does it impact everything we
do?
>> Loren (05:01):
Yeah. Yeah, that's great.
I'm curious just because this is a theme that I've been
following a lot, even if informally
with guests, too, as I've followed this
sort of on the broader trend. Like,
obviously, there's no, like, formula. Right. This is, I think, a
mistake that often happens in some Christian circles is,
like, we have the formula for raising our kids so they will not
(05:22):
depart from the faith. Like, is there anything, like you
think that your parents or your
Christian faith context did, right, to kind of
help you not have that typical,
like, falling away?
>> Speaker D (05:36):
Gosh, I think about that often, too. Especially now,
raising my own kids.
>> Loren (05:40):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (05:40):
Where I'm like, what? Okay, what was it? Because I have two
siblings, and similarly, they both love
Jesus. And, um, the only
thing that I can think of in my own personal life is I like to
say that I'm a product of mentorship, like, very
intentional discipleship, and my Parents
didn't assume that they were going
(06:01):
to be the sole tenders
of making sure that they pass on the generation of faith.
And so I had several men and women
within our local church context
that poured into me and that were just
present in my life and I looked up to
them. And so because of that, I think it helped
(06:22):
me stay rooted when situations
arose where it would have been easy for me to stray.
>> Loren (06:28):
Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. Thanks for sharing that.
What kind of, uh, spiritual practice do you find
meaningful today or help you sustain your faith?
>> Speaker D (06:37):
M. Yeah, so right now for me, I,
um, I made the really hard decision a
year ago to not return to full time work outside
of the home after my second, uh, kiddo was
born. And I
think being a full time
caretaker now to little kids, I
grieved how much my relationship with God
(06:59):
changed. Uh, my husband and I were married for
seven years before we became parents. And
that gave me a lot of time to develop practices
and rhythms that helped me feel
healthy. And then once I
had kids, all of that just got thrown out the window where you're like, wait a
second, uh, I don't have time to just sit,
(07:20):
um, in stillness and read scripture
or journal or whatever. So for me
it's been over the last several years, a
practice that I regularly return to has been
breath prayers. And those are
just, they're monumental for me. They're like
my lifeline throughout the day when I start to feel
frustrated or like I'm losing my patience just to
(07:42):
have some sort of scripture that I can breathe in,
breathe out, and rest
in the knowledge that God is with me, the Spirit is
present, and I can continue about my day.
>> Loren (07:54):
Yeah, that's great. That's great. Thank you for sharing that.
Well, I had Becca on to talk about her
experience in
theological education. This is a topic that I
think is incredibly important to the future of the church.
You know, broadly speaking, for our context
in America's sake. And
(08:15):
uh, we're undergoing like, obviously a, uh, serious time of just
change and disruption with
attendance, institutional
stability. I mean, you name the disruption,
like we're experiencing it. And
I've primarily approached this conversation just
from my current most, my most
(08:36):
recent situation or context being in mainline
prosthetism. But certainly I follow
evangelical institutions. And so I'm curious, like,
to talk about how these same dynamics or challenges are
playing out in those contexts. So, uh, I guess first of
all, you know, I think it's interesting like, like you said, like you worked
in a seminary Your husband attended it.
(08:57):
So you really saw like both sides,
Both sides of it very well. Like,
what do you think? Like, are the, just to start out, like, what are the
biggest challenges facing seminaries
as, as institutions today?
>> Speaker D (09:11):
Mhm. Oh man, it's such a good question.
And I think the hardest part about it is like you're saying
it's not just one thing which makes it so
challenging, but a few things that really have stood out to
me are,
um, I think, correct
me if I'm wrong, but I believe the seminary and
theological education was born out of the church.
(09:33):
And I think over the years we have seen that kind
of start to divide a little bit where
it's no longer integrated as thoughtfully
as it maybe once was. I know even for my
husband, with, um, applying to
different churches, and it's no longer,
um, a requirement at many churches that you
(09:53):
have to have theological training. And that has
even been a really interesting shift to see. So I feel
like at kind of like the broader level, it's
churches who um, need
to almost be convinced, like, why does theological education
still matter and how can it actually
impact our congregation?
Um, because then what it ends
(10:16):
up lending itself to is the seminary that I
worked at. We didn't have a large endowment
that was able to offset the significant
rising costs.
>> Loren (10:26):
Right.
>> Speaker D (10:27):
And when that's the case, you have
to partner with the church to be able to say, hey,
what about cohort based models? Are you open to
doing that? Hey, could we use your facilities to be able
to host classes? Or if you have
a pastor, um, or even
like a person on staff that is helping
(10:48):
to care for your flock, um, would you be
willing to financially contribute a little bit? And then our
seminary would be happy to match that
to make it more affordable for the student.
So I think those are just like some of the
initial things that come to mind. But
um, yeah, I mean, what are your thoughts on that?
>> Loren (11:08):
Well, that's good. Uh, you're kind of stealing our thunder here. So
I'm glad you just hinted at, I guess you gave a little teaser there to
cohorts and endowments. So we'll hopefully come back
and explore that here in a little bit.
Something I think you can especially speak to,
I'm hoping, as you served, what Dean of
students, right? Is that correct? Yeah, yeah. So
(11:29):
one of my previous guests was John Hawthorne, who wrote
about, had a long history
or career in Christian education
and talked about how the, I can't remember
exactly how it said the current student or the future
student is not white,
not male. I Can't remember exactly what it said, but it's basically making the point
(11:50):
the era of 20 something white
guy student, uh, and I imagine
to some extent in seminary, uh, what
are, what are you seeing about how the student body has
changed, whether not just in demographics but also
in age, in, I don't know, social
income. Yeah, talk about that.
>> Speaker D (12:10):
Yeah. Oh, I'm so glad you brought that up because,
um, in my role as Dean of Students, one
of my favorite things that we got to do was we
hosted, um, or we put on different
uh, questionnaires to the entire student body to
be able to see, like what, what are the changes that are
occurring. And if you looked back 10 years,
(12:31):
could see that exact trend where the age
of student has significantly
increased.
>> Loren (12:37):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (12:38):
And this wasn't something that was just at our
seminary. Um, we were able to
see with the association of Theological
Schools, um, what are the trends that
are going on nationwide.
And a lot of seminaries were seeing that. So even
at my local seminary, what was happening was
(12:58):
it was no longer like young, 20 something
white, uh, male. It was actually our average
student was a 34 year old male
who was working full time
and attending seminary part time.
And so that was a huge shift. We also saw a
significant increase of more female
(13:20):
students that were attending seminary.
But what was really fascinating about that was when
we asked a male and a female
seminary student like, what, what is your
career outcome? Or what's your trajectory? Where are
you headed? More often than not
the male students were, were able to have a clear
answer to that. And they said, this is exactly what I plan to
(13:42):
do. Our female students, not the
faintest clue. Because I think in the
churches there's not always a clear,
um, outcome for what women can do
with a theological degree.
>> Loren (13:56):
Right.
>> Speaker D (13:56):
And that was really fascinating to see too.
Um, but I loved the fact that we
had so many, um,
older students that were in their 50s
and 60s that had lived these long
careers and were now coming back and saying,
I just want to grow in my faith and
(14:17):
serve my local body. And that was really, really
beautiful.
>> Loren (14:21):
Yeah, that's so interesting because again, that even matches
what I've seen again in mainline context where it's like
second and even sometimes, like you said, I think
third career. I guess if you're 50s or 60s, you could define
it like as a third career, almost. Students coming
back, certainly an increase
in female, non male.
(14:43):
I'm curious about too,
how you saw this challenge play out. I'm
assuming it's a challenge. Again, you talked about that
the age increase of the 34 year old
male working full time. Whether
someone's male or female, if they're in their 30s
or 40s, they probably have kids or
(15:03):
jobs or responsibilities, relationships.
And I imagine that makes this whole
seminary experience a lot more complicated.
Like I remember even just, I
mean, I was in my late 20s when I did seminary, just thinking about,
I didn't have kids yet, but just like the
strain on my marriage, relationship and there weren't
(15:24):
kids in the picture yet. Uh,
I mean, obviously there's some kind of growing and
changing during seminary.
How did you experience it or how did your seminary
experience like working with students and their families
to help support the whole unit.
>> Speaker D (15:42):
Oh, man. Yeah, that was
probably the number one thing that we heard from
students. Piece of feedback was, I
am juggling so much right now.
And so no longer was it assumed
that all of their attention was going to be fixated
on the degree that they were receiving. Like, oh, come
(16:02):
for four years and then you'll be done. A lot
of our students, like my husband, eight years
in seminary because he's been working
full time and doing this part time.
Um, so it's, it was a
challenge. And I think it's also
because of that reality of having
(16:23):
older students, they're not as willing to
uproot their families and move to attend
seminary. So then you have these brick and
mortar campuses that are not being
filled by a student body, which is
another challenge of, okay, so how do you pivot
to online theological education
but not lose the importance of
(16:46):
spiritual formation? And that was a
tension that we really saw where our faculty
deeply cared about. I want to know who these
students are. M. If we are
giving our stamp of approval and saying they're going to go
pastor, we want to make sure that we feel
good about their character too.
>> Loren (17:04):
Yeah, let's talk about that brick and mortar
challenge because I just saw the news
yesterday or this week of a seminary.
I follow, like my next guest
hopefully will be a, uh, professor from Luther
Seminary in, I think Minneapolis.
And I just saw that they're selling their campus or
making plans to sell their campus. I
(17:27):
mean, again, it's. Nothing shocks me anymore.
>> Speaker D (17:30):
Yeah.
>> Loren (17:30):
Just because, like you, you talked about like the financial
challenges and feel free to, to go into this too,
if you want to. But, you know, you mentioned endowments.
Some schools have bigger endowments than others. I know
my alma mater, Phillips Seminary, uh, shout
out. They support the pod like they have, I think a fairly
healthy endowment, which is very much
(17:52):
strengthened
their impact and their ability to be sustainable.
Like I gave you a lot there. So respond to what
you want to respond to.
>> Speaker D (18:03):
Oh yeah, I'm seeing
that same thing. And I remember even when I was in that role,
it almost felt like monthly is too strong.
But certainly quarterly or twice a year you
would hear the news. I mean even Ted's University
where you're just like, what happened? And
how did we not see this coming?
(18:24):
Um, and how do we try to stay
nimble enough to where you can pivot
and make those pivots so that way you're not having
to sell your campus or
um, I don't know, like merge with another
seminary and. But I,
I don't know.
Um, yeah, I
(18:45):
don't have a clear cut answer for that. But I think going
to the funding piece.
>> Loren (18:51):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (18:52):
That's, that's really huge. And
again, I think it has to be this
creative opportunity to try to see like
our students don't have thousands of dollars that they can
pour into seminary education on their own when they
know the role that they likely carry
is not going to help them pay off their debt anytime
(19:13):
soon.
>> Loren (19:14):
Yeah, let's dive into that more
because I was just listening to a conversation with Chuck De Groat
and he was talking about like when he's. It's funny because
I looked up Chuck De Groat also teaches a Western
Seminary, but it's the one in Michigan, not the one
you're associated with.
>> Speaker D (19:31):
Uh-huh.
>> Loren (19:31):
Uh, but he was talking about in this
conversation like how he's encouraging students like
hey, it's likely it can be bivocationality or co.
Vocationality or whatever, you name it.
Certainly I think gone are the
days in the vast majority context where you
can expect to go out and get like a top of the market
type job. So
(19:54):
there's these dynamics of colleges in higher
education is not getting any cheaper,
while conversely like the pay is.
So let's talk about kind of like, you know, you hinted at earlier
like these, these cohort models, what are some,
some alternative models of higher
education that, that you've seen or you think should be explored
more?
>> Speaker D (20:15):
Yeah, I, I love the cohort
based model. And that was something that Western Seminary
did a phenomenal job with.
And it really was when they went to
faculty members and enabled them to have some
creativity and to say, hey, what are you
passionate about? Um, what's a
program that we could develop that would be
(20:37):
appealing to different students? Um,
and so what they ended up doing is they would actually
partner with specific churches, um, who
were kind of larger based churches, but they said, hey, if
you can find 20 students
that was give, um, or take, that was around the
number that would make it feasible for professors to be
(20:58):
able to engage in it. And then the local church
would be able to find those students,
open up, in a lot of cases, their own facilities
for our professors to come and they would meet once a
month. Um, and all the rest of it was online,
so it was a far easier sell to students as
well. Where it was like, hey, give us one
(21:19):
day a month where it's an eight hour day, it's very long.
Um, but the rest of it will be online. But
you'll have this like, beautiful thriving
community. And another seminary I've seen
do really well with that is actually Denver Seminary.
>> Loren (21:33):
Okay.
>> Speaker D (21:34):
There's a whole group of
Christian female authors, speakers,
Bible teachers that are in a
cohort actively right now at Denver Seminary.
And the stories that they're sharing about just like
the life transformation that's happening has been really
cool. And for me, I'm like, I want to keep an eye
(21:55):
on that because I think that's going to be a really strategic
model moving forward. And
um, the other option that
I know, um, a lot of seminaries are exploring
are stackable certifications.
Instead of having like this huge M. Div. Program
that takes five years, it's like, hey, what if you
(22:15):
were to come in and you could get a certificate in
like Bible transformation or whatever. Um,
and a lot of times for students, all it takes is them to
experience the fruit of what they
receive from seminary that then they say, I want to
continue on. So then it's great, let's just continue
stacking. And if you stack this many,
(22:36):
then you end up with an MDIV or you can
just get a certificate and call it good.
>> Loren (22:42):
Yeah, I think that's a great idea because I think
the market, so to speak, is trending in that model
certainly towards like graduate certificates. Like, I'm even
thinking of like Coursera and these online learning models
where you get a professional certificate or a graduate certificate.
And like you said, like, it's not like immediately
taking out a huge student loan.
>> Speaker D (23:03):
Yeah.
>> Loren (23:03):
You know, committing five years, like
four, five, six years, eight years. Like your husband.
Uh, and like you said, if you're like, man, I cannot
finish this, like you can walk away with
something. Uh, again,
I have to give a shout out to my
alma mater. They've been exploring this model too
(23:24):
through different programs. They have. I think it's so good.
The other side of this I want to ask about because again, you kind of
mentioned it this Lack of integration with churches, which
I think, I think is a
problem in many different ways, if anything,
because from my experience there
can be a disconnect to like what the people in the
(23:45):
pews are experiencing and
where they're at versus like where the
professors or students are at.
So I don't remember if we talked about this.
I wonder, uh, maybe in our email exchanges. But I
was thinking about, and I'm curious if you've had an
experience of this or thoughts on this. But like I was thinking about
(24:05):
years ago when I was in Bible college, like
the professors were often like local church pastors.
And obviously that's going to be variable based
on like the region. Like if there's a, you
know, if it's in a small town, there can only be so many like local
church pastors. Right.
I mean there can be a twofold advantage, certainly more like,
(24:27):
obviously, A, there's integration with the churches. B, like you're not
necessarily like, again, for the cost of the seminar, like you're not like
expecting that professor's not expecting a full
time salary. Like, what else have you seen? What else have
you seen in that regard?
>> Speaker D (24:44):
Yeah, I, I think that's such
a great selling point also is for
students to know that, oh, the professors that I'm learning from
have been church planters or they're an elder at their
current church. Um, and they get
it, they have a finger on the pulse to what the
body is experiencing. Um, and
(25:04):
I mean shout out to Western Seminary. That's
one of their main, um, selling
points is the fact that nearly every
single full time seminary faculty member
is actively involved and serving in their church.
And one of my favorite classes
that they held and my husband got to be a part of this was
(25:25):
um, it was a professor who
continued to serve for decades in youth
ministry. And he would
ask every single student to bring in a case study
from their local church. And he would say, because
none of us like attend the same churches
here, it's a safe space for you to be able to
come and wrestle through. Like,
(25:48):
how do I navigate this? And what, how should
I respond? So they were doing this in real time.
And I loved when my husband came home from
those classes and, and he would just say, man, this
case study was so helpful to hear. Like,
I've never experienced that before, but it got me thinking,
how would I respond? And um,
(26:09):
so I think being able to have opportunities like
that or I've also seen
sometimes it's a requirement for
first year seminary students to have a
pastor in their Local church that's willing
to mentor them.
>> Loren (26:24):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (26:25):
And, yeah, that's really cool, too, because it's almost this,
like, apprenticeship type thing.
>> Loren (26:30):
Right.
>> Speaker D (26:30):
Um, where the professor has different
points throughout the semester where they.
It requires, like, the pastor to submit a
form or maybe have a quick phone call,
check in just to see how are they doing. What are you noticing? What
should I be noticing and paying attention to inside the classroom?
>> Loren (26:49):
Yeah. The apprenticeship, uh, model is interesting because, again,
like, there's,
broadly speaking, in our society, there seems to be,
hopefully, a growing need and hopefully
growing rise in
kind of the trades thing. And again, I'm
someone who really appreciates theological education, but also,
(27:10):
I think we can both agree there's some students who.
That's not their strength and still
are deeply called to love and. And
serve others to the local church. Also
feel strongly about their relationship with God and theology. But
I, uh, want there to be models, I guess, for them to be
(27:31):
like, I don't know, value is the right word,
but recognized. Um, certified. That's
not the right word, but hopefully. You get what I'm saying.
>> Speaker D (27:39):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think
that's one of the unique
opportunities that seminary professors get
to enter into with students. I remember one
faculty member, he actually really struggled
with the word calling because he said, I see
so many of these students come in and they say, I'm
called to be a senior pastor. And
(28:02):
he's like, wow, well, what
happens if you're not actually very
skilled in it or it's not something that
I see for you in the future? And so, um,
to their credit, they were willing to have those hard
conversations. Um, and it wasn't just like a. Ah,
let me tell you, this will never be the case for you, but
(28:22):
more so, hey, let's take a step back. And what is that
rooted in? And what is your first
calling? Uh, it's to love God and love
others. And let's just take it one step at a time.
>> Loren (28:33):
Yeah. I'm called to make, you know, 200k as a
pastor, so.
>> Speaker D (28:37):
Right.
>> Loren (28:37):
I'm gonna speak that into existence.
>> Speaker D (28:40):
Uh-huh.
>> Loren (28:40):
Uh, it reminds me of sort of how we got connected.
Is it Ariana? Is that how you say her name?
Previous guest, Ariana Malloy, who
really recommend her book. Uh, I'll
make sure to link in the show notes, our conversation,
but she talked about that. I can't
remember the word calling. Burnout or calling shame.
When your title doesn't
(29:03):
necessarily
attach or correlate with what you're
doing or your calling. I should say and
how to bridge that disconnect. I thought that was so helpful. And again,
I think that's where that's the
challenge, I suppose, of these online learning models where it's
just like fill a discussion post,
(29:23):
look at slideshows and write
papers. And again, that's very m.
Boiled down. But
in the online learning models,
what have you seen? What works well to kind of stay. Because
like you said, professors want to invest in students.
They don't want to just read discussion posts. I
(29:44):
can imagine.
>> Speaker D (29:45):
Oh, absolutely.
Well, briefly, uh, Ariana's book Healthy Calling
is phenomenal. And uh, I've talked to my
husband about it a lot where he's like, as a pastor,
that disconnect that can happen between.
I used to feel called to this, but now I'm so burnt
out. Like, how do you bridge that gap? So, um, she
is a dear friend of mine. Um, so I'm so glad that
(30:08):
she connected us. But, um, thinking
about online education, like how, how
do you do that? Well, and I think a lot
of it is students who are willing
to show up and actively participate, even
in a zoom format. And I know that there's
this whole like asynchronous versus synchronous
(30:28):
learning and the broader
that your student body gets you, you start to
encounter significant challenges with people who are halfway
across the world in different time zones. So it
becomes more and more challenging. But I
do think that there's a way to do it. Um,
and even like how you and I are connecting right now via,
uh, this platform, it's like, okay,
(30:51):
you can start to get a sense for who is this
person and are they who they say they are?
Um, so I think it's possible. I know at,
uh, our seminary, what they offered was,
they offered a, it was one week, four times
a year. They called it Threshold. And they would
invite students who were distance learners
to come to campus and have an in
(31:14):
person experience where they would receive
credit for their courses. And it was kind of an intensive
process. But I know even for myself, when I was in
grad school, I actually went to, um,
Gonzaga University. As an online student.
>> Loren (31:27):
Sure, yeah.
>> Speaker D (31:28):
And that was a requirement. Was, hey, it's
a fully online program. However, during
your second year, you have to be willing to come to
campus, um, for a week long intensive.
So that way you could get to meet the professors face to
face. And I actually, I really like that
model. Um, I know it's, it can be a deterrent
(31:49):
to some students who are like, that's so expensive.
Um, but there's There's a great value to it.
>> Loren (31:56):
Yeah, I've got to agree with you. When I was starting
seminary, I did online. In the first semester I didn't
go to the campus. And the second, like, I didn't feel like.
I didn't feel like I was really a seminary student
until that second
semester where I did a week long
intensive. Like that's when it hit home.
(32:16):
I'm thinking of another example. Like I think
it's Southern Seminary.
Can't remember. South. Can't remember. It's not Southern
Seminary. It's like somewhere in Tennessee there's
like a South. Something
Southwestern. No, because it's like
uh, it's like a. Anyway, they invited
me to like speak up. They just do like these weekly
(32:39):
like zoom cohorts where they have a speaker
like once a week and students can pop in and get credit
for popping in and engaging. Like you said in the
conversation or the. What happens?
Uh, like I said, another example I think of what you're talking about
of these Zoom or online participation
cohorts.
>> Speaker D (32:59):
Oh, I love that. That's so creative too.
Mhm.
>> Loren (33:05):
I want to ask this too because I think it's related. You mentioned
the challenges of jobs and
different time zones and family responsibilities,
socioeconomic demographics, so to speak.
What do you think schools,
what have you seen? What do you think schools still need to do?
Let's talk about this way, like to help
(33:28):
these non traditional students.
>> Speaker D (33:32):
Yeah. Oh man.
I really feel like a lot of it kind of has to go back
to de
centering the western white male voice,
um, and seeing like what can we learn from the global
church. And a lot of that has to start at
the m
(33:52):
leadership level. Like being willing
to invite people who represent
the student body and faculty members who
more so reflect the student body. Because
really you can shape a classroom,
um, based on the type of faculty that
you have. And I think
(34:13):
that's something that I would love to see just continue
in that direction. Um, and
I don't know if this is exactly, um, related
or not, but something that's coming to mind is even trying
to enhance like lay education,
lay theological education for people
(34:33):
who are leading Bible studies in
their church or maybe their community group leaders.
And they love deep
study. But for them they're like, I would never go to
seminary because I work full time and it's, it's
not in the cards for me. Um, and that is
something where I feel like the Bible project has done a
(34:53):
phenomenal job. Um, as kind of
this. They, they offer
seminary level education. Um, but
it's at a very reduced cost or even
free. So I don't know. I wonder if
there's an opportunity for seminaries to start trying to think
strategically along those lines.
>> Loren (35:13):
I think that's a great point, because if we think about
the traditional. I shouldn't say traditional. What's become
the church model, I suppose, over the last 10,
20 years? It's just like that one hour Sunday
morning, maybe you're in a small group, but the
whole traditional Sunday school and then
the worship service where you're getting
(35:34):
In Sunday school, 30, 40 minutes of
biblical education discussion, like, that's not happening.
Like, probably in a small group. Right. It's like, let's talk about
this verse for, you know, 15, 20
minutes. Maybe there's. Maybe there's some kind of
curriculum. But again, I really like your idea about some
kind of lay education program
(35:56):
and, uh, how that could. Oh, and then again, like, your
point about the Bible project,
like, certainly, I think
seminaries, like, they have, like, what's the,
what's the business word? Like, they have the, the market.
Like, they have the, the resources to be able, like, do
that. Well, like, I can't think of, like, the, the businessy
(36:18):
word, so to speak, but, like, uh, they should be able to,
like, again, it's just kind of thinking outside the box, thinking,
you know, long term, how can we engage with different
people in different ways because of, like you said, these different challenges.
>> Speaker D (36:30):
Yeah, I know. You just reminded me. There were two
professors, um, that were so
creative, and they came up with a podcast
that they wanted to start.
>> Loren (36:39):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (36:40):
And they titled it Food Trucks in Babylon because
our seminary is based in Portland. And so
it was a lot of, like, we are in a
very interesting,
uh, place, culturally speaking,
where we're still, like, we have a
seminary on a hill inside of Portland,
which was really fascinating. And so they said, what if we just
(37:02):
got professors to be able to talk through,
like, what are some of these challenges that we're facing alongside
the church? And how do you do that? Well, and it was
really fun because it ended up becoming this really
cool admissions piece too, where our
admissions team, when talking to students who were like, well,
I kind of want to get a feel for what's it like to be a student
there. It was like, hey, check out our podcast.
>> Loren (37:24):
Yes.
>> Speaker D (37:25):
Um, and so I feel like, yeah, just
infusing creativity with that
could be really cool. But going back to the piece
about, um, churches, when you
were saying, no longer is it, like, oh, 45
minutes to an hour of deep, rich theological
Study, um, the church that
my husband is currently serving in, they have even seen
(37:47):
themselves a trend of like, no longer is
it a standard practice for most
churchgoers to attend every single Sunday
month.
>> Loren (37:56):
Right.
>> Speaker D (37:58):
Our average that we're seeing is a lot of
people attend one or two Sundays
out of a month.
>> Loren (38:04):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (38:05):
So then it's kind of taking even a further step
back. Um, yeah. Where you're like, okay,
things are shifting.
>> Loren (38:12):
Yeah. I was recently talking to a UMC
denominational leader in Louisiana. He's saying like, his data
is like one out of every six weeks, which is just,
you know, it's not. I would have said once a
month. But I mean, one out of, uh, six weeks doesn't shock
me just because again, what we're seeing from
trends, I, uh, gotta give a shameless plug there. I guess
(38:33):
this too. Like, I do podcast producing. So
if you're, if you're seminary, another seminary wants to
get a podcast back in action, I can help
you. Shameless plug over.
Uh, last question here before we take a break.
What do you think we're not talking about
enough in theological education that we need to talk
about more?
>> Speaker D (38:54):
Ooh, this, um, is
something that may just be like a personal piece for me
because I've worked a lot in marketing as
well, and I think it's poor digital
presence, um, where
a lot of theological education
is like 10 to 20 years
(39:14):
behind the times, digitally speaking.
And um, so then I think that's a
massive turnoff to students where,
um, there's clunky websites,
there's unclear admissions processes.
Um, sometimes when you get inside of
student portals, there's just a lot of
(39:35):
confusion of like, I'm sorry, how do I submit
a project? And so
that, that is something that I feel like
I understand the financial component to that,
which is why it's challenging to be able to change those things.
But I do feel like in today's day and culture,
it's something that uh, we need prioritize to be
(39:55):
able to meet the students where they're at and try to make it
as easy as possible for them to,
um, attend.
>> Loren (40:02):
Well, I'm just glad you didn't say like a better social media presence.
Oh, maybe, maybe you're
thinking that. But I could, I could do
without like seminary posting regularly on
TikTok. Like I just. Right, that's another
conversation. Uh, I appreciate your.
>> Speaker D (40:20):
You don't like faculty members doing TikTok dances?
>> Loren (40:22):
You know, I don't. Maybe I'm just too snobby.
Like, I don't need My professor doing
TikTok dances. And I think maybe
I'm soapboxing here. But I think, you know, I
think some spaces, right, like, they just don't lend themselves
to like. I
remember five, seven years ago, I was starting a new church and
I. I bought this, like, social media advertising
(40:45):
planner for the church. And I quickly realized, like, this kind
of like, you know, you've been in marketing. Like, I kind of realized,
like, this kind of marketing vibe is not the kind of vibe that I want
from my church, you know?
So, uh, you know, you have some
marketing experience. I have some marketing experience. Like,
marketing can be like, oh, can be really ill
(41:05):
if it's not done with, I think, some
intentionality and integrity. Right, agreed.
>> Speaker D (41:11):
Ah, absolutely. Both for churches
and seminaries and.
>> Loren (41:15):
Yeah, right, right. Uh, well,
let's take a quick break here and let's come back with some
closing questions.
All right, we're back with Becca Buchterkirchen.
Great to have this conversation. Appreciate your time.
And, uh, I think I've gotten your name right both times, so
hopefully that was the case. Closing questions. You're
(41:37):
welcome to take these as seriously or not as you'd like to, but if
you're pope for a day, what
might that day look like for you?
>> Speaker D (41:45):
Oh, I love that.
Um, I feel like two thoughts came
to mind and just based on where I'm at in
life, I'm like, oh, man, it would be so great to implement,
like, high quality, affordable childcare for
ministry families. Um, that would be
phenomenal. But thinking about it, just from a
fun, light hearted standpoint, I think it would be
(42:08):
awesome to host an, an epic barbecue
with lawn games on the Vatican lawn and
just be like, come one, come all,
let's. Let's get everyone together and have some fun.
>> Loren (42:20):
Okay. That is fun. Yeah. Lawn
games. I like that. St. Peter's
Square. Like, I've never been there, but.
>> Speaker D (42:27):
Right.
>> Loren (42:29):
Just a bunch of lawn games. Some, you know,
smokers. Because. And I guess I have to clarify this. Like,
are we talking like hot dogs and hamburgers
cookout or are we talking barbecue, which is like meat.
Smoked barbecue.
>> Speaker D (42:42):
Oh, uh, smoked meat.
>> Loren (42:43):
Okay.
>> Speaker D (42:44):
For sure.
>> Loren (42:44):
Good.
>> Speaker D (42:45):
Yep.
>> Loren (42:46):
Um, I like that. That's
fun.
Okay. A theologian or historical Christian figure you'd want
to meet or bring back to life.
>> Speaker D (42:55):
M. I think the first person that comes to
mind for me is Timothy, ah, Keller.
>> Loren (43:01):
Okay.
>> Speaker D (43:01):
I know he hasn't been gone for all that long, but
being a family that works in
ministry, I feel like he was such a
phenomenal example of being a pastor. Theologian.
And I also really appreciated
how he passed the baton. Well, he
didn't stay the senior pastor at
(43:22):
his church for forever, and he took a step
back, I felt like, at a great time,
and instead sought to, um,
raise up the next generation.
And for me, I'm just like, wow, I need more examples
like that. Um, in today's church.
>> Loren (43:39):
What do you think about Tim Keller? When
I'm thinking about through the lens of. We've seen so many, like,
church leaders, whether it's moral failings, whether
it's narcissistic trips, whether
it's. I, uh, mean, obviously,
nobody's perfect. I'm sure Tim Keller has his
flaws. Certainly there's things that I disagreed with him about,
(44:00):
but I also recognize he's a very wise man.
Like, what do you think? What. What are some
traits that you think he showed that are worth
emphasizing, that are especially important for leaders today?
>> Speaker D (44:13):
M. I feel like he showed up
remaining curious. He didn't strike me
as someone that was really prideful. I feel
like how he approached the scriptures was
with a willingness to. To say,
here's what I believe, but I could be wrong,
and to welcome different perspectives in
a way that I miss that.
(44:35):
Um, from what we're seeing in
today's context. Um, and I also liked that.
As far as I could tell, it seemed like
he didn't just covet the pulpit all by himself.
He wasn't the primary teacher 95%
of the time. And I think there's something to that.
Um, and I crave that in my own local church
(44:57):
setting of, like, I want to see different people,
um, sharing about their insights with who God
is.
>> Loren (45:03):
Yeah, that's good. Uh, what do you think history will
remember from our current time and place?
>> Speaker D (45:09):
Oof, man, that
one. That's so tricky. I.
I feel like it'll probably remember that we
lived in a time of, like, deep cultural
polarization and digital noise,
um, but that I feel like
a lot of people were quietly longing for something
(45:30):
deeper.
>> Loren (45:30):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (45:31):
Um, and I can sense that
just seeing where things
are headed right now, it's like, you can see that there's a deep
level of sadness, but people don't know exactly what to do with
it.
>> Loren (45:43):
All right, I've got to give another shout out then for my next guest,
Nandra Root, whose book is. And if you haven't read it, I
really recommend it. Evangelism in the Age of Despair.
>> Speaker D (45:53):
Amazing.
>> Loren (45:53):
And it's just basically that. That our world is
just deeply sad.
And, I mean, I think it's heartbroken. And I Think one of the
things that,
I mean, I think people are so. There's so many people who
are nihilistic to a point, and they're
hungering for something more, and they're. They're like,
(46:15):
they're chasing it in these
dangerous, you know,
dangerous patterns. So I don't
want to take too long on that. But, um,
yeah, appreciate you sharing that. Something more
positive. What are your hopes for the future of Christianity?
>> Speaker D (46:34):
Yeah, I have a lot of hope that we would
learn to truly embody what it means to
love God and love others, and I think to
not get so caught up in who's wrong or who's right,
especially about secondary theological issues.
If there's anything about living in today's
cultural, uh, context that I'm sensing, it's like, you
(46:55):
know what? We need to go back to the basics and even
though it sounds so simple to preach the
gospel and to not get so sidelined about all of these
other things.
>> Loren (47:05):
Yeah, yeah. Well, share where folks
can connect with you and, um, reach out to you
if so desired.
>> Speaker D (47:12):
Yeah. Uh, the best place to do that is at my
website, beccabuck.com. um, I have
a lot of ks in my name too, so. Ah, B E
K A H B U C K dot com.
And, uh, now I predominantly do a lot
of writing, um, speaking to moms who
are kind of in the trenches of motherhood, but still want to
(47:33):
pursue the Lord daily, even when they worry it's not
enough. So that's where they can find me.
>> Loren (47:39):
Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. I really
appreciate the conversation. Uh, we always leave folks
with a word of peace, so may God's peace be with you.
>> Speaker D (47:48):
Oh, thank you. Well, I received that and thank you.
Likewise for having me. It was a wonderful discussion.
>> Loren Richmond (48:00):
Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian Podcast.
The Future Christian Podcast is produced by Resonate
Media. We love to hear from our listeners with questions,
questions, comments, and ideas for future episodes.
Visit our website at, uh, future-christian.com
and find the Connect with Us form at the bottom of
the page to get in touch with Martha or Loren.
(48:21):
But before you go, do us a favor, subscribe to
the POD to leave a review. It really helps us get
this out to more people.
>> Loren (48:29):
Thanks.
>> Loren Richmond (48:29):
And go in PE.
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