Category Archives: Teaching

Facing Spiritual Opposition in Ministry and What to Do about It

12 Wednesday Nov 2025

Posted by in Christian Living, Life, Ministry, Teaching

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When you are on the right track, you will often experience harassment, discouragement, or other opposition.

How do you know that this is happening?

When this happens, what should you do?

I want to answer these questions by sharing about my experience teaching the Church History One hybrid, which is the 8th in-person intensive I’ve taught since moving to Tulsa and joining the faculty at Asbury Theological Seminary. This is the in-person part of a hybrid class, where students come to Tulsa for part of 3 days. They are so great. But, can I be honest with you?

Going into this hybrid, I was dragging. I was tired. My energy was low.

In previous posts, I have shared about how hard I work to try to create the right culture in the classes that I teach. I have found that this is by far the most important thing that I do. My work is to be as proactive as I can be to set the right culture, be attentive to it as the class unfolds, and be obedient to what I think the Spirit is wanting to do.

I have shared about this in some detail in this post and especially this post. The latter includes student experience, so don’t miss that.

(By the way, I share about this work here because it is relevant for far more than seminary teaching. Culture is everything.)

I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before after teaching this class. (It came through the wise counsel of a friend.) I often feel opposition going into the intensives when students are on site. On the one hand, there is a lot that goes into these hybrid classes. And I end up teaching for 20 hours at the end of the week during time that I’m usually not working. On the other hand, I think what I experienced last week wasn’t just fatigue or stress.

I believe I experienced harassment and opposition from the enemy.

How do I know? 

First, the way I felt was abnormal. It was not the same feeling as being tired. It was not the same feeling as being upset because something wasn’t going well, or I’d made a mistake. It was not the same feeling as feeling unprepared. It was more chaotic internally than these are for me. It is hard for me to describe this more precisely, but spiritual opposition is chaotic and confused. It can be helpful to zoom out and ask if the words you are using to name the experience are actually how you feel with the experience you are naming.

Second, it was changed by prayer. 

I reached out to a handful of people and asked for prayer on Thursday morning, the day the hybrid began. And the Lord broke through in a wonderful way through these prayers. One of the most effective ways to combat spiritual oppression or harassment is prayer.

Third, I was fasting. I invite students to fast before our class meets. This is spiritually potent. But it also seems to nearly always connect with increased spiritual warfare. This makes sense to me because fasting is intentionally leveling up one’s focus on the things of the Spirit and denying the flesh. The enemy hates this.

Fourth, the Lord moved during my class. This is something that is seen retrospectively, but I think you can notice patterns and be prepared going forward. I have seen the Holy Spirit move in powerful ways at every hybrid I’ve taught. It is not surprising, then, that I would experience some harassment before these classes.

To provide some context, I’d like to share, with their permission, three unsolicited testimonies from students in last week’s hybrid. 

I wanted to let you know of the fruit that has already ripened in my life over the weekend and during the intensive. Thursday you presented us with the words: healing, freedom, and joy. At first I did not know how those words applied to me. Thursday night I felt very joyful taking communion. Friday I shared how God has been bringing up aspects of my life to hand over to Him. This summer there has been tension between sin, little moments in my life, spiritual disciplines, and handing everything over to God. I found that time of prayer over classmates and being able to talk about our walk beneficial. 

Sunday I had an experience where my heart was greatly warmed. I feel the assurance of my sanctification as strongly as I do my salvation. I now realize that healing took place first, which allowed me to experience freedom and joy—joy which I shared with others that day.

Sometimes we plant seeds and do not always get to reap the harvest, so I wanted to share what has been done this weekend. I believe the hybrid did play a hand due to you opening up the room for what the Spirit had to offer. 

My heart is so full, I can barely express my gratitude for the wonderful time of study and fellowship we experienced during the in-person gathering. I learned so much about church history and a lot about myself too. Thank you for providing an atmosphere of worship and prayer. Each element of the weekend satisfied a longing in my spirit to be closer to the Lord and to his people.

Once again thank you for being obedient to the Lord during this fantastic learning and worship experience.

I just wanted to say “thank you” for creating that space for spiritual breakthrough today. I needed it. I’ve come to expect big things in my heart at these, but today was particularly meaningful. Thanks for making these more than simply academic.

These are a blessing to me to read because I know the people who wrote them and I got to see the Lord work in a piece of their story. I am especially touched by the kindness of these students to share with me things I would not have known otherwise (as the second student said so well, “Sometimes we plant seeds and do not always get to reap the harvest”). So generous!

Ok, last indicator that we might be experiencing spiritual warfare: I think it is an indication of spiritual warfare when there is ease in the moment, but there opposition before the moment arrives. I think this is related to anointing. When you are operating in a particular anointing you have, it is typically an easy yoke. You will notice an abnormal impact with ease. I have a friend who uses a phrase I love: It is like falling off a log.

Ok, so there is a description of what I experienced that can help you think about your own experience with more discernment.

The key question is: When this happens, what should you do?

I think the answer is pretty straightforward, actually.

If you are doing something that the Lord consistently blesses and you are experiencing harassment or opposition to it by the enemy, the right thing to do is obvious.

Keep going!

Going into my next hybrid, I am going to have a calm expectation that I will face opposition. I will pretty much do the same things I’ve been doing. They work. 

But I am going to try to do them in the way you prepare to do a hard thing you’ve done before. Knowing it is coming will help me know the rest of what is coming. And contending to see the kinds of testimonies I’ve seen from students preparing to lead in Christ’s church is worth it!

So, when you experience discouragement, opposition, or various trials and tribulations when you are doing the Lord’s work and there is consistently fruit, do not quit. 

Keep going. 

One step at a time.

P.S. I am teaching two classes at Asbury Seminary in Tulsa this coming Spring. Both classes are hybrid classes, which means you only have to be on-site in Tulsa for three days for the entire class (the rest is online). I am teaching a class on Basic Christian Doctrine March 5-7, 2026. And I am teaching a class on Wesleyan Discipleship March 26-28, 2026. They are worth taking in their own rite. But they also meet ordination requirements for various denominations, including the Global Methodist Church’s new ordination requirement for a class in Wesleyan Discipleship. I love getting to teach from my research and publishing on Wesleyan small groups like the class and band meeting. And this class is not only about the ideas but equipping to do them. It is so fun! Don’t miss it. (For more information, click here, scroll down, and shoot me an email.)

P.P.S. The Wesleyan Discipleship class is going to be especially fun because Asbury Theological Seminary’s President, Dr. David Watson, is going to be preaching for our chapel service during class. We’re also working on an Underground Seminary with President Watson. We wrote a book together. I can’t wait to share more about this!

Kevin M. Watson is a Pastor and the Senior Director of Christian Formation at Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK. He is also on the faculty at Asbury Theological Seminary, anchoring the Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States. Affiliate links, which help support my work, used in this post.

The Role of Pastors: Honesty and Emotional Intelligence

05 Wednesday Nov 2025

Posted by in Life, Ministry, Teaching, Underground Seminary

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A quick update this week and a short thought I wanted to share:

My CH501 Church History One Hybrid Is Meeting in Tulsa This Week!

Francis Asbury statue at Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK

This week is my favorite week of the semester. The students for my CH501 Church History One class are coming to Tulsa for our in-person intensive. We will have 20 hours of class time together over 2.5 days. (We will also have an Underground Seminary event with Rev. Andrew Forrest, Asbury Church’s Senior Pastor, this Thursday right before class begins. This is going to be such a blessing to students! Details here.)

I work hard to set a healthy culture that is open to the person and work of the Holy Spirit. I wrote about exactly what I do for that here. I think this work has been the most significant growth I’ve experienced during my time in Tulsa so far. Culture is everything!

Much of the work that I am doing is to enable the class together to be open to what God wants to do in our midst while we are together. Because I have seen the Lord do cool things in these hybrids, I carry a sense of anticipation and expectation for these classes when they meet. I also experience a tension when I hold space for the Lord to move. I often have a sense of what the Lord wants to do and also a profound awareness that I am not in control of what the Holy Spirit does or whether people are open to responding. By the way, I think holding this tension is one of the hardest and most important things you do in ministry. 

All this is to say, I would be grateful for your prayers for this class. Please ask the Lord to enable me to think clearly, teach faithfully, hear what the Lord wants to do, and respond accordingly. Please pray for students to have safe and smooth travel to Tulsa. And pray for all of us to be fully present to Jesus during our time together. Thank you!

A Thought I often Have about the Difference between Pastors and Physicians

I am interested in the different ways various generations experience the world. This would quickly become a different post, but one way I have been marked through the culture, church, and leadership around me that I experienced is a hunger for leaders in the church who tell the truth with conviction and appropriate emotional intelligence.

I am not talking about saying a hard truth to someone in a way that is callous and hurtful for no good reason. And I am not encouraging saying something with the intention of hurting them or giving offense. That is not what I mean here.

I’d like to share an image I often use in teaching to illustrate what I’m talking about: the difference between pastors and physicians.

Let’s start with physicians:

If I go to the doctor and a test returns very bad news, what happens?

The doctor will tell me the truth in a straightforward and clear way, every single time. 

In fact, if the doctor hid a diagnosis to protect my feelings, they could be sued for malpractice.

I am not a medical doctor. But I imagine that having to tell someone that they have inoperable cancer is very difficult. The response the patient has to receiving the news is hard to watch. And though the doctor has not caused the diagnosis, they are the one who is making it known.

But doctors tell the truth, whether they like the truth they have to share or not.

Now, consider pastors:

If a pastor is engaging with someone who is in denial about the impact their beliefs or behavior is having on their life, what do they do?

Well, it seems to me this varies quite a bit.

There are so many different areas of this we could explore. Pastoral care is subjective in a way that a cancer diagnosis or lab result is not, for example. I want to lay the ambiguity aside for the moment. I want to talk about when a pastor knows in their gut something about the person in front of them.

I know myself the temptation to not tell the truth about what I see because I am worried about their feelings. They won’t like what I say. Or, they won’t like me because I made them feel bad.

One common image used to describe pastoral work in the previous eras is “the cure of souls.” If pastors are unwilling to tell the truth to people they are pastoring, their work to cure souls is certain to fail.

This is hard work. I am not saying it is easy. But it is essential for the future health of the church.

I am asking the Lord to raise up a generation of leaders for the church who are so desperate to see people healed and made well through faith in Christ that they become more like physicians.

May the Lord give his shepherds strength and courage to call people to repentance when it is needed, so they can turn around, fight against sin and Satan, and find fresh victory in Jesus.

Kevin M. Watson is a Pastor and the Senior Director of Christian Formation at Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK. He is also on the faculty at Asbury Theological Seminary, anchoring the Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States. Affiliate links, which help support my work, used in this post.

John Wesley’s Theology: A Great Question (and Better Answer) about Band Meetings

13 Tuesday May 2025

Posted by in Accountability, Christian Living, Holiness, Methodist History, Teaching, Wesley

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I want to share one of my favorite memories from teaching this semester.

I had the privilege of teaching The Theology of John Wesley, which is one of the core classes at Asbury Theological Seminary this spring. Every student, regardless of degree, must take The Theology of John Wesley to graduate with a Master’s Degree. This is one of the ways Asbury anchors its identity and resists institutional drift. And I love it!

The class also gave me the opportunity to re-read core texts on John Wesley’s theology. First, we read sixty (yes, 60, not 6) of John Wesley’s sermons, including all of the original Standard Sermons. (Whether you want 44 or 52 in the list, they are all in the Collins and Vickers edited volume of Wesley’s sermons!) And we read my colleague Professor Kenneth J. Collins’s John Wesley: A Theological Journey and The Theology of John Wesley: Holy Love and the Shape of Grace. These are both masterful!

The class is a deep dive into Wesley’s theology. It is thorough and has been expertly crafted through decades of experience. I taught the class exactly the way it has been taught by those who have gone before me this semester. I had a blast because I was able to teach in an area I really enjoy teaching. And I was able to continue learning and growing as a follower of Jesus Christ and as a teacher.

Ok, so here is the memory I wanted to share:

One of the places there is always lively discussion, if students are tracking and understanding the material, is around John Wesley’s conviction that one who has experienced justification and the new birth does not commit outward sin. This is based on John Wesley’s reading of the canon of Scripture, particularly passages like 1 John 3:7-10:

Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. (ESV)

Collins brilliantly summarizes this in John Wesley: A Theological Journey:

Justification delivers from the guilt of sin, regeneration from its power or dominion, and entire sanctification from its being. Unfortunately, these distinctions are often neglected in contemporary Methodism where a decided “shift” has taken place; that is, freedom from the power of committing sin is attributed not to the new birth, as it should be, but to Christian Perfection, with the result that freedom from the being of sin is then relegated to the afterlife and glory. (190)

The conversation in class around freedom from the power of sin in regeneration led to a great question. I reached out to Professor Collins to get his perspective and his response was so good I asked for his permission to share it with my students and then to share it with all of you here. Here is how I framed the question:

How do I best talk to students about the correct definition and understanding of the new birth in connection with the band meeting, which both has a prerequisite of the new birth (and more), and weekly questions connected to sin.

I.e., if a students says, If someone does not commit outward sin after they receive justification and the new birth, why are the band meeting questions focused around sin? (I.e., “What known sins have you committed since we last met?”)

Here is Dr. Collins’s reply:

First of  all,  given the small numbers of people in the band meetings there may not be many responses to the weekly, sin-probing questions among the children of God, but there will likely be at least some responses over time.  Real Christians do at times break faith and commit sin of the high hand, so to speak.  The way forward then would be and must be one of repentance, of doing the first works afresh.  So then, when Wesley affirmed that a born again believer is free from the power and dominion of sin (“The Marks of the New Birth,” “The Great Privilege of Those that are Born of God”) he  was not teaching that real Christians would never sin again (a common misunderstanding among my students) but that Christian believers would have grace sufficient to remain faithful and to walk in a trusting and accountable way in the graces of regeneration.   How do we bring all of this together?  How can we summarize this basic and precious gospel truth which Jesus Christ, himself, affirmed (John 8:34-36)  and which John Wesley repeatedly taught?  I offer the following summary of the several elements here, though this language is not Wesley’s but my own.   However, I do believe that such language captures Wesley’s basic meaning.  And so here goes:    “Willful, intentional sin,  breaking faith with Christ,  should be the grave exception in the Christian life and not the rule.”  Our problem today, however, in American Christianity in general, and even at times in Methodism in particular,  is  that we have made sin the rule and grace the exception.  We need to turn this upside down.   Jesus Christ died for far more than to leave people in the bondages of which they are ashamed. 

Second, I think the very great value of  such questions for the saints that played out in the band meetings during Wesley’s lifetime is that they are a wonderful means of grace that ensure that responsibility and accountability will remain in place.   Think of  band members, for example, who are sorely tempted during the week but who in the midst of  that temptation are reminded by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth,  that they will have to confess such a sin (if it is committed) before several trusted and beloved others in just a few days.   At that  point the power of the temptation is broken (1 Cor. 10:13) by the light of the prospect of upcoming fellowship,  accountability and love.   That’s precisely the point!   In other words, the questions of the band meetings are themselves a wonderful means of grace, used by the Holy Spirit,  as a means by which faithful Christian discipleship is strengthened and lived out to the glory of God.  Put another way, evil and sin love the darkness; however, Wesley made sure that the infrastructure of Methodism in general, and the band meetings in particular would be flooded by an abundance of light in the form of relationship, accountability and the richest love.   In short, those questions are both precious and necessary  for serious Christian discipleship. 

So good!

Want to know more about the band meeting? Scott Kisker and I wrote a book that is designed to reclaim this practice. Check it out here.

Reflections on Teaching and Learning at Asbury

24 Thursday Apr 2025

Posted by in Life, Methodist History, Ministry, Teaching, Underground Seminary

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I have previously shared here about my conviction that the culture or atmosphere of the classes I teach is more important than being sure I say all the words I want to say or get all the content in before the class ends. 

I am not sure I always get this right. Actually, I’m sure I don’t always get this right. 

However, I am increasingly confident that students are most impacted by the things that happen in my classes because I intentionally create an atmosphere that is open to the Holy Spirit than they are by the lectures that I give. And maybe even more than that, I find that students are more willing to listen to what I have to say when they are convinced that I care about them. So, I think that prioritizing the culture or atmosphere of classes I teach enhances student learning and engagement with the content of the course.

And I don’t think this goes the other direction.

This week, I’ve found myself reminiscing on the things I saw the Lord do over the past month. I wanted to share a few highlights here.

I taught back-to-back intensives a few weeks ago. And they were such a blessing!

Before my Basic Christian Doctrine class, I put together the second Underground Seminary event. We called it “What They Don’t Teach You in Seminary.” It was led by Rodney Adams, the Executive Director of Asbury Church. Rodney gave a detailed behind the scenes look at how a large church like Asbury is run, the strategic decisions he makes as Executive Director, and the challenges of leading that are particular to a church. (You can read about the original announcement here.)

From my perspective, it was a fantastic success. There were 23 people who came to this meeting, which was immediately before a class that had 16 students. I am encouraged both by such a strong turnout and that the Underground Seminary idea is building energy for what is happening at Asbury-Tulsa. It is energizing to me to have people in the building talking to each other about ministry. I am best at inviting people to things I passionately believe in. Asbury Church is one of those things for me.

During the class itself, I had a sense that the Lord wanted to minister in some ways to the specific people in the room. I am still learning and growing in how to lead and take risks appropriately in this space. These students were so gracious and hungry for Jesus. It was wonderful. The highlight of the weekend for me was checking in with someone at the end of class that I had particularly felt a burden to pray for and they said, “I feel like myself again for the first time in a year.”

Thank you, Jesus!

Several students stayed with members of Asbury Church. On Sunday morning, one of the students ran into the family that had hosted them, and they were so excited to see each other. The hosts sat with the group of students and my family in worship. I was so blessed by such a tangible connection of my church loving my students well and seeing church and academy connected in such a lovely way.

The next week I had another hybrid. First Methodist Church in Tulsa hosted a Holy Spirit Conference that was amazing. I was invited to lead a breakout on spiritual parenting. This is something I have thought a lot about and am passionate about but had not had a chance to teach on to a group of people. I learned a lot in preparing and was challenged and blessed in thinking it through in order to lead the workshop. I drove straight from First Methodist to Asbury to prepare to teach my second intensive in two weeks, The Theology of John Wesley (with 23 students).

I love getting to teach this material. It has been a blessing to systematically read through Wesley’s sermon corpus in a short window of time. (I highly recommend this if you are a leader in a Wesleyan context and have not done this.) The biggest gift for me personally was rereading two great books by one of the academics I most respect, Dr. Kenneth J. Collins. The two books are core texts for The Theology of John Wesley (which is a required class for every major at Asbury Theological Seminary) and I highly recommend them both. Read Collins’s John Wesley: A Theological Journey first to get a sense of Wesley’s life. It is a great book because it unpacks Wesley’s own life and legacy, but from a rich theological lens. 

After you read this, you should read The Theology of John Wesley: Holy Love and the Shape of Grace. In my opinion, this is Collins’s masterpiece. Reading this book in preparation to teach helped me teach with greater clarity than the last time I taught this material. Collins does a masterful job explaining core concepts like justification, the new birth, and entire sanctification. He is fearless in his fidelity to the witness of Scripture and Wesley’s understanding of it.

In addition to this class just being a delight, there were some powerful moments where the Spirit met us. Rev. Graeme Collett, one of the associate pastors at Asbury Church, preached for the Asbury Seminary chapel service on Friday. Graeme has become a good friend and one of the best surprises in our move here to Tulsa. And unlike any sermon I’ve experienced here yet, the Lord gave Graeme a clear word for this specific class at this specific time. (And this is saying something, because we’ve had an embarrassment of riches in terms of the quality of preaching we’ve had in our chapels here!) The highlight was Graeme’s burden to anoint students to remind them of their callings and to seal the work of the Holy Spirit in them. I believe every single person in the room came forward for prayer at some point. Lots of beautiful Holy Spirit tears and ugly crying. It was one of those times you are just aware the Lord is doing deep work in people right before your eyes. I am so thankful for Pastor Graeme’s leadership and for the Spirit’s presence with us in chapel.

We lost track of time and went more than thirty minutes over, but that is one of the special things about these intensives. It didn’t matter! Sometimes people will say in ministry that “the trains have to run on time.” The great thing about the intensives I teach is that there is one train and we’re all on it! So, we got where we were supposed to go when we were supposed to get there.

The second highlight of the Theology of John Wesley hybrid was a word I felt like I got from the Lord on Saturday morning, before the last day of the intensive. As I was praying that morning, I had the impression that the Lord wanted me to start the day by inviting people to share testimonies to what they had seen the Lord do so far in our time together.

I need to admit that this is often hard for me. Sometimes I’m afraid nobody is going to say anything, and it will bomb. I’ve gotten more comfortable holding space as time has gone on, but it is still an area I’m growing in. And I felt that Saturday morning. 

Goodness was I wrong to be concerned. There were so many wonderful testimonies people were ready to share about how the Lord had met them. God is so good!

That part went so well, the Lord nudged me to notice the second thing I had written down as I had been praying that morning: 

“Deliverance?”

In part, I think this came from witnessing a powerful deliverance at the Holy Spirit Conference the Wednesday night before my class started. I also think it came from reflecting on how important deliverance ministry was in John Wesley’s own ministry. (For more on this, see Dr. Peter J. Bellini, Thunderstruck! The Deliverance Ministry of John Wesley Today )

I gave what felt like a pretty timid invitation to receive prayer for deliverance if someone felt like they needed it. I am not going to go into details here for a variety of reasons, except just to say that the Father, again, showed me His desire to communicate with His children. I also experienced the power and authority of Jesus Christ in a deeper way that I don’t think I can adequately express. It was just a blessing.

I have so much to learn. One thing that I have found really helpful is thinking about my classes as laboratories. Here is what that image means to me: in a lab, you do something real but you also reflect on it and can interrogate the experiment itself. So we can meet in a small group in my Wesleyan discipleship class and talk authentically about the state of our souls. And we can also then ask how the conversation felt, what could we do differently? Was there something that felt unhelpful or could have been more helpful? Lowering the stakes and explicitly thinking of the time together in class as a learning environment gives permission to make mistakes and raises the expectation for pursuing excellence. I love that combination.

I’ve seen this with prayer for healing in my classes. I’ve seen this with seeking to hear the Lord’s voice and be guided by the Holy Spirit. And I’ve seen it in lively classroom conversations about deep matters of theology. It is challenging. And it is fun.

I can’t wait to see what the Holy Spirit does next!

P.S. Did you know that I am launching a Fellowship Program at Asbury Church? We are hiring two Fellows that will be paid full-time positions, with benefits. Starting this August. More details about the Fellowship Program and how to apply here.

Life Update and Upcoming Opportunities with Me in Tulsa

20 Thursday Mar 2025

Posted by in Life, Ministry, Sermons, Teaching, Underground Seminary

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I had the privilege of preaching here at Asbury Church last week. At Asbury, we like to say that we are a Bible reading church. And that literally means we are committed to reading Scripture together. We are currently reading through the Gospel of John. Our senior pastor, Rev. Andrew Forrest, writes a daily Bible reading guide that helps us work through the selected book of the Bible we are reading. You can check it out here. (You should also visit his website. You can subscribe there to get the daily readings sent to your inbox.)

When Andrew asked me to preach on John 7, I was immediately grabbed by verses 16-17:

So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.” (ESV)

The first time I read it, I just thought: Jesus is saying that if you want to know if his teaching is true, you have to follow it to find out. I sat with that text for weeks (a luxury those of you who preach weekly don’t have). I had a lot of fun with this sermon, particularly with the main illustration, which I think connected better than any illustration I’ve ever used.

You can check it out here.

The next two weeks are my favorite time of the semester. I will have students in Tulsa for my Basic Christian Doctrine hybrid and my Theology of John Wesley hybrid. I get so excited having students come in for these classes. They are like retreats where we get to go deep in the content for the course. More importantly, we get to be present to the Holy Spirit and allow him to lead, direct, connect, and build community in our midst. It is so fun!

If you’re interested in seminary, you should check out Asbury Theological Seminary. You should also move to Tulsa and take classes here.

P.S. Speaking of moving to Tulsa: Asbury Church is launching a Fellowship Program. If you are interested in moving to Tulsa to learn, grow, and be equipped to lead in the church at a conservative, evangelical church from the Wesleyan theological tradition, get ready to apply. (For context: Asbury Church is averaging 2,500+ in in-person [not online] weekly worship attendance.) More details soon!

P.P.S. Rev. Andrew Forrest, Asbury Church’s senior pastor, is leading the next Underground Seminary event. It will be Sunday April 6th after worship from 12:30-3:00pm. The church will provide lunch we would love to have you experience worship with us at 11am. It is also fine if you come from worship at your own church, if you’re in the area. Andrew is going to talk about “The Most Important Distinction in the American Church Today.” I’ve talked with him quite a bit about this material and it is essential for church leaders to be wrestling with. If you misdiagnose the moment we are in, your strategy for evangelism and discipleship will not work. RSVP to Laura.Wilkie@asburyseminary.edu by March 27th. More information on this event in last week’s post.

Kevin M. Watson is Director of Academic Growth and Formation at Asbury Theological Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. He is also Scholar in Residence at Asbury Church. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States. Affiliate links, which help support my work, used in this post.

The Most Important Distinction in the American Church Today: The Next Underground Seminary

12 Wednesday Mar 2025

Posted by in Christian Living, Ministry, Teaching, Underground Seminary

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We are going to have back-to-back Underground Seminary meetings here in Tulsa (March 27 and April 6) and I am pumped!

What is Underground Seminary?

There are some things that don’t fit in courses I teach, or perhaps even in the seminary curriculum at all, that people preparing to lead in the local church need to wrestle with, think about, or just have someone tell them. There are also conversations that I want to have with people who are preparing to in the church that I think will be helpful to them and I don’t know where they would fit in specific classes.

In my role for Asbury Church, I’m still interested in shaping pastors. So, I have been working on optional, not-for-credit, opportunities that typically come alongside classes I am teaching for Asbury Theological Seminary. I’m calling these special events “Underground Seminary.”

Underground Seminary is for people preparing to lead in the church who are hungry to learn and grow. They want to gain as much wisdom and experience as they can from as many different places as possible as they are prepared and equipped to lead.

I’m most excited to work with people who know God has more for them and they are going after it. Underground Seminary is for these people.

Our next Underground Seminary meeting:

Rev. Andrew Forrest, Asbury Church’s senior pastor, will lead our next Underground Seminary. It will be focused on the ways dramatic changes in the broader culture have impacted the church and radically changed the context in which we seek to share the gospel. Andrew will share a diagnosis of the problem facing the church and point to solutions for a way forward.

I’ll let Andrew share more about what he wants to do in this workshop in his own words:

The most important thing for church leaders to know in 2025 is that we are living in what Aaron Renn has called “the negative world.”

Things are different these days. Over the last decade, American culture has changed in ways that have become more hostile to the church and the claims of Christ, the result of which is that a majority of those who hold the keys to power in American society—those in politics, media, and education—have a negative view of Christianity. In light of these changes, I believe that the most important distinction in the American church today is not in the ways we normally categorize the church. The most important distinction in the American church today is between those who recognize we live in “the negative world” and those who have not yet accepted this fact.

This distinction matters because it directly affects our strategies for carrying out the Great Commission. Our mission from Jesus has not changed, and our responsibility to evangelize cannot be avoided. But the strategies we employ to complete that mission need to be constantly shifting, depending on the cultural context. The problem we face today is that many of our strategies for evangelism were developed in and for a previous cultural context, one that was largely positive about Christianity and that saw the Christian faith either something good or at best neutral. But that culture is gone, and it’s time for new strategies. If we keep running our plays out of the old playbook, we are going to lose the game.

I want to talk frankly about how we can lead the church to not only survive in negative world but thrive.  I’m interested in talking to people who are hungry to make a difference and who are not satisfied to keep running plays out of an outmoded playbook.

Andrew is a brilliant strategic thinker about the local church and its role in the world. He has boldness and courage that I admire. He is willing to do the deep work it takes to get to clarity about hard things and big ideas. This is going to be a challenging and convicting conversation. And I think it is going to be a lot of fun. (If you want to know more about “Negative World” check out Aaron Renn’s book. The link is an Amazon affiliate link, which helps support my work.)

How to join us:

This Underground Seminary will be Sunday April 6th following worship Sunday morning. Lunch will be provided, and we will conclude by 3pm. In order to ensure that there is food and space for everyone, you need to RSVP if you would like to attend. We will send the location for the meeting to you after you RSVP by emailing Laura.Wilkie@asburyseminary.edu. Deadline to RSVP is March 28th. 

P.S. It is not too late to register for the March 27th Underground Seminary with Rodney Adams, which I’m playfully calling “What They Don’t Teach You in Seminary.” Details here.

Kevin M. Watson is Director of Academic Growth and Formation at Asbury Theological Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. He is also Scholar in Residence at Asbury Church. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States.

What They Don’t Teach You in Seminary: An Invitation to Underground Seminary

06 Thursday Mar 2025

Posted by in Ministry, Teaching

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I have really enjoyed having my feet in both the church and the academy in my roles here in Tulsa. I am the Director of Academic Growth and Formation at Asbury Theology Seminary, anchored at our Tulsa, OK Extension Site. I am also the Scholar in Residence at Asbury Church. Though they share a connection to the legacy of Francis Asbury, the father of American Methodism, they are separate institutions.

I believe theological education is ultimately for the local church. A seminary should be evaluated based on its graduate’s ability to lead well in the local church. Other outcomes may be appropriate and valuable, but I cannot imagine anything being more central to the legacy of a seminary than the effectiveness of its alumni within the church.

There are some things that don’t fit in courses I teach, or perhaps even in the seminary curriculum at all, that people preparing to lead in the local church need to wrestle with, think about, or just have someone tell them. There are also conversations that I want to have with people who are preparing to be pastors that I think will be helpful to them and I don’t know where they would fit in specific classes.

In my role for Asbury Church, I’m still interested in shaping pastors. So, I have been working on optional, not-for-credit, opportunities for Asbury Theological Seminary students and others that I’m calling “Underground Seminary.”

Underground Seminary is for people preparing to lead in the church who are hungry to learn and grow. They want to gain everything they can from their seminary experience. Some students want to do the least they can to get the most credit possible. And that’s fine. There are seasons where that is appropriate. 

I’m most excited to work with people who know God has more for them and they are going after it. Underground Seminary is for these people.

Our next Underground Seminary meeting is focused on practical details of running a church that they don’t teach you in seminary. It is March 27th from 12-3pm at Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK. 

Pastors often joke about the things they didn’t teach you in seminary. These are often very practical hands-on aspects of running the life of a church. And that is what this Underground Seminary will focus on: what they don’t teach you in seminary.

Rodney Adams, the Executive Director of Asbury Church, will lead this. And it will focus on strategy, culture, and operations in the day to day running of a church. I have had several conversations about this workshop with Rodney and I believe every church leader would benefit from what Rodney has to share.

In case you don’t already know Rodney, here is why you should want to learn from him:

  • Rodney is a former United States Marine Corps officer. 
  • He worked for a season at a top global investment bank.
  • He has owned and operated his own business.
  • And, most importantly for this discussion, he is currently the Executive Director of Asbury Church.

Asbury is a large church that has 2,500 people in person in weekly worship. In his role, Rodney oversees:

  • 80 full time staff and 60+ part time staff
  • $12.5 million annual budget
  • $12 million foundation
  • 300,000 square foot facilities

Put simply: Rodney know how to run a large church with excellence.

At a personal level, I have never been around an organizational thinker and leader like Rodney. Working with him is fun because I get to see how ideas are actually brought to life. I have an easier time thinking of a thing that would be fun to do in theory. Rodney has great ideas. And he is the person who can take a dream and figure out the steps to make it reality. And, just as important, he can help you realize that an idea won’t work and save time, energy, and frustration.

The goal of Underground Seminary is to bring people hungry for excellence together for content that will equip and prepare them to lead in the church.

This one is going to be fun! 

How to join us:

Lunch will be provided at the beginning of our time together. In order to ensure that there is food and space for everyone, you need to RSVP if you would like to attend. We will send the location for the meeting to you after you RSVP by emailing Laura.Wilkie@asburyseminary.edu. Deadline to RSVP is March 20th. 

Kevin M. Watson is Director of Academic Growth and Formation at Asbury Theological Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. He is also Scholar in Residence at Asbury Church. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States.

Raising Up Next-Gen Church Leaders

21 Friday Feb 2025

Posted by in Christian Living, Ministry, Teaching

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I’m trying to think more clearly about how to raise up the next generation of leaders for the church. It seems clear to me that things are shifting and changing, sometimes dramatically. Institutions are changing and sometimes failing. Key leaders are leaving the scene, sometimes because they have retired or died, and other times because a moral failing has been exposed.

I don’t have it figured out yet. But I want to start talking about it more.

My writing often comes from a burden to figure out what I think about something and then try to communicate it as clearly as I can. I think some of my best writing comes when there are two things working in me:

First, I notice that I am working over a problem in my mind and am working hard to get clear about what I think is at stake (something that seems important and complicated or confusing).

Second, I notice a sense of pressure to not talk about it. This is usually unspoken and intuitive on my part. This means I could be wrong, or I could be seeing things. The pressure to not talk about it can either be because it seems like everyone views something as settled, while I have questions or concerns. Or, silence could come from the sense that speaking out could be problematic in terms of upsetting people in power.

Here are two examples of writing that has come from this:

1. I urged churches to start reopening five months into the Covid-19 pandemic. 

2. I expressed my concerns with the proposal of United Methodist bishops to make affirmation or prohibition of same sex marriage dependent on the surrounding dominant culture. 

Neither of those posts are perfect. In rereading them today, I would say things differently in both. But they both helped me think more clearly about matters that were very important to me (and to the church I was part of) when I wrote them. I am proud of them because I believe the Lord used them to help people think more clearly and make hard decisions during very challenging circumstances.

If you aren’t familiar with my writing, these will give you a sense of it. I hope they show my commitment to telling the truth. Of course, I also make mistakes. One of things I think I have often done well is move a conversation forward and bring clarity where it has gotten bogged down or stuck.

So, I’ve been thinking about raising up the next generation of leaders for Jesus’s church.  I’ve been thinking about this longer than I usually think about the kinds of things I write about here. And to my own frustration, I don’t feel like I’ve made as much progress as I usually would have by this point.

I want to articulate why I think this it is hard. It is important to work to understand the moment in which we find ourselves. And I want to begin by naming two models that have been used to raise up the next generation of leaders for the church. I want to suggest that people in my networks have almost completely missed the importance of the second model. But first, why is this so hard to think through?

The church in the United States is experiencing major challenges due to massive shifts in the culture, academy, and the church herself.

Aaron Renn does a great job talking about the changes in the dominant culture and how it impacts the church. Check out his book Life in the Negative World [Affiliate link]. I also follow his work at aaronrenn.com.

The academy is also undergoing massive change, which includes theological education (the seminaries where pastors are trained). This would be another post, so I won’t unpack this further right now.

And finally, the church herself is undergoing dramatic change. I think most of the changes in the church come from the influence of the first two. Many large non-denominational and congregational churches have also been impacted by the fall from grace of senior leaders of these churches. This has happened enough over the past few years, many feel uneasy in these kinds of churches, even if their own local church has not been directly impacted.

Here is an image I have used to describe what I think is happening:

Tectonic plates are shifting in the culture. When tectonic plates shift, there are earthquakes. There is rumbling. There is shaking. Often major edifices are damaged or even collapse when tectonic plates shift.

I think we are seeing this kind of major disruption and change in the church today.

There have been (at least) two major models for raising up leaders for the church.

I’m sure much more nuance could be added here, so feel free to fill this out in your own thinking or experience. The point here is to get some things in place in order to move forward.

My own experience was largely with the first model. I will call it the ecclesial bureaucracy model. I’ll use my experience to explain it:

I received a calling to ordained ministry through a short-term mission trip to Mexico when I was a junior in college. One short week changed my life in so many ways. By the end of the week, I had a deep sense that there was nothing more fulfilling I could do than give my life in service to the church, by the grace of God. I remember time and time again being stunned by how joyful it was to serve the Lord through the church.

I knew nothing. I had no clue what I was getting myself into. And I made a lot of mistakes along the way.

But there were also a lot of things that were clear and decisions I didn’t really have to make. I was a United Methodist and didn’t question whether I should pursue ordination in the UMC or not.

The blessing of this was that the path forward was clear. The obvious next step was to attend seminary after I graduated from college. I began having conversations with the senior pastor of the church I was attending, who was generous with his time and wisdom. I formally applied to become a “certified candidate” during my first year of seminary.

I did not have a long-term relationship with the same local church throughout my time in the ordination process. I moved quite a bit from my freshman year of high school through seminary.

So to summarize: Once I felt a calling to ministry, I basically got on a moving walkway where the next step was fairly clear. And if I was approved for ordination by denominational authorities, I would also be appointed to pastor in a local church. If approved for ordination, I would, literally, be guaranteed an appointment (a pastoral position in a local church).

I think there are strengths and weaknesses of this model. And they could be done better or worse than it was done in the UMC when I went through the process. When I was teaching United Methodist polity, I used to tell students that the number one value of the UMC ordination process appeared to me to be persistence. If you kept going, you would almost certainly be ordained. 

(This was most evident to me when someone in the conference I was ordained in clearly revealed that they did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. They were not discontinued or removed from the process at that point. They were deferred and had to rewrite and repeat the interview process the next year. They were then approved and ordained. Is it more likely this person’s views on the bodily resurrection of Jesus changed, or that they found a more acceptable way to present (or cover up) their heretical views?)

The second model I’ll call the apprenticeship model. It was not my experience, so I can’t give as much detail. I think this approach is most common in non-denominational and congregational church polities. For this reason, I also suspect it is less uniform and more organic and relational.

This one is pretty self-explanatory. A person is raised up for leadership in the church by someone who is recognized as an excellent leader in the church. Preparation for ministry comes by being invited to get closer to the senior leader with behind-the-scenes access. Over time, they are given opportunities to lead with the senior leader’s oversight and feedback. And eventually, they are released to lead on their own, though likely with continued oversight or spiritual covering.

Sometimes a person in this system will replace the senior leader when they step down. Depending on the system, they might move to a different context taking on significant leadership responsibilities.

This model is highly relational. The person who is being raised up for leadership in the church spends significant time with the person who is discipling, mentoring, or apprenticing them. It is inefficient in the sense that it requires proximity and a lot of time together. It is also driven by the needs of the person being raised up and so is very contextual and responsive to where they are and how they need to grow. It is also inefficient because one person cannot have this kind of relationship with an unlimited number of people.

Another way to think of this model is to think of Robert Coleman’s Master Plan of Evangelism and other relational discipleship making tools. These are usually focused on discipleship as the goal for all who come to faith in Jesus Christ. It is not surprising that those who are raised up to lead in these kinds of contexts continue to be raised up to lead in this way.

I suspect that very often a sense of calling to lead in the church comes within the context of these discipling relationships.

During the season when I first began to feel a tug to rethink some of my assumptions about how to best raise up leaders for the church, I started getting to know a non-denominational church near where I lived. The folks in this church were very gracious to me and the senior pastor met with me. I wanted to ask him two questions in particular:

How did you get to be in your position? I remember the answer, though it was more fleshed out than just this, because I had heard it from others in the same church family: I lived in Buddy’s basement. 

In other words, the founding pastor invited him to come closer, literally into his home, for a season. And he poured into him and raised him up.

The second question was: Is there anything that I do that can help you and those you are raising up? We developed a degree at Asbury Theological Seminary that came directly out of my conversations with this pastor and the pastor of another large non-denominational church at another place I taught. (Send me an email [scroll down] if you want to know more about it.)

I think both models would be improved by the other.

Non-denominational and congregational churches that don’t require any formal education outside of themselves make themselves vulnerable.

Large denominations that have heavily bureaucratic ordination processes have greater risk in my view.

My working hypothesis is that the most effective pastors in the United States at present came up through more of the apprenticeship model than the ecclesial bureaucracy model. My experience is that almost all of them end up pursuing a seminary education, but it usually comes after they have been leading in meaningful ways in the local church.

So, Now What?

For most established leaders reading this, the action step is most likely to look for people to bring in closer to walk with you and build them up. One of the problems with bureaucratic approaches to ordination is that they are so depersonalized. People don’t grow in self-awareness because the kind of one-on-one conversations that happen in an apprenticeship don’t happen nearly as often.

Here is what I am seeing: I believe the church, particularly healthy large congregations with stable leadership and deep roots, is only going to be more important going forward for the work of raising up leaders for the church. All churches are important in this work. The local church is the ordinary context for hearing a calling to ministry. I think larger churches just have the capacity and the resources to invest in the next generation for their own sake.

I think large churches will develop coaching trees like Nick Saban did at Alabama. People will serve for a season in these churches and experience accelerated growth in a host of ways in these contexts. Some, who can joyfully stay long-term in an associate type of role, will stay for decades. But most will serve for a season, be built up, equipped, and sent out to lead with excellence.

And I have a feeling this will be less dependent on denominational affiliation than it has ever been in the history of Christianity in the United States.

This vision excites me because Asbury Church (where I am) is the kind of church that can do an excellent job of apprenticing people to be excellent leaders.

Asbury is a conservative evangelical church from the Wesleyan theological heritage that averages about 2,500 in person in weekly worship at one campus. At Asbury, intentional and strategic attention is given to the culture of the church. Asbury not only has a great culture, but the senior leaders can tell you why they are doing what they are doing and how to work to set, shift, or move culture. This is so important! And there is a clear emphasis on discipleship. As with our work to build and maintain a great culture, the church can articulate a coherent vision for how we make disciples.

And one of the most unique things about Asbury Church, within the context of this post, is that Asbury has a passion for education. Asbury hosts the Asbury Theological Seminary Tulsa Extension Site on its campus. So, a person preparing to become a pastor could come to Asbury Church and be in seminary here at the same time.

Asbury Church’s commitment to education is also evident in its decision to launch Asbury Classical School this year.

One of the saddest things to me about my time in theological education has been seeing the negative impact a seminary tends to have on local churches in the immediate geographical area of the seminary. At a previous institution, someone commented on the “dead zone” that surrounded the seminary. 

What a gift that I get to teach at a seminary whose mission and values I agree with at a church I am proud to be part of and that I am confident will bless my students.

If you, or someone you know, is wrestling with a calling to ministry, I would love to connect with you. Maybe you should move to Tulsa and see for yourself. I am learning more and more that proximity and time within a relational atmosphere are crucial to raising up the next generation of leaders for the church.

I can’t wait to see what happens next!

Kevin M. Watson is Director of Academic Growth and Formation at Asbury Theological Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. He is also Scholar in Residence at Asbury Church. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States.

Why Class Culture Trumps Content

31 Friday Jan 2025

Posted by in Life, Teaching

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It took me fourteen years to really understand this.

Check out these unsolicited comments I received after the most recent class I taught at Asbury Theological Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. (The class was Wesleyan Discipleship and it was awesome! I asked and received permission from each student to share their encouraging words here.) Notice the emphasis on the atmosphere and what the culture of the class meant to the student.

Rev. Andrew Forrest discussing Asbury Church's (Tulsa, OK) approach to discipleship with my Wesleyan Discipleship class.

Here is the first one:

I found my time at Asbury Seminary to be incredibly valuable and not just for the content of the class (which was excellent). There was, for lack of a better word, an anointing on the campus and on the course which caused me to be more focused, settled, and hungry for more of God. I sensed it impacting my life when I was there, and it (or at least a piece of it) has followed me home. I am working hard to cultivate it and give it space. Thank you for allowing me to audit your course.

It still amazes me that students are so hungry that they would travel from out of state, many taking time off of work, to audit this course.

Here is the second one:

I just wanted to say thank you for teaching the class on Wesleyan Discipleship! When you sent out the email prior to our time in Tulsa saying you hoped it would be like a retreat, I was skeptical. But I was happily surprised that it was like a retreat. I came back feeling refreshed and regenerated! Thank you for teaching this class and showing how much you care about the subject and about your students and their well-being. I am grateful and honored that I was able to take a class from you! 

Here is the third one:

I just wanted to thank you for the way you ran the hybrid this weekend.  I know you said you wanted it to feel more like a retreat and I think you accomplished just that.  I don’t know if you got the response you were looking for, but I can tell you some things were revealed to me during your prayer Saturday morning that have brought some clarity to some problems I was having with my ministry.  I don’t think the Holy Spirit would have given me that had I not been in the atmosphere you created.  I am glad I was in the second group because I could not have shared that Friday.  I will be a better pastor to my congregation moving forward for having been there.  I don’t know that you could have taught the way you did on any of the other campuses.  There are good things going on there in Tulsa.  Y’all have quite the team and a very supportive host church as well.

And one more:

I wanted to personally write an email thanking you for all your hard work! It has been a pleasure getting to know you these semesters! … I also admire your sheer honesty and vulnerability with the class! It truly set the mood for everyone else! This last week was such a powerful week and I truly left feeling so filled and inspired to one day put into practice these discipleship techniques! I’ve started implementing them in a youth discipleship group I run and I even reached out to a few friends to start a band meeting style group! Thank you so much! You have truly blessed my seminary experience in many ways!

I deeply appreciate the kindness of each of these students who shared these comments. The unsolicited feedback I received from this course was unprecedented. (I received more than twice as many comments as I’ve shared here.)

I think there was so much of it because I am slow. And the Lord wanted to be sure he got my attention.

Do you see it?!

Let me give some brief context, in case some of the details of the students’ comments are confusing. 

At Asbury Theological Seminary’s Extension Sites, we offer online classes and hybrid classes. Hybrids are my favorite. And they are a hybrid of online and in-person classes. The in-person portion of the class is a three-day intensive that happens once per class. In Tulsa, they are from Thursday evening through Saturday late afternoon. We spend 20 hours in two and a half days together. 

It is intense. 

And it is awesome! 

If I had not figured out what really mattered to me, I think the hybrids would probably have gotten no unsolicited encouragement from my students.

One of the great things about teaching is that once you are the instructor of record for a class, you are in charge. You may not have authority anywhere else within the institution, but you do have authority in the classroom.

Until recently, I put most of my focus on what I would guess you would assume to be most important: the content of the actual course.

In other words, I got to choose the required readings. I was responsible for determining the means of evaluating students. And I was the one who would do the actual evaluation and assign grades. 

It was up to me to decide what to teach and how to assess whether students had learned what I wanted them to learn.

Most of my energy went into preparing detailed lectures that accurately transferred the most important information.

But when I taught a class that felt like magic, where there was an internal sense of “Yes! This is what I hoped teaching would be like,” and where students seemed to “get it” – it wasn’t because I felt like I’d perfectly delivered the content.

It was something else. Something that was harder for me to articulate.

Looking back, the first time I got a glimpse of this was the Fall 2016 semester when I was teaching at Candler School of Theology at Emory University.

I learned that if I wanted to be able to lead my students, they needed to know that I cared about them.

I remember a specific class in the Fall of 2016 when something was definitely in the air in the room one particular day. And I consciously decided to allow that to take over the agenda for the day. Something shifted that day. The class went to a deeper level than merely handing on information about a particular subject.

This was a key step for me. I was intuitively starting to figure something out. But I still had a lot to learn.

Since moving to teach at Asbury Theological Seminary’s Tulsa Extension Site, I started noticing that what I was hoping to see happen in my classes was happening with a higher percentage of students than I’d ever experienced.

Here is what I finally figured out that I can now name:

Atmosphere is more important than content.

I am now more concerned with the atmosphere in the classroom than I am with the content that will be shared in the classroom.

By atmosphere, I am not really talking about sights, sounds, and smells. Though, these matter. 

This is what I mean: culture is more important than content.

My greatest desire for every class I teach, regardless of the subject of the class, is for students to encounter the Lord and continue growing in their faith as they prepare for leadership Jesus’s church. 

I want them to grow in understanding. And you can see that some of the comments speak to that. But I am convinced that more growth in understanding happens when you set the right culture.

So, now I work really hard to think through how to create the right atmosphere, the right culture within the class.

This is hard work. 

Every class is different. 

There is a culture established within Asbury Theological Seminary. And, as two of the comments noted, I think the Lord has given a special anointing to our Tulsa Extension Site that sets a particular kind of culture.

But I must be attentive to the atmosphere for each class and work to set the culture.

How I Work to Create a Great Atmosphere for My Classes

Here are a handful of things I intentionally do to create the right atmosphere for my classes.

First, I accept that it is my responsibility to take responsibility for doing this work. It does not happen spontaneously or by magic.

And so, in each class at Asbury, before the students come to Tulsa, I send an email to set our expectations for the three days we have together. You may have noticed the word “retreat” in several of the student comments above. That is because in this email, I tell students I want the weekend to be a retreat. Some students are skeptical that 20 hours in a classroom in 2.5 days could be anything like a retreat.

The email I send names the values I have for our time together that are discussed in what follows. This sets the expectations for the class and intentionally names what I value most.

Second, I am certain that all of this is dependent on the Lord. If the Lord withdraws his presence, nothing good can happen. (This is really first. But it made sense to me for this article to include it here.)

I am not being sentimental here or using pious language to impress you. I literally mean that I am consciously aware that Kevin cannot create what students need.

One way I express dependence on the Lord and a desperation for him to move is by fasting and inviting my students to fast with me for the 24 hours prior to our in-person intensive. This is not required, it is an invitation. I think fasting is one of the most important and underused basic spiritual practices. And I think corporate fasting is particularly spiritually potent.

One thing I love about the unity God has given us here is that my colleague in Tulsa, Penny Hammond (Tulsa’s Senior Enrollment Advisor), joins us in fasting in preparation for the course.

Third, the class starts by breaking our fast together with a meal that Asbury Theological Seminary provides. This facilities informal conversation and begins creating the kind of community we’re hoping to see.

Fourth, after dinner, we go to worship at Asbury Church (not related to Asbury Theological Seminary). 

Rev. Andrew Forrest preaching Thursday night at Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK.

My calling is to raise up the next generation of leaders for the church. And so, I unapologetically see worshipping the Lord corporately as part of my work as a teacher. We do that in my classes by attending the Thursday evening worship service at Asbury Church.

In my mind, this is not an extra-curricular optional part of theological education. Worship should be thought of as a central piece of the formation and education of the next generation of leaders. And if you know next gen leaders, you know that they already know this!

I particularly love doing this in my context because Asbury Church (Tulsa, OK) is a fantastic church! I cannot imagine having a better partner for the work we are doing in Tulsa. (I love that one of my students noticed this and named it.) Worshipping on Thursday night also means that my students get to experience the preaching of Rev. Andrew Forrest, who is one of the best preachers of our day. At my Wesleyan Discipleship intensive, Andrew preached on the reality of death. It was a perfect way to begin the class. Begin with the end in view: You are going to die. Are you ready? What a great way to begin thinking more intentionally about discipleship!

Check out Andrew’s sermon.

Asbury Church and Asbury Seminary together gave every student a gift bag with Asbury Church and Asbury Seminary swag. At another hybrid, the church blessed students with gift cards to fast food restaurants near the church so some of the cost of attending a hybrid could be offset. I really appreciate that the church is committed to providing exceptional hospitality for our students in Tulsa.

I believe it is essential for the church and academy to be connected. Seminaries should literally exist to serve the local church. I could not envision a better partnership than Asbury Church’s support of Asbury Seminary’s Tulsa Extension Site.

Fifth, we walk back to the classroom after worship and I begin by sharing more vulnerably and honestly about my own story and my family than I do in public setting, particularly online. I show pictures of my family and talk about what I love about my children. I share about my sense of calling to Tulsa, OK and the at times bumpy road to get here. 

I do this because it is who I am. I desire authenticity and vulnerability from others. I value candor and being candid with students is a sign of my respect.

I also do this because small group dynamics show that the level at which the leader shares is the level at which the rest of the group will share. If I want the atmosphere in my class to be a place where students can grieve, ask for prayer around something vulnerable, and seek the Lord together as we are prepared for the next step in our callings, I must be willing to go first. 

Because this last class was about Wesleyan Discipleship, I made this explicit and talked about doing it myself and how the same dynamic would be in play when they broke out into the small group exercises we had as a class. And even though I know it is true intellectually, it still stunned me to see in the two groups I observed how the entire group mirrored the vulnerability and honesty of the first person who shared.

Sixth, I then give the students an opportunity to break the ice and ask them to share a bit about themselves.This is fast paced due to the size of our classes. But it gives them a chance to begin to bring their stories into the classroom itself.

Seventh, I work really hard to use students’ names throughout the intensive. This is not a natural strength of mine. I have to work really hard. And in large classes, I sometimes have to humble myself and admit I have forgotten a name, apologize, and ask for help. I’ve noticed that when I do this, the students seem to work more at learning each other’s names as well. This is huge for me, because the goal is not for me to have a relationship with each student only. The goal is for a real community to be established within the class. I want the students to feel connected to each other!

Eighth, I intentionally center Scripture and prayer at the beginning of each part of the class. There is a huge difference between doing this to check a box and doing this in hopes of welcoming the Lord and being led by the Holy Spirit. I will often explicitly give time to listen in silence to the Lord. Sometimes I feel led to offer a particular prompt for how we should listen. If we are resting in silence, I tell the students how long it will be and that I will keep track of the time. This can be such a blessing, because it allows them to relax into the stillness and trust me to keep time.

Ninth, I have a plan for the entire hybrid when it starts. I really do. But I commit to hold it loosely. This may be a place where experience matters. It is not hard for me to lecture for 20 hours on a topic like Wesleyan Discipleship. So, I am not anxious about having enough to say. And I also have greater confidence in my ability to triage what is most important for them to hear from me in person versus what they can glean from assignments. I have a plan, but I mostly use it to check in at breaks to see how the pace is going and to decide if I need to cut things I was planning to do in order to give more time to something that has come up.

My primary concern throughout the intensive is to be present to the Lord and to my students and adjust according to what is happening.

Tenth, finally, and most importantly, I intentionally give time for the Lord to move. And this has never stopped feeling hard for me. It is vulnerable. At the end of in-person semester long classes, I used to always ask: How have you seen God at work in your life throughout this semester?

And every single time, I was afraid it would just be awkward silence. Crickets. No one would say anything. But that never happened! Not even close. There were always students who shared in deeply vulnerable ways of the Lord’s work in their lives that blessed the class.

I have come to see holding space for the Lord to lead and for students to respond as the most important thing I do. It is certainly not all I do. But if I don’t do it, it will not happen. It one of the things that only the person who has authority can do.

I primarily do this by working to listen for God’s guidance. And often, I simply test the room based on a sense I have of the Lord’s leading.

This is more art than science. When I lean into this space, it is often the moment students remember about the class. It is what marks them. And it often brings the content of the course to life.

Two cautions: First, openness to the presence of the Lord with you in class is not in lieu of actually preparing to teach (the same is true for preaching). Second, don’t force anything. Don’t try to make something happen in your flesh. Consciously and explicitly give the Holy Spirit permission to move. And then wait on him and be obedient to his leading.

Ok, this is not an exhaustive list. But this is already too long!

The atmosphere you create is more important than the content you deliver. Great content with inattentiveness to the atmosphere will almost certainly be forgotten.

What kind of atmosphere are you creating in the places you have authority to lead? If you haven’t been giving attention to this, I would encourage you to spend some time reflecting on what it is like to come to the spaces and places where you are leading. How do you think people feel? Perhaps ask a person or two that you believe will tell you the truth. 

Atmosphere is where the magic happens.

Kevin M. Watson is Director of Academic Growth and Formation at Asbury Theological Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. He is also Scholar in Residence at Asbury Church. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States.

Affiliate links, which support the author’s work, used in this post.