227. Summer Break Series - The Luther Rice College Interview

For freedom, he set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. I ain't saved by dress codes, not by what I eat. I'm covered in the righteousness, washed from head to feet. No tally of tradition, no man-made code. Blood bought my freedom, now I ride that road. They clutch pearls when they see smoke rings rise. But my praise still ascends past the legalist cries. Christ plus nothing, that's the real math. So miss me with your fence laws and your extra path. He sat with sinners, I'm sitting with saints. Sipping grace from the bottle, no room for fakes. I light one for liberty, toast to the king. Every ash a sermon, death has lost its sting. For freedom, he set me free. Not for chains, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. For freedom, he set me free. Not for chains, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. Let grace begin. Now here are your hosts, James Saifert and Brett Martin. And Stephen and Marcus Merritt, all at the Luther Rice booth. And we got to discuss the different things that are going on at Luther Rice and college and seminary, the bivocational program they have going on, the school of leadership that they have going on. And just got to have a great conversation with them about what they're doing and how they're going through several different things there at the college and just some exciting things. Neither me nor Brett have a degree from Luther Rice. We have no skin in the game. We have no money in the game. We just like finding organizations that we can get behind, that we can support, that we can encourage people by, that we can send people to quality education programs. And we were thankful that we got to do this interview with them. We're thankful that we got to sit down and take a little bit of their time and just be able to talk through this. We hope you enjoy this. We've got a couple of episodes coming up in the future of this summer series where we will be talking with our wives. We're going to be talking with, we'll share a couple of sermons. And we hope you enjoyed the Willie Rice episode last time, the last episode that came out last week. And it was a great time to be able to listen to him. We've got him lined up for the future to come on and talk on the podcast about what's going on with the SBC and what his view is with the convention. And so we hope you enjoy this. If you have not had a chance to go by and look at our website, our website is out there. There's some resources on our resource page. There are some great opportunities to help you out with. And we've also got our cigar line. We hope you will involve yourself there. And if you know someone that does enjoy that fun little hobby, please send them that way. Or maybe you yourself are looking for a gift for a birthday present or a gift coming up into the future. Go check that out. It's a way you can support the podcast and help us continue doing what we're doing. If you haven't purchased my book and you'd like to get a hold of one of those copies, you can find that on Amazon. From Brokenness to Freedom. And we hope it'll be an encouragement to you. And so we hope you enjoy today's episode. And without further ado, here is our Luther Rice interview from the convention floor. Welcome back. We're here in the convention hall again with Luther Rice College and Seminary. And excited to be here with Stephen and Parker. I had an event in Rockwood, North Carolina. Parker, you came down. And he hung out with us. Did a job fair. I set up at the local hospital that was there. So we got to hang out a little bit. But we are excited about having them here. We interviewed them last year here at the convention hall. And they've made some more changes and some updates on some things. And so, Brett, you're in your Masters of Theology MDiv right now at New Orleans. We'll throw it over to you. Talk a little bit about what Luther Rice has been for you. And then we'll jump it over to these guys. I'll tell you what. I'm glad to be here with these guys here at the SBC. We've been having a good time so far this week. But the only thing, the only issue I'm having with this year, and I'm going to need Al Mohler to make an amendment to the Constitution next year, that these exhibits carry shirts in my size. So we've got to make that amendment. But I am thankful to be here. And, yes, I am taking my MDiv. And I'm very interested in Luther Rice. I've been friends with them for a few years. I'm just interested to hear about their programs and what they've got coming up. And, yes, so I'm ready to go. Let's start with Parker real quick. We haven't really talked about what we're going to talk about. But tell us about the Bivocational Pastor. The tagline is Blue Collar Scholar. Talk about how that program is going, the changes that y'all have seen in your community college, and things like that. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for this opportunity. Well, as you guys may know, over 50% of pastors nowadays are bivocational. Or they have, you know, answered the call later in life, and they are looking to continue their education in biblical studies. And they've got this technical trade. You know, maybe they were a welder back in the day, and then they were called to ministry. They don't want to start over. We now have two degree programs at the undergraduate level where they are able to transfer in their technical credit and finish a four-year degree with biblical studies here at Luther Rice. We have signed an articulation agreement with the Technical College System of Georgia, where with that partnership, we have access to over 700 technical trades where our students are able to complete technical trades. And then transfer those credits into Luther Rice and graduate with a four-year degree called the Bachelor of Arts in Workforce and Ministry Readiness, where they are truly prepared to advance the gospel in the church, serve the church and the body of Christ, but also support their families and build a career in a technical trade. To support over 50% of pastors who are bivocational. We've had some great conversations this week at SPC with some young adults who are trying to figure out what the next step is, you know, in their life. They want to serve the church. They want to serve the Lord in that capacity. But maybe mom and dad are saying, you know, maybe you should be an electrician. There's a big shortage for that. And this really addresses that need, both in America, you know, in the workforce, but also in the church, too. Yeah, I recently had a guy call me from Virginia, and he said, hey, I'm looking, I'm HVAC right now. I feel called in the ministry. Do you know of any programs that I can do to get pastoral training? But at the same time, I'm trying to get the HVAC training so I can be certified. So I don't know many places, but I do know one. I said, call Luther Rice. Here's the guy's number. And he said he called to your admissions guy. But so he's in that process right now of beginning to go into that. So my question for the president is, how is this program? Is it being successful? Are you seeing lots of people enrolled in it? What is your turnaround right now? It's a new program, one year, I think, in. So we haven't had anyone graduate through it yet. But what is the success so far of it? Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it, James. Yeah, we're actually only several months into this program, to be honest with you. And the attention that it's been getting is phenomenal. What we're finding this is we're first to market in something like this. This is new to the space. So we're doing a lot of explaining to people at this time. We're trying to explain to them how what we have will fit their needs. But once we explain it to them, just as Parker did really, really well, the light bulbs go off and they go, oh, my goodness, this is exactly what my child's looking like. In fact, we just had three young guys coming up just yesterday. One just graduated from high school, two that are in, I think, sophomore and juniors. All of them want to go into the trades. And you look around now at all these data centers being built. You need electricians. You need plumbers. You don't need necessarily the four-year degree. Yet these young men are also called to ministry. And so we want to be able to maximize their trade credits. But our goal right now is we don't want to steer away from what we've been known for. We've been known since 1962 as training Christian leaders for the church, the work in the church, for the gospel ministry. But we also recognize there's many people called to be winsome ambassadors for Christ in the marketplace. And so that's what we're trying to do, training people in the area of leadership and business, in the trades. So we want to be kind of a one-stop shop for anybody that's looking to be that winsome ambassador. I guess one example of that in Scripture is Paul himself, right? And he was a tin maker. And there's definitely a biblical precedent behind that as well. I've got a heart for this as well because I was bivocational for 16 years. And I ran an oil chain shop in our hometown while I was also trying to be in ministry. And I struggled with education. So if something like this was around at that time, it definitely would have been a help for me. And so I'm full-time ministry now, but I have a heart for bivocational ministry. And so I think this is a great program. Yes, just like you, my first pastorate, I'm running a small HVAC business. Me and one other guy was my entire business, two employees. But I'm still a state licensed heating and air contractor. I've kept my license all these years, even though I've been in vocational ministries, you know, since 2000 full-time. But I love the nickname we're giving this program, Blue Collar Scholars. That's exactly what we want you to be. We want you to be proficient in whatever tent-making job you have. And we want you to be a scholar in the Word of God. And I promise you, as far as the scholarship goes, if you come to Lutherize, you're going to come away with a conservative, biblically-based, scholarly education. That's good. President, I want to ask you one last question before we wrap it up. And I've got one question from Marcus as well. But talk about your school of leadership, the master's programs we've got going on right now, the 12 classes, 13 classes, that is, what that's looking like, the success you guys are having with that. And if someone's interested, best way to get a hold of that. I was encouraged. I reached out for my wife. And you guys accepted her degree from the college that she was at, a bachelor's degree from an IFP college. And so, unfortunately, she can't go to Luther Rice. But it was encouraging for me because I've got the same degree. So if I ever decide to go, my idea was, man, I'm going to have to go and get an accredited degree or get a degree that's going to have to go through a bunch of hoops. But the admissions guy, Dr. Frey, was very respectful and very accommodating and said, hey, we've worked with this before. Come to us and we'll begin to work on that. So what is that process looking like and how is your school of leadership doing? Yeah, thank you for asking. We just established what's called the Waddle School of Leadership at the May graduation banquet. It honors Ms. Phyllis and Jim Waddle. They've done a lot of work for Luther Rice over the years. Jim has since passed away. But so in that school of leadership, we have two master's programs. We have a Master of Arts in Christian Leadership, which is 18 hours of biblical studies and theology. And then the other 18 hours is dedicated to leadership from a Christian biblical worldview. And then we also just established the Master of Science in Organizational Leadership. So that's 12 classes of straight leadership courses, yet they're built and grounded on the biblical worldview as well. We'll find a lot. Both of those programs are entry points into our PhD in organizational leadership. And that is probably our fastest growing program right now at Luther Rice. We're seeing a tremendous amount of momentum there. And we just follow the follower first mentality. We believe that you must be a devoted follower of Christ before you can lead. And that kind of permeates our whole program here at Luther Rice. That's great. Marcus, one final question. As we were looking through the program here, we realized that they had taken a picture of you with the welding hat on. Can you express your gratitude for them hiding the moneymaker? Really, the draw of Luther Rice is your face. And so how do you feel about the way they treated you in that picture? Well, I got to say this podcast had gone extremely well up until it derailed with that question. And I want to set the record straight. That is not me behind the welding mask. So you heard it straight from me. That's great. Well, thank you guys for coming on and allowing us to talk with again this year. Encouraging to see what's going on at Luther Rice and all that's going on. We do need Marcus to make a motion like Mueller did to see if he can get as much response from the crowd that Mueller got. And so we're excited. But thank you guys for tuning in. And thank you, Luther Rice. Until next time, to God be the glory. Great things he has done. Found my new name. Found that good grace. Found that healing. And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning. That has no ending. Found that second chance. Found my best friend. Found my forgiveness. Found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom Podcast. 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