{"id":4563,"date":"2019-10-17T10:38:14","date_gmt":"2019-10-17T10:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=4563"},"modified":"2021-03-18T06:32:27","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T06:32:27","slug":"investing-and-immersing-a-conversation-with-prof-andrea-summers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2019\/10\/17\/investing-and-immersing-a-conversation-with-prof-andrea-summers\/","title":{"rendered":"Investing and Immersing: Part 1 of a Conversation with Prof. Andrea Summers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Take a look at the faculty bio<\/a> for Professor Andrea Summers, and you might wonder how someone with such a high-powered ministry profile ended up in Central, SC. Her answer, however, is pretty simple: “Hands-on investment with ministerial students.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now in her second year at SWU, she’s busy mentoring ministry students, introducing a new curriculum into her general education classes, finishing up her D.Min. and raising four children with her husband Jeremy, the Multiplication Pastor at Alive Wesleyan. She’s still, in her words, “drinking from a firehose,” but immersing herself in SWU’s community and ministry is what God has called her to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had the chance to talk with Prof. Summers last month, and in this first part of our interview, we discuss why she same to SWU, what she learned from her time Wesley Seminary, and why she’s excited about the new Immerse curriculum she’s using in her New Testament survey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jonathan Sircy: When you came to SWU a year ago, what did your goals look like? What were you excited about getting to do? Did you have larger sort of ministerial aspirations? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrea Summers: I was at Wesley Seminary, but I wasn’t in a direct teaching role. You know, I was the director of the center there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, yeah, teaching full time was exciting to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think more specifically it was getting the hands-on investment\nwith ministerial students, these people who at this young age\u2014it\u2019s quite\nimpressive, actually\u2014are able to articulate some sort of a call into vocational\nministry and to get to be invested in their development. These are really,\nreally crucial years. I said, \u201cYeah! Sign me up. Sounds amazing!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

But I also teach two gen eds every semester. And there are no\nministerial students in those courses, and so I wasn’t really thinking about\nthose students necessarily when I took the job. But actually, that has been\nthis unexpected joy that has come out of teaching. I just realized I really\nenjoy the students who are the business majors and the exercise science majors\nand all these other things and getting, for this really brief window of time,\nto invest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: When did you know you were called a minister in no way\nministering now? Were you in college? You\u2019re the daughter of missionaries, so\nat what point did you see not only being a minister, but ministering as a\nprofessor as part of what God called you to do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I just realized I really enjoy the students who are the business majors and the exercise science majors and all these other things and getting, for this really brief window of time, to invest.”<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

AS: Being a professor was never on the table for me. And in\nfact, I have a <\/p>\n\n\n\n

mentor who has been a really instrumental mentor for me, but\nwho would bring that up every so often in our conversations. I thought, of course,\n\u201cHe’s a professor!\u201d and so I was like I could never do that because I really do\nlove the local church and ministry. I really love preaching. I really like\nstrategy. I like the fast pace that local church ministry provides. Like\nacademia is a fast pace, but it’s not necessarily fast in terms of new ideas,\nright? Whereas in a local church, you come up an idea, and you can implement it\ntomorrow and then you can pivot and do something different. So yeah, I never\nsaw myself teaching. I always saw myself in the local church and supporting in\na non-profit role. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It really wasn’t until, let’s see, four months before Mike Tapper\nreached out to me to consider putting my application in for this role that I\nwould have even considered that there was another position that was like a\npastoral position at a different institution, not dissimilar to like what Ken\nDill does. So I was in the running, I guess, for the position, and I didn’t get\nthe job, but got far enough in the process that I really started dreaming about\nthe kind of impact that God can use you on a college campus with young people.\nAnd my heart kind of connected with that in a way it never had before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that when I didn’t get the job, I was really crushed, like,\n\u201cAnything else is gonna be really like second best now!\u201d So then when the\nopportunity came to potentially be here at SWU, it was just like a piece of a\npuzzle that fit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: So undergrad, you were at Indiana Wesleyan. I’m\ninterested to know from your time there and you also working at Wesley\nSeminary, what is something you learned that you think you brought here to SWU?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AS: Well, one thing that I really, really loved about Wesley\nSeminary was its emphasis on diversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They just really make a very intentional effort both in the\npeople that they hire and the students that are in their classes and even in\nthe curriculum, you know, to be diverse from top to bottom. It is just a core value.\nAnd it’s not a value in terms of like equal rights or something like that. It’s\na kingdom value. That’s actually the best expression of the kingdom! And the\nbest expression of the church is one that is increasingly inclusive and\nincreasingly diverse. And I see that in scripture. I see that in the Book of\nActs for sure. I just spent this whole past week teaching from the Book of Acts\nin my New Testament classes, and we talked a lot about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: Was your teaching of Acts part of this new Immerse\nprogram you’re doing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AS: Yeah. I mean, the Immerse piece of it is really just like\ngetting students to read their Bibles, which sounds so obvious that in a New\nTestament class, we would have students actually read the New Testament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I think actually if we probably did a poll of New Testament\nclasses being offered in undergrad across the United States, I would wonder how\nmany of those college students are actually reading the New Testament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think a lot of people put on their syllabus \u201cRead through\nthe New Testament,\u201d but it’s not like students are being held accountable to\nit. That was my experience in undergrad. I took a New Testament class in\nundergrad, and\u2014it’s my own fault\u2014 I didn’t read through the entire New\nTestament and I wasn’t really like held accountable. So, I just said when I was\nteaching New Testament. I just said, you know what? I believe that, you know,\nwhen we’re just studying scripture, or just talking about scripture, it becomes\nan autopsy. We can use a scalpel, and we can go in and we can make incisions or\npull out texts and look at them and study them under a microscope. And we can\nlook at the whole cadaver at the end of the day. It’s not living and breathing,\nand it’s not life giving! But when you actually encounter the holy scriptures\nand the Holy Spirit is involved in that process, it is a life-giving thing! No\nmatter where you are in the spiritual spectrum, then God will meet you there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, I said, \u201cWell, if my students don’t get anything out\nof my New Testament class, I hope that they encounter the living God on the\npages of scripture.\u201d And I decided I was gonna remove all of the roadblocks\nthat I possibly could that might potentially keep students from reading it. But\nwe also do all the other things: we trace Paul’s missionary journeys and offers\nthoughts about who wrote the book of, you know, First Timothy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“[W]hen we’re just studying scripture, or just talking about scripture, it becomes an autopsy…It’s not living and breathing, and it’s not life giving! But when you actually encounter the holy scriptures and the Holy Spirit is involved in that process, it is a life-giving thing!”<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

JS: Immerse sounded like a kind of curriculum that would have\nfound its home as part of, I don’t know, a Sunday School or something like\nthat, like education inside the church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AS: Yes, the Immerse Bible series is put out by Tyndale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And most of our Bibles tend to be like study Bible, and I think this is specifically a reading Bible. So, it’s really meant for reading big. A lot of times when we read, we just read a little soundbites, or whatever a devotional thing says, or a chapter, but then we stop at the end of the chapter. This is just an encouragement to read because, you know, actually the Bible is a really exciting story: shipwrecks and snake bites and people who die and people who are murdered and all kinds of things. And we just don’t read it that way sometimes. So, they’ve put out this reading Bible series and one of them is the Messiah, which is just the New Testament. And it’s just easier to read!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had the chance to talk with Prof. Summers last month, and in this first part of our interview, we discuss why she same to SWU, what she learned from her time Wesley Seminary, and why she’s excited about the new Immerse curriculum she’s using in her New Testament survey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":4565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344,343],"tags":[82,373],"class_list":["post-4563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-events","category-religious-studies","tag-conversations","tag-swu-stories","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4563"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4568,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4563\/revisions\/4568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}