BUIES CREEK — The Campbell University Divinity School commissioned 39 new students Tuesday during a ceremony in Butler Chapel to celebrate their response to God’s call.
But as Dr. Don Y. Gordon, the senior pastor of Ardmore Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, reminded them in his Charge to the Students, they begin their theological education during a time that has been described as post-Christian.
According to a Pew Research Center study released last year, for example, the Christian population in the U.S. dropped from 78 to 70 percent between 2007 and 2014. Over the same period, the people who identified as unaffiliated with any faith group jumped from 16 to 23 percent.
“What does this mean for the church today?” Gordon asked. “What does it mean for Campbell Divinity students today?”
His answer: The same thing it meant for the prophet Ezekiel when, at around age 25, he found himself in a valley full of dry, dead bones prophesying to them and telling them: “Dry bones, Hear the word of the Lord.”
“Ezekiel preached and proclaimed, and God put His breath into those bones,” Gordon said, drawing on Ezekiel 37:1-14 and the song “Dem Dry Bones.” “And the valley of dry bones was converted into a valley of living, breathing, worshipping people.”
God, Gordon added, is calling on Campbell Divinity students to do the same in today’s post-Christian world. “He is calling you to prophesize to dry bones. He is calling you to prepare for his prophecy through rigorous study and diligent prayer and complete submission to the will of God,” he said. “So get ready to walk into the world’s valley and see all the deadness that God intends to bring back to life—as our God is a God of resurrection.”
Below we look at five of the new Campbell Divinity students who are answering the call to do that.
Meet 5 of today’s Ezekiels
Five new Master of Divinity students talk about how they ended up at Campbell Divinity and why they said yes to God’s call.
Trae Bremer: The basketball player & resident chaplain
Michael Furr: The science teacher & youth minister
Muriel Lasater: The church intern & mission worker
Jackie Love: The social worker & preacher
Corey Mitchell: The speech therapist & minister
Trae Bremer: The basketball player & resident chaplain
When he was a freshman in college, Trae Bremer’s life was on a solid path to success. He had received a scholarship to Campbell University to play basketball, he had a great team, and he was passionate about his major that would prepare him for coaching. But several knee injuries and surgeries later, Bremer was faced with a tough reality.
“After I realized I wasn’t going to be able to play basketball anymore, I started to contemplate what I was going to do,” Bremer says. “Everything was going downhill.” His coaches were reassigned, his scholarship was hanging in the balance, and Bremer realized his only option was to turn to God.
“I kept playing and I kept asking if God would somehow give me a chance to stay here, because I felt like this was the right place for me,” Bremer says. “And it turns out [Campbell] provided me with a way to stay here and continue my education.”
Bremer changed his major to religion, which he felt God calling him to pursue. “I had a calling that said, ‘OK, Trae, maybe do something with your life,” Bremer says. “That was sort of my final calling. I’ve always had an initial calling to do that, but I knew that is where God wanted me to be.”
Today, Bremer is working on achieving his Master of Divinity, with a concentration in pastoral care and preaching. In the future, he hopes to be a pastor, but at the same time he recognizes that his career may change. “I wouldn’t mind [traveling],” he says. “I’ve always lived my life saying, ‘Wherever God takes me, I’m going to go.’”
This sentiment of trust is echoed in one of Bremer’s favorite Bible verses, Romans 8:28. The verse reads, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
“I’m trying to see what God has planned for me,” Bremer says. “I physically played with the [basketball] team for two years, but I was with the team for four years. I had more of a managerial role. I realized God was calling me somewhere else, and I’m all about serving people. I served my teammates in a way that glorified God.”
Bremer still enjoys playing basketball as a hobby, but a majority of his time is spent mentoring undergraduate students as a resident chaplain. “I’m that pastoral presence if they need any help,” he says. “We have a campus minister, but it makes it easier for us and them if they have someone who’s been trained to be a minister living with them if they need them.”
Bremer has served around campus for the last four years in various aspects as his way of giving back to the campus. “Campbell has been so good to me,” he says. He calls the school his home, even if his home state of Kansas is a good drive away. “My favorite part has been just the people I’ve added into my family of Christ, my fiancé, my teachers, and my teammates.”—Rachel Davis
Michael Furr: The science teacher & youth minister
Michael Furr attended the First Baptist Church of Albemarle growing up, but he never imagined he would work there one day. Instead he wanted to be Jack Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium who made regular appearances on T.V. shows. So Furr attended North Carolina State University as a zoology major. Three-and-a-half years into the program, he told his parents that the call to work with youth was too great.
He transferred to UNC-Charlotte and completed a degree in biological education. He taught science for 18 years. During that time, he increasingly became active working with the youth group at his home church; but he became “somewhat unhappy with the way the youth program was going,” he says.
He was concerned the same thing that happened to him was going to happen with the youth. He grew up in the church, but once he got to college, he “put aside his coat of faith,” he says.
Research out of the Fuller Theological Seminary has found that over 50 percent of young adults who come out of youth groups fall away from faith. What is the difference between those churches with youth who stick with the faith and those who don’t? The community relational feel, Furr says.
“Churches good at creating a family-love feel have better success of keeping kids through college and beyond,” says Furr, who was drawn back to church through his wife’s influence. “Many churches have done a poor job of fostering relationships with young people.”
One day, about three years ago, his wife came home from church and told him the youth minister was leaving and the church was accepting applications for a part-time youth director. “You ready to put your money where your mouth is?” she asked.
Furr applied for the job and got it. “[The position] combines my faith and interests of working youth, and it leaves out all the things about teaching I don’t like, like grading papers,” Furr says. “It’s as if I slid on a glove that was a perfect fit.”
Initially, he kept teaching, too. But working part time as a youth minister, while teaching full time and coaching cross country, took its toll. One day in the car with his wife and two children, now 12 and 14, he said aloud: “I can’t keep doing this.”
“You’re not going to give up the church, right?” his oldest daughter said.
“When even my oldest daughter wanted to me to be at the church, I knew that was the direction I needed to go,” he says.
He talked to his church’s new pastor, Andy Jung, a Campbell Divinity graduate. Jung happened to be creating a new full-time position for an associate minister for family ministries. He encouraged Furr to apply for the position and pursue a Master of Divinity degree.
Furr visited Campbell Divinity. As soon as he left the interview with admissions, he walked back to his car, where his wife was waiting. She told him: “This is where you need to be.”
He felt it, too. At Campbell Divinity, he found people who were welcoming and who supported each other. That goes all the way to Campbell Divinity Dean Andy Wakefield, Furr says.
When Furr had his admissions interview, Wakefield stopped him in the hall and asked him his name and about his background. When they crossed paths again on a different day, Wakefield remembered him. “They make an effort to build relationships,” Furr says.
That’s the root of how he approaches his work with young people. “It’s not about a checklist; it’s about their faith journey and having people who support their faith journey,” he says.
Soon after finishing his 18-year teaching career, Furr began his duties as associate minister for family ministries at the First Baptist Church of Albemarle on July 1, 2015.
Other members who watched him grow up in the church weren’t surprised. “Some have told me they knew this was where I was supposed to be long ago. I told them they could have saved me some time,” says Furr, chuckling.
“I’ve often wondered if I didn’t misinterpret my call a little bit,” he adds. “I’ve always had an affinity for working with young people, and I want to help with their spiritual formation. I want to do that as long as God wants me to.” —Cherry Crayton
Muriel Lasater: The church intern & mission worker
Muriel Lasater, a first-year student in Campbell Divinity, expresses a conviction for the gospel and an eagerness to share her faith. “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity,” Lasater says, quoting 1 Timothy 4:12.
“That one’s special to me because that was the verse the youth minister of our church wanted us to take hold of — to not just not let people look down on you because you are young, but to never let anyone look down on you, and just be confident in who God has called you to be,” she says. “I’ve tried to always remember that and use that in everything that I do.”
Lasater carries that confidence with her as she begins her life as a divinity student. Although this is her first year in graduate school, her background in the church is extensive.
While pursuing her undergraduate degree in math at North Carolina State University, Lasater found her calling within the church. “I realized during my sophomore and junior year that it was between teaching or going into the ministry,” she says. “I worked in a church all throughout my undergrad as a youth ministry intern, and just that experience and several mentors encouraging me and helping me see the gifts that I had led me to think this is where God wanted me to be – in divinity school.”
While still pursuing her undergraduate degree, Lasater also contributed to other outreach opportunities on N.C. State’s campus, including Campus Crusade for Christ and various Bible studies. In addition, she both led and participated in mission trips around the United States and South America. The main focus of these ministries, as well as her future as a divinity school student, is the idea that mission work does not always have to be global.
“We tried to make it a point to do local mission projects in the community,” Lasater says. “There’s opportunity right here in our backyard. You don’t have to cross state borders; you can help people down the street.”
Though only in her first few weeks at Campbell Divinity, Lasater’s classes have already led to thought and spiritual growth.
“I’m reflecting on my calling and others’ callings, and knowing that this is where God has called us right now, in this season of our lives,” she says. “I’m reflecting on what the next three or four years are going to be like, with the things that we’re going to learn and the relationships that we’re going to develop. It’s really exciting to enjoy this experience that I’m a part of right now.”—Rachel Davis
Jackie Love: The social worker & preacher
Jackie Love first received the call to preach in March 2000. She told three friends. The first friend laughed, much like Love did when she first got the call. She’s shy. She dreads speaking in front of groups. And she didn’t know the Bible well.
“But,” as her second friend told, “that’s who God uses: the nobodies.”
And even though she felt ill-equipped, her third friend told her, “If God calls you, He will equip you.”
Still, Love ran and ran and ran from the call. She didn’t feel adequate. She had doubts. And she was in the middle of her own crisis.
She and her husband divorced in August 2000, when her two children were 3 and 5. Depression and anxiety set in. She faced eviction notices and rejection letter after rejection letter for jobs – all of which she saved and collected in a notebook. “Everybody goes through crises,” she says. “It depends on what you do with it to get out of it.”
Love turned to vocational rehab for help. She volunteered with Meals on Wheels. She read self-help and motivational books. And she thought back to her childhood and undergraduate days at North Carolina Central University. She would go around and ask her neighbors if they needed help sweeping, folding clothes, or picking apples. Shortly after college, she helped her neighborhood win a block grant to add indoor plumbing to their houses. As she thought of those moments, she realized: “I was doing social work and didn’t realize it.”
That type of work was her passion. She completed a Master of Social Work from UNC-Chapel Hill and went on to work as a mental health therapist in the community and at a psychiatric hospital before joining the Durham Public Schools in 2010. There, she works with homeless families and children.
She’s needed, and God is using her. Yes, God called her to preach, but why would God call her to do that if she was already doing ministry work?
That’s what ran through her head for years and what she told her pastor in a conversation about two years ago. He suggested she read Allison Cullinan’s “Sorting It Out: Discerning God’s Call to Ministry.” He also encouraged her to deliver her first sermon, which she did in April 2014. Afterward, she told herself: “I need to go to divinity school.”
A friend and Campbell Divinity student encouraged her to consider Campbell. Love said the drive was too far. Her pastor later mentioned Campbell Divinity, too, in an unrelated meeting. He talked about the school with “such enthusiasm” she darted home to look Campbell Divinity up online. As she read the school’s mission statement and curriculum, she thought, “This is perfect for me.”
As a Master of Divinity student at Campbell Divinity, she says, she will be able to learn how to do missions work and how to collaborate with churches and with urban and social ministries to help marginalized people, especially the homeless and women who have been abused and battered.
Sometimes that help will include her sharing own story and pulling out her notebook full of eviction notices and rejection letters. That’s why she has kept that notebook for nearly 15 years. “I can sit down with people today who are going through a crisis and show them how I was once where they are and tell them: ‘I’m still not where I want to be, but this is where I was.’”
The notebook also “helps me remember that God has a better plan,” she adds.
“I look back on it now and from the minute he called me to preach, God knew the journey He was going to take me through. And that journey and my story are why I believe God called me—so I can help people who are thinking about giving up and who are having trying times.”—Cherry Crayton
Corey Mitchell: The speech therapist & minister
When Corey Mitchell was in high school, his classmates elected him class spokesperson. It might have been as a joke, he says. Growing up, Mitchell was considered a severe stutterer. “I can remember times I could hardly get a word out,” he says.
As part of his class spokesperson duties, he had to deliver a speech during baccalaureate services. He didn’t know how he was going to get through it. So he prayed to God, who told him: “Just open your mouth, and I will give you the words to say.”
Mitchell practiced the speech over and over again. When he delivered it before his classmates and others, it went well. “I attribute that experience to the time God started to him heal,” he says.
Stuttering can’t be cured, he adds, but with God’s help, he has learned how to control it. Today, as a speech therapist, he helps children who have similar communication disorders.
Through speech therapy, he has also seen people’s plights and needs and the effects of domestic dispute and hunger. “I have come to face-to-face with suffering like I never imagined,” he says.
He found himself not only providing speech therapy services but also ministering to families and children with special needs. “I truly had to learn to call on God on a daily basis and lean on Him to guide me to deal with these situations,” Mitchell says.
Then he faced his own suffering.
About five years ago, his daughter Kori, 2 at the time, developed a seizure disorder. She lost all functions, including the ability to talk, walk and swallow. It took two years to get the seizures under control. She visited a physical therapist, speech therapist, and occupational therapist up to four or five times a week. She slowly regained the ability to walk, and her speech improved.
Then a neurologist found six cysts on her brain. The doctor gave Mitchell and his wife two choices: remove the cysts and risk permanent brain damage, or don’t remove the cysts and risk them possibly rupturing and releasing toxins in her body, which could kill her. “What do you do when your back is up against the wall but call on God,” he says.
He and his wife and family prayed and prayed, asking for guidance about what decision to make. They had made a decision when they were scheduled to meet with the neurologist again in December 2013. But before the appointment, there was another high-powered scan of Kori’s brain. All six cysts were gone. “A miracle had happened,” Mitchell says.
About year later, a day before his 38th, in November 2014, he heard God speak to him again: “Now is your time, and I want you to study My word.”
Up to that point, Mitchell had thought about pursuing a Ph.D. in communication studies. But “I had no choice but to say ‘Yes, Lord,’” he says.
He researched divinity schools in the Research Triangle Region. As soon as he stepped foot onto Campbell’s campus for the Divinity School’s Visitation Day, a “feeling came come over me, and I knew this was the place for me.”
“All of that is why I’m here,” says Mitchell, a Master of Divinity student interested in evangelism and missions who hopes to teach someday at the college level. “I know what God has done in our lives, and I know he is still working miracles. I have to share that wherever I go because it gives hope to people. It gives life to dead situations.”—Cherry Crayton