Category: Blog

by David Gunner Gundersen, Director of Student Life

The Boyce College community is grieving the loss of Shelby-Tyler Smith, a unique and beloved student who died on Friday afternoon, December 28, in a serious car accident. Around 1:30pm last Friday, Shelby, a 20-year-old junior, was killed in a collision with a semi-truck on I-71 near the Greene/Fayette County line near Dayton, Ohio. His girlfriend and fellow Boyce student was in the passenger seat but was miraculously released from the hospital the same day.

The night of the accident, President Albert Mohler and several Southern and Boyce staff members visited Shelby’s family including his 5-year-old brother and 19-year-old sister. The family expressed how much Shelby loved the Boyce community, and we shared with them how much Shelby was loved and appreciated at Boyce.

In the days since the accident, many students have gathered back on campus to pray for the family, grieve together, and share powerful memories of Shelby’s life and testimony. Faculty, staff, and students have also been filling social media with their personal reflections, revealing the deep impact of Shelby’s Christ-centered life.

The Spencer Magnet contains Shelby’s obituary, and visitation and services are being held in his hometown of Taylorsville, Kentucky today and Thursday. Boyce will hold our own memorial service at the beginning of the spring semester to commemorate Shelby’s life and reflect on his example.

In these days we are grieving over the loss of our enthusiastic and passionate brother Shelby-Tyler Smith. But we also rejoice that despite the agony of death and separation, Shelby has taken his joy to heaven where it has only multiplied exponentially in the presence of Christ. We are already seeing how God is using the legacy of Shelby’s life to impact our community through his death.

In the words of Dr. Jim Orrick, Professor of Literature and Culture, “The course laid out for him to run was shorter than any of us knew. He ran hard, and he ran well. He finished strong. Now the Master of the race has taken him home and given him early honors. It was a joy to see him run.”

Shelby-Tyler Smith, 1992-2012

by David Gunner Gundersen, Director of Student Life

“If you don’t use it, you lose it.” Most Greek teachers have brandished some version of this educational proverb in the relentless battle for student motivation. The Handy Guide to New Testament Greek by Douglas Huffman (Kregel Academic, 2012) provides a concise summary of grammar, syntax, and diagramming, adding a well-crafted weapon to the arsenal. This power-packed book will motivate and empower students, pastors, and teachers to refresh our memories, concretize our learning, and sharpen our interpretive tools.

At 112 pages and a handy size that purposefully matches the traditional Nestle-Aland and UBS texts, this book fills a gap on the resource shelf of biblical Greek. It would feel at home in a student’s backpack, a pastor’s study, or a professor’s office. The “Handy Guide to NT Greek (excerpt PDF)” available from Kregel includes the table of contents, introduction, and some sample pages, but doesn’t do it justice. Here’s why:

1. Accessible. The writing is clear, the charts are smooth, and difficult concepts are reduced to their simplest terms without being reductionist or simplistic. Of course, accessibility is defined by the target audience, and Huffman is careful to identify that audience at the outset: “second-year Greek students (and beyond), pastors, teachers, and preachers,” and even “would-be experts.” After surveying the book, I’m confident that its target audience will find this Handy Guideto match its title.

2. Concise. Brevity with contours is the best kind. Huffman’s summary descriptions are brief and precise, concise and accurate. For example, he defines “mood” with utmost simplicity while capturing the nuances necessary for accurate understanding: “Describes the author’s portrayal of the verbal action’s actuality (indicative), potentiality (subjunctive), possibility (optative), or intentionality (imperative)” (24). Even the phrase “the author’s portrayal” reveals a sensitive grasp of the way language operates. Anyone with a couple years of biblical Greek under their belt will grasp and appreciate Huffman’s descriptions.

3. Pedagogical. Huffman uses color-coded charts, brief scriptural examples (with the relevant word bolded), basic memory devices, and conceptual illustrations. These diverse methods give the book color and life. Some wading through details is necessary when listing out declensions, endings, and certain rules, but even here the charts provide clear visuals organizing the bits and pieces.

4. Portable. Most people won’t regularly use a huge book, much less a huge grammar, and their neglect is not their fault alone. Certainly convenience can be overvalued by readers, but it can also be undervalued by authors. Huffman provides a portable, convenient handbook that’s accessible not only in content and style but also in size. There’s no intent to replace grammars, only supplement them — a worthy goal that’s met through both content and design.

5. Thorough. “Simple” does not have to mean “simplistic.” I was pleasantly surprised by the appearance of helpful topics that wouldn’t be missed if they hadn’t been included, such as the summary chart on the variety of ways a Greek command can be expressed. I was equally pleased by the detailed treatment of topics that could have been oversimplified. In many instances, Huffman shows us neither simplicity nor complexity but that glorious simplicity on the other side of complexity (O. W. Holmes). He lists (concisely) 20 genitive case usages, 13 usages of the article, and a chart on οτι clauses in the indicative mood, just as a sampling. Don’t mistake this handy guide for a full reference grammar, but don’t mistake it for a flimsy insert for your Greek New Testament, either.

6. Contemporary. Contemporary is not always better, but when it comes to verbal aspect, recent research is essential to grasp. Huffman summarizes: “English verb tenses have a time-based orientation (e.g., past/present/future time) and some other languages have a kind-of-action (German: Aktionsart) tense system (e.g., linear/punctiliar/completed kinds of action); both of these systems base tense-form selection on the historic action itself. Many Greek grammars in the last two hundred years have confusedly thought the same about the Greek language. In NT Greek, however, tense-form selection is based primarily upon the way the author wishes to think about the action. This involves two considerations: 1) the aspect he chooses to focus on, and 2) the spatial vantage point he chooses to offer” (61). Those who learned only the traditional view of verb tenses may need to survey Constantine Campbell’s short book Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek (Zondervan, 2008) to catch up on recent shifts.

The reasons we surrender hard-earned proficiency in the biblical languages are legion, but Douglas Huffman has given us both motivation and weaponry for regaining ground.

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Adapted from original post at Raw Christianity. Thanks to Kregel Academic for providing a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review.

by David Gunner Gundersen, Director of Student Life

The Conviction to Lead by Albert Mohler (Bethany House, 2012) is his legacy in the form of principles. Mohler does not aim to join the conversation about leadership but to change it (15). He is calling not for adjustments in managerial technique but a paradigm shift in the way we think about leadership.

Mohler surveys leadership trends from the 1950s onward and highlights the recent frenzy over leadership. He founds his book upon one major contemporary observation: “The evangelical Christian world is increasingly divided between groups we might call the Believers and the Leaders” (19). The Believers hold deep beliefs and passionate convictions, but they are suspicious, unskilled, or ignorant about leading. The Leaders are energized about leadership, skilled to lead, and passionate about change, but they are often driven by pragmatic strategies and are not often leading in a clear and convictional direction.

Mohler’s double-barreled aim is to convince Believers to lead and to fuel Leaders with conviction. The remaining chapters take aim at this twofold goal. Three strengths in particular stand out.

Clarity

The Conviction to Lead is infused with the clarity of a manifesto. The drive toward convictional leadership maintains force throughout the book and never lacks in thrust. His thesis is clear and his aim unswerving. There is no question that this book is about conviction: developing conviction, strengthening conviction, communicating conviction, stewarding conviction.

The vocabulary is simple yet graceful, bearing the true voice of a convictional leader. Mohler never chooses elegance over clarity. The profundity comes not in the complexity of his principles but in the clarion call for conviction cutting through the contemporary haze of uncertainty and relativism. In a world reeling in the stupor of what Derrida called postmodernism’s “incredulity toward metanarratives,” it’s invigorating to see someone plant a flag and plant it deep.

Power

The Conviction to Lead is a powerful book. Early on I was struck by the power of individual sentences, not only their ideas but their force. There are no unnecessary words, no wandering interludes, no verbal garnish. Clearly there is a point to be made, and it is made gracefully but without theatrics.

As I was writing one of the paragraphs above, I was going to slip in a parenthetical comment. As I edited my sentence to end with a declarative tone rather than a parenthesis, it occurred to me that The Conviction to Lead bears few parentheses. A quick sampling of the pages confirms my gut feeling: there are virtually no parenthetical explanations or caveats. This book stays on point, which gives it power.

Declarative communication has a powerful psychological effect. The listener must be inspired or enraged, but cannot be indifferent. Mohler, through both his instruction and his example, urges us not to put a finger in the wind but to plant a flag in the ground.

Conviction

Ultimately, the burden of the book is to fuel the fires of conviction (in Leaders) and to channel the torrent of belief (in Believers). This double burden weighs heavily throughout the book. The book is full of practical tips and advice on topics ranging from social media to reading priorities to time management to leadership succession. But each topic is addressed through the igniting lens of conviction. We use social media to spread and embed conviction. We read to fuel and refine conviction. We aim to use our time well and wisely because we want to maximize our convictions. We think about succession because we want our convictions to burn brightly long after we’re gone. Indeed, “The leadership that matters most is convictional — deeply convictional” (21).

In many ways, The Conviction to Lead is to leadership what John Piper’s Brothers, We Are Not  Professionals is to the pastorate. Here is a principled man calling for principled leadership. I heartily commend this manifesto to all who want to lead with conviction.

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(Adapted from original post at Raw Christianity)

Gunner Gundersen serves as Director of Student Life at Boyce College, shepherding the residential community and commuter students and overseeing residence life, activities, programs, and student organizations. Gunner and his wife Cindi have four children. Before coming to Boyce, Gunner served for eight years as a Resident Director and Associate Dean of Men at The Master’s College.

by David Gunner Gundersen, Director of Student Life

In the last two posts, we’ve talked about the church’s need to love and serve wisely according to the circumstances and seasons of people’s lives. We’ve also made five observations about college breaks and explained ways to minister to Christian college students during these breaks. In this final post, we want to discuss five more unique challenges and opportunities that college students face as they live in the unique gaps between semesters.

6. Breaks invite students to explore new expressions of faith, hope, and love. During breaks, Christian college students are often called to trust God in different venues, with fewer trusted resources at their disposal, in less comfortable circumstantial climates, with less of a schedule and routine to guide them. They’re put in fresh situations where they have to hope in God, trust his daily deliverance, and look to his final redemption in ways they can sometimes avoid when settled into comfortable patterns of life. These changes open all kinds of doors for ministry — conversation, counsel, provision, and practical help. Ultimately, God providentially uses change to draw our eyes upward to the one who is unchanging. The sensitive Christian who wants to minister to Christian college students embodies this divine stability through faithful love and care.

7. Breaks provide focused times of extended rest and unforced labor. Breaks give students a chance to unwind, relax, and refresh. It’s essential that they take time to do this, especially if they’ve run themselves ragged during the last few weeks of school. So rejoice with students as they hit the temporary finish line of completed term papers and finals week in the rearview mirror (hopefully with passed classes!). At the same time, these students are now heading into a unique season. There’s much less accountability during a typical school break in terms of how hard you work, how much you get done, and how much money you earn. While this is a breath of fresh air, it’s also important for students to think through and plan out how they want to spend their time. Pastors, mentors, friends, and family members can all lend a hand — advice, accountability, forward-thinking, job recommendations. If you hear a student talking about his grand goals, follow up with him and ask how it’s going. Give them gentle encouragements to stay the course and fulfill those good intentions.

8. Breaks give us space for less-hurried reflection. The constant din of college life tends to drown out substantial reflection. Like so many scattered papers on a cluttered desk, college students’ thoughts tend to get scattered and fragmented as the semester goes on. It’s helpful and important to seize the opportunity of the break and to carve out time to reflect, meditate, evaluate, plan, and organize thoughts. Parents, pastors, and friends of college students can help them process their college experience by asking good questions and listening well.

9. Breaks challenge us to care via distance and to follow up faithfully. It’s easy to be out-of-sight/out-of-mind in college ministry. People are here and then they leave, and the revolving door can be pretty intense. Breaks challenge us to care for people when we don’t see them every day; to remember the ways we said we’d hold someone accountable; to write down the date of that family death and to call them; to remember that someone has no family to celebrate Thanksgiving with and to invite them over. On the home front, breaks can be a reminder that the college student you know and love could still use your ministry, your encouragement, your listening ear. You can still have a ministry from afar. College students often feel disconnected from home, and it’s refreshing to get a call, text, letter, or care package from home. Relationships, history, memories, old friends and mentors — reconnecting with these graces from the past can have a stabilizing effect on a student caught up in the throes of college.

10. Breaks provide opportunities to see new shades of God’s multi-colored grace. As seasons of the year change, we see God’s creative power in new ways. And as seasons of our lives change, we see God’s sustaining power in new ways. We are tempted to believe that our stability is due primarily to our circumstances; that our growth has been fostered mainly by elements of our structure and schedule; that our sense of contentment must be based on our circumstantial consistency. But as students walk through seasons that have their own unique challenges (like school breaks), they see and experience unique expressions of God’s faithful mercy toward them. Fresh difficulties are met by fresh grace, and they get to see and worship. If you know a Christian college student, engage them in conversation about what God’s doing in their lives. You’ll see dark shades of trial and bright hues of grace, and you’ll be encouraged.

– Caring for College Students through the Breaks (Part 1)
– Caring for College Students through the Breaks (Part 2)

Gunner Gundersen serves as Director of Student Life, shepherding the residential community and commuter students and overseeing residence life, activities, programs, and student organizations. Gunner and his wife Cindi have four children. Before coming to Boyce, Gunner served for eight years as a Resident Director and Associate Dean of Men at The Master’s College.

by David Gunner Gundersen, Director of Student Life

Lengthy school breaks present unique challenges and opportunities for college students. At Boyce (naturally), we care deeply about the spiritual growth and stability of Christian college students. With winter break upon us, we want to help inform the Christian community about how to minister effectively to college students. Here are five characteristics of school breaks that can help clarify the kinds of ministry needs and opportunities that exist during these unique times.

1. Breaks tend to conjure up memories — both happy and heartbreaking. Family, home, and holidays all tend to stimulate memories that bring our past to the forefront. And memories are powerful things. For college students, there may be memories of sexual sin, wasted years, old romances, broken relationships, parental abuse, damaging choices, untimely deaths, and overwhelming regrets. Satan can use these memories to accuse, burden, and overwhelm students with guilt and sorrow. At the same time, some students are going home to reencounter faithful Christians, supportive family, long-standing friendships, old victories, divine provision, ministry opportunities, and many other blessings. Awareness of these potential memories and past experiences will keep you in a ministry mindset as you consider how you might serve the student you love.

2. Breaks present unique opportunities and challenges with little time to prepare for them. Like a child longing to grow up, we tend to long for breaks to finally arrive… and then they arrive quicker than we expected. One of the ways you can love college students is by asking them about the upcoming break. It’s probably on their mind already, but in the midst of academic crunch time, physical weariness, personal decisions, and uncertain travel plans, they may not have had a lot of time and energy to process things. If you’re ministering to a college student, you might ask them about the following areas:

• Church: What church will you be involved with during the break?
• Relationships: What will community, encouragement, and accountability look like through the break?
• Opportunities: Any opportunities you want to take advantage of?
• Temptations: Any challenges or temptations you’re concerned about?
• Old Habits: Any previous patterns or common temptations that come up during break?
• Diligence: How can you make the most of your time?
• Scripture & Prayer: What do you hope Bible reading and prayer will look like over the break?
• Planning & Work: Any projects you want to work on during the break? What are your plans?
• Reflection & Decisions: Any focused thinking you’re hoping to do? (church decisions, ministry opportunities, educational plans, summer ideas, personal growth, financial planning, romantic relationship?)

3. Breaks don’t necessarily create challenges and opportunities but they turn up the volume. Sharing the gospel with that old friend is always possible, but being around them over Christmas Break heightens the opportunity and highlights the responsibility. You can chip away at rebuilding that relationship with a sibling via distance, but being home with them for two weeks will weigh much heavier on your heart and mind. The bitterness against an ex-boyfriend or the pull toward an old girlfriend can arise at any time, but being in the same geographical area can turn up the heat. Often school breaks and holidays simply put backburner issues on the frontburner. They turn background music into the soundtrack. The harmony becomes the melody, and what was secondary becomes primary. Therefore, as you learn about people’s breaks (whether you’re ministering to them before, during, or after the break), you are also learning how you can serve, care for, and encourage them when the break is over.

4. Breaks give us the opportunity to learn things about each other that we might not know otherwise. Have you ever met someone’s parents or siblings and thought, “Oh, I get it now!” or “That explains a lot” or “I would’ve never known that about you!”? Those moments do happen in everyday conversation, but our understanding of someone is often heightened and deepened and broadened the more we know about their formative influences. No, their identity is not determined, bound, and dictated by their families and pasts, but it is influenced, shaped, and directed by those influences — whether familial, relational, economic, geographic, educational, or circumstantial. Take advantage of your conversations about the break to get to know people on a deeper level. (NOTE: This requires caring enough to ask good questions.)

5. Breaks drive us to pray for others and to see God work through diverse means. None of us is the be-all end-all minister in another’s life. Their spiritual growth is not under our control. Even when God uses us to powerfully influence another person, he is their spring of grace and their source of power. Being reminded of this reality encourages us to pray, which makes prayer a vital element of loving someone according to season. We always can and always should pray for people, of course, but when we can’t be with them physically and when their lives involve dynamics that we’re not as familiar with, it forces us to turn to the Lord in a more direct way. Paul was away from many of the churches whom he loved, yet he was always remembering them in his prayers. “I do not cease to give thanks for you” (Eph 1:16). “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy” (Phil 1:3-4). “And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you” (Col 1:9). “We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers” (1 Thess 1:2). “I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day” (2 Tim 1:3). “For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you” (Rom 1:9-10).

In Part 3, we’ll look at five more characteristics of school breaks and their effects on college students in order to be better prepared to minister effectively to the college students we love.

– See “Caring for College Students through the Breaks (Part 1)

Gunner Gundersen serves as Director of Student Life, shepherding the residential community and commuter students and overseeing residence life, activities, programs, and student organizations. Gunner and his wife Cindi have four children. Before coming to Boyce, Gunner served for eight years as a Resident Director and Associate Dean of Men at The Master’s College.

by David Gunner Gundersen, Director of Student Life

After ten years in Christian college ministry, I operate in semesters. My year starts in August, breaks for Christmas, relaunches in January, and finishes in May with caps and gowns. The rhythm is palpable.

One unique element of college ministry is the breaks. For faculty and staff, breaks can mean many things: power-packed winter courses, extra time for projects, quiet sidewalks and hallways, next-semester preparation and planning. For students and student leaders, breaks hold both opportunities and challenges: family visits, seasonal jobs, financial wonderings, old temptations, new opportunities, unstructured schedules, brief mission trips, and rest and relaxation.

In the Student Life department, our staff has been thinking about how to love and care for our students through the winter break. I’ll share some of those principles and dynamics over the next couple weeks. I trust they’ll bear some degree of relevance for anyone who longs to love well and wisely.

Seasonal Love

Consider the phrase “seasonal love.” It could have two very different meanings. “Seasonal love” could mean “love expressed at one time but not others.” Or it could mean “love expressed according to the season.” The first meaning implies inconsistency — “I love you at some times but not others.” But the second meaning implies awareness and sensitivity, love with contours and nuances — “I love you all the time but with different expressions based on different times, needs, and circumstances.”

This second meaning of “seasonal love” is essential for full-orbed interpersonal ministry. Consider a long-term friendship. How have you loved each other? You’ve supported each other through physical injuries or medical uncertainty or chronic pain. You’ve corrected each other, along with asking and offering forgiveness. You’ve given and received counsel. You’ve offered tangible help and you’ve been given tangible help. You’ve laughed and rejoiced together, and you’ve wept and endured burdens together. You’ve seen different seasons come and go, and you’ve expressed love and support in unique ways through each of them.

Seasons of College Life

One of the challenges of college life is the inconsistency and diversity of the seasons. Here at Boyce, the school year starts in August or September. You have 3½ months of intense academic work, a part-time job, a local church, a quilted-together schedule, lots of scriptural input, all in a community where you’re surrounded by believers of the same age (and same gender in the dorms). There are different mini-seasons within these 3½ months, but they come and go quickly, and the semester closes with a grueling march toward Finals Week. Then you have lengthy intermissions — winter break and summer break. Your life can change drastically. Your academic responsibilities are jammed into voluntary week-long sessions. You have to find a new job or go back to an old job. You visit home and deal with the blessings and challenges of long-standing family relationships — happy memories, refreshing traditions, trusted relationships; along with old patterns, scarred relationships, brewing conflicts, and needed conversations.

What does all of this mean for the professor, staff member, college pastor, old youth worker, or local church family wanting to minister to college students?

We want to match the diverse seasons of college life with equally diverse expressions of love that suit each season, and we want to meet the inconsistency of college life with a contrastingly consistent love that holds true through each season.

In the days to come, as winter break arrives for myriads of college students around the country, I’ll share ten reflections on how to care for college students through the breaks.

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Gunner Gundersen serves as Director of Student Life, shepherding the residential community and commuter students and overseeing residence life, activities, programs, and student organizations. Gunner and his wife Cindi have four children. Before coming to Boyce, Gunner served for eight years as a Resident Director and Associate Dean of Men at The Master’s College.