Shape the Future: Equipping the Next Generation of Ministry Leaders

Step into the heart of theological education and ministry preparation in Episode 4 of the All of Life podcast. This episode unveils Oklahoma Baptist University’s exciting launch of its Master of Divinity (MDiv) program, designed to equip students for faithful and impactful ministry.

Host Niccole Hall is joined by Dr. Matt Emerson, OBU’s Provost and Dean of Theology, Arts, and Humanities, and Dr. Brandon Smith, Chair of the Herschel H. Hobbs School of Theology and Ministry. Together, they share the vision behind the new MDiv program, emphasizing its commitment to biblical depth, theological faithfulness, and practical ministry experience.

Listeners will hear how OBU’s MDiv program is uniquely positioned to serve students—especially those in Oklahoma—by offering a robust theological education while keeping them connected to local ministry opportunities. The discussion highlights the program’s affordability, hands-on learning approach, and flexible formats, including fully online, traditional on-campus, and an accelerated five-year BA-to-MDiv pathway.

Dr. Emerson and Dr. Smith also explore the importance of character formation in ministry, the real-world challenges of pastoring, and how OBU’s strong ties with churches across the state create a rich environment for students to gain meaningful, practical experience. Whether through pulpit supply, internships, or mentorships, students are being prepared not just to understand theology—but to live it out in their communities.

If you’re discerning a call to ministry or passionate about theological education, this episode is packed with insights on how OBU’s MDiv program is shaping the next generation of church leaders.

Join us for this inspiring conversation about ministry, education, and living All of Life, All for Jesus. Listen now!

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Transcript

Niccole Hall: Okay, welcome to our all of life podcast. In today's episode, we are very excited to be talking about Oklahoma Baptist University and the launching of our Master of Divinity program. In this episode, we will be exploring how an MDiv program will prepare our students. To become future ministers who can live all of life, all for Jesus.

And we're very excited to have with us today, Dr. Matt Emerson and Dr. Brandon A little bit about our guests: Dr. Matthew Emerson is the co provost, dean of theology arts and humanities, Floyd K. Clark, chair of Christian leadership. and professor of religion at OBU. He earned a bachelor's degree from Auburn University and an MDiv and PhD from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Emerson joined the OBU faculty in 2015. Emerson has authored or co-authored over 20 publications. His research interests include the Old Testament's use in the New Testament, early Christian interpretation, and theological method. He serves as co-executive director of the Center for Baptist Renewal, co-editor of the Journal of Baptist Studies, steering committee member of the Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar, and senior fellow for the Center of Ancient Christian Studies.

He is also a member of a number of scholarly societies and blogs at Biblical Reasoning. Emerson and his wife, Alicia, are both from Huntsville, Alabama, married in 2006. They have five daughters. Dr. Brandon Smith is chair of the Herschel H. Hobbs School of Theology and Ministry, associate professor of theology and early Christianity, Dickinson chair of religion and MA director at OBU.

He joined the faculty after spending nearly five years as a professor at Cedarville University. Previously, he served in various pastoral roles for over a decade. oversaw editorial and marketing for the Christian Standard Bible Translation and served as director of communications and associate editor for the Criswell Theological Review at Criswell College.

He also helped found the Center for Baptist Renewal and hosts the Church Grammar Podcast. His research interests include the Trinity, Canonical and Theological Interpretation. And patristic theology.

Smith earned a BA in Biblical Studies from Dallas Baptist University, an MA in Theological and Biblical Studies from Criswell College, and a PhD in Theology from Ridley College in Melbourne. He is the author of numerous books, book contributions and journal articles. His books include the Trinity and the Book of Revelation, the Biblical Trinity and Taught by God.

He and his wife Krista are textpats and have four children, Harper, Emma, Amelia, and Knox. We are so happy to have you guys here today. Thank you for joining us. 

Dr. Matt Emerson: Is this the right place to do horns down or should we do that later on? Maybe. 

Niccole Hall: I don't know. I don't know. I thought you guys were friends. 

Dr. Matt Emerson: We are.

We try to be. 

Niccole Hall: Okay. So welcome to our podcast. Super excited about this Master of Divinity program. Just to set the stage a little bit for our listeners. OBU's mission has obviously always centered on nurturing faithful leaders for service and just we want them to go out living all of life, all for Jesus, all of our students.

But could you share a bit about the vision behind launching this new Master of Divinity program at this point in time and how really launching this reflects OBU's commitment to preparing students for impactful ministry beyond the university? 

Dr. Matt Emerson: So, I think I'll start by just giving some historical context.

When Dr. Thomas came as Dean of the College of Theology and Ministry, uh, Hance Dilbeck was our executive director, uh, or soon became our executive director in, in Oklahoma and Hance had a vision for strengthening our churches and basically, homegrown Oklahoma pastors who are equipped to serve in those churches.

And so, one of the things that Dr. Thomas and I have both seen during our time here since 2015 is that when we have students who come to OBU for ministry training in the undergraduate space and then go on to a sister institution elsewhere in the United States, what often happens is they don't return to Oklahoma.

And so one of the major motivating factors in us even considering an MDiv was making sure that we can keep Oklahoma students in Oklahoma to become Oklahoma pastors. And of course there are pastors in Oklahoma who aren't from Oklahoma and we want to serve them too. We want to serve students who aren't from Oklahoma, but really one of the initial conversations that we had was all about helping our Oklahoma churches and equipping our Oklahoma students called to ministry. And I'm sure there's more Brandon wants to say too. 

Dr. Brandon Smith: Yeah. And what we do, and we do have students who will tell us, you know, I don't want to have to go to another state to go to seminary.

I don't necessarily want to do seminary online. I would love to stay here and serve in the church I'm at and continue to be at OBU. And so that's another motivation is a lot of our students want to stay in the state. They want to stay here at OBU and we want to give them opportunities to be able to do that.

Niccole Hall: Awesome. So the new master of divinity stands alongside our broader calling really to equip leaders with faith and academic excellence. How do you think that this initiative will continue to shape graduates? Like you're saying, our undergraduates will stay. How will this shape them and really transform communities from here in Oklahoma?

Dr. Brandon Smith: Yeah, one of our, one of our motivations is we have a really, really strong theology, Bible, and ministry faculty. And so, we feel like our students are getting the education they need in their undergrad. In fact, I think they're getting a very good education. At times, they go to seminary and feel like, “Oh, I've heard a lot of this already,” because we have a really strong program.

And so we want to be able to continue to give them opportunities to study with us to stay with us. Like we said, one of the things about the MDiv that we really want to. offer that maybe we're not doing as much as we'd like to right now is more practical ministry opportunity, more chances to serve in the church, more chances to be around practitioners.

We have some of that in our undergrad program, but something about our MDiv that would be unique and that would be helpful is making sure that they have plenty of experience in churches so that when they leave here, They feel like they can go and do ministry. They've had experience. They've spent time with pastors and churches that we trust.

And so that'll help continue to shape them. Not just the academic stuff they're getting in the classroom, which is very important, but being able to actually put that into practice in ways that we can't replicate in the classroom. 

Dr. Matt Emerson: Yeah, I would just add briefly, and I'm sure we'll say this again, but our vision in Hobbs is for all of our degrees to be biblically rooted, theologically faithful, practically relevant.

So we want our students to learn and know and understand their Bibles. And we want everything that we teach to be from scripture. We want them to understand faithful theology and what it means to be a faithful theologian in light of what scripture teaches us. And then, you know, it's not just a tagline,

we really do want everything we say and do in our classes to be translatable and connected to what's happening in real life in the context of a local church. And so, I mean, we'll get into a lot of this as we go on, but there are a lot of motivating factors. You've heard growing healthy churches. You've heard Brandon talk about our students wanting to continue to study with us.

He mentioned the desire to see people in ministry contexts. learning on the ground while they're participating in these educational courses. And, and I would just add also a motivating factor is we want to continue to offer that same kind of education, emphasizing Bible theology and ministry at the undergraduate and graduate level, because our students are looking for

a pathway from undergrad to grad in a sort of basically as little time as possible. And it's not because they just want to get in and get out, it's because they're looking at the financial aspect and seeing the most financially responsible thing for me to do is to find a place where I can have a pathway where everything counts towards this end goal, which is both a bachelor's and master's degree.

So there's a lot really motivating this, uh, this decision and this adding this degree. And it really revolves around offering our students, uh, that education in Bible theology and ministry. 

Niccole Hall: That's awesome. So can you talk a little bit about some things that might make our MDiv program unique beyond other programs that are out there?

Dr. Brandon Smith: I think I mentioned a little bit about the practical ministry side of it as something we really have talked a lot about a really leaning into, um, you know, again, we have a really strong faculty that have PhDs in their fields that have extensive experience in their fields, and so we feel like we have the faculty to be able to give students what they need.

At the same time, making sure again, that they get that practical ministry experience out in the church. So, um, that, that will look like practicums that'll look like conferences that'll look like partnering with churches that are in our area and beyond, uh, even in other states at times if needed.

There's a lot of different options that we have for them there. Uh, We also want to make sure that they're getting a lot of exposure to a lot of different types of ministry. So we, uh, they can go preach at a smaller church and go to a bigger church. They can go to a church in the city and a church in a rural area.

And being kind of near Oklahoma City, we just have a lot of opportunities to send them to all kinds of different churches to get a lot of experiences. And so that's something that we want to make sure we're really doing, make sure that we have them attached to a local church, attached to mentors and things like that, so that,

again, it's not just the book knowledge, although that's important, but really making sure that we're emphasizing all the practical experience. 

Dr. Matt Emerson: In the state of Oklahoma, I think that makes what Brandon is saying, even more unique. I often tell people that I meet across the country who ask about how is it in Oklahoma?

You know, they're, they're in different state conventions, they're in different contexts. And what I always tell people is Oklahoma, in my opinion, has the greatest Baptist Convention in the country. And part of the reason for that is that we're a smaller state. And so everybody knows everybody that's in the ministry field.

And what that means is that, you know, as Brandon is talking about you know, we can, uh, place students in practicum contexts that are in small churches or large churches or parachurch ministries, or, you know, preaching context or whatever it, part of what makes OBU's degree in ministry unique, both at the bachelor's level and the master's level is that we have the relational

connections, friendships, right? It's not just connections that we have friendships with ministry leaders, pastors around our state to be able to say, “Hey, we have a student who is pursuing their MDiv. They need this many hours in a mentorship situation. Can you help us find something for them? This is their skillset.

This is their personality. Do you know where they might fit?” And of course all of our institutions nationally have those same kind of connections, but this is local. Right? I mean, you can drive from one side of the Oklahoma to the other. I mean, if you start in Guymon, maybe not, but you know, you can drive from one side of the Oklahoma to the other in a shorter amount of time.

And that means that our students have more opportunities, not just to be in practical ministry, but to be in places that we know and trust and can build relationships with or have relationships with. And I really think that is a unique part of this is even if you're not from Oklahoma coming to Oklahoma, seeing the the kind of camaraderie that exists between the pastors in our state, the partnership that we have with OBU as a state institution, and then being able to use that kind of network to place students in appropriate places to get that practical ministry experience, both at the undergrad and grad level.

I think that is a pretty unique environment to come and study in. 

Dr. Brandon Smith: Yeah, I've told, I've told prospective students and parents, you know just as the chair of Hobbs, Matt has this experience as Dean, we have so many churches that reach out to us to reach out to us and say, give us your students. We need internships.

We've got a youth pastor position. We've got a, we need somebody just to pulpit supply for three months. And so I always tell them if you, if you are just a very practical, if you want to get a job in the church, be prepared to go and actually go. we have more than enough opportunities, right? And with Oklahoma being a tight knit convention and state that helps a lot too.

Like you said, I mean, I've been here just over a year and I know pastors from all over the state already, you know, that I can reach out to and that reach out to us. And so there's that side of, you know, when we talk about the, the practical ministry experience. We really can deliver on that because we have the friendships and relationships and the capacity to do those kind of things. 

Niccole Hall: really is important when you think about just meeting needs, talk to us a little bit about the format.

So I know there are, you know, you can be fully online. You can be completely traditional on campus. And then a little, there's maybe one other way. Is it an accelerated five-year program? Talk to me a little bit about the format. The formats for the program. 

Dr. Brandon Smith: Yeah. So, so overall the program is 72 hours, um, 18 hours of Bible, 18 hours, theology, 18 hours, ministry, and 18 hours electives.

So again, going back to the biblically rooted, theologically faithful, practically relevant, we want to make sure that it's a well rounded education, that students get everything that they, that they need for ministry. We have an elective section there for more practical ministry to write a thesis, all kinds of different kind of unique ways we can do education with them.

That's kind of, that's kind of how it's set up in general. So we have an online version of that that can be done fully online in eight weeks at a time, uh, throughout the year. So that's for students who are maybe a little too far to drive to campus or, or, you know, for somewhere else, for whatever reason.

We also have a traditional, so you can do the entire thing in person. We have, uh, grad classes and, and, uh, stacked classes that are undergrad grad, and we're doing some advanced topic seminars and things like that. So if somebody lives close or wanted to move to Shawnee, we would be able to do that fully in person with our faculty.

And then, uh, we're really excited about a five-year BAM div option, which is really going to be a lot of our students. Again, they come here and they've. Take our four year program. It's really intense. It's really rigorous. Our faculty again are all experts in their fields, which is not always the case. So they get that kind of experience.

So when they leave and go somewhere, uh, like I said, oftentimes they kind of feel like, man, “I've heard a lot of this before.” So with us having a rigorous program with really good faculty in five years, we can, you know, Matt mentioned it being shorter. We're not giving up robust education. We're not making, we're not watering it down,

what we're doing is taking our strengths. And bringing them together and saying, you don't have to go somewhere and be bored for two years. You can, and it's no offense to our other seminaries. It's just that seminary, the MDiv is sometimes built for people who don't have a Bible background.

Uh, our students do. And so we can give them a really rigorous accelerated program to where they can stay here, stay with us, be prepared and not feel like they have to leave and go somewhere else. 

Dr. Matt Emerson: Yeah. I think one of the things I haven't, um, mentioned yet that maybe we'll get to in more detail is just, especially with the BA to MDiv option, where a student is starting at the undergrad level and then moving all the way through the graduate setting,

one of the things that distinguishes OBU's, ministry degrees, whether at the undergrad or grad level, but especially if you're going all the way from undergrad through grad is that we are situated in the context of kind of the great tradition of Christian education, where a student is not just going to get a Bible and theology and ministry at what you might call a Bible college setting, but they're going to study those things in the context of a larger university where there are multiple full-time faculty in the, the classical disciplines. uh, They're, they're going to be trained in what we call the liberal arts,

they're going to, they're going to have to have a holistic view of the world by people who are, again, as Brandon said before, PhDs in their field. Um, and so, you know, I think that's unique. I think it's unique to study ministry. in the context of studying with others who are studying, you know, different disciplines other than Bible theology ministry.

It's one thing to study Bible theology ministry with all Bible theology ministry folks. It is different and it's not a better or worse thing. Right? But it's different to study those things in the context of a Christian liberal arts setting where you're being asked to understand, uh, your own context in light of global and Western context, where you're being asked to understand how you read scripture in light of learning about various things from our English faculty or our history faculty or our communication studies faculty.

It's just different. It's a different educational context. And I think, you know, our emphasis at the undergraduate level especially on helping students understand their place, especially in the Western tradition, is something that carries through as they take that into the graduate level. So these are just, these are, these are different,

it's not better or worse, but, you know, we keep coming back to what's different. That's very different than what you might get, uh, at a Bible college or seminary, where the focus is almost exclusively on Bible theology ministry. And, and to put this really practically. Because some people will say, okay, whatever, Western tradition, liberal arts, fine,

I care deeply about those things, but maybe somebody else doesn't. How does that translate to real life? Well, very practically. In real life, if you're called to be a pastor or a student pastor or a worship leader, uh, a missions minister, whatever at a local church, the people in your church are not going to be just people who also have studied Bible theology and ministry.

The people that you are pastoring, ministering to teaching. working to build relationships with, they're going to be engineers and doctors and lawyers and musicians and teachers and nurses and journalists, etc, etc, etc. So very practically speaking, even if you don't want to have the conversation about liberal arts in the Western tradition, very practically speaking studying at the undergrad and then grad level with people who are in different disciplines than you is a distinct way that we prepare people for ministry

that you're not necessarily going to get at a different kind of institution than us. You're going to be prepared to minister to people that will be in your seats. In the churches to which God calls you. So I think those are some unique things about what we're trying to do. 

Niccole Hall: Well, we always have to talk about affordability That's one of those questions that I’m sure you guys get asked and everyone on a university campus get asked but um as far as being a significant concern for a prospective student How do you believe OBU is addressing this with the MDIV program?

Are there things that we're doing to kind of try and make it a little more affordable?

Dr. Matt Emerson: Yeah, so again, I'll just address the MDiv first by itself and then really want to talk again about BA to MDIV. So the MDIV is priced really competitively. You can see on, on the website when it's up, um, we're at $350

a credit hour for that program. If you look around at various institutions and what their price is, that's it's highly competitive in terms of pricing. Also no fees. No fees. So no application fee. I can't remember all the different fees, but there are not any fees. No hidden fees, as the credit card companies try to tell us.

There's a thing though. No hidden fees. I mean, I have kids in college and there's lots of hidden fees at different schools. 

Dr. Matt Emerson: So $350 a credit hour straight up. And, you know, especially if you do the BA to MDiv or if you transfer hours from another program, the price is going to be even less than what that total would be for the whole 72 hours.

The other thing I'd say is, you know, especially again in the BA to MDIV situation, uh, for our undergraduate students in Bible theology, ministry and philosophy, uh, and missions, we have a very generous scholarship that was given a long time ago, the Pritchard scholarship. And we're able to, in addition to OBU and federal aid, uh, we're able to scholarship every single student who comes in at a rate of $3,500 a year

at this point. And then they also receive if they participate in either a missions fellowship or ministry alliance program, another $1,000. So talking about almost $5,000, just to study theology and ministry, Bible theology, ministry, we're giving to students. So, if you combine the price, uh, that we can help you get to with scholarships from Pritchard at the undergraduate level, plus saving time with the BA to MDiv, plus the very competitive price of the MDIV

it is highly affordable to come to OBU to study Bible theology ministry. And to do that all the way through from BA to MDiv, we're going to save you time and we're going to save you money. And in doing so, we're going to deliver an exceptional quality education. 

Dr. Brandon Smith: Yeah. I'd say too, when you're thinking about the five year program, students will take up to 24 hours of what we call integrated courses, which are basically grad level courses you're taking as an undergrad.

And you get to apply all of your undergrad financial aid and scholarships to those classes, which you usually aren't able to do. Grad school is always hard because you're basically paying out of pocket. You might get a scholarship. And you're taking out loans typically and that's for a lot of hours.

As Matt was mentioning. So even the, the opportunity to take a lot of those hours with your undergraduate financial aid, with Pell grants and scholarships and whatever else come with that, that's a really good way of, of again, accelerating while taking grad level stuff while saving money. It's kind of the best of all worlds.

Niccole Hall: yeah. Or if you're married, I'm thinking about, you know, a lot of them have done the ring by spring, you know, you got your ministers that are married. And so that's. That's, that's difficult as well if they're going, you know, moving to a seminary.

Dr. Brandon Smith: We have graduate housing that's very affordable as well for students who are grad students

and married and things like that.

Niccole Hall: I know balancing ministry with family roles can be extremely difficult. Are there different resources or support systems in Shawnee, in this area that OBU provides that helps? Would help a family. Let's say there's a couple and they're wanting to, um, do the MDiv program, but it's difficult, you know, now you've got a family, maybe you're in married housing,

What does that look like? 

Dr. Brandon Smith: A couple of things I think of off the top of my head is one, OBU is in many ways a small community. Everybody knows everybody on campus. I mean, I always tell students you can get to know your professors as well as you want to. You can make friends as much as you want to.

I mean, you kind of have to try not to make friends and have community. So we have that. Obviously, like I said, we have campus housing. Where grad students could come and be on campus and be part of the community. So they're not living in an apartment 15, 20 minutes away if they don't have to.

We have, we have great churches in town that care about college students that care about young adults, tons of opportunities for that. And I think there's just kind of a good community feel that we have even in Shawnee, right? Shawnee is 30,000 people. So it's not huge, but it's not the middle of nowhere, right?

It's kind of got everything you need in terms of churches and opportunities to go hang out and have friends while also being kind of a smaller community where you can really get to know people. 

Dr. Matt Emerson: I'm going to butcher all the names of these places, but there are also, um, different businesses that help, uh, families who are struggling.

So in Shawnee, we have pregnancy centers that will help with babies clothes.

In addition to the community market, there's a food pantry at OBU that regularly sends out notices, Hey, this is available for students. So, I mean, there's a number of support systems in place in the broader community as well, but plugging into a local church, plugging into the OBU community, and then taking advantage of those resources can help families.

Niccole Hall: That's awesome. Okay, a little bit about ministry being lived out day to day, the realities of serving others, that's, that you've taught, you've touched on these things. Do you believe that OBU's MDiv program will equip students with not just the theological foundation, but practical skills? You've already really said this.

Are there like, can you give an example of maybe like a real world connect? That our MDiv students would have. Is there like a particular ministry that you can think of in town?

Dr. Matt Emerson: Yeah, so I mean, I'll answer that in a few different ways. First of all, all of our professors know, in Hobbs, they know this is an emphasis for us.

So in terms, just in terms of content, right, people often say, they'll say, “man, I never learned that in seminary,” you know, and the idea, or, you know, Bible College, or at OBU, or whatever. And the idea is, There are things you can't learn in the classroom. And so, first of all, that's true. There are things that you cannot and will not learn in a classroom.

However, our professors all know, we really want to emphasize translating this stuff to local church context. So for instance, when we teach theology and we teach God's attributes, our theology professors are saying to our students, as you think about who God is, and for instance, that he does not change, That's going to really matter to the family who just heard that their child was diagnosed with a disease that they weren't expecting.

And for you to be able to say, “Listen, the Bible teaches that God doesn't change. So this is difficult, but you need to know God is good and He's in control and he hasn't changed. He was good before this. He's good. Now he's going to be good after this.” And I mean, there's very practical pastoral applications to theology to what we're doing in biblical studies to philosophy apologetics people are leaving the faith for a false religions all the time right pastors need to know how to help their students think through those things so that content wise,

I think it's important to say even in the classroom, even without these practicum classes, we're trying to connect the dots for our students. However, there are things you can't learn in seminary, in Bible college. Um, I tell the story all the time. I'll try to keep it short. When I was in seminary, uh, I was in all these classes, but I started to serve on staff at a church and it was a really frustrating context.

And I kept after the pastor for six months. Why won't you just do something about this? Why won't you just do something about this? Why don't you just do something about this? And eventually he turned to look me in the eye and he said, “Matt, it's because I love these people.” In other words, he was willing to, and it wasn't an issue of sin or not confront.

He wasn't being a coward, but he was being patient and gentle with his flock. And you cannot learn how to love other people in a classroom. So we want to make sure that our students get out of the classroom as well and earn credit for that. Which is what Brandon was emphasizing earlier. So, you know, we want to do this both in the classroom and outside of the classroom.

And then we have some very specific classes that are required that make you get out of the classroom and into the field in that way. And the last thing I'll mention is we have agreements with different churches. We're trying to build more and more of these where if you're at a particular church and you have, uh, basically educationally, uh, approved

pastors or staff members at that church who can serve as a professor of record. We also have situations where students can earn credit by doing an internship at a church or by serving on in a staff position at a church. So we want to make, we want to make that connection explicit in different kinds of ways.

We want to do it in the classroom. We want to assign them classes in the curriculum that make them get out of the classroom and into churches. And we want to provide context where if they're on staff at a local church, if all the educational stuff lines up, then we can say, “Hey, you've met the requirement for this class.”

Dr. Brandon Smith: Yeah. We also care a lot about character formation of our ministers as well. I mean, we, we talk a lot when I have them all together at our majors assemblies or. when they're in our practical ministry classes or even our program that requires spiritual formation and these kinds of things. We care a lot about the character as well.

So there are things again, that you can learn in the classroom and you need to practice. But part of that gap sometimes is you get the practical experience and it's, here's how to preach a good sermon. Here's how to keep people's attention. And that's fine. I mean, that's good. But if you can keep people's attention and you can preach the paint off the walls, but you don't know how to love people,

I'll take the guy who's not as good of a preacher who loves people, you know, over the opposite. And so we focus a lot on that too. And part of that is going to be what we teach them. And part of that is going to be, like Matt said, being with a pastor who loves people, who says, “This is actually what it looks like to love people.”

And so we want to make sure that that character connection is really emphasized with them as well so that, uh, they can not burn out. They can not make mistakes in ministry. They can have a long, uh, successful ministry. And by successful, we mean loving Jesus and loving the church, not necessarily sides of church or anything else.

And so we emphasize that a lot too, to make sure that they have a good expectation for ministry and have the foundations built to do that. 

Niccole Hall: So we've talked a lot about how this program will. impact the students that are taking these classes and in the program. But how do you see this program and these students actually impacting the community, the communities around us, OBU?

I mean, I feel like that's going to be fantastic as well. 

Dr. Matt Emerson: Yeah. Brandon's mentioned a number of times, uh, that churches reach out to us for help, with pulpit supply, with, you know, “disciple now” weekends with all kinds of worship, leading all kinds of needs and filling staff positions. And the more students who are studying ministry here, the more we can help those churches,

including in our surrounding communities. I mean, Oklahoma, uh, and I don't have the stats off top it's like 4,500 churches and 90 percent of those are 250 and under or something like that. And, and they're mostly even smaller than that and they need help and not because we're doing something they can't do, but because they need help finding the right person to fill this spot or this pulpit or whatever.

And so, you know, we want to serve as kind of a hub for the Holy Spirit to work in equipping people for ministry and then for churches to reach out to us and send them out to ministry. Of course, there's other hubs and we're not the only one, right? But we want to help in that way, equipping and then sending.

Niccole Hall: Well, we're really thankful and excited about this program. So it's launching this year. Is that correct? This summer. Okay. Um, so just any last thoughts or things you want to share with listeners about this process? And I know you guys are both super excited about it, but it launches this summer.

Do you have students that are already. Like signed up for the program. What does that look like? 

Dr. Brandon Smith: We have, I don't know the number off the top of my head, but we have several students who have been part of our MA program who were like, please give us an MDiv, you know, who are like ready to jump in. We've got a ton of, I mean, I can think of seven or eight undergrads off the top of my head who are saying,

“I'm so glad you're doing this because I want to stay” as we talked about earlier and then we have prospective students, we're already starting to introduce this to you and say here's some options. And so I think we're not gonna have any issue finding people who need this and who care about this and so we're really excited about that, we'll have stuff on the website obviously and all those kind of things. But yeah, we're really excited to serve our state and serve the surrounding area.

Dr. Matt Emerson: I just want to say 

we have a lot of fun We've been really serious in this conversation, but, uh, as an example, this is the most 

Dr. Brandon Smith: serious you and I have ever in our lives, 

Dr. Matt Emerson: uh, especially together.

But Brandon texted me this morning. I was like, “Hey, we're going to video this podcast together. What are you, what are you wearing?” And I was like, “OBU pull over and khakis.” He's like, “all right.” So this happens when we don't try and it happened even we tried not to where we're both wearing the same polo underneath I knew I was 

Dr. Brandon Smith: wearing a different polo, and it's 

Dr. Matt Emerson: really silly.

So I mean maybe 

Niccole Hall: You guys have a lot of fun together. I mean that is a big we play 

Dr. Brandon Smith: nerf gun games on campus We do all kinds of fun stuff. It's fun place. I think 

Niccole Hall: that's a draw for sure. 

Dr. Matt Emerson: Yes, we’ll have fun, but we'll also be serious. 

Niccole Hall: One and one final question. If, if I'm a student, I'm discerning a call to ministry leadership,

what wisdom encouragement would you offer to a prospective student? And, um, you know, again, just sum up what you think OBU's MDiv program, how it will help people grow personally and professionally. 

Dr. Matt Emerson: I would just say, if He calls you, He's going to equip you. We want to be the place where you're equipped.

We will provide you with biblically rooted, theologically faithful, practically relevant, uh, equipping for ministry. And it's important that you get each of those things. There are things you can't learn in Bible college or seminary, but there are things that Bible college and seminary are the place to learn.

And to learn with others and for God to grow you, uh, in the midst of a community of believers who are, are pursuing the same goal, which is shepherding the flock of God that He's called them to shepherd and, and to minister to. If He's called you, He's gonna equip you. We want to equip you. 

Dr. Brandon Smith: Yeah. Yeah.

And we, we do plenty of conversations and talks with teenagers and people trying to figure out students on campus who show up as a nursing major and then they're like, maybe I'm called to ministry. We have these conversations all the time. So if you're feeling called to ministry and you've talked to your church and you have those kinds of things, I mean, reach out to us and talk to us.

We're happy to help you think through that. We've both been in pastoral ministry. We've, we've talked to students like this all the time. So if, even if you're just wondering and you want some advice, feel free to reach out to us. 

Dr. Matt Emerson: And that includes advice about affordability. We are a highly affordable place.

Dr. Brandon Smith: I often tell people do not let money be the reason you don't come unless you talk to us. So 

Niccole Hall: guys so much. Lots of insights on this new Master of Divinity program. We're happy to have you all and look forward to having you again soon where we hear about all of the great things going on with this program.

For our listeners, we hope you will remember that OBU is committed to accessible, practical and rigorous theological education. We've always been about that and we are still about that. so much. We are all about shaping the future and equipping our students to live all of life, all for Jesus. And if you have any questions about this Master of Divinity program or shaping the future at OBU, you can check us out on our website.

Thank you.