Welcome to Faith Meets Academia, Biblical Foundations for Scholarly Pursuits. I'm your host, Dr. Adrian Reynolds. Thanks for joining me on this transformational journey where the sacred and the scholarly converge.
As a university professor and ordained minister, I stand at the intersection of educational innovation and biblical wisdom. Are you tired of having to separate your spiritual calling from your academic profession? If so, you've found your community.
In this community, we use biblical principles to illuminate our scholastic endeavors. In this community, we leverage academic concepts and theories to magnify the reach and impact of our spiritual gifts. Yes, your faith and your scholarship can forge a mutually sustaining partnership.
I'm here to help you bridge the gap between your academic work and your spiritual journey.
Hey friends, thank you so much for joining this inaugural episode of Faith Meets Academia.
For many years, I've wanted to find an outlet for merging my spiritual journey with my academic journey on a much broader scale. An outlet for helping me to consistently use the Word of God to shape my professional growth, and also the reverse. Using the theories, concepts, constructs, and methods I have learned in academia to enhance the impact of my ministry and my calling.
I had been really thinking about this for quite some time.
Way too long, really.
I'll explain that journey in a few minutes. But before going further, let's define two key terms just to set the stage. When I speak of academia, I'm referring to the community of teaching, research, learning, knowledge creation and dissemination in the university or college setting.
And my use of the term faith refers to a set of spiritual beliefs and practices that shape one's worldview and one's moral framework. And to further clarify my focus for this podcast, I'd like to make a few key points here. This is not a forum for contentious religious or biblical discourse.
Certainly not. This podcast is not a battleground for apologetics, philosophical or theological debates.
No.
This podcast is not about exploring age-old existential questions about the nature of reality, what it means to be human, agency versus determinism and the like.
For those types of conversations, I'm sure there are many other podcasts out there that will entertain such a discourse.
Neither is this podcast about using my day job to be crystal clear. It's not about using my day job as a platform for proselytizing or spreading my religious beliefs. Here's the central question this podcast answers.
How can I bridge this false dichotomy between my spiritual life and my academic life? That is, how can the two complement each other?
If you are an educator, teacher, instructor, or professor, looking for some answers to these questions, then you are listening to the right podcast.
As a learning coach, I help students and trainees or resident physicians learn how to learn in the domain of medical education. In other words, I teach them how to use research-based study strategies to master medical knowledge and clinical reasoning skills. My discipline as an academician is the science of learning, which is under the umbrella of the social sciences, if you will.
Over time, you will hear more about my academic background.
I am not going to read off my CV to you right now.
In another realm, as an ordained minister and disciple of the teachings and doctrine of Jesus Christ, I've identified over time so many parallels between my faith and my academic work.
Mutually informing ideas around those two.
And making this type of connection is traditionally not the focus of your weekly rituals or traditions in your respective places of worship, you might admit. So guess what?
This podcast will fill that void.
From Lev Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of cognitive development, to Jack Masero's transformative learning theory, to Engestrom's cultural historical activity theory, to Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences theory, to Benjamin Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. These can all be used, as odd as it sounds, to fuel our faith. We can use these kinds of frameworks as lenses through which we elevate and illuminate our understanding of the role of critical self-reflection, diverse abilities, collaborative or community engagement, questioning and self-evaluation, and fostering a more holistic, inclusive approach to our spiritual and professional growth.
An approach that leads to a more fulfilling life, I believe. Through these theoretical lenses, we can appreciate the nuanced interplay between the individual and the communities of practice and systems in which they live and work. Consider this.
After your 40 or 60-hour work week, why is it, my fellow educators and followers of Christ believers, after all those hours, why is it that at the end of the week, so often we still feel empty, drained, unfulfilled?
Well, here's why.
Let me break it down.
Paul says in Romans 8, 28, and we know that all things work together for good to.
Them that love God, and to them who are the called according to his purpose. So yes, you love God, yes, you have been called, appointed, predestined to fulfill his purpose for you on this earth, but there's a piece that you're probably missing. It's in that first clause, all things work together for good.
Herein friends, herein lies the gap.
Things might be working for you, but they're not working together. Let me say that again. Yes, things might be working for you, but the question is, are they working together?
In your quest to strike that work-life balance, where is God in the equation? Or, how much God is in the equation? When my work-life and my spiritual life are in harmony, it makes for quite an enriching interaction.
So, for instance, when I'm in a coaching session with a student who says, I'm a horrible test-taker.
It's always been that way. Guess what? In my mind, here's what's happening.
Philippians 4.13 rushes to my mind with a reminder that, hey, I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
Of course, I'm not quoting scriptures in a coaching session, but that scripture is fueling my thoughts, and it excites me.
But not only that, right? There's another scripture that comes to mind here. I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me, but only if I'm first transformed by the renewing of my mind, as Paul says in Romans 12.2.
Which then takes me back to Mesero's theory of transformational learning, before transitioning me to Carol Dweck's theory of fixed versus growth mindset.
In those moments for me, there's really no difference between Philippians 4.13 and the construct of growth mindset.
They're both mutually informing. So, then, I begin to exist in this space of harmony between the scriptures and these theories.
It's really a great feeling.
Let me say this as a side note.
Whether Carol Dweck agrees or disagrees that her theory is in line with the Word of God is inconsequential.
Because I just know it is.
These theoretical frameworks and scriptures really allowed me in that very same moment, in that example of this student who had that fixed mindset belief around test taking. These scriptures allowed me to identify or name the learner's attitude toward test taking as one of fixed mindset, and drove me to use evidence-based practical strategies to guide them toward a growth mindset that says, hey, I got this.
Can-do attitude, if you will.
And yes, this blending of the spiritual and the academic allowed me to accurately, quote-unquote, diagnose the learning challenge, not labeling the learner as the problem, as is sometimes done, but naming the mindset, the approach, the strategy. In that instance, there was a seamless intersection between educational psychology and biblical wisdom.
And this is empowering, it's quite energizing. And this is why I do the work that I do.
For me, my day job is not just an academic exercise, it's my calling. Colossians 3, 23 and 24 says, And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, with all your might, give it all you've got.
As to the Lord and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord, ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ.
Now, let's go back to a point I made earlier about ruminating over this decision to take my message to a broader audience. As I had mentioned, I was really thinking about this for a while.
But I got trapped into what they call analysis paralysis.
Yeah, you might have been there, too.
Overthinking the situation to the point that no final decision is made, or at least for a long time, and hence no real action is taken toward the outcome or the goal; or, the outcome might just never be achieved. You just kind of give up after a while because you got stuck in that rut.
And yes, a flood of questions started to emerge regarding my making this decision, this decision to take this next big leap to take my message to a broader audience. Well, what form would this take? Would I publish my content on a YouTube channel? Would it be a local radio station? Should it be a podcast? If I go the podcast route, should I have two podcasts, one that's faith-based and then the other that's focused around my academic work? Oh, well, how would people respond to this? How much time is this going to take?
After all, hey, I'm a working husband, I'm a father, I'm a minister with two kids in homeschool, da da da. You know, I really spiral down that path just overthinking this decision.
Hear this.
Would you believe that this idea, this urge to reach a larger listening audience beyond my local church congregation, has been in the making for about nine years. Let me say that again. For about nine years, close to a decade.
That's a long time.
I have the emails to prove it.
In 2015, I went back a few days ago. I checked.
In 2015, I reached out to a local radio station, which shall be nameless, no free advertising.
I reached out to a local radio station.
I got the prices, the time slots.
I had all the information I would need to get started.
What happened? Well, it's evident what happened.
Nothing.
I never acted on that information.
Well, why didn't I act on that information?
I could think of a million excuses as to what held me back.
But guess what, friends?
God already knows all the old, tired excuses that I could come up with.
And I thought to myself, you know what?
God isn't looking for my excuses anymore.
I mean, not that he ever was, but he's looking for my excuses.
He's looking for my commitment to my purpose.
How committed am I to my purpose?
So, okay, fast forward from 2015 to 2019.
You know, I was teaching a group of high schoolers in my intro to Science of Learning course, and one of the students, you know, in the middle of the lesson, one of the students said, you know, Dr. Reynolds, you should go big with this. Speaking of all the study and learning strategies, you know, I was introducing to them. Yeah, the learner said, you know, Dr. Reynolds, you should go big with this.
I kind of thought to myself, huh, you know, maybe I should, but you know, how?
And, you know, then, I mean, of course, not in that moment, but, you know, after the lesson was over, I just kind of smiled and, you know, after the lesson was over, you know, I started thinking about that comment the student made and, again, just really overthinking and just setting up a bunch of obstacles for myself, basically really getting in my own way of moving forward, right?
It gets better.
The story gets better.
About two years ago, 2022, I actually created an outline for the show that I wanted to pitch to that local radio station.Yeah, the radio station that I had reached out to and, you know, got all the information.
In 2022, I created an outline for that show. So in seven years, in essence, in seven years, I went from gathering the information I needed to get the show off the ground to mapping out the show itself.
That's a lot of progress in seven years, right?
You know, if I should really hold myself accountable.
And, you know, over the years, people have asked, do you have a YouTube channel?
Do you have a podcast? Are you on this? That, that, that.
I started thinking, well, maybe I should have some something out there on one of those platforms.
Then something else happened.
My dad, you know, he visited my local church some time ago and he said, you know, after hearing my sermon, he said, this needs to be on TV.
I mean, I don't know if I'm going to get there.
I mean, I'm doing the podcast right now.
You know, we'll see what happens.
But, you know, he said with this big, wide, bright smile on his face, you know, he was just so proud of his little son.
You know, he said this needs to be on TV.
And last year, on October 27th, 430 in the morning, my dad passed away. He was 82 years old. I regretted the fact that he never saw his wish come to pass because I spent almost 10 years overthinking this.
And so guess what, friends?
Right now, in this moment, as I'm speaking to you, I have decided I'm not waiting another 10 years to commit to what I'm doing right now in this moment, taking my message, my mission, to a broader audience. Now note that I said regretted. I regretted the fact that that never saw my taking this message to the next level.
I say regretted. Simple past tense. Not regret.
Because I refuse to live in a state of regret. I'm moving forward. And I'm using this avenue, this podcast, to help me do that.
So this is how I reframed the situation. I thought to myself, you know, Adrian, someone out there is waiting to hear this.
And your delay is just one more obstacle for them.
Yeah, sometimes we have to really be hard on ourselves, right?
Yeah, sometimes you really do.
Someone is waiting to hear this and your delay is just one more obstacle for them.
Don't be the cause of their setback, of their obstacle.
Be the cause of their progress. So, Dad's passing resulted in much critical self-reflection that helped me move closer toward launching this podcast, but I still had more work to do to pull myself out of that self-defeating rut of overthinking and going big with this, as my student advised.
So, I meditated on this a little bit more, and I had another aha moment. Are you ready to hear it? Yeah.
Here's the revelation that came to me.
You can spend another 10 years planning for perfection, or you can spend another 10 years making a bigger impact. You can spend another 10 years planning for perfection, or you can spend another 10 years making a bigger impact. People aren't looking for perfection.
They're looking for the real you, and that's what I'm bringing to you.
So back to my earlier question, the million dollar question, as they say, why didn't I launch this program like almost 10 years ago? The easy answer would be, well, it was the analysis paralysis, or it was because of perfectionism, or it really wasn't about any of that per se. It wasn't a lack of motivation, it wasn't a lack of confidence, it wasn't about any of those things.
I thought about this long and hard. I gave this a lot of thought, like you're just seeing the result, you're just hearing the result of my thinking through this, but I've really thought about this.
It was much deeper than that.
And working through the root cause analysis, I had to really be straightforward and be straightforward and be vulnerable and candid with my own self and recognize that, you know, this long delay was the result of a much deeper issue.
You know what it was?
It was this four-letter word called fear, F-E-A-R, fear.
Yes, it was.
I discovered the fear factor.
And I'm going to tell you how this fear factor showed up for me.
Are you ready?
Check out my next episode to hear more.
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Together let's continue to explore this powerful intersection of faith and academia. Your support makes a big difference in building this community. And I must mention, if you're in need of prayer, feel free to submit a prayer request.
You can find the link in the show notes. How has fear gotten in the way of your progress? How has fear gotten in the way of your progress?
I'd love to hear your story.
You can send me an email at faithmeetsacademia.gmail.com. faithmeetsacademia.gmail.com God bless. Talk soon.”