Application Essays

I am applying to the Master of Arts in Global Leadership program at Fuller Theological Seminary. Here are the essays that I will be submitting with my application. Anybody who has the time, I would sure appreciate feedback!

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A. Reflect on your past Christian experience, including the most significant spiritual event/influence in your life, the role of Christ in your religious experience, the effect your faith has on your worldview, your involvement in Christian service, your perceived gifts/calling for ministry, and your reason(s) for attending your church.

Many people speak of faith in abstract terms or as something you pull out for the hard times, but for me, faith is a constant reality of relying on God. I've chosen to live my life in such a way that there has been no other option for me. Although I grew up in a Christian household, my walk with Christ took a very real turn for me in July 1998 at a youth camp when I decided to offer God my entire life. Prior to that, I had put off the decision, feeling like Christians never got to have any fun. I soon realized that my life as a Christian would be as adventurous as I allowed it to be.

Early on, God made it clear to me that He had my life in His control, but that He wasn't going to give me very much advance notice of anything or make it easy to rely on money. Each of my three summers during college really tested my faith. The first summer, I decided to do a discipleship training program with the Navigators. Having heavily relied on family and friends for three past international mission trips, I knew that God was calling me to pay for it myself. A similar thing happened the next summer, when I was planning on interning with my church when the budget was cut. I made the decision to continue with the job unpaid. The third summer, I hoped to return to Kenya and stay the entire summer with a team, but the team never materialized. I chose to go alone. Each of these three decisions had to be made at nearly the last minute, but each was incredibly rewarding. Since college, the trend has continued. It took two years after graduating to begin to earn a salary that covered my basic monthly expenses. My job change was also unexpected, but when the opportunity came it was clear that God had it planned for me. At every step of the way, I can have no doubt that God was in control.

My experiences in my life have really served to change my worldview. I have learned to see Christ in everything. I have had to work hard to know His voice and recognize it above the others. And my experiences traveling in Central and South America and Africa have continued to stretch my worldview to see the way that believers around the world see God. I have grown to love seeing different sides of God through the lenses of other cultures. I believe that I have a calling on my life for international service, but also for leadership and management. I also believe that God has called me to a higher level of holistic ministry. Fortunately, God has and is continuing to equip me for these callings, because I could never accomplish them on my own!

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B. Reflect on how attending Fuller Theological Seminary would complement your present Christian experience and/or help you to achieve your future professional and vocational goals.

God has called me to His ministry by an unusual road. As my church believed that every member was called to serve, I grew up involved in ministry but never had a vision for it being my life calling. In college, I studied business, not out of any desire to be a businessman, but out of a desire to learn skills that would be useful in any setting. It wasn’t until during college that I began to realize that God had planned for me to be in full-time ministry. For the past two years, since graduating, I have pursed full-time ministry out of a passion to see people’s lives changed, both spiritually and in more tangible ways. Now I recognize that my business education complements skills that God had already gifted me with in a way that I can be a leader in developing new methods of ministering to people around the world holistically.

However, due to my unusual path into ministry, I am now trying to find my role in ministry without any Biblical education. I have been in public schools my entire life and so the lack of formal Christian training has become an impediment to my career progress. Not only am I looked down upon by many, but I also recognize that I am lacking some of the essential training that I need to keep myself well-grounded in a life of ministry. Just as I was thrust into a role of leading a high school ministry suddenly in 2008 without any preparation or warning, I now find that in my life I have found myself in ministry without adequate preparation. My preparation has been purely experiential, from travelling around the world to working in ministry roles. If I am going to move forward with my calling, it is essential that I receive formal Christian education to complement my already-growing body of experience.

I am eager to begin my education at Fuller as soon as possible to learn about leadership in a global world, particularly from a Christian perspective. I had initially begun learning about international development from a secular university, but I soon realized that missing theological training was not God’s will. I then began to apply to a business program from a Christian university, but then realized that God has not called me to a life of business. God has called me to ministry, and I must follow Him! Therefore, I am applying to this global leadership program at Fuller, where I know that I will receive both the character, practical, and theological training to fulfill God’s plan. I believe that He is leading me toward a career of leadership in holistic ministry on a global scale, and thus I can think of no better program than the MAGL.

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Provide a resume listing your professional experience over the last 5 years. Please provide the name of the organization, title of your position, a brief description of duties, and years of employment.

My ministry experience began during the 2005-2006 school year with co-leading a Bible study and discipling several men. I spent the summer of 2006 working at my home church as an intern for the High School ministry. I helped lead a summer camp, a mission trip to Peru, and joined a team to Kenya. During the 2006-2007 school year I left the leadership team of the Navigators to be President of my dormitory and be part of an inter-ministry effort to reach my dorm. In the summer of 2007 I returned to Kenya and remained by myself working in a slum church, teaching a business seminar, and opening an income-generating water project. I continued as President of my dorm until graduating.

In February 2008 I took a job at my church as the High School Assistant but soon found myself responsible for the program when the youth minister abruptly left. I directed the program, a summer camp, and a mission trip until August, when I returned to my role as Assistant and also became an assistant to the Young Adults and Missions Ministries. I remained in that role until November when I accepted an offer to come to LINC North Texas, where I handle the finances and human resources. I am also part of our ministry efforts all over Dallas and Fort Worth, including networking, fundraising, helping with inner-city youth, and more. I have also stayed part of the project in Kenya, traveling back two more times since graduating and recently assisting with starting a nonprofit organization to sponsor the education of youth from the slums.

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Briefly evaluate your personal ministry, and identify perceived strengths and areas needing improvement. Please indicate what has prompted your interest in the Master of Arts in Global Leadership and how you hope the program will address this need.

My personal ministry is based first and foremost on people. As a naturally relational person, I lead through relationships and minister through relationships. People say that I am dependable and reliable, a good listener, and good at speaking to people's levels. However, I add to this relational focus a strong skill for administrative work. I am naturally good at managing things, planning things, and problem solving. This combination of strengths leads me to be an adept leader, manager, and hard worker at the same time. Combined with my varied passions, which include social justice, development, and anything international, my life has taken a turn toward finding the proper relationship between spiritual ministry and practical ministry. I do have plenty of weaknesses, of course, which include being overly independent, idealistic, and sometimes self-centered. I have struggled to find my role in teams, as my natural tendency is to either sit behind the scenes and work or take charge. I have been accused before of having trouble operating under authority and of being prideful. I believe that I am a very self-aware individual and that this allows me to see my weaknesses and work on them.

I am very interested in becoming a better leader. The emphasis on personal development and leadership training with a global focus attracted me to the MAGL program. I place a high value on being a lifelong learner and on continual self-improvement so I hope that this program will be part of propelling me toward greater opportunities personally and professionally. I believe that I am called to be a leader wherever I am and so I know that I need as much training as possible.

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What are the two biggest struggles facing the churches in your context?

As I am currently in a role where I work closely with many churches and experience many different types of churches, I believe that I get a good perspective of what the church culture is like. The biggest struggle facing churches that I work with in Dallas is to be outward-focused. Nearly all of the churches that I have experience with are focused on internal issues such as ministry styles, following traditions, and internal measures of success. This causes them to struggle to effectively outreach to their communities. With metrics such as Sunday attendance instead of real life change, they struggle to place an emphasis on reaching people outside the church and ministering to their deeper needs. It also causes churches to struggle to cooperate with other nearby churches as they are competing to be the biggest, best, and most self-sufficient.

The second biggest problem facing the churches in my context is related to the first: it is the challenge of being multicultural. Nearly all churches are essentially monocultural - not only are they segregated on ethnic lines, but low-income communities rarely attend church with middle- and high-income communities and young people rarely mingle with older generations. As the book of Acts describes the reversal of Babel with the bringing together of different cultures in worshiping Christ, the book of Revelations shows an image of all nations worshiping the Lord together, and the mystery of the Gospel described in Paul's epistles is the uniting of Jew and Gentile under one head, I have heard it said that segregated churches is one of the most dangerous heresies of our time. Through these two problems, many of our churches have become places of comfort for believers where a "club" mentality is held and outsiders feel unwelcome.

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What are the two biggest opportunities that you feel you are not properly resourced for?

At my current job, I am working primarily on the administrative side of operations. I would like to be more on the leadership side of operations. We are a church planting and community development organization and so I am being held back due to my lack of experience in either of those fields. The organization is in need of leaders who are capable of running entire projects or ministries and I believe that I could be the right person, but I need more leadership training and experience. I believe that my lack of qualified education for the job is also holding me back. As I have no Bible school training and only a business degree, I feel like my education causes people not to initially trust me. I feel like the MAGL program would really help me to develop into the right kind of leader and gain the trust of others to move our organization forward.

There is also an opportunity with the project in Kenya that I've been involved in for three years. A friend and I have just started a nonprofit organization for it, but since the longest that I've lived there is 2 months, I do not yet have the ability to take more of a leadership role. I believe that I am lacking the same resources in this opportunity as well: experience and education. My experience gives me a start, but I need more. My education, however, only qualifies me to work on the administrative side of things in this organization. The MAGL program would equip me with the leadership skills and character to step forward and get more experience while also helping me to grow my capacity for taking leadership in this organization.