Goal:
USD $15,000
Raised:
USD $2,800
On Sunday, September 30, 2012, Jesus reached out His hand to me in a crowd of several thousand people and bid me follow Him.
I attended a voluntary church service during a weekend business conference. I was 24 years old, completely lost, and totally unexpecting and unprepared for such a life-changing moment.
The preacher left those of us who responded to the call for repentance with a few simple instructions:
Headed home from Washington, D.C., to Central Pennsylvania that evening, I stopped at Barnes & Noble where I bought a study Bible and the first devotional I found. I started diving into them both regularly, including over my lunch breaks at work.
It wasn't two weeks before a coworker noticed and invited me to their church. I joined almost immediately after seeing their dedication to worshipping Jesus, teaching from scripture, and promoting personal Bible study.
Within a month, God revived and redeemed my musical gifting and passion. I had abandoned my craft two years earlier after dropping out of my music degree at Penn State University. When our church's guitar player moved out of state, I had the opportunity to literally dust off my guitar to serve on the music team. I also began singing again.
As the new year dawned, I was publicly baptized. Shortly thereafter, the Lord redeemed a second great gifting and passion in my life–philosophical inquiry and logical reasoning–through teaching by some of the great Christian apologists. My mind was quickened, and my Bible study and book reading expanded even further.
My nihilistic worldview and purposelessness were crucified and reborn in a divine direction through the Great Commission and godly discipleship.
Praise be to God, he introduced me to the most beautiful Christian woman–Trisha–in 2014, whom I pulled out of a little cornfield near the country church where we met to get married just over two years later. We've now got two vivacious young boys, and we plan to have a few more children in the coming years.
He has subsequently blessed me with a refreshing job and sufficient finances for us to purchase a small house and for my wife to stay at home. We plan to homeschool our children, likely in a pod with families from our church.
My wife and I serve in our local church. We're passionate about active ministry.
I have never stopped my studies of God's word, theology, apologetics, or the history that pertains to all of the above. I'm still a voracious reader. I listen to at least a dozen hours of theological podcasts and/or recorded sermons per week. I attend at least one in-person service weekly to join communally in the presence of God and to hear biblical preaching.
That being said...
Starting a few years ago, I had begun to feel that I was getting stuck in my discipleship.
I write a good bit about theology and apologetics, especially on social media, but I was running into roadblocks without knowing the original biblical languages or particular veins of church history.
I write worship songs, but my method for topical study was inefficient.
I love to teach, in our small group and beyond, but I have a godly fear for teaching without proper foundations (James 3:1).
The worst part was, I didn't know what to do about it.
Then, between two and three years ago in my continued studies, I stumbled across the academic work, teaching, and apologetics of Old Testament scholar Dr. Michael Heiser. His podcast, The Naked Bible Podcast, was so eye-opening that it caused me to lose sleep that night.
The paradigm of pragmatic and personable scholarship I was introduced to was a level of biblical study that I had never experienced or known about. I also learned of the existence of powerful study tools like Logos Bible Software, where Dr. Heiser had worked for about a decade as scholar-in-residence.
I was immensely inspired!
I continued to study deeper, utilizing Dr. Heiser's methodologies and many of his resources, including a broad network of related scholars whom he brought onto his podcast. More books, more podcasts, and more recognizable growth in my faith, discipleship, and understanding of scripture for the first time in quite some time.
Until Dr. Heiser's untimely and unfortunate passing from pancreatic cancer in February of 2023.
He had been diagnosed with cancer in 2020, and initially, his treatments seemed to move in a positive direction. Seemingly out of nowhere, he posted in January of 2023 that he was going home on hospice. I was heartbroken at his passing the next month, having never had the chance to meet or speak to this great man who had so profoundly impacted my faith and study.
After having the privilege of attending his funeral in Lebanon, PA, with many others whose faith and lives had been significantly edified by Dr. Heiser's work, I've continued to follow the legacy of his various ministerial efforts, which are spearheaded by his wife and a loyal team of scholarly friends.
One key ministry Dr. Heiser participated in was serving as a founding board member of Redemption Seminary. They offer a radically new and innovative approach to theological education. Students can obtain a self-paced seminary degree entirely online with a remarkable reduction in cost compared to traditional seminaries. Students can choose personal mentors, and they are even provided and trained in the use of a research library and state-of-the-art Logos Bible Software.
I was introduced to the program's full details during a livestream at the beginning of 2024, and I immediately felt the Holy Spirit tugging on my heart.
This seemed like exactly what I had been missing!
I had wanted formal biblical training for a few years by that point, but I had always desired a program that wouldn't upend our family, wouldn't require me to quit working, and was an accredited program.
But then, I hit a bit of a snag.
Dr. Heiser led another theological education program, AWKNG School of Theology, which I had looked into attending. It was very affordable and thorough. However, it was and still is unaccredited.
Unfortunately, so was Redemption Seminary.
UNTIL ABOUT TWO WEEKS AGO!
At the very end of the aforementioned January livestream, I noted a point that was mentioned in passing: Redemption Seminary was up for an accreditation review in February of this year. I must've checked for updates about a thousand times between their website and their social media profiles over the next month.
Praise be to God, they ended up getting accredited, and I knew immediately that God was calling me to pursue their Masters of Arts in Biblical Studies program. However, as the sole earner for our family and with the current economic circumstances, it's simply not in our household budget to immediately invest roughly $15,000 in this degree.
While I will certainly save for the program as needed, I feel tremendously convicted and burdened at the thought of delaying what I believe to be a clear mandate from the Lord in my life. Acquiring all of the funds upfront would allow me to complete the program at an accelerated pace, as I can immediately enroll in class after class.
The program could be finished within a year at that pace!
After some prayer as to how I might garner the resources to follow this call, I felt led to reach out to the Lord's body, humbly and vulnerably, to ask for assistance.
Would you please pray for provision, or perhaps even contribute financially if you are able? Would you share this page with your congregation?
The impact would be both immediate and diverse for even more substantial ministry in local families, local churches, published writing, online preaching and teaching, and beyond:
Thank you for your prayers and support–may the God of all creation and of our salvation richly bless you!
'On account of this, I bend my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner person, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith (you having been firmly rooted and established in love), in order that you may be strong enough to grasp together with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, in order that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. ' (Ephesians 3:14-19 LEB)
Go for it Joe. Many blessings on you!
Thank you to all of those whose offline contributions thus far this year have totaled up to this number! – Joe
I’ve always believed God gave you a teaching gift. So glad to hear you’re taking this step to develop it even further! Proud of you Joe!
We are excited to partner with you and to see where God takes you on this journey
July 21st, 2024
Wow, time has flown this year! It seems like just yesterday that we were still in March and I had just started this campaign.
Trish and I want to thank all the generous people in our life who have contributed to helping with this seminary goal! Most especially, thanks to the family who shocked us with $1,000 right after launching this campaign along with the family who have become regular givers to this campaign. You know who you are, and we pray you are richly blessed for your generosity!
The Lord has also provided some tremendous, unexpected opportunities this year. One of the strongest ministry calls I feel in my life is leading musical worship. Two particular opportunities I volunteered for this year, simply to follow that call, both turned out to be paid (contributing directly to this fund).
With the generosity of those who have already contributed to this campaign and the opportunities the Lord has already provided, I anticipate the first two of my ten classes will be covered (that's $3,000!) by the end of August. I'm excited to see what further worship opportunities–or what other doors entirely–God will open up throughout the remainder of the year.
The late Dr. Heiser's AWKNG School of Theology is planning to offer their entire curriculum for free beginning in September (Lord willing that they receive sufficient voluntary support from the Body of Christ), so I plan to begin taking some of their free classes as we continue to save toward Redemption Seminary. I'm hoping to do more regular updates in the coming months on some of that too, as it seems like the proverbial ducks are lining up to get this educational ball rolling.
We genuinely cannot thank you enough for showing such love to our family. May the Lord bless you all as richly as He has blessed us!
Soli Deo Gloria.
- Joe & Trish
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