MTP 56: Jon Walker Part 1 on Teaching as a Calling

In this episode, Shane and Spence talk with Jon Walker, a history professor at Forsyth Tech Community College. Jon shares about his spiritual journey, how he wrestled with the decision between full-time ministry and teaching, and what it means to integrate faith in the classroom. He opens up about trauma in his early professional career, how God used those moments to redirect him, and how he now views teaching as a true calling and ministry. This episode will especially encourage Christian professors who are trying to discern their vocational path or how to express their faith naturally on campus.

Read more about Jon Walker online:
 https://meettheprof.com/view/professors/entry/jon-walker/

Email Jon Walker:
walkerj@forsythtech.edu

Main Takeaways:

• Teaching history can be deeply personal and transformative for students
• Embarrassing moments in the classroom can become teachable moments
• Faith became personal for Jon through discipleship in college
• Jon wrestled between teaching and vocational ministry, but found both can be ministry
• Professors can integrate faith by listening well and offering prayer when appropriate
• Boldness grows over time when representing Christ publicly on campus

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Transcript

0:00

Hi my name is Bella. I'm a freshman at UNCW and my question is what is your favorite part about teaching? Hey, everybody. Welcome to Meet the Prof. This is the podcast where we take questions from college students, just like you heard from Bella, and we ask them to Christian professors in order to help encourage Christ-centered conversations on the college campus. So, thanks for joining us. We really had a fun time in the interview here with Jon Walker. Jon is a professor of history at Forsyth Tech Community College. I really like him. I think you're going to enjoy his story. of his own spiritual journey, the relationship he has with students, and how he wrestled early on with his career decision, if going in full-time ministry or teaching. I think it's very insightful, some very useful things that he shares. So this is part one you'll hear. Before we jump in, if you please remember to like or subscribe wherever you're listening or watching this. If you are a professor, you can always add your own story about how you met Jesus on meettheprof.com. So please check that out. well, let's jump in. Here is our interview with Jon Walker. Well, Jon Walker, this is a treat to get to interview you now. don't think I've ever told you this, but my wife almost went to school at Forsyth Tech where you teach. Did I ever tell you that? I don't know that part of your story. Yeah. So what was she discovering? What was she thinking about at that point? She ended up going into nursing. she went to UNC Charlotte. She started at App State and went to UNC Charlotte. But she said that she was very close to going to Forsyth Tech. So tell the audience and us something about Forsyth Tech. What do you like about it? I like about Forsyth Tech, I like that we get to do what we love in terms of being an educator in a classroom environment and online in a medium sized city that has lots of opportunities, but not quite as much traffic as some other places in North Carolina, Yeah. Winston Salem, North Carolina. Yep. And we have a lot of support here from our administration when it comes to exploring interests, starting clubs. I love it. We could just take that clip and they'd probably want to use it for a commercial for Forsyth Tech. I have four sons and all four of them have come through Forsyth Tech in one way or another. And when I'm talking to family members, friends or people out in the community, I do feel like a, you know, spokesperson on TV for tech, but yeah, I enjoy this place. I sure certainly do. That's great. It's a beautiful part of the world too. I wanted to take a moment just to welcome our audience. We're doing this with a few people in the chat who are hopefully going to throw some questions out for us as we go. So are you guys there joining us? Please feel free to type your questions in the chat and I'll bring them up and we'll have a multi-way conversation here. Love it. Well, Jon, let's hop off. Let's start this with a question from a college student. Hi my name is Bella. I'm a freshman at UNCW and my question is what is your favorite part about teaching? Thank you, Bella, for the question about what is my favorite part about teaching. And I look forward to the first day of class every term because it's a chance for me to talk about subject that I love, which is history. And the way I boil it down for my students on day one is history is essentially the story of a person or a group of people. I think that certainly a lot can kind of spin out of that in terms of larger concepts, know, movements. big changes. But the way I look at history most often is through the lens of a person. And I think that's what makes it so relevant. I think that's what can make it interesting if you give it a chance. Because those people, that we read about in our textbooks, they eventually do something famous. That's why we're sort of seeing them in our curriculum. But guess what? They had similar questions that we do, They had questions about Am I going to follow someone else's pattern? How much am I going to listen to what my parents say? How am going to prioritize things in my life in terms of my work, my family, my community, et cetera, And as we look at the way famous people, famous in quotes, the ones that we have in our textbook, make those decisions, I think we can learn a lot about our own life choices, And so, yeah, I do talk about content and big, you know, geography and politics and economics and social history, all those things that we get into. But I love talking about individuals and trying to see, you know, through their successes and failures, how they've been able to overcome, you know, and my hope that that's sort of my implicit hope for all my students. is that when they finish with my class, that they become a better decision maker based on kind of the content being case studies for them. So I love helping train and enable my students to do that. I love that. history is one of the more fun subjects to teach because you can tell stories. yeah. And I joke with my colleagues who may teach like science or psychology or math or something like that. And I'm like, you guys are pretty restricted. I mean, that's what y'all get to talk about. But being a history instructor, I can talk about all those things. I can choose today. We're going to talk something about science or we're going to talk something about technology. But tomorrow we're to talk about moral codes and philosophy and religion. I think it gives me a lot of freedom. Well, hey, speaking of people, what we want to hear is a good embarrassing story about the person that is Jon Walker so we can get a little more of your history. So tell us the most embarrassing moment you've had so far in your career. going talk about professionally. I'm going to save the personal embarrassments for something else, but professional embarrassment, that's something we can talk about here. And I do love the classroom, but I don't always love the classroom because sometimes some things happen that you don't plan for, like say there'll be a student who brings up a name that you've never heard of before, And it is kind of a vulnerable position, And earlier in my career, I let that bother me a whole lot, more than it does now. It still is something I try to avoid. And of course, I've learned about more people, so it's easier. But I'll have someone bring up something I don't know, I misinterpret something or say something wrong in class. Now I try to turn that into a teachable moment. This is how you come back and reveal your vulnerability, And say, there's a lot of things I do know. But I think being an educator is all about staying, being a student at the same time. And I thank them for this opportunity for me to learn something or learn someone that I didn't know already. it sort of breaks down some walls, And lots of times what I'll do is if I do have a situation like that, the next class, I'll say, well, this is what I found out. you know, and thank you so much for helping me, you know, expand what I know and your classmates. So it's sort of turning that embarrassing situation into kind of, think, a win, I would think that your students would be even more endeared to you you're more approachable for being honest and being able to make mistakes with them. Tell us some, how did you come to faith in Christ? Certainly being shaped and influenced by my parents was a great introduction to a community of faith, They were church attenders and therefore, you I went with them participated. In my tradition, I grew up in the Moravian tradition, which is familiar to folks in Winston-Salem maybe, but maybe not outside of Winston. But just think kind of like Methodist, but throw in a little high church like Episcopal, But anyway, It still kind of felt mostly my parents' faith, And I was just kind of in the right place, and thanks to them for that, But it really didn't become a personal faith for me until I got to college. I went to a big public college, UNC Chapel Hill, and coming from relatively small town, Lexington, North Carolina is near Winston, relatively small church, like I shared. You know, this was a big step, But I'll tell you, Probably the person, going back to stories of people, that really helped me the most develop in my faith during that time was a college-age minister. His name was Riddick, and I had met him through my home church. We had gone to a summer conference together, but we began a weekly discipleship study freshman year at Carolina. We did have a small group on campus, but really just meeting weekly with Riddick, choosing books of the Bible to study together, choosing other devotional literature or Christian history, that's when faith became my own, And sort of toward the end of that journey, junior year, I was a history person, archeology person, thought I wanted to be Indiana Jones, But really with that kind of major, there's not a job that's attached to that, you know? And, you know, again, the word of encouragement for those who are liberal arts majors, eventually it does happen. The job does come along, but it does often take some searching. one of the things I did start exploring junior year, senior year and an undergrad was, you know, maybe God's calling me to ministry. Maybe God's calling me to vocational ministry. But that's sort of how I came to a personal faith. Does that make yeah, I love that. It gives me more questions. As you were considering going into full-time ministry, I know there are a lot of college students, and we've talked about this on the podcast before, who when they're wrestling with going into full-time ministry, they feel like if they were to do anything in the world, in the workplace, marketplace, that that would be subpar, like plan B for God's plan. So how would you encourage someone, even from your own experience? Very glad to talk about that because I think that was a formative time for me professionally and spiritually. Those two things were two threads, kind of growing together. And not to simplify this too much, but for me, it came down to, in my mind, at least a pretty black and white decision at the time. when I was 19, 20 years old, preacher or teacher, You they rhyme, but they're different tracks. And I was pretty clear in my mind that I had to choose one or the other at that point, And there was pressure whether intentional, implicit, explicit or not, you know, is one higher than the other? Like you said about Plan A, can... or plan B, can I really continue to serve, If I'm not, quote, in a full-time ministry or vocational ministry? But, you know, through some career exploration, which was basically like, This is what I did immediately after college. I did a year long intentional internship in local ministry at a church before I decided what grad school or if to go to grad school, After getting my bachelor's degree. And I'm eternally grateful for kind of having that sandbox to play in. just sort of explore ministry as a calling. And that was really helpful to me. Eventually what grew out of that was a I really felt God calling me to back to education, back to being the teacher side of that pendulum, I viewed it as ministry. I viewed it as a calling, But I felt like in terms of more education and, you your day job, so to speak, I felt like God was calling me to be a teacher. I pursued that. went to UNC Wilmington. I did my teacher licensure work there for a year. I was ready to do my student teaching at the end of that. And got an offer back near my hometown in Davison County Then you know what happened? I lasted one month, one month in that middle school. Okay. So, so this is, this is God's kind of wake up call, but the takeaways for me looking back on that experience. is, you know, lean not on your own understanding, because trust in God, Because I thought, you know, I had checked all the boxes and been real intentional about this discernment process. But as I look back, he was clearly a part of even this trauma, that part of my experience. And this just brings me back to two things that I think are kind of bits of wisdom that I've been able to glean through my vocational journey and my spiritual journey. I think that to lead the Christian life and lead it in the fullest, it's important to recognize that you wear many hats. You wear many hats all the time. And just because you have this one work hat, it doesn't mean that you're not at the same time busy about other kinds of work, kingdom work, in your community, with your colleagues, with your family, you know. So that's really important. Another thing that I've learned is if you don't get it right the first time, try hard. It's okay. But if you don't get it right the first time, God's usually going to give you a second chance. Plus he gave me like two, three, four, five chances, right? Mm-hmm. so just, just to kind of bring this a little bit more toward the present, I had that really bad experience being a middle school, middle school educator, got back into full-time church work for a period of nine years. I served Moravian churches, three different ones, as a pastoral assistant. wrestled with call issues some, but I felt more comfortable, but never really completely in sync with that as a professional calling. I was getting good feedback from the people I was ministering with and among. But again, there was still this kind of nag inside my conscience and inside my spirit. that, Jon, you're a teacher. You need to kind of come back to that. And after that kind of sojourn, nine years or so of professional ministry, which did not lead to seminary or ordination or anything like that, I went back to grad school, got my master's, which enables me to teach at a community college level, and praise the Lord. The community college classroom is far different than the middle school classroom. Plus, I had developed a lot of wisdom and confidence and, And so I got a chance to get back in a different classroom and thrived, So it kind of confirmed that experience I had immediately after college. Yeah, you were right. You're right. You know? This is, you know, one of the things I've called you to do and that's okay, go do it, You know, and then kind of coming up even to, you know, Forsyth Tech and sort of my ministry here on campus now, about 2019, we had a student transfer in from UNCG. His name was Johnny and he had had a great experience as a Cru member. a student member of Cru on the UNCG campus, UNC Greensboro. And he's like, do y'all have a Christian club on campus? And so he goes talking to faculty members, know, teachers that he has, and they're like, no, we don't know. Maybe that's something we can start. He talks to a couple of people, eventually comes to this Jon, And we connect and I'm inspired by his vision and his inspiration and the way he works with people. And so that's kind of the beginning of student Cru on our campus. And so we've been growing here, I guess, about six years through COVID and all that. We can talk more about what Cru looks like here and what God's doing here. back to my theme of like, you don't just wear one hat, because now as a faculty co-sponsor for our student club, also involved with our faculty staff support group through Cru here on campus. I still think I can exercise those church muscles again. And I look at it as a great way to do both. I love getting to know this more about you because in your profile on meettheprof.com you mentioned wearing different hats and now I see sort of the context of that. So do we have any questions spent from the audience? Hey, we sure do. Buff Furman at San Jose State wants to know how you let students know that you're a follower of Jesus. Great question, Buff. I think subtly at first, like when they share with me something that's going on in their life and community college, that's something that, and I know it happens on the university campus too, but I have older students and they maybe have children of their own. They often have jobs that are demanding. I'll use that conversation to be like, I'm so sorry to hear that. I'll keep that in my thoughts and prayers. And often, just saying that word, prayers, will be a crack in the door, That they know I have some kind of spiritual life, And it might give them permission, and I've seen this happen many times, to say, where do you go to church? Or what do you believe? Just by saying that you're in my thoughts and prayers is, I think, a subtle way to initiate that conversation. Now, Mm. a more overt way to do that. And I'll tell you this, I had to build confidence in this representing Jesus more boldly on campus, because I think a lot of this is self-generated, but maybe understandable that, you know, talking about your faith in the marketplace, around colleagues, supervisors, folks that you are not sure about their faith background, it's kind of a scary thing, right? And even when I took on the official role of faculty co-sponsor for our club, was a little difficult for me to do that first. But thankfully, encouragement, confirmation, the Holy Spirit engaging and inspiring me, I'm better at it. But at first, I was afraid to even make announcements after or before class or put something on the board about Cru. Because I'm like, this is official class time. This is official class space and you're an instructor now. You're not a evangelist now, so you shouldn't be putting that on the board. But guess what? Now I put that on the board. Now I'll say, Cru's going to have a table at Spring Fling, or we're going to be involved in this thing at SGA, come out and check out these clubs. So that's it. Not yet. No, I have not. But I think we as Christians have just as much as right to be around those clubs and be around those public spaces representing what we believe. so that's one of the reasons I do what I do. So if you ever had anybody, when you offered to pray for them, just say, I'd rather you not. Anybody reject that offer? yeah, maybe not in that direct term, Spence, like say, I'd rather you not, like we have outreach tables, sometimes welcome tables, and you can certainly read body language, you know, usually those steps they take away from the table, you know, when you're getting too close, or they're not ready to be quite as vulnerable anymore, But, you know, the flip side of that, is earlier this year, back in the fall, somebody just came by our welcome table. He was sharing something going on in his life. So I felt led to offer to pray with him. And I said, you want to do that right now? So we just stepped over in a corner and we took care of that. that's one of my favorite memories of representing Cru, doing stuff like that. Well, we're going to pause right there and stay tuned for next week for part two of our interview with Jon. If you're a parent and you want to know more about Jon Walker or other professors check out meettheprof.com and you can search by your home state, your school, where one of your kids goes. you can find a lot of the Christian professors have put their stories online. If you're a student and you would like to ask a question for Christian professors, find us on Instagram, we're @ Meet the Prof Official, and you can send us a DM of the video of yourself asking a question. Just share your name and what school you're at and what question you'd like to ask Christian professors. If you are a Christian professor, please consider sharing with us some of how you came to faith in Christ. You can do so really easily at meettheprof.com. And Lastly, if you would be interested in supporting this ministry financially, thank you so much. You can give online at give.cru.org / 0 42 43 44. So Thanks again for joining us. And until next time, we hope this encourages you to have a Christ centered conversation on your college campus.