Meet The Prof, with Shane & Spence

MTP 70: Kara Powell, Part 1, Christian Professors Are in Full-Time Ministry, Building Community & Leading With Humility

• Shane Hartley • Episode 70

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In part 1 of this inspiring interview, Dr. Kara Powell, Chief of Leadership Formation at Fuller Theological Seminary and Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute, shares stories from her own faith journey, her passion for reaching young people, and practical advice for professors navigating doubt, boldness, humility, and transformation in academia and in the Church. 

Main Takeaways:

  • Christian professors are in full-time ministry, even on non-faith-based campuses.
  • Building community is essential for courage and clarity, especially in a culture of fear around faith.
  • Doubt is not toxic—silence is. Making room for students' tough questions can strengthen faith.
  • Professors can prioritize young people in their churches by asking, “How does this decision affect the next generation?”
  • Leading with humility includes being quick to apologize—even for the 10%.
  • You don’t have to have all the answers. Ask questions instead of making statements.

Read: Future-Focused Church:  Leading through Change, Engaging the Next Generation, and Building a More Diverse Tomorrow

By: Kara Powell, Jake Mulder, and Raymond Chang

Kara Powell, PhD, is the chief of leadership formation at Fuller
 Theological Seminary, the executive director of the Fuller Youth
 Institute, and the founder of the TENx10 Collaboration. Named by
 Christianity Today as one of "50 Women to Watch," Kara speaks
 regularly at national parenting and leadership conferences. Kara has
 authored or coauthored numerous books, including Faith Beyond Youth
 Group, 3 Big Questions That Shape Your Future, 3 Big Questions That
 Change Every Teenager, Growing With, Growing Young, The Sticky Faith
 Guide for Your Family, and the entire Sticky Faith series. Kara and her
 husband, Dave, are regularly inspired by the learning and laughter that
 come from their three young adult children.
 

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Welcome everybody to Meet the Prof. My name is Shane Hartley and my friend Spence Hackney and I run this podcast to encourage Christ-centered conversations on the college campus. And we're so glad you're here for our live audience, welcome. We're glad that you have joined us. And for our recorded audience later, we are just as grateful that you are with us if you are watching or listening to this later. So I'm joined here with my good friend Spence Hackney. How you doing, Spence? Hey, hey, doing great. Appreciate you handling the chat as people call in and chat in. And We have a privilege of getting to interview now Dr. Kara Powell. so Kara is the Chief of Leadership Formation at Fuller Theological Seminary. She's the Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute and the founder of the Tenx10 collaboration. Kara was named by Christianity Today as one of the 50 women to watch. She speaks regularly at national parenting and leadership conferences. She's authored and co-authored numerous books, including Faith Beyond Youth Group, Three Big Questions That Shape Your Future, Three Big Questions That Change Every Teenager, the entire Sticky Faith series, and now her newest book, Future Focused Church. which she co-authored with Jake Mulder and Raymond Chang. So Kara, welcome to Meet the Prof. It's great to have you here. How you doing? it's wonderful to be here and you did a fantastic job, the end, nailing those three titles. So I'm looking forward to a great conversation with you all and interacting with some of your audience. Oh, me too. You're very gracious. So uh One thing you may already know about Spence and me is we love trying to get to know things about our faculty that people might not know. And so you're very visible, but we're wondering what is something you think most people would be surprised to know about you? I love football. I love, let me clarify, I love watching football. And so I grew up in San Diego during kind of a golden era of the San Diego Chargers. um And so I have very fond memories of being a child and a teenager and watching games every once in a while in person and on TV. um And I still love watching football. My idea of a great Sabbath on Sunday is church and a nap and watching a game during the season. So, and I still root for the Chargers. They're still my favorite team. Although I say my second favorite team is whoever's playing the Raiders. So those are my two favorite teams, ah but I really love NFL. Okay, awesome. great. you ever toyed with fantasy football? You know, I don't need more tasks to do. So that kind of feels like a task to me. But my son is in, I think, like four different fantasy football leagues. So I feel like I'm vicariously in one with him. oh Fantasy football is a full-time job. That's the problem with it. ah So I get to ask my favorite question is, what's the most embarrassing moment uh you've experienced as a student or as a professor? um Okay, well the first one that comes to mind was actually my very first day of undergraduate as a freshman So based on how I had tested in math, I was supposed to be in Calc 42. And so I was scared, you know, first quarter freshmen, I got to class early. I sat in the very front row, paper, pen, know, poised, ready to go. And I listened to the first lecture and I understood about two thirds of it, honestly. And I thought, inside I'm thinking, my gosh, and this is the first day of class, I can't believe this. And so class ended and I turned to the student next to me who I didn't know and I said, did that make sense to you? And he said, yeah, that was all review. And I turned to the other student next to me and I said, did that make sense to you? And she said, yeah, that was all review. And I thought, I am in the wrong class. So sure enough, I went immediately to registration and dropped from Calc 42 to 41, and then I could follow. So even when we feel like we're doing review in our classes, for some students, it might feel new. And it was certainly a wake up call for me. with you. I think you just described most of my college career. I famously made a 25 on my first math test at Carolina. So that tells you anything. out of 100? Yes, out of a hundred, that was a little offensive. I'm going to say, but, Well, I was hoping it was gonna be like 25 out of 30, Yeah, I pulled it out and passed the class so it was that's all it took. Yeah. Yeah, that's great Well, Kara, so we'd love to get to know more of you personally and a little bit about your spiritual journey. So as we get started with this, audience, I remind you, drop questions in the chat. And Kara, would you tell us some, like how did you come to faith in Christ and even were there any major turning points that maybe had times of growth in your life? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I really grew up in church. I was raised by a single mom and then my stepdad. I also have a wonderful father and stepmom who were very involved too, but I lived with my mom and my stepdad and they were very committed Jesus followers. So we went to church a lot. um I can't recall exactly the first time that I asked Jesus to take over my life. but I did it multiple times in junior high. I feel like I became a Christian like 12 times. Any opportunity that I could. And actually that has shaped how I interact with young people now is I try to make it very vivid with them when I have the chance to pray with them. Like, okay, today on August 5th, you decided to follow Jesus. oh Yeah, exactly, exactly. Let's really make this noteworthy. Mm. So, so, and I think actually that those multiple times where I decided to become a Christian ah reflects that I, Jesus was my savior, but Jesus wasn't really my Lord. And in 11th grade ah on Easter Sunday, we had a fairly new youth pastor. um And he said exactly that. He said, many of you, Jesus is your savior, but Jesus is not your Lord. And today's opportunity for Jesus to be your Lord. And so like it was a Pentecostal Assembly of God Church. And so I went forward for the altar call and I remember what I was wearing, uh a peach skirt and a cream blouse. It was very vivid for me. um And that day was really a huge turning point for me. Easter Sunday, 11th grade, where Jesus was no longer my savior only, but also my Lord. um And I'm grateful that I have continued to journey down that path since then. beautiful. So when you were a younger Christian, do you remember anything where maybe you had to take your first step of faith, maybe trust God with something uh big for the first time, and then He actually came through for you? Yeah, yeah. um Yes, but it wasn't immediately obvious at the time how God was coming through. um shortly after this Easter Sunday in 11th grade, I ran for student body president at my school and I lost. um And that was embarrassing and humiliating. It was kind of this public failure, it felt like to me. um And so at that point, I felt like God wasn't coming through. for me. um And that was really disappointing to me, especially on the heels of Easter Sunday, where I felt like I was so much closer to Jesus. But what ended up unfolding during the course of 12th grade is I ended up getting school credit for volunteering in our youth ministry. um And so I started spending two afternoons a week at our church. And my main job was I prepared uh youth ministry bulletins. And this was like pre-computer design days. So like I used clip art books and know, copy machine and whiteout and tape and that, uh yeah, totally. If you remember those days and that was our design. That was our design in those days. uh Yeah. And so, um so, but by the end of 12th grade, I felt like God was maybe calling me to ministry. um And so, So what was interesting is, you know, in 11th grade, was just disappointment and failure, but to see how God redeemed it. And I really think if I had won student body president, I wouldn't have volunteered in the youth ministry. And of course, God could have gotten, know, drawn me into youth ministry some other way, but it was certainly very helpful that I had spent that time. So yes, a step of faith that initially was really disappointing, but ultimately saw God's goodness and faithfulness. um Yeah, I love stories of God's faithfulness there. I can picture all that with you. Well, so I've been dying to talk to you some about how students, young people today are dealing with doubts, doubts about God, Jesus, the Bible. uh You've written and spoken a lot about young people who are deconstructing their faith. And I was wondering if you could talk some more about what you've seen happening and then what kind of specific tools can Christian professors have to help students who are struggling? Yeah, yeah. I think this is a really exciting time for college campus uh faith, especially. So I'm on the board of InterVarsity and that gives me a front row seat to how God's working on college campuses. just yesterday actually got an update on how InterVarsity is growing, um how it's so many different frontiers, whether it's the Greek ministry, uh fraternity and sororities. whether it's Bible studies, whether it's students who are more committed to faith as well as InterVarsity and are prioritizing in their schedules. uh yeah, I we're just seeing, and I know my understanding is Cru is seeing similar fruit. So I think this generation, they are hungry for Jesus. And some people are using the term revival for what's happening on college campuses. And I think in some cases that's really accurate. One of my favorite stories from last year from InterVarsity is there was a female staff member who showed up for her very first large group meeting that she was gonna lead. And she thought she was in the wrong room because there were 120 students who had showed up. Wow. last year, the group had uh ended with 20 students. So she thought, surely I'm in the wrong room. But she was in the right room, and that many students were responding. um So yeah, we see a lot of hunger these days in young people for the good news of Jesus Christ, and we just celebrate that. I think the flip side is uh they're often hesitant about institutional religion. because of what they've seen the church um do and not do, because of how they perceive churches and adult Christians as being unloving, hypocritical, unkind. uh And sadly, we have earned that reputation as adult Christians and as the church. So I think the response to doubt is actually the same. The heart of my response to doubt is the same as the heart of my response to this uh hesitancy we see in young people about institutional religion. And that is we got to build relationship. Like that's just the heart of what young people are hungry for is relationship with trusted Jesus-centered adults. And so going back to doubt, uh we've studied that at the Fuller Youth Institute. And what we found is uh over 70 % of youth group graduates admit to having pretty significant questions about God and faith, which makes 70 % yeah, which actually that doesn't scare me at all. you know, there are, I continue to have questions about why God's allowing certain things, et cetera. to me, that's a reflection of so much of young people's curiosity, as well as the nature of faith that. If God could be fully understood, God wouldn't be God, right? God would just be kind of a neat human. But it's some of the mystery of God and God's ways that cause us to have these questions or doubts, right? So the vast majority of youth group graduates have doubts about their faith. ah Here's what made the difference. When young people had the opportunity to express and explore those doubts, that was actually correlated with greater faith maturity. uh So what we would say is that doubt isn't toxic to faith. It's silence that is toxic to faith. And when we can provide the space for young people where we feel like a trusted adult who can handle their big questions and we get to wrestle with those questions with them, then that kind of community can actually cause faith to flourish. So just being really super practical. My own kids are 19, 22, and 24. And so I'm living young adult ministry in my house and on my phone and all that. I love it, I love it, yeah. And we actually, we have a 22 year old young woman living with us who was fire-displaced. We live in Pasadena and given the January 7th fires. She's been living with us since late January. So I say we're not empty nesters, we're open nesters because our own kids and other young people like being around our house and we like having them around. But anyway, getting really practical with young adults, I find it really fruitful to ask my kids and other young people these two questions. What do you no longer believe about God or life that you think I still believe? And what do you now believe about faith, life, God that you think I don't believe? Just to make any gaps and make any doubts or questions more discussable. Again, it's all about how do we have the kind of relationships where young people know that we and their faith can handle these kinds of tough questions. Love it. Hey, Bob, in our audience, ask a really good follow-up to that because you mentioned that the need to talk about your faith is key for cementing that. But what do you recommend for people who are fearful being sort of canceled for talking about their faith on campus or blackballed in some way? What would you say to somebody about that? Yeah, yeah, great question. um Well, man, this might be a theme in my answers today, but uh I would just say this is where community can be really helpful. And I wrestle with this social media in general too. Like, what do I say? When do I say it? How do I say it? um I have a couple trusted people, one of whom is my 22 year old daughter, and a couple other peers that as I'm thinking about what I want to say on social media, praying about what I want to say, If there's something I wonder about, I will ask them. So, you know, I love for students to really live out Joshua 1 and be strong and courageous and have that sense of calling. And at the same time, because social media is such a playground for misunderstanding, I don't think it's a bad thing to, as you're wondering about what to post or thinking about what to post, for you to run that thought, run that potential post by a trusted... peer because you know they might pick out things where you're needlessly being offensive or being unclear or whatever it might be. So yes let's be strong and courageous but uh I think there's this power of community to help us. If I can go back to football a little bit. um Okay awesome okay Shane you're with me on the football I can see that. So you know the NFL has a rule called the coach's challenge. And if the coach doesn't agree with a call on the field, they throw a red flag on the field. And that's the way of saying, hey, we need more eyes on this. I'm not sure that that one individual or the few coaches and excuse me, the few refs involved in uh the call got it right. m And I think we all kind of need that red flag every once in a while to say, I'm not sure I'm getting this right. Life happens just even more quickly than football does. And so, hey, can... Can we gather and can other people help me with this? ah So I think there's a similar image here, like how can we have the kind of community where we say, I'm not sure I'm doing this right, I need to throw this red flag and have you all speak into this. So yes, let's be strong and courageous and there's power of community in being a sounding board. Mm-hmm. You know, one thing that we pray for is that Christian faculty, especially at secular schools, could find community to run things by each other like this and even increase some boldness that they might need. um So, you know, a lot of times for them, it's very risky for them to talk about Jesus in the classroom. There are some real risks there and maybe some imagined risks there. um So, can you... Can you share any story of like a bold step of faith that you took uh as a faculty member, maybe having a conversation uh that you weren't sure how it would go, but uh you could relate with uh trusting God and then seeing him come through? Yeah, yeah. Well, first off, let me just say how much I respect and appreciate faculty members who are people of faith and on non-faith-based campuses. uh Man, we need you to be salt and light. We need you to be loving ambassadors for the grace and mercy and peace of Jesus. And so, I mean, you're in full-time ministry as far as I'm concerned. When you're interacting with young people. um full-time in that kind of setting, which often can be or be perceived as, as you said, antagonistic to faith. So let me just say respect that calling so much. That has not been my calling. You know, I did my PhD in practical theology and so I've only taught in Christian settings and now I'm at Fuller Seminary. So I can't fully empathize with the boldness that it takes for a faculty member to um to be that kind of witness on campus. So I just want to say that to begin with. Having said that, I certainly am in situations where they require uh both boldness and sensitivity. And I had one last week that I can share and it relates to uh not student interactions, but peer interactions. So um I'm on the senior leadership team at Fuller and there was a situation, an issue that came up about a month ago. in a senior leadership team meeting where a colleague and I ended up on uh different sides of an issue. And it ended up almost feeling like a debate in the room, like we were both trying to convince each other and the room of the rightness of our opinion. And it just honestly didn't feel like a good meeting at all. you And I think we all left a little uneasy about it. And so this particular colleague had been traveling for much of the last month as faculty do during the summer. So I didn't have a chance to meet with him. It was a male until last week. And I had worked on some talking points for my conversation with him because I wanted just a one-on-one meeting with him. And in the spirit of community, I ran those talking points and those questions by another colleague that was in the room during the first conversation because I just really value other people's input. That colleague had, yeah, I'm trying to, I just people sharpen me. I went into the meeting and after the pleasantries, the first thing I did was I apologized and I said, I'm really sorry that that meeting unfolded as it did. really felt like, you and I were on opposite sides of the table and I want us to be on the same side of the table uh with this important question and I want us to be figuring out together what's the right outcome instead of us kind of debating each other. um And he graciously accepted my apology and uh then he apologized. And I don't know if he'd have apologized, if I hadn't apologized first, but I was very glad that he apologized for some of how his demeanor during that meeting. And then we had a great hour long conversation about the issue. Now, and I think we both heard each other and we were able to repeat back, sounds like you're saying this and we agreed that we heard each other. We both said, yeah, I feel heard by you, you feel heard by me, et cetera. Now we left the meeting still disagreeing on the right outcome, but it just felt like such a different conversation. So I think, you know, things that I want with my colleagues for us to truly feel like we're solving problems together and really want the best outcome for all involved. I had failed to create that environment in the first discussion and I'm grateful that uh God led me to apologize and God was able to create a much more mutual, reciprocal, honoring, respectful environment. So that was really powerful. And back to the theme of community, I feel like when this colleague and I disagree, we now have practice in how to have a much healthier conversation. Even though you still disagree, do you feel a little bit closer to this faculty member? I bet. Huh. you know, I will say that's just true for me in relationships in general. you know, I don't like conflict. um You know, I lean a little bit toward being conflict avoidant. But when there's conflict, if I have the courage and if I have the uh identity in Jesus that I need to apologize and to try to have a better conversation, um I was going to say almost always because I'm a researcher so I qualify statements but I think I'm going to say it always and I very rarely say always but it always makes me feel closer to the person um and I feel like it's God's transformation of me also. So yeah absolutely. had another situation last week where I needed to apologize. And at the same time, I felt I needed to apologize. And at the same time, the other person was more in the wrong, at least. So potentially more in the wrong than I was. um But I've just decided as a leader that I want to be quick to apologize. And even if something is only 10 percent my doing and 90 percent somebody else's doing, I still want to apologize for the 10 percent. I just find there's a lot of fruit in apologizing. Well, we'll pause right there for the end of part one of our interview with Kara Powell. And listeners, can I ask, do you have anyone that you need to apologize to, even if it's just 10 % of the fault that is yours? I'd encourage you to consider that and take Kara's example as a challenge. And if you're like me, that would take a lot of humility to go and apologize in a situation like that. And that's where we start part two of our interview with Kara. Next week, we'll be on the subject of humility. So stay tuned for that. Hey, if you're a Christian professor, would you consider sharing some of your spiritual journey on meettheprof.com? It's a great place for students to find Christian professors, parents as well. It's real easy to do. You would go to meettheprof.com and click on submit a profile. And if you're interested in finding out more about our organization nationally, you can go to facultycommons.org. You find a lot of resources there for faculty and a great place to even get some startups if you were interested in starting a ministry. If you are interested in getting our newsletters, I send regular emails of updates of interviews that come out and show notes with them. You can email me at shane.hartley @ facultycommons.org and I would be happy to add you to my list. And lastly, if you're interested in supporting our ministry, thank you very much. And you could give a tax deductible donation at give.cru.org. Cru is C-R-U, .org, / 042-43-44. So thanks again for listening. And until next time, we hope this encourages you to have a Christ-centered conversation on your college campus.