Monthly Archives: December 2019

The School of Christian Ministries is blessed to have dedicated and passionate faculty members who love Jesus and desire to help others love Him more. This regular feature will help you get to know our faculty members more.

Q&A with Dr. Wilson

Q. What do you enjoy most about teaching at CBU? 

I love the opportunity to interact with a wide diversity of students.  In a given semester, I have the opportunity to interact with students taking courses for general education, for a particular major, and/or just for interest sake.  I really enjoy teaching students who are getting a first introduction to the Bible and Christian faith in a Bible survey class and sometimes help to change their biases against the Bible and Christianity and Christians.  Sometimes it is helping return a student to his/her Christian roots and find a new relevance for faith.  I enjoy helping students find tools that will help them read and study the Bible for themselves and learn how to use those tools to interpret the Bible.  I love helping students who are focused toward ministry preparation create patterns and habits of study that will shape how they do the work of ministry.  I love when students stop in the office and I get the opportunity to know them beyond a classroom interaction and to speak into their lives, that is, to do the work of discipleship. 

Q. Why did you choose to focus your academic study on the New Testament?

 First, I love the Bible.  I guess I focused on the New Testament because I had the opportunity to study Biblical Greek for several years before I even had the opportunity to learn Biblical Hebrew.  I remember, when I was in college studying Greek thinking – being nurtured in by my professors, I would love to be able to help nurture like this a passion for the study of the Scriptures in young students.  My focus in my preparation was primarily in New Testament Studies, but I continued to study Old Testament and still Old Testament Survey consistently.  I really enjoy seeing how intertwined the two Testaments are.

Q. What is your favorite thing to do in your free time? 

I love just hanging out with my wife. We often sit on the patio with books in hand, reading and being.  I enjoy walking, especially with the wife and the dog-child.

Q. Your bio states that you are an amateur artist. What is your favorite artistic style and why? 

It has been a long time since I’ve been able to focus in this direction.  I have always been a doodler; I listen better with a pen/pencil in hand.  When I was a full-time youth pastor, my wife recognized my interest and gave me art lessons for Christmas one year.  During the next year or so, I spent a couple of hours on Tuesday evenings at the art study and found it to be a healthy way to allow the stresses of ministry to melt away.  I began with charcoal, but spent most of that class-time trying to learn pastels.  I love watercolor as a medium, but have had little success at learning how to use watercolor; that’s my next step, I guess.

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The School of Christian Ministries is pleased to regularly share the stories of our alumni and how God is using them in His work around the world.

Q& A with Pastor De La Rosa

Q. What do you like most about your job?

I love seeing unchurched people come to know Jesus and become fully devoted followers of Him.  It’s been a real joy to see so many people experience life change as they learn to sort and then yield to God’s perspective and values found in the Bible.

Q. What is the biggest challenge with your job?

As our church has grown, it’s always a constant challenge to keep pointing our people back to evangelism as the centerpiece of our ministry.  Naturally the tendency for a church is to turn inward and become self-serving, so it’s always a challenge to keep ourselves focused on God’s rescue mission in personal and practical ways.

Q.  How did the School of Christian Ministries prepare you for what God has called you to do?

I got serious about walking with God when I was 18 while a freshmen at CBU and the SCM began to build a foundation that I’m extremely grateful for.  I loved the access I had to profs who really took the time to get to know me, invest in and pray for me.  During my college years, I had a few ministry staff roles and my profs helped me process experiences in real ministry and work hard to integrate what I was learning in the classroom.

Q. If you could go back in time and tell yourself one thing in college, what would it be and why?

Find a pastor with a track record of proven character, faithfulness and fruitfulness and learn from them in your 20’s.  Our 20’s are such an important season for training, and once a heavy load of ministry is thrust upon you, it’s tough to slow down and still remain teachable.  Pick your running pack and mentors carefully…in other words “pick your friends, pick your future” (Proverbs 13:20).  I’ve seen this play out so many times now, sadly the dismal fall out rate for those in ministry continues to remind me of the importance of this issue.

Q. What most excites you about the work that God is doing in your church/community/or around the world?

We’re uniquely positioned to train men and women who sense a call to vocational ministry.  We’re about to plant our first church and it seems like there are a few others coming on the horizon.  Lord willing we hope to train up and send out solid leaders who will turn the world upside down for Jesus (Acts 17:6). 

In this post, Dr. Scott Key provides an example of the type of discussion that may take place in Philosophy 101. During this class, as well as throughout the philosophy program, CBU students are taught to understand the foundations of other worldviews and are encouraged to consider them from a biblical perspective so they are equipped to give a defense for that hope that they have in Christ (I Peter 3:15). 

Jill Pole, Eustace Scrubb, Puddleglum (a Marshwiggle), and Prince Rilian of Narnia were standing amidst the broken pieces of a silver chair that Rilian had destroyed with his sword.  At that very moment the Queen of Underland walked in the door.  This scene is the setting for the climax of The Silver Chair the fourth book in The Chronicles of Narnia, written by C. S. Lewis.  Embedded within this marvelous story lies a serious philosophical argument that is replicated in philosophical texts, novels, movies, and ordinary conversation.  Do we construct our world in our own minds with our own purpose and meaning for our own goals, or do we discover a real world with a real shape on a pilgrimage in which we find purpose and meaning in relationships that stretch, deepen, and expand our understanding of ourselves?  Are the most important aspects of our lives projections of ourselves with all our hopes and dreams on a meaningless world, or is the world we encounter outside of ourselves filled with real meaning that calls us to discover our true purpose? 

The Queen of Underland acts.  She throws some incense into the fire and she begins to strum a stringed instrument that produces a very monotonous thrumming sound.  Little by little, the others in the room succumb to the evil enchantment produced by the incense, the music, and, ultimately, by the Queen.  She suggests strongly that the concepts of the Overworld (the Sun in the sky, and Aslan) are merely aspects of a dream-world within the self-consciousness of Jill, Eustace, Puddleglum, and the Prince—projected from the real, concrete experience of Underland, a lamp hanging from the ceiling of the room in which they are standing, and their experience of cats.  Soon they ae repeating with the Queen, “It is all a dream.” 

Then, Puddleglum does a very “brave thing.”  He walked over to the fire and stomped it out with his bare, duck-like, feet.  The pain this caused him actually cleared his mind of the enchantment and he strongly asserts that the “dream-world” or “play-world” that he and the others supposedly made up is far more real than the Queen’s world and that he is going to stand with Aslan and live like a “Narnian” even if there is no Narnia.  The Queen turns into a “great serpent” seeking to crush them in her coils.  A battle ensues and the Serpent or Queen is killed.  Underland is released or liberated from its evil enchantment.   

The arguments used by the Queen are a replication of arguments made by Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud who assert that all religion is but a projection of our wishes upon a cold and meaningless cosmos.   The only thing that is real is the struggle for survival, for economic well-being, and for autonomous life day by day.  This is the drum beat of modernity, which, in a variety of ways, incessantly repeats that faith is mere feeling driven by the desire to survive and experience more pleasure than pain within a world devoid of meaning or purpose.  This is the enchantment of our age.  And this the source of our true pain and disillusionment.  

In The Silver Chair, pain served its purpose by clearing Puddlegum’s mind. In a similar way, perhaps, the cultural pain of our time can be used by a gracious God to clear our minds, to transform our thinking, and to help us more clearly discern the perfect will of God.  As C.S. Lewis also explained, pain is a megaphone that God uses to rouse a deaf and dying world. Like Puddleglum may we recognize that there is purpose in the pain that we go through and that, as we stand with God and for His Kingdom, God can use our pain to accomplish great things.