Welcome to After the Fact, a Knowing Faith mini episode where we look to take a big question and address it in just a few minutes.

Our After the Fact episodes this season are brought to you by our season sponsor Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

We love Midwestern's motto, which is for the church. And that resonates so deeply with our goal at knowing faith, which is the theological movement that is both from and for the church. And joining us today is Dr. Jared Bumpers. Dr. Bumper's is Associate Professor of Preaching and Evangelism at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Jared, welcome to After the Fact. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, thank you. It's great to be here. Well, and listen, the vision of for the church is kind of like what your big question is today. Why does theological formation happen best in the church? And how is Midwestern, even in their residential programming, trying to target that? That's great. If it's okay, I'm going to take that in two parts. First,

theological formation, and then two, in the context of the local church. So I think about theological

formation, theology, you know, I love the way John Webster defines theology, the study of God and

everything in relation to God. And so when we think

about being formed, theological formation, being formed or shaped by what we believe about God

and what we believe about God as it relates to the rest of our life. And so when we talk about

in the context of a seminary or a local church theological formation. We're talking about people

being shaped, conform to the image of Christ based on what they know of God and everything else

in relation to him. I love in 2nd Corinthians when Paul talks about us beholding the glory of God

and becoming like him. And so we want our students here. We want people in our local churches

to gaze on the beauty of God and become like him. And so we want our students here. We want people in our local churches to gaze on the beauty of God and become like him.

And so theological formation aimed towards maturity in Christ, conforming to the image of Christ, spiritual progress,

so that we're able to rightly understand God and all things in relation to Him.

So then the question goes, what does that

mean for us at Midwestern Seminary? And so we are convinced that the best way for us to prepare

men and women for the various ministry roles that God calls them in is to see them pursue theological

formation to be shaped into the image of Christ to become more and more like God

in the context of community and in the context of the local church. And I think it's important

for a couple reasons. One, students being in the local church allows pastors to give them

pastoral oversight and encouragement. The New Testament is filled with exhortations for Christians to

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