Kyle Anderson-FNW Alumnus

Kyle Anderson :: 07/11/11

 You won’t find my name in any church staff directory. Ditto for any other parachurch group. Yet that was the plan when I enrolled at Fuller in Winter Quarter 2004.
You won’t find my name on any list of seminary or bible school faculty. I’m not enrolled in any PhD programs. Yet that was the dream when I took my last class in the summer of 2009.
From that standpoint, my time at Fuller was a bust. I’m not a pastor. I’m not a teacher.
Instead, I work for a software company. True, it is Logos Bible Software and all my Church History, Systematic Theology, Old and New Testament, Greek, and Hebrew has come in extraordinarily handy, but it is not where I expected to be.
Was my time at Fuller a bust? Absolutely not! Fuller was exactly what I needed to prepare me for where I am now and where I will be in the future.
I come from church and a tradition that emphasizes “every member a minister.” That’s a motto I’ve taken to heart. At every moment and in every situation I try to think and act as a minister. It shapes my relationship with co-workers, prayer with friends, holidays with family, and every other interaction I have. These past years, God had called me to be a pastor without a parish.
Fuller prepared me for this. Through my time at Fuller I learned to think Biblically and contextually. I was equipped to be a minister to men and women in all sorts of times and places. This has ranged from co-workers struggling with doubts and fears, to meeting with college students, to helping friends and family cope in times of crisis.
Recently, a relative was killed in a sudden, unexpected, and violent manner. Suddenly I was looked to as a pastor. Without asking, I was called upon to be the presence of Christ in an awful situation. I had no positional authority, no title, just myself to offer. I don’t know how I could have done this without Fuller. How could I have counseled without my time at Fuller? How could I have thought theologically without my Systematic courses? How could I have entered into their shoes without my training in contextualization? How could I have prepared the memorial service without classes on worship and liturgy?
Although you won’t find my name on any staff directory, except an awesome software company, I am a minister. Fuller has made me a better one.