J.D. Tyler

Published on July 31, 2015

JD-Tyler Office of Spiritual Life

Transcript

J. D. TYLER: What I really enjoyed about working on this project was seeing
how the Office of Spiritual Life has developed and changed over the past 25
years. Um, years ago, it was seen as just another campus ministry along with RUF
or CO or other ministries and--and, in a desire to effectively serve the
spiritual needs of Samford, this office has grown to what it is today, where
it's not a campus ministry but it really works on the background, using what Dr.
Kerlin has called more of a guerilla warfare tactic. They desire to influence
the whole, uh, campus in a really unique way, um, seeing how they've drawn from
what other schools are doing to formulate convocation, um, and cadres and home
groups and spiritual life assistants and all these different, um, little
ministries that they use, which impact the whole campus spiritually in
significant ways and so I just really enjoyed seeing how that all has played out
over the years, how, um, Brian and Renee and April and Jim Barnette and Dr.
Kerlin have all really contributed to the growth and the development of this
office, to see what it is today, and how really they have adapted and changed to
the culture of Samford. As students through the years have changed, um, so has
the Office of Spiritual life, they, they've seen the needs really well and
responded, they haven't just stayed the same but they're very reactive and right
now they're being proactive, they're already looking to the future and trying to
see how, uh, they can best serve the spiritual needs of our campus as the
culture around it grows and grows and students come into Samford and look
differently, so, it really was a wonderful project to work on, and I'm so
grateful, um, that the Lord has brought men and women into this office who care
deeply about the people on this campus and care deeply about the Gospel, and,
and it's just, um, it was just great to get to know these people and interview
them and work on this project.

Audio Information
Attribute	Value
Interviewee	J. D. Tyler
Repository	Samford University Oral History Collection
Accession	SUHist/StudentReflections/004