Sabbath Doesn't Care About Your Doctorate

In 40 days, I will be 40 years old. As a way to capture this milestone, I’ve been doing some reflection. My life is full of so many blessings. I walked across a stage on Saturday and received my Doctor of Ministry degree. I never expected to have a doctorate by the age of 40.

I did expect that my students would be particularly amused that my DMin degree sounds like "demon" when you say it. Their fascination with this has not disappointed.

I work with college students and if you know me, you know I love my students. You may know that they were the subject and catalyst for my thesis project that sealed my doctorate. You may know that the project is something I am very proud of and that I hope to have some cool content for you soon that I can distill out of my thesis (peep my summary for Christianity Today). What you may not know is that this new addition to my title has zero effect on my job and day-to-day with my work as a chaplain. After my defense and my graduation, I came back, went to work, and jumped back into exactly what I did before my defense (and before my doctorate began back in 2017).

I know people get higher education degrees for several reasons. For some, they are the fuel that will propel them into a new career or position. Some will get distinction in their community or other perks. I know that for some, the pursuit of a degree is feeding the need to prove themselves or achieve some status that seems unreachable without it. I wish I could say that my motives were pure, but now that I’ve officially changed my title on my LinkedIn page, I’m taking some time to truly assess, "why did I do this?" and "what now?"