Weekly Email: February 2, 2026

Weekly Email

Feb 2

Today marks the first day of Spring 1. Most students start a new term with the assumption, “If I can just keep up, I’ll be fine.” The problem is that “keeping up” usually means giving away more nights, more weekends, and more mental space than you planned.

As you begin this new term, start with prayer. Ask for guidance, humility, focus, and a steady endurance that does not depend on a good week. Then start with a plan, not a perfect one, but a realistic one. Seminary is hard, but you should not make it harder through avoidable chaos in your study habits. That’s what this week’s student tip is about.

New Students: If you’re new this term, I’d love to hear from you as you’re getting started. These weekly emails are meant to be a simple connection point, with one practical student tip and a few updates so you know what’s coming. I’ve been sending them since August 2024, and you can find the full archive here. And any time you want to reach out, just reply to this email. I read every response.

Student Tip: Study Efficiently to Protect Your Life Outside of Seminary

A fellow online student recently replied to one of my emails, which I always appreciate. I love hearing from you, and I read every reply. It gives me a clearer picture of what students are experiencing week to week, and it also creates a real connection with students who are spread across the country and around the world.

In his note, he mentioned he was trying to improve his reading. He felt slow and wasn’t getting everything out of it that he was wanting. So we sent a few emails back and forth and I asked him a simple question: do you ever check your phone when you’re reading?

He said no and that he felt like he stayed pretty focused.

Even though he responded that he didn’t check his phone I challened him that eac time you sit down to read this week put your phone in the other room.

A week later or so later he came back and said, “I didn’t realize how much I was actually checking it.” He wears an Apple Watch, and he started noticing that a notification would hit his wrist and create that immediate pull to see what it was. The phone wasn’t there, so he had to sit with the impulse. Over an hour, he estimated he wanted to check his phone three or four times.

The surprise was not long stretches of doom scrolling. It was the cost of the quick checks. Each interruption pulled him out of the author’s argument and it took a few minutes to get back into the flow. He shared that the first 10 to 15 minutes still felt slow but once he stayed with it, his focus started to snowball. He could track the logic, follow the structure, and actually understand what he was reading. When he finished, he realized he had more progress than normal.

Seminary work is not easy. I remember going through my MDiv and struggling more times than I can count. Some of that struggle is the point. Working through hard things is part of how growth happens. You are learning content but you are also being formed into a certain kind of person, someone who can stay steady, think clearly, and keep going when the work is demanding.

At the same time, you want the struggle to come from the right place. You want it to come from wrestling with Scripture, theology, history, and ministry realities. You do not want it to come from avoidable friction that drains your attention and makes the work harder than it needs to be.

That is also one of the reasons we take so much care in the design of our online courses. We do not want course structure, navigation, or confusing expectations to get in the way of your learning. Seminary is already demanding. You should not have to fight the course just to get to the content.

This same principle applies to your own study habits. You cannot make the reading easy and you cannot make the concepts simple. But you can remove the avoidable friction that keeps pulling you out of the work. You can set up your environment so your attention has a chance to settle and stay settled.

Seminary is not only about time spent. It is about learning complicated things and then producing something on the other side of it. If you cannot learn, you cannot thrive. If you never produce, you will feel behind no matter how capable you are. Online students feel this pressure in a unique way because you are doing demanding academic work inside a life that does not pause.

Phones and notifications are not “small distractions.” They train your mind to expect escape routes. Then you sit down to read and your brain keeps looking for an exit every few minutes. You do not fix that by trying harder. You fix that by changing the environment and retraining your attention.

This is where clarity in what you’re doing is so helpful. When you decide, “For the next 45 minutes I’m reading these pages and nothing else,” you stop negotiating with yourself. Clarity about what matters creates clarity about what does not. A buzz on your wrist feels urgent, but urgency is not the same thing as importance.

Busyness also lies to us. When you are not sure how to measure progress, it is easy to replace progress with activity. You answer messages, check boxes, clean up loose ends, and you feel productive because you are moving. But a lot of that work is shallow. It is easy to replicate. It rarely changes you. It crowds out the kind of attention that actually builds understanding.

Your willpower is not unlimited, it will deflate at a certain point. If your plan depends on resisting temptation all night then you will lose when you are tired. The better plan is to remove the temptation before it shows up. Put the phone in the other room. Take the watch off if it is part of the loop. Let boredom happen for a minute instead of escaping it. That boredom is not a problem. It is part of training your concentration.

The goal is not efficiency for its own sake. The goal is to protect your life outside of school. When your reading gets scattered, you pay for it later with extra sessions and late nights, and that time comes from somewhere. Try the experiment for one week and see what you get back.

And genuinely, if you have a question or you’re stuck on something, reply to these emails. I can’t solve everything over email but I do read them, and it helps me know what to address in future weeks.

Program News: Preaching Workshop, March 23–25, 2026

If you are preaching regularly, you know the grind. The sermon clock resets every week, and it is hard to find space to sharpen your craft without also burning yourself out.

The Preaching Workshop here at Southern Seminary is a limited-attendance retreat for men serving as pastors who preach regularly. You will get focused training and meaningful conversation at a pace that helps you leave better equipped and more refreshed.

You will hear lectures and take part in discussion with our Preaching faculty, including Hershael York, Eric Smith, and Michael Pohlman. You will also benefit from several preaching lectures from Joel Beeke during his campus-wide Mullins Lectures on Preaching.

The workshop fee is $800 and includes three nights of lodging and all meals. Meals are designed for faculty mentoring and networking with fellow pastors.

Online master’s students can also take the workshop for academic credit by registering for 30177, Studies in Preaching, and completing the additional required work and sessions. If you register for credit, you will pay your standard tuition for the course in addition to the $800 workshop fee. Lodging and meals are still included during the workshop dates.

Course registration closes March 6, 2026. Scholarships for master’s students are limited and awarded first-come, first-served.