Weekly Email: March 17, 2025
Hope you had a great weekend. We’re starting Week 7 of the Spring 1 term. Our team is praying for you as you finish up your courses over the next couple weeks.
Student Tip: Practicing Boredom
I’ve often talked about attention and focus, but today let’s dive into something a bit different: the surprising benefits of boredom.
Nowadays, it’s easy to avoid boredom by quickly grabbing our phones or finding another distraction. Yet, research shows that experiencing a bit of boredom can actually be good for us. Historically, people didn’t have constant digital entertainment at their fingertips, and those quieter moments often led to creativity and deeper thinking.
Here’s why embracing a little boredom might help you:
Boredom boosts creativity: When you’re bored, your mind has the freedom to wander and explore new ideas. This wandering can help you generate creative thoughts for your coursework, sermon prep, or lesson planning. For example, next time you’re stuck on a paper, try letting your mind drift instead of immediately reaching for your phone. You might be surprised by the ideas that come up.
Boredom strengthens your ability to focus: Constantly checking your phone in idle moments trains your brain to expect constant stimulation. Instead, try practicing being quietly bored for short periods. Over time, this practice will help you improve your attention and stay more present and engaged in important tasks.
I once heard a podcast describe our phones as “adult pacifiers.” We instinctively grab them whenever boredom creeps in, even though they don’t truly help us. This automatic habit weakens our tolerance for boredom and makes it harder to maintain our focus.
Here are some simple ways to intentionally practice boredom this week:
Keep your phone away: When you’re at a stoplight, waiting in line at the store, or just sitting quietly somewhere, resist the urge to reach for your phone. Instead, take a moment to just sit and look around.
Try a distraction-free walk: I’ve been practicing this for almost three years now whenever I go for a walk or a hike. Before I start, I intentionally pick a particular topic to think about such as an idea for work, something I’m writing, or a school project. I’ve found that my best thinking often happens during these walks. Once I’m finished, I’ll frequently create a voice memo to capture some of my thoughts. If you’re interested in learning more about how I process these memos for later use, let me know!
Notice your thoughts: When you feel boredom creeping in, try paying attention to the thoughts popping into your head. You might find solutions to problems or fresh ideas naturally coming to the surface.
Remember, intentional boredom isn’t wasted time. It’s actually a wonderful way to boost your creativity, sharpen your focus, and become more productive. This week, I challenge you to embrace those small moments of boredom. Your brain will thank you!
Program News: New 16-Week Courses
You may have noticed that our schedule for the upcoming academic year (starting this fall) includes several new 16-week courses. Traditionally, we’ve offered most of our courses in an eight-week format, but after hearing your feedback, we’re excited to add these longer courses to give you more flexibility.
We know life can get busy, and sometimes an intensive eight-week course can feel overwhelming. By spreading a course over 16 weeks, divided across two terms, it can become much more manageable. For example, if you usually take one course in Fall 1 and another in Fall 2, you might find you can comfortably add an additional course if it spans both terms.
This new format is perfect if you’re looking for a lighter workload but still want to keep progressing in your studies. It’s also great if you have room to add a class but find taking two eight-week courses simultaneously difficult. With this new option, you could pair one eight-week course with a 16-week course.
Importantly, we’re not reducing or replacing any existing eight-week courses; we’re simply adding these new 16-week options to give you more choices. For instance, you’ll see both an eight-week and a 16-week version of Biblical Hermeneutics available.
Traditional 16-week courses:
Language courses
Practicums (Biblical Counseling, Preaching, Christian Teaching)
New 16-week courses:
Fall 1–2:
Biblical Hermeneutics with Dr. Vickers
Systematic Theology I with Dr. Wellum
Christian Ethics with Dr. Walker
Fall 2-Winter:
New Testament I with Dr. Pennington
Church History I with Dr. Presley
Faculty Devotional
We’re taking a break from facutly devotionals for a little bit. If you have any ideas that may be helpful for this third section of the weekly email, please let me know!
That’s all for this week! Thanks for reading and check in next Monday. You can find an archive of each week’s email here.
If you’re looking for information on courses such as textbooks, course description, and what we have to offer online, check out the Course Snapshots!
