As part of our spotlighting of recent graduates who are either working in their field of study or pursuing graduate-level education, throughout the coming year we will be continuing to feature the different programs that we offer at Providence through our Aim Higher portal.
One of those degrees is the Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies, which explores the ancient languages, history, social setting, and literary genres of the biblical text, as well as how it is interpreted in contexts such as the church, the academy, and in popular culture.
Providence Graduate: Ryan
Graduation Year: 2013
Current Role: Discipleship Developer for the Diocese of Rupert’s Land and Visiting Fellow at St John’s College
In Ryan’s Own Words: “I came to Providence in 2010 with the intention of doing one year of Christian education and then getting on with my ‘real’ life somewhere else. I ended up staying for seven years, two degrees, and some intermittent periods of employment. Every day entering the main building I would look up and see the words, ‘Enter to learn, go forth to teach’ carved into the lintel and that really sunk in. I currently serve as the Diocesan Discipleship Developer for the Anglican Diocese of Rupert’s Land where I coordinate all educational programming (theological and otherwise) for our diocese out of our diocesan college, St John’s College, at the University of Manitoba. My job is a hodgepodge of teaching classes, running workshops, planning events, and mentoring folks one-on-one, and I wouldn’t know how to do most of it if not for my time at Providence…A big part of the reason why I now work for the Anglican Church of Canada is because of the big-tent ecumenical approach that Providence promotes. While at Providence I had the opportunity to meet Christians from so many different churches and learn to pray and think alongside all these varied traditions. That helped me appreciate how much bigger the faith is than the fairly narrow version of it that I had grown up with. Discovering that there are people who genuinely love Jesus in all sorts of different traditions has been incredibly important in how I now approach the work of discipleship in a church that has a very wide array of expressions and beliefs. The diversity of belief and expression that I encountered at Providence was an invitation to discover exactly how big and deep and wide God’s love is for the world, and how people all over reflect that back in a myriad of ways.”
>> Learn more about earning a bachelor’s degree like this at Providence via the Aim Higher: Biblical Studies page.
