AI is rapidly changing higher education, raising urgent questions about ethics, leadership, and what it means to educate people with depth. Christian educators and ministry leaders are asking how to respond faithfully, without rejecting technology or allowing it to replace the formative work of learning, thinking, and discipleship.
In this episode of the Courageous Ambassador Podcast, Campus Pastor Danny Garcia sits down with Dr. Matthew Loverin, Provost of Grace Christian University, to explore how Christian higher education is navigating AI, leadership responsibility, and biblical integration. Drawing from his background in moral theology, philosophy, and ethics, Dr. Loverin reflects on leadership transitions, the role of community in formation, and the challenges AI presents to learning and spiritual growth.
This conversation addresses how leaders can approach AI thoughtfully, preserve the learning process, and cultivate environments that form character, wisdom, and discernment. For educators, pastors, and Christian leaders wrestling with technology’s expanding influence, this discussion offers a grounded perspective rooted in faith, integrity, and human formation.
Welcoming Dr. Matthew Loverin to the Courageous Ambassador Podcast
Welcome, everybody. I’m Danny Garcia, the campus pastor here at Grace Christian University, and you are listening to the Courageous Ambassador podcast. In each episode, we invite professors, pastors, leaders, and ministry servants to explore what it means to reflect Christ in their unique roles and calling.
Today we have a very special guest, someone who’s meaningful to me in my life. He actually officiated mine and my wife’s wedding and did our marriage counseling, so this man is a mentor of mine, very close to me and my family. He’s a graduate of Grace Bible College back in 1998 and graduated from the University of Notre Dame, where he studied moral theology and Christian ethics. He’s been a faculty member at Grace since 2005, where he’s taught courses in Bible, theology, philosophy, and ethics, and has recently stepped into the role of provost. We have Dr. Matthew Loverin here. Thank you for being here.
Dr. Loverin: Thanks for having me.
Setting the Stage for Today’s Discussion
Danny: So you have some interests in theology, such as Karl Barth, postmodern theology, philosophy, different subjects such as cultural media, and ethics in America, things like that, and we’re going to talk about that today. We’re going to jump into all this stuff. We’re going to discuss ethics, AI, and the whole nine. Whatever pops up, pops up, and we’re going to dive deep into it, but I want to start with your journey. You came here as a theology professor. That’s kind of what you went to school for and got your doctorate in, your PhD, and now you’ve stepped into this new role as provost. What was that journey like? What made you want to pursue teaching, and then also what made you want to pursue stepping into this new position as well?
Early Days at Grace
Dr. Loverin: Yeah, thanks for that, Danny. Thanks for the intro. It’s really good to be here. I came to Grace as an adjunct professor in 2005, and my wife, Michelle, was the women’s residence director, so we lived in the apartment attached to the women’s dorm there in the quad. We lived there for three years, and then we lived up in the Blackburn house behind the chapel for a number of years. When she was ready to step away and be a full-time mom, we bought a house in the neighborhood. So we lived around here, and alongside that journey, I’ve kind of increased my role as an adjunct professor. I became full-time in 2009 and moved from assistant professor to associate professor to full professor. During that time, I also worked as a director of assessment. I also worked as the dean of the graduate school, beginning our first master’s degree program in about 2015.
Navigating Leadership Transitions
Dr. Loverin: Then I took a little hiatus doing some different things, still teaching on campus, but I stepped away for about half a year. Maybe a sabbatical is one way to think of it, but I was still teaching in the classroom. Then I came back to be the dean of the School of Bible and Ministry. That was kind of right around the COVID years, where we just needed a little bit more leadership structure, not just in Bible and ministry but in the whole university, so we created that dean role. I was leading not just on-campus students but online students as well and grad students in ministry, and then just recently picked up the provost role. So it’s been a very eventful journey. The roles seem to change every couple of years as I’ve made that 20-year journey.
Stepping Into the National Spotlight
Danny: I know you just stepped into this higher education AI council, correct? I just heard about that, so congratulations. What’s the talk of the town with the AI council?
Dr. Loverin: There’s a lot going on, and it’s really picking up steam. In fact, while we’re meeting right now, while we’re recording this, there’s a three-day, three-hours-a-day live AI session on how to multiply your impact. It’s a free thing. It’s like how to save 15 hours a week for your business or for your life by implementing AI in all these ways. So that stuff is out there. You probably see it in your ads when you scroll through social media, like “Click this to learn how to AI in whatever way, three minutes a day” or whatever. So yes, Dr. Scott Shaw and I have been appointed to this national council on higher education and AI, and we’re really excited because it includes a lot of really big universities.
Why Faith-Based Representation Matters in AI Conversations
Florida State is on there, Harvard, Columbia, Cal State, Grand Valley State locally here in West Michigan. We’re super excited to represent a faith-based higher education perspective, even a biblical higher education perspective. When I looked at the list of participants, there were over 70 universities. I didn’t see another faith-based institution. So it was kind of exciting to be, I don’t know, named or volunteered. I’m not sure how we got on the list, but we got on the list. I told someone today it was like Indiana Jones, like rolling under the door and grabbing his hat at the last minute. Like we snuck in there somehow, but we hope to make a good contribution to represent faith and a biblical perspective on human life, what it means to be created in the image of God, and what it means to recognize the dangers of any technology.
Technology and the Fallen Human Condition
Dr. Loverin: We’re fallen creatures in the image of God. We’re going to always misuse technology and make technology in a way that tries to glorify ourselves and idolize ourselves as opposed to God, to really worship God as He’s meant to be worshiped. We hope to learn a lot as well about the implementation of AI and what that can look like in the classroom, for student services, and for university processes and administration. Really there’s a lot of different things; it’s complex. Higher ed’s very complex, and AI can make a difference in a lot of those areas. It’s something like 95% of higher ed leaders agree that AI is important and needs to influence what we’re doing, but 2.5% of universities have actually implemented anything. So there’s a big gap and there’s a big need there, and the intensity of that’s only going to ramp up.
The Real Challenges Facing Education
Danny: Yeah, I’m sure there are challenges to that with figuring out what ways to use it and implement it that are going to be beneficial and then what ways they could be a hindrance to education because of allowing shortcuts and not incentivizing study work and, you know, going out of your way to read or write a paper.
Dr. Loverin: Yeah, where you see that in the classroom most obviously is when a student doesn’t have to read a book anymore. They can just input a prompt and say, “Give me a summary of this book,” and what your large language model will do is search the whole internet. It’ll search like maybe the text of the book itself is on the internet. Maybe there are a bunch of Amazon or Google reviews of the book. It’s going to search Goodreads. It’s going to look at all of this, and it’s going to do it in a fraction of a second, and it’s going to give you a pretty accurate summary of the book.
What We Lose When We Skip the Process
Dr. Loverin: So you don’t have to read the book anymore. Now you don’t get the experience of reading the book. You don’t get the whole experience of wrestling with an argument or finding the important bits or falling asleep reading the book, and you remember, “Oh, I fell asleep in that chair reading that book. It was such a great book.
Dr. Loverin: Now you know that’s for book reading, book summaries, but we also can respond to a prompt. You can respond to the prompt of a paper. You can have it generate a paper, but you can also have what’s maybe a more legitimate use, and you can have AI or Grammarly correct your paper and make those little adjustments that up your writing. I feel like that has been around for a long time. You know Microsoft Word would underline it in red for a spell check or underline it in blue if you wanted to make a little grammatical change. I just saw Scott Shaw shared with me today a new upgrade that’s coming to Grammarly. It’s not going to be Grammarly anymore. Did you hear about this?
Grammarly Update
Danny: I did not. Do you know what it’s going to be called?
Dr. Loverin: It’s going to be called Superhuman Go.
Danny: What? It’s not Grammarly anymore. It’s a whole new set of writing tools.
Dr. Loverin: Writing tools. Yeah. And you’re just going to go, and you’re going to be superhuman when you go.
Danny: I feel like we could workshop that one a little more. It sounds like a game.
Dr. Loverin: Yeah, it sounds like a little game.
Danny: I think they’re targeting the sixth graders, though.
Dr. Loverin: Right, for real. Yeah that makes sense. I mean, you know the 20-somethings might be a little savvy to that, but the sixth graders are going to be like, “Yeah, superhuman.” Press that go button. We’re going to go. So that’s just like today’s advanced, like what’s happening now, and it’s going to increase exponentially for the next five to seven years.
Grace’s Unique Position in the AI Revolution
Dr. Loverin: So the question is, how does higher ed respond to that? And we really think that here at Grace we’re in a good position because of our biblical worldview and our commitment to transformational relationships, and we want to make this a place where, okay, there’s AI, and it’s out there, and you can use it. We’re not going to forbid it or anything because that’s another extreme; you can just reject all of the technology. But I don’t think you’ll have a market for your students anymore because they’re going to be immersed in that world of technology. They’re going to have to get used to it.
Danny: That’s what we were talking about before; it’s not necessarily guarding yourself and not facing the truth and the reality of what’s going on in the world but knowing the tools and how to use them effectively and correctly.
Using Technology Redemptively
Dr. Loverin: Yeah, use them correctly so that you can actually get something from that.
Danny: Yeah, from a kingdom standpoint, and somehow, you know, one of the values that we bring is to be created in the image of God and to be fallen and to be redeemed, and God’s putting us back together, and we live in a world where there’s technology, and what does it look like to use that technology redemptively? I don’t want to shortcut my humanity or shortchange taking advantage of the tools that are there. What does it look like to do that?
Dr. Loverin: Yeah in a way that’s faithful to Jesus. So we’re trying to move towards that direction with our institution. I’m sure that you have some ideas of what some opportunities are that we can use to bring AI into the classroom. I have ideas.
A Student’s Perspective on AI
Danny: Yeah, could you share some of those? I want to hear from a current student. What’s your experience so far? What do you see in your colleagues or your own use? I’m going to turn it over to the host now.
Dr. Loverin: Yeah take over.
Danny: I think the scariest thing to me is just that it’s this open resource where it’s really relying on and counting on an individual’s self-control and integrity to not abuse this tool. I think before, I mean, I was kind of with you. I transferred from a school before this at a community college, and there I had no clue about any AI or anything. For a long time I would hear about ChatGPT, and I was like, “Chat what? What are we talking about?” I just didn’t realize. I mean, I’ve used it now. I think everybody has, in one way or another, but for a long time I didn’t really know what it was.
The Reality of Student AI Use
Danny: Then as I learned about it and now like fast forward to today it’s like literally the amount of students I’ve spoken to and they’re like “I’m just going to use chat for that” and every time I’m like “you know this is your choice. I’m going to encourage you to not, but that’s your choice.” So I think that’s opened my eyes to how many people use and eventually rely on chat for things that I don’t think are good things to be relying on. We need to be able to learn how to understand writing a paper. I think we need to be able to know how to think and read a complicated piece of writing and digest it and come up with our own thoughts. Let’s say even saying that, like, obviously we should have those essential skills, but Prof. Salt, who used to be Prof. G, is that what it is now?
Dr. Loverin: Well, that’s what she’s going by.
The Point Is the Process, Not the Paper
Danny: Yes, Prof. Salt. We’ve talked a lot about AI. She’s very anti-AI, and she makes some really good points. I’m not as anti as her; I think you can use it correctly, but she makes a lot of good points about you really shortcutting this whole entire process. You were saying what it means to be human is to go through this learning process. Something I’ve thought a lot about, and I’ve talked to some students about to try to kind of help them understand why we shouldn’t do this, is the point of if I’m assigned a paper, the point is not to write the paper. The point is not the final product. The point is that process of learning the materials and having to wrestle through “How do I answer the prompt of this paper, and how do I connect maybe some Old Testament, New Testament, and what the message of scripture is overall? How do I format my argument? How do I make it make sense?”
Using AI Like a Smart Friend
Danny: Those are essential skills we should have. And if we’re just putting it through chat, we think, “Oh, I did the paper,” but the point was not the paper. The point was never the paper. The point was the process of learning and thinking and growing. I think the best thing I’ve heard about how to use chat was Kyle Bay saying, “Use chat like a smart friend. You wouldn’t make your friend do your homework, but you might ask your friend, “Could you proofread this for me and let me know what you think?” I would say again I’m not anti-AI, but I would say an even better way would just be to go to a real smart friend in real life because it builds community and builds relationships. So I would say it’s a very real struggle. I would say we’re limited, to be honest, because people do not have self-control.
The Slippery Slope of Convenience
Dr. Loverin: Yeah, there are those skills outside of the learning process that are helping form or not form. When you’re talking about that, it made me think of time management, and how, I’m going to be honest, I’ve used ChatGPT a few times, and sometimes I’ve used it in a way where I’m like, “Oh, I’m in a pinch. I need to get something done right,” like a short prompt or a question, whatever it may be, and I need some insight, or I need a quick Bible verse for myself for something, so I need quick insight. It’s a helpful tool but that doesn’t necessarily help time management. It incentivizes poor time management exactly, and so it becomes a crutch. I’m sure students also experience that where it’s like, “I’ve done this before, and that was super easy, so then I had this thing I could fall back on if I ever got in that situation.”
How Professors Are Adapting
Dr. Loverin: One of the things you’re seeing is professors moving away from assignments that can be used in that way, whether it’s poor time management or whether it’s planning all along for the AI to write your paper for you, taking the professor’s prompt, whatever that might be, that can be a page-long assignment prompt, and plugging that in. It can get pretty; I mean, I’ve seen students in an online environment, like for a personal response to a devotional, or, you know, when you have to do the reply, when you do the reply to someone else, it’s like, “Write this as if I were saying it from the first person.” It sounds like AI, but it’s weirdly like theirs, you know. Like “tell a story about when I was a kid and I broke my arm” and it’ll just make a whole thing.
Preserving the Value of Reflection
Dr. Loverin: So it’s not just for the big assignments; it’s for the small assignments and for the reflective assignments. Some of that we really want; we think that reflection is super valuable for how people apply the Bible and how they have life transformation, so we don’t want them to skip that. That’s why you’re seeing professors move to things like interviews or video presentations or live presentations or discussions where you’re just not; you’re not going to see tests anymore. You’re not going to see long paper assignments even though those are valuable for the education process. You’re going to see the whole education process almost reverse, and here’s what I mean by that. We talk about higher-level thinking skills and lower-level thinking skills. This is Bloom’s taxonomy if you’ve ever done any educational psychology or anything like that.
Understanding Bloom’s Taxonomy
Dr. Loverin: Lower-level thinking skills are at the bottom; this is like you know you know how to do a matching test or you can guess the definition of a word, like do you know, identify, remember, or understand? That’s at the bottom. And then you go up to, can I actually put this in my own words? Do I have an understanding of it so that I can think more clearly about that very specific concept? Or maybe compare and contrast might be another way of doing it. But then you want to apply your knowledge, and then you want to analyze, and you want to critique, and then you want to eventually do at the top of the pyramid create. Create something of your own that shows that you really understand this concept. So like a science project is a great example; you create the experiment to test your hypothesis. It’s the whole thinking skills that are on display there.
Inverting the Educational Pyramid
Dr. Loverin: Well now what’s happening with AI is you create a prompt. You’re creating something at the very beginning, and that is the top of the pyramid, but that’s the lowest level of thinking, right? Write me a paper. Okay, bottom of the pyramid. So okay, great, you made the AI write a paper. Now can you analyze and evaluate whether that’s a good paper or not? The student doesn’t know whether that’s a good paper or not. So we’re taking the pyramid, and we’re inverting it. We’re making it upside down.
Danny: Yeah and you kind of mentioned the conglomeration of the student’s voice and AI’s voice and it’s like AI speaks the same language and it doesn’t matter whether you try to tweak it or not. If you know what you’re looking for it’s pretty obvious that AI is working itself in in some way.
The Disappearing Distinction
Dr. Loverin: That’s true right now. It was even more obvious like a year ago. It’s less obvious now.
Danny: Really?
Dr. Loverin: And in another year we probably won’t be able to tell the difference between AI voice and human voice. That difference will be gone because AI will be so powerful.
Danny: Wow, yeah.
Dr. Loverin: We already have the problem of AI humanizers. Maybe Stephanie’s heard about them where you have chat make your paper and then you take it over to this other AI and you say “make this sound more human so it doesn’t trigger all of the AI detectors” and then it becomes really really hard for a professor to know whether students are learning anything. Then you really have to ask the question, why have higher ed at all?
Students and Their AI Relationships
Danny: Do you know from a student perspective what the atmosphere is, the temperature of students, and their relationship with AI that you’re hearing from your peers?
Stephanie: Yeah, I would say a lot of people are nice and cozy; they’re besties with Chat. I would say a lot more people use it than I ever expected or thought, especially for writing. I’m one of the writing tutors; you can book me for a paper review. Shout out, book me. I was hanging out with some girls; all of them needed help, so I was like, “I’ll just come over; we’ll just all work on papers; we’ll talk about it,” and the amount of times it was just chat, chat, chat and I was just like, “I’m trying to not be that person,” so I just kept saying, “They were like, ‘Do you think that’s okay?'” I was like, “You know I would discourage it. It is up to you. I think I would encourage you to use X, Y, and Z sources, you know, and then I can proofread it for you.”
The Personal Struggle With AI
Stephanie: So I would say, to be honest, a lot of students use it. For myself, I have to honestly pretty much not use it at all because I think for me it’s a slippery slope because I think everybody has put something in the chat, you know. As soon as you put something in, it responds with the next step. You want me to, you say, like, “Oh, give me Bible verses for this paper prompt.” It’s like, “Here, do you want me to give you an outline?” And then you say yes, and it’s like, “Tell me to just write it for you,” and then you say yes, and now suddenly you’re like, “Why would I spend time writing a paper when this is here?” So I try to just stay away because honestly I don’t trust myself.
The Exponential Speed of Change
Dr. Loverin: I love your description of that experience, and you should know that a year or two years ago it was not doing that. So these are new iterations. You know I just listened this past week to the latest Elon Musk Joe Rogan. In five to seven years you’re not gonna have a phone. You won’t need a phone or a watch. You won’t need a device because you’re just going to Google in or whatever. We’ll all be wearing those fancy goggles and it’s gonna know what you want. Like, “Oh, you’re sitting down in your desk chair; oh, you must want a paper to be written.” I see you open these books; let me absorb them.” Boom. Yeah, and you’re not going to need to work anymore unless you choose to work, unless you choose to do that kind of work.
Preserving Human Experience
Dr. Loverin: So you know your description of that experience of just an idea for a paper, “What are the verses? Where would I look in the Bible for verses?” and then “Would you like me to write the paper for you?” That whole experience is going to be exponentially sped up. You’re going to be a superhuman. Go.
Danny: And it goes back to that human experience that it’s beginning to dole out, and you’re no longer going to actually be engaged in things. We don’t even need to think anymore.
Dr. Loverin: Exactly. Your life becomes easier, but it doesn’t become more meaningful. It doesn’t become cooler. You know that’s what we want to focus on though. So in that world that we’re kind of envisioning, it’s really easy to envision all of the ways that that would be awful.
Creating Meaningful Learning Environments
Dr. Loverin: People, there’s still going to be people. They’re still going to be around. So how do we create an environment that’s still a learning environment that students can thrive and flourish and grow in despite the use of all these tools? The education that we offer is going to have to change very dramatically, and so is how we offer it. It’s going to change dramatically really fast. So there are going to be changes that have to be implemented year by year that’s going to be different and probably you’re going to look back three years from now and say “well it was never like that when I was a student” because we had to make those changes. You asked me what that will look like. I don’t exactly know. I think inverting Bloom’s taxonomy is a really good place to start for faculty to think critically about the education we offer and where our students are at, because when you’re a teacher, you can’t just put the cookies on the top shelf. You have to create accessibility to the education that you want to offer.
The Music Education Model
Danny: You know if you think about music education, AI is not going to do your scales for you. It’s not going to take practice time for you. You’re not going to get anywhere in your music if you just want AI to do it for you. You could learn about music. Another example might be you having AI write a sermon for you. It’s going to be kind of canned. It’s not going to be great. But I think probably there are quite a few communicators out there who could take the bones of an AI outline or sermon and could make that really work for people, and then God could use it. It’s not like that is completely unethical to do. It short-circuits the process of preaching, and you could be a purist and say, “No, we should never do that.”
Reimagining Pastoral Ministry
Dr. Loverin: However, if you freed up your time and didn’t have to spend 20 hours a week on a sermon, then maybe you could connect with people more face-to-face. You could spend actual time with people in relationships. I think that’s what education will start to look like: a lot of close connections with faculty, a lot of meetings, and a lot of time spent with faculty nurturing and guiding students in their educational path and then also in their use of AI to learn and grow. I mean I feel like I use AI to learn and grow every single day but you know kind of my generation is one that had to adapt to the computer, the internet, the smartphone, now AI. So we’ve been adapting for 50 years. This whole generation is just immersed into a culture where they haven’t had to adapt. They’re just digital natives.
Digital Natives vs. Adapters
Danny: Yes, I call them feral. You know, if you look at grade school kids running around at a Friday night football game, they’re glued to their phones, and they’re feral. They’re just like wild animals.
Dr. Loverin: Yeah, the way you describe that I think is perfect. You are adapting to something, not necessarily being immersed and being formed by that thing. It’s a big difference.
Danny: Yeah, and it’s a struggle, I think, with people, especially our generation, just growing up in social media and technology, and this is just such a natural thing, so it’s so easy to just immerse into and just be like, “Yep, I’m used to it; let’s just give it a go.”
The Provost’s Primary Responsibilities
Danny: So I want to pivot to something different, and we can still talk about AI if this is part of it. So I had you as a professor, and you’re still teaching some classes, but you’ve moved into this provost position, and so I know there are some things that you’re working on in regard to the goals of the university and academics and what this position entails. Is there anything that you’re, like, first and foremost hoping and planning for that you’re looking forward to that you can share with us?
Dr. Loverin: Yeah, I’ll try. You know I work for the president; that’s my primary report, and I lead the team of academics, including the faculty and the academic administration, including online faculty. So there’s a lot of oversight. It’s very, very complex, but one of the main things that the president has asked me to do is to look at our financial efficiency.
The Reality of Small Christian Colleges
Dr. Loverin: You hear all the time about colleges, and specifically small Christian colleges, closing. Just this week it was Trinity College in the suburbs of Chicago, Trinity Christian College. So you know they were a large institution with 70-plus programs, and they’re closing their doors at the end of this year. So we look at that and think “okay how do we as an institution be financially efficient?” And that has to do with the programs that we offer; it has to do with how many students are enrolled in those programs; it has to do with what the class size is. We love having a small class size, but you do get to a class size that’s not efficient financially for you to keep running those classes with only three or four people. So that’s one of my primary goals, to make sure that we are running tight efficiencies because that’s essential for our survival as an institution.
The Hardest Part of the Job
Dr. Loverin: That’s maybe the least exciting thing that I have to do, and also it’s the thing, if you want to pray for me in my work, that’s probably the hardest thing for me to do because it is so complex. The second thing is to make sure that we are, in addition to all this AI stuff, which I think is important but it doesn’t quite make the top of the list, making sure that our education is biblically integrated. What does that mean? It’s like we want a biblical perspective in every single subject. Not just that you take 30 credits of Bible and theology classes but that every class that you have has a meaningful integration of a biblical perspective. We like to think that’s why people come here.
Biblical Integration Across All Disciplines
Dr. Loverin: People come to college for a lot of reasons, but they come to our university for biblical integration. That’s who we are. Making sure that that’s happening across all of our curriculum, especially arts and sciences curriculum, or professional majors that aren’t necessarily Bible or ministry majors. Making sure students get that very saturated biblical experience.
Danny: Do you have anything that’s a future plan that is in the works that you’re getting excited about? This is a huge project; it’s like a big dream, but we’re not there quite yet. Is there anything coming up in that regard?
The Big Dream
Dr. Loverin: I would love to say yes, but I’m thinking I have a whiteboard in my office where I’ve got everything that I’m working on, and I’m trying to say, “What’s the big dream?” Honestly, I would say that the big dream is somehow getting on top of this AI wave. I really feel that if we don’t make ourselves really meaningful and transformational, biblical integration is part of that but the relationships that people have when they’re here, it’s the Grace experience, if we don’t get ahead or at least get onto the wave of AI, then we’re going to lose. I don’t want to be apocalyptic or pessimistic about the future; that’s really not who I am. But I really, because I have kids, are they going to go to college?
Will College Still Exist?
Dr. Loverin: I don’t know if college will be a thing six or seven years from now for anyone. It’s not just “Does Grace Christian University survive?” It’s more “Does the proposition of college still work after AI is fully integrated into society?” And I don’t know what that means necessarily, but if Grace Christian University is going to thrive and grow and be fulfilling its mission five or six years from now, we have to get ahead on AI.
Danny: Yeah, definitely. Do you have any advice for the students here on campus at Grace? How can they get on board with that process and that change?
Practicing the Spiritual Disciplines
Dr. Loverin: Yeah, we try to do a lot with, and Stephanie knows this, the practices of Jesus. We have spiritual formation classes, and we’re trying to integrate a discipleship approach in Bible and theology classes, in our chapels, and in upper-division spiritual formation classes. You really need to have time where you just put the phone away. You just need to put it to bed; go put it in another room. And I would say the purpose of that is to have real relationships, not a digitally mediated relationship. I think that digitally mediated relationships are great. I have a mentor that I chat with every two weeks. It’s a digital connection. It’s a Zoom call. We use Facebook Messenger, so you can use the little emojis and masks and stuff. That’s just kind of what we’ve done. It’s not a big deal.
The Value of Digital Connection
Dr. Loverin: How you do it, I think the digital gives us real communication that’s valuable that you wouldn’t have. Texting: I can text with my daughter in college. I can text with my son in high school. I can have those meaningful connections through the technology. But you have to have those relationships apart from the technology as well. I don’t exclude your relationship with God in that. It’s great that you have a Bible app and that you can have a daily devotion on your app.
Time Away From Screens
Dr. Loverin: But you have to have time with the Lord that is away from all of that. Some of it’s neurological, some of it’s physiological. Blue light, reading text in the dark. You don’t need to be doing that for your body. To wake up and reach for your phone first thing is not good for you. You should wake up and go outside or make a cup of coffee or have a glass of water and do human things that are not dependent on technology. It’s like when you’re camping. You just wake up, and you go outside, and you stretch, and you feel great.
Creating Intentional Community
Danny: One thing you’ve emphasized is the need for real, in-person community. Why does that matter so much right now?
Dr. Loverin: When you’re outside, you don’t need digital communication to be human or to have meaningful relationships. We’ve tried to create spaces like that through chapels and through events, worship nights, bonfires, and things you’ve helped lead as an RA. Just creating opportunities. A lot of students crave this, but they want it to be organic. They seek peer-led gatherings. It can’t feel forced.
Learning to Ask for Help
Danny: That idea of things being organic is interesting. What would you say to students who want that kind of connection but struggle to step into it?
Dr. Loverin: I’d say this directly to students listening: you need help, and that’s okay.
When my son was ten and in Boy Scouts, one of the lessons I kept coming back to was that it’s okay to ask for help. If something is hard, ask for help. He learned that young. Now, at sixteen, he’ll still say, “Dad, can I have some help?”
If a student struggles to put their device down, maybe they need help. Start small. Do something intentionally unplugged so you can practice. Think of it like training wheels—space to experience what it’s like to be present again.
Danny: That’s a helpful way to frame it. Practice, not perfection.
Living in a Constantly Connected World
Danny: You mentioned anxiety earlier. Where do you see that showing up?
Dr. Loverin: We’re so cybernetic. I notice it in myself. I use my phone for work constantly. I’ll be texting, watching a video, and listening to a podcast all at once. When you step away from that, even briefly, you can feel unsettled, almost exposed.
But that discomfort is good. Even fifteen minutes without a device, taking a walk, can matter. It’s simple, but we resist it.
Danny: That resonates. Silence can feel strange when we’re not used to it.
The Courageous Ambassador
Danny: I want to shift us to a bigger question. Our mission is to graduate courageous ambassadors. With AI, culture, and personal pressures all colliding, how does a student actually become a courageous ambassador in their classroom, church, workplace, or daily life?
Dr. Loverin: That Is the Courageous Ambassador Podcast question.
When we first adopted that language as a university, I loved it. It’s rooted in Scripture, especially 2 Corinthians 5, which has long mattered to our institution and our fellowship of churches. The challenge is that it’s hard to define. If students don’t know what they’re aiming at, they won’t know what needs to change.
Knowing Who You’re Becoming
Danny: So how do students begin to define that for themselves?
Dr. Loverin: I challenge students in my ethics class to imagine a future version of themselves. That’s incredibly hard for eighteen-to twenty-year-olds. Society moves so fast that imagining life beyond six months feels impossible.
But you can say this: here’s the kind of person I want to become.
Courageous ambassadorship means becoming more like Christ, aiming toward Christlike character, actions, and priorities. No matter your vocation, that question doesn’t change.
Set goals. List five things you hope to be or do five years from now. Marriage. Family. Career. Service. Then ask: how will I serve the Lord in that life?
Danny: That shifts the focus from outcomes to formation.
Why Community Still Matters After College
Danny: How does community fit into that long-term picture?
Dr. Loverin: You need a strong community around you. College friendships matter, but they’re hard to maintain once life scatters people across the country. That’s why we emphasize involvement in a local church.
Not just people your age. Older adults. Children. Families. People are really living life. A multi-generational church teaches you what it means to be Christian across seasons, not just within youth culture.
Our culture isn’t pro-age or pro-family. The gospel tells a different story.
Danny: That’s a countercultural vision.
A Life That Gives Itself Away
Danny: Final thought, what anchors a courageous ambassador for the long haul?
Dr. Loverin: You can’t do this alone. Gospel-centered community becomes the base, a staging ground, from which you’re sent out.
The gospel is about giving yourself away in Christlike service. Embrace every stage of life. God blesses that. Without that foundation, the world will swallow you up.
Danny: That’s a powerful place to land. Know who you’re becoming, and let gospel-centered community shape you through every stage of life.
Thank you so much, Dr. Loverin. This was a rich conversation.
Dr. Loverin: Thanks for having me.
