Christopher Beard

Background

About Christopher Beard

Serving in the context of Christian Higher Education, my primary goal is equipping student-scholars for the benefit of their individual contexts and for the glory of God and advancement of his Kingdom. I want to help leaders reach their potential so that they can, in turn, lead others to reach their potential. I believe teaching adults is a unique and exciting endeavor with special characteristics and principles that should be implemented so that adults can learn effectively and efficiently. I am convinced that equipping Christian leaders to thrive in their context while simultaneously fulfilling their calling as disciples of Jesus will be crucial in the Church's endeavor to carry out the Great Commission. My Ph.D. dissertation focuses on the connection between spiritual formation and adult learning theory, something that is missing in the overall literature. It is my belief that those charged with developing transformative education and spiritual formation efforts within the church and the academy should strongly consider the adult learning theories of andragogy and transformative learning theory in their planning. When those theory's principles are put into practice, holistic transformation and spiritual formation will be more effective and will closely resemble the disciple-making Jesus modeled in the gospels.