For the faculty of Mid-America Christian University’s School of Ministry, helping students discern their calling is a top priority. While some students arrive knowing they want to become ministers, youth pastors, or faith-forward mental health professionals, other students’ goals are far less clear. Attending MACU is an important first step for these students in exploring the possibilities for a career centered on faith.
Perhaps no one understands this more than Justin Key, professor and chair of the School of Ministry at MACU. An instructor at MACU since 2012, Key has helped many students turn their talents into careers of service.
Key is also a MACU alum, and, like many of his students, he came to the school with a strong desire to spread hope but no idea how to go about doing it. His story is evidence that the two things that are most needed by those seeking a fulfilling calling are faith and conviction.
Finding Motivation in Faith
Key grew up in Calhoun, Tennessee, a small town in the southeastern part of the state. He and his family were active members of a local Church of God.
“Growing up in church was extremely meaningful,” Key says. “It’s something I cherish more and more with each passing day and each passing year.”
In the Key family, belonging to a church didn’t just mean attending services. It meant being active in their Christian community.
“My parents did not shy away from taking my brother and I into hospitals to visit people whenever they would go,” he says of his early exposure to pastoral care. “They did not shy away from taking us to funerals with them.”
Despite these formative experiences, Key didn’t immediately hear God calling him to ministry or Christian education. In fact, by the time he got to high school, he felt directionless about what he wanted to do with his life. When he graduated from high school, he joined a couple of friends at a college in Tennessee.
Fully Embracing God’s Plan
When Key first arrived at college, he didn’t feel drawn to any specific path and just went through the motions of attending classes. However, as he was surrounded by his church mentors and bolstered by his faith-based upbringing, that feeling didn’t last long.
“I sensed that all that aimlessness was because I was studying something that I wasn’t really passionate about,” he says. So, at 19, he recommitted himself to the church and began actively looking to God for answers.
“The pastor at my home church was very helpful,” Key says of that time in his life. “I’d moved over to Murfreesboro my third year of college and the pastor at the church there and the youth pastor were very helpful too.”
By then, Key was 21. He didn’t yet have a full picture of what he wanted to do with his life, but he knew it would involve helping people understand their faith and understand the Bible. It was in the midst of this exploration that Key crossed paths with MACU.
“A MACU representative was traveling through middle Tennessee and took all the pastors out to dinner, and my pastor took me with him,” Key says. “We had a conversation, and they were discerning that I was discerning a call to ministry.”
At first, Key struggled with the idea of going into ministry. He’d never seriously considered it before, and he’d already spent three years in college.
“What it finally came down to,” Key says, “was, if the Bible is telling us that the ultimate aim of a holy life is to love God with all that you are and to love others as yourself, then I had to make my decision based on that.”
Emboldened by that realization, Key fully put his life in God’s hands and enrolled in the MACU School of Ministry’s Bachelor of Arts in Bible-Theology and Pastoral Ministry program in 2001.
The Start of a New Chapter
Moving from Tennessee and enrolling at MACU’s Oklahoma City campus was a big change for Key. But the more time he spent there, the more it felt like just the change he needed.
“I finally found what I was passionate about,” he says. “There was no more apathy. That had gone out the door, and I was ready to engage. God had my full attention.”
What impressed Key most at MACU was just how hands-on his classes were. He didn’t just learn about preaching, baptisms, and pastoral care. He got to actually do it all under the mentorship of experienced pastors through projects, workshops, and visits to or internships at area churches, hospitals, and funeral homes.
“We have really great local churches all around us, so students are getting involved in internships and ministries all the time,” he says. “That was the same when I was a student.”
By the time Key graduated three years later, he had the skills, confidence, and rock-solid faith to jump right into ministry. For the next eight years, he served a church in Lexington, Kentucky, in various capacities including as associate pastor and pastoral care chaplain.
But while Key was happy to have finally found his calling, his journey wasn’t quite over yet. God was calling him to serve in a slightly different way.
Finding New Facets of Faith
Before arriving at MACU, Key didn’t see himself as a particularly academically oriented person. But after realizing just how much his instructors had done for him spiritually, intellectually, and personally, he felt moved to do the same for others.
“I had never really seen myself as a teacher or even a great student,” he says. “But when I got in the classroom at MACU and discovered how passionate I was about these things, I began to really experience the blessing of what my professors provided. I began to cherish that, appreciate it, more than I ever had. I’d had some great teachers in the past, but never in a way that resonated with me to the point where I said, ‘I want to do that.’”
With that goal in mind, Key worked toward earning his Master of Divinity, while remaining fully devoted to his ministerial duties in Kentucky. He then earned his PhD in Pastoral Studies and Early Church History in Texas. In 2012, he came full circle and became a faculty member at MACU.
“My personal mission statement for teaching here at MACU is that I want to give students the same experience I had,” Key says. “My experience was so tremendous in the classroom here, and my life was nurtured in the environment and the culture on campus. If I’m able to give them that same dynamic experience, that would allow God to work in a way that opens their hearts and gives them clarity and helps them discover what they’re passionate about.”
Whether he’s teaching in the classroom, leading online classes, or overseeing MACU’s pastoral care practicum program, Key keeps that mission at the forefront. No matter what his students’ goals are or where they are in their spiritual journeys, Key is there to offer them support based on both the wisdom he has gained from his own life experience and the guidance he derives from his unyielding belief in God, grace, and God’s word.
Discern Your Calling, and Make Your Mark
To Justin Key, teaching in Mid-America Christian University’s School of Ministry is an extension of his call to ministry, a new chapter in his quest to fulfill his commitment to God. Every day, he and his colleagues help students as they look to start their own new chapters.
For students at the beginning of their journeys, MACU offers two undergraduate ministry programs: the online or on-campus Bachelor of Science in Christian Ministries program and the on-campus Bachelor of Science in Ministry Leadership program. Each program has its own goals, but both are designed to help students cultivate the skills and faith-based ethical frameworks they need to have an impact in their chosen sectors.
At the graduate level, MACU offers a Master of Arts in Christian Ministry program, available online or in person, and an online Master of Arts in Leadership program with a Ministry Leadership emphasis option.
To find out more about MACU’s mission, its online scheduling options, or any of the school’s degree or certificate programs, request more information today.
Recommended Readings
How to Become a Minister
The Value of a Christian Education in Today’s World
Types of Ministry Degrees