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Recent graduate able to refine worship leading skills at Boyce College
July 25, 2005
By David Roach
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Recent Boyce College graduate Todd Thomas has developed his skills for ministry during his time of training at Southern Seminary's undergraduate institution. Photo by David Merrifield
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Ever since high school Todd Thomas has felt God calling him to be a worship leader. As a sophomore, he helped start an area-wide FCA praise band. Later he assumed a leadership role in the high school worship team at his church.
So when the time came to choose a college, Thomas set out in search of the institution that could help him develop his worship leading skills most effectively. His choice was Boyce College.
Today Thomas, who graduated from Boyce in the spring of 2005, says his choice was a good one. By taking worship classes, interacting with faculty members and participating in Aletheia, Boyce's student-led worship team, he prepared himself for a lifetime of God-centered worship leading.
"Boyce helped train me to be a better worship leader largely due to my experience with the faculty and being a part of Aletheia," he said. "Traveling with Aletheia for four years and leading worship all over the country every other weekend really helped me to develop worship leader tools."
Worship leading is not Thomas' only area of interest, however. He also feels called to youth ministry and enrolled in Boyce's youth ministry program in preparation to serve as student minister in a local church one day.
Although some ministerial students may consider youth ministry a stepping-stone to larger ministries, Thomas says Boyce has encouraged him to devote his life to students.
"Youth ministry in a lot of circles just doesn't seem like a noble thing," he said. "It seems like the thing you do between when you're in seminary and when you're a senior pastor. … We need more youth pastors out there, and we need youth pastors that are willing to stay in the trenches for a long time."
Perhaps the most helpful aspect of Boyce's youth ministry program was the way in which it combined classroom work with hands-on ministry experience in a local church, Thomas said.
"Not only do we have the experiential side, but we also have 39 hours of classes in youth ministry specifically," he said. "Boyce has prepared me in that it just combines the classroom with the field. … I just don't know of another school that does that so well."
In the future Thomas is uncertain whether he will focus on both youth ministry and worship leading or devote himself entirely to working with students.
But he is committed to seek God's will as he continues his education by pursuing masters and doctoral degrees. Eventually he would like to teach youth ministry at the college or seminary level.
In the immediate future Thomas plans to work with a church plant in Lexington, Ky., where he will lead worship and work with college students.
Wherever God leads Thomas in the long term, however, he will draw from his training at Boyce to carry out Christ-honoring ministry and serve the local church with excellence.
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