The Path of Obedience from Student to Teacher

“I wanted to go into medicine,” Kellen told me as we sat down together in her office one Tuesday morning. “I had worked in doctors’ offices and PT offices and done hospital internships — the whole gamut,” she explained.

“During my first year, I was going back to Chapel Hill,” — where she attended college — “after going home for a weekend, and I just decided that instead of listening to music, I was going to pray.”

It was a decision that came seemingly out of the blue, but it would very quickly change the course of her life.

“I said, ‘Lord, is it med school?’” Kellen recalled. “‘Is that what you have for me? What do you want me to do?’” It was the first time she’d asked God directly if this was what he wanted for her.

“It was almost as if someone was sitting in the car with me,” she remembered, “that clear and distinct. The Lord said, ‘It’s not medical school.’”

It was almost as if someone was sitting in the car with me, that clear and distinct. The Lord said, ‘It’s not medical school.’

In a moment and a single prayer, Kellen’s life shifted. “It was substantial enough and significant enough,” she explained, “that I knew if I went to medical school it would be disobedient.”

And so, pragmatic, 18-year-old Kellen then offered up another prayer, likely not expecting a similar response.

“Okay, Lord, if it’s not medical school, I need you to tell me what it is because I have to register for classes.”

God’s response, as clear and conclusive as the moment before, came immediately: “I want you to go to seminary.”

The Start of a Big Journey

After that drive back to school, Kellen faced a choice: continue on the path she had set for herself or change course towards a path only God knew. Still confused and uncertain, Kellen chose to step out in prayerful obedience and follow God’s direction. Over the course of the next two weeks, her choice was confirmed as four people approached her separately and unprompted, asking, “Why aren’t you going to seminary?” Only two of them were Christians.

Over the next several years, Kellen jumped back and forth between majors, struggling to determine what exactly God wanted her to do. Neither religion nor psychology seemed like the right fit at the time, so finally she settled on international studies, thinking that it might prepare her for the mission field if that’s where God called her.

As graduation approached, Kellen began considering the next move to seminary. Through the connection of a friend and (then) current student at Southeastern, Kellen had the opportunity to visit campus and sit in on an ethics class with Mark Liederbach as he taught through a book of the minor prophets.

“I remember sitting in that class,” Kellen said, “thinking, ‘This is what my heart desires: to glean from the richness of God’s word and in a way that doesn’t add to it.’” This realization confirmed her next steps. “I left there and decided, ‘I’m going to Southeastern.’ I didn’t apply or visit anywhere else.”

This is what my heart desires: to glean from the richness of God’s word and in a way that doesn’t add to it.

It was the start of a big journey; at Southeastern, God would not only equip Kellen to pursue her own calling but also use her to equip hundreds of other students for the work of his kingdom.

“I Want You to Teach”

On the very first day of her first counseling class, Kellen sat listening to a lecture by Sam Williams, professor of counseling at the time, and in a moment of clarity and understanding she realized just how sovereignly God had orchestrated her path to Southeastern.

Williams’ words, as she remembers them, described the work of counseling as such: “Medical doctors are the physicians of the body; counselors are the physicians of the soul.”

Even during the seasons when she felt uncertain and lacked clear direction, God knew what she needed and where he wanted her to go. Southeastern, and specifically a degree in biblical counseling, brought together her passions for the Christian faith, for healing, and for missions — all in pursuit of God’s glory.

With her direction clarified, Kellen poured herself into her studies and into the work of biblical counseling. Within two years she completed her master’s degree, which turned out to be only the start of her academic journey.

During Kellen’s graduate work, God gave her another directional nudge, this time in the middle of a Southeastern chapel. With her thoughts turned inward, she offered up a quiet, inquiring prayer for the future.

“And the same voice, with the same clarity,” Kellen recalled, “answered, ‘I want you to teach.’”

And the same voice, with the same clarity, answered, ‘I want you to teach.’

“I’m not exaggerating,” Kellen prefaced for me, “when I say I was the student that did class presentations physically shaken and red faced. It terrified me to be in front of people.”

God knew this too, and in his kindness, he gave her what she needed to lay her fears aside and pursue teaching.

A Teacher’s Metamorphosis

Williams, Kellen’s first counseling professor and a friend who would soon become a colleague, took it upon himself to prepare her for the work of teaching. With Williams’ advice, Kellen began pursuing a PhD. Frequently throughout the program, Williams ensured that Kellen taught a lecture for the graduate students in his classes.

“No joke,” Kellen told me, “every single time I taught for Dr. Williams, at least one female student would come up to me afterwards and say, ‘I’m cheering for you. We need women to teach here. We hope it’s you.’”

Even then God was showing Kellen how her teaching could impact others. The words of those women encouraged her and remained with her years later after she became the second woman to join Southeastern’s faculty and an exceptional addition to the counseling department.

Upon completing her dissertation, an argument from Scripture for the use of medication in treating mental illness, Kellen earned her doctorate and started teaching on the faculty at Southeastern a year later.

Little did she know, what once had been her greatest fear would soon become her passion. As she began teaching, she realized — not only did she love it, but she wanted to become a better teacher. Her PhD had equipped her as an expert in the field of counseling, but, she decided, teaching expertly in a classroom required something more.

And so, she donned the hat of student once more and began pursuing an EdD while still teaching and also raising her growing family alongside her husband and greatest supporter, Josh.

Within the first semester of her EdD program, Kellen completely rewrote one of the classes she was teaching. She started to transition towards peer-, group-, and discussion-based learning opportunities. The result was more than rewarding.

In a class primarily composed of first-semester master students and ending with a 25–30-page case study research paper, “Every student earned an A,” Kellen said. She emphasized the word “earned.”

The EdD transformed Kellen’s teaching style, and her understanding of herself as a teacher experienced a complete metamorphosis.

The Reward

At the end of each semester, Kellen sees the grace of God in her own life and in the lives of her students as they go out, equipped, into their respective fields of ministry.

“Most people tend to teach the way that they were taught, and usually that is a quasi-passive learner with an active instructor,” she explained. “I think we would do better to view ourselves as facilitators of learning, and that means forming active learners while serving as active teachers.”

After all, the ultimate end of teaching is not only passing on knowledge but also practically equipping students to handle that knowledge with wisdom and excellence.

“Graduation is the best day of the year,” she told me, reflecting on the many faces of the students she has watched walk across Binkley’s stage. “Through them, I get to see the Lord work in places I could never go, with people I could never counsel, and that is an incredible privilege.”

Through them, I get to see the Lord work in places I could never go, with people I could never counsel, and that is an incredible privilege.

Now, the director of the EdD program since 2024, Kellen also has the unique privilege of watching many of these students return for doctoral work and become scholars, contributors, and, as she described, “the new gatekeepers of the field.”

Over the years, Kellen has grown to understand that “what the Lord calls you to, he equips you to do, and he has a place for you to do it.”

This truth is powerfully demonstrated in the story of her own life and is something that she seeks to model for her own children and for the next generation of students, counselors, teachers, and leaders.