The summer of 2008, Dr. Todd Pickett started as Biola’s first Associate Dean of Spiritual Development. For the previous three years, Todd served as Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at Biola, and for nine years before that was a faculty member in, and chairman of, the English Dept. He has a BA from Stanford University, an MA from Trinity College Dublin, a Ph.D. from UCI, and is completing another MA in Spiritual Formation and Soul Care at Talbot. He is married to Dottie, a marriage and family therapist, and they have two children: Carly and Abbey.

A Biola Spotlight interview with Pickett

<ref>http://studentlife.biola.edu/spotlight-pages/for-jesus-christ/</ref>

How did an English professor end up as Associate Dean of Spiritual Development?
Actually, it feels a bit like coming home. My own history has always bounced between the academy and the church, between the academic and pastoral. Initially, I went to college thinking I’d be going into church ministry. However, Stanford didn’t have a department of theology, so I did the next best thing: I majored in Greek for the sake of New Testament study.

When I returned to the US after my MA in Ireland, I was hired at a Christian School where I (officially) taught English, New Testament, world views and Latin--and (unofficially) got to pastor my some of my students through those messy and confusing teen years. That was great.

After three years, however, I decided to go on and get a Ph.D., but the church I grew up in, Mariners, persuaded me to join them for one year as an interim pastor. While teaching literature as my day job for the last 12 years at Biola, I’ve been moonlighting as a wanna-be pastor—preaching at my church, and more recently, doing spiritual direction and teaching spiritual formation classes. It’s been an interesting journey, but I guess God knew what He was doing because now I find myself in a ministry position within a university. That’s perfect for me.

Do you think your literary background has prepared you for this in some way?
Of course, the concepts, narratives, and metaphors of the Scriptures, divinely inspired as they are, continue to be my primary source for understanding how we grow. After that, centuries of spiritual theologians in our tradition are helping me understand how the Holy Spirit tends to work in God’s people.

But in addition, I’ve always used novels and poems for formational purposes (though of course I love reading for this stuff for its own sake). Literature, whatever else it does, reveals how hearts and mind are formed by lived experience. That’s the terrain of spiritual formation as well, which asks, what has formed us and how does God want to re-form us? My course on the "Novel and Vocation," for instance, explores how a secularized culture experiences calling with out a caller, how we ourselves struggle with questions of identity and calling, and how the Scriptures invite us to understand calling in the richest sense. My course on Dostoevsky speaks right to some central issues in spiritual development: what does it mean to be formed by the love of God rather than the dynamics of sin, shame and guilt?

How would you describe spiritual development?
That’s a big question. Of course, it can go by other names: sanctification, spiritual formation, spiritual growth, etc. Here’s one way to think of it. Everything we do is forming our spirits in some way, whether for good or ill. In a biblical spirituality, our aim is to be formed chiefly by the Spirit of God. This makes spiritual development relational at its root. It is not first about being good; it’s about being connected. We want to be the branch to His vine, the sheep that trust the Shepherd, the plant rooted and grounded in His love.

Spiritual development, then, involves (among many things) discerning how the Holy Spirit is inviting us more deeply into the loving and transforming work of God in our lives. He calls us to bring the truth of who we are to the truth of who God is—not just cognitively, but relationally and experientially.

There’s so much more to say here . . .

What spiritual disciplines have helped you most lately?
Well, here too, there’s a lot to say. The role of the spiritual disciplines is easily misunderstood. But (skipping all that), one important “meta-discipline” for me has been that of honesty. I’m a pleaser by nature, and we pleasers tend to put the best face on things. That is to say, we’re not always entirely honest with ourselves.

The meditative reading of Scripture also been helpful to me. Finally, I’d say the disciplines that lead me to rest in God are critical. I’ve lived a lot of my life feeling that I have to be good enough, to atone in some vague way for my weakness. Besides being unbiblical, it’s exhausting in a way that ironically never produces rest.
Will you be over chapel? What’s the plan?*
Yes, my office will oversee chapel—and be a resource for many other things. We’re thinking, “These students are here for four years (more or less). They live together, eat together, study together, pray together, and worship together. How can we help them discern the loving work of God in their own lives and each others, and open to it more intentionally?”

We're in the process of hiring a Director of Chapel Programming, and together we’re going to be asking: What could be done with chapels to allow students to listen, reflect on, and respond to the call of God? What might spiritual friendships look like in the dorms? How can small groups of students help one another open to the work of God in their lives? What does it look like not only to study the Scriptures, but to read them with an open heart? How might the rhythms and disciplines of the spiritual life be integrated into campus life? How do ministry and service lead to spiritual formation (rather than pharasaism or moralism)? How might diverse worship experiences be an invitation to open our hearts wider? For that matter, what is the role of worship and music in spiritual development? What does it mean even to eat contemplatively, allowing God’s gifts to form our hearts?

There’s lots to explore here. It’s very exciting.

So, professor, does this mean we’re going to hear a lot of poetry in chapel now?
Not necessarily. I want to be sensitive to those who may struggle with “metrophobia.”

Metrophobia?
Fear of poetry.

Ah. So what should we call you?
Todd or “hey you” are both fine.

A Biola Yearbook interview with Todd Pickett

<ref>The Biolan, 2008-09, "Let's Drink to Love" by Karen Ruth Myers</ref>

“Get yourself a drink,” commands the guy with glasses as he hands me plastic. I take the card, talk to the barista, get my drink, and walk back to the table. Strange scenario for a Biola student.

Not so strange, actually.

The command comes from Todd Pickett, Associate Dean of Spiritual Life at Biola. The plastic contains flex points. The barista works at Common Grounds. The drink I sip is a Chai Frapp.

Pickett pushes his glasses up his nose with his left forefinger and leans over the table. “Beloved,” he says, “let us love one another.” His voice breaks with emotion. “The gospel starts with ‘God so loved the world.’ We tend to forget this means God loves us.”

Why do we forget, I wonder.

The guy who bought me a drink thinks it’s because “we have access to the world’s pain 24/7.” He says our problem is that we fixate on the pain and forget we also have round-the-clock access to the love of God. We don’t see the love since we aren’t looking for it.

The Bible calls you and I “beloved” (I John 4:7). Beloved. You are the sweetheart of God. I am the darling of God. Pickett says that internalizing this identity as beloved is the most important thing. Without it we cannot continue to the rest of the verse that tells us to “love.” Love. Because you are beloved, you love and cherish me. Because I am beloved, I love and treasure you.

“It’s like football commentators,” remarks Pickett. “I could try to be a commentator, but you want people talking about the game who’ve played it.” He flexes his arms and laughs. “One has to know football in a real way to comment on it. One has to know love in a deep place in order to give it.”

Pickett says that how we understand beloved is how we will love. He jabs the air with his finger to stress his point: “The Greek word ‘beloved’ is the same word as the verb form ‘love.’” More jabs. “If we are beloved, we love!”

How often do we meditate on the fact that the God who created the universe, who wrote the laws of physics, who painted the colors of skies and leaves and oceans, who made man from dust and woman from a rib, who melded math into music, is acquainted with the most intimate minutia of our lives and truly loves us? The answer to that question will be the answer to this question. How often do we see someone in need and widely open our own heavy hearts to bear their burden, our busy schedules to break bread with them, our iPod-and-headphones ears to listen to their story, our library time to help proofread their paper, our prayer journals to lay their pain at the throne of grace, our movie dollars to take them out for an evening of de-stressing, our devotional life to share a favorite Bible verse?

“Don’t wait to love,” Picket begs. “Open up.” Sounds like the guy is telling me free love is a good thing.

In context, it doesn’t sound so strange.