Introducing Dan Daugherty, Director of Education

Dan Daugherty will serve as the Director of Education for the Muncie Fellows program. He and his family are thrilled to be moving back to Muncie to be a part of the program and community. To introduce Dan to the community, we asked him to answer a few questions about where he is coming from, what he’s learning, and what we can expect him to bring to the educational aspects of Muncie Fellows.

Give us a few highlights of your work over the last 15–20 years — what have you been up to?

Wow, that’s a long time…Twenty years ago I worked with The Revolution at Ball State, then my wife and I were part of a church planting team to Orlando, Florida, where we ended up for almost six years. During that time I also served with a start-up theological and leadership education organization called Teleios.

For the past 12 years, I’ve been teaching humanities courses at Schaeffer Academy, a classical and Christian school in Minnesota, and loving it! I love the aha! moments when a student that has struggled but not given up. I was a late bloomer. I didn’t begin to cultivate of love of learning until sometime in my twenties and I didn’t have the faintest clue about how to be disciplined in that pursuit until sometime in my thirties, which is why there are nine years between my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. Many people have been very patient with me in the process. I believe that God has used my time in church planting and seminary, as well as at Teleios and Schaeffer Academy to continue to grow my understanding of his Kingdom and my role in it. I believe this journey has uniquely qualified me for my role at the Muncie Fellows.

How has your ministry experience coupled with your teaching experience impacted your views of vocation and calling?

Great question. I guess I should say that in addition to the “career path” jobs that I listed in my brief history above, I also worked some supplementary jobs, including UPS and Starbucks (that’s not to say that those jobs are by default not career paths; they just weren’t that for me). Throughout this circuitous route that seems to be leading me back to where I began, I have always had a sense of calling. That is, I have, with of course some occasional doubts and struggles, always been aware that God is directing my steps, and whether washing and fueling big brown delivery trucks, perfecting the tight froth of a dry cappuccino, or teaching a reluctant high school freshman how to write, I have known that I am a citizen of the Kingdom of God and my work is a means for my King to restore this broken world.

I have, with of course some occasional doubts and struggles, always been aware that God is directing my steps…

What are you most excited about when it comes to the Muncie Fellows program?

Hmmm…what am I not excited about? I’ve spent most of my life working with high school and college students to help them understand the integrated nature of the Christian life, but I recognized that many come to know Christ during their college years — maybe late in their college years — and those individuals are going into the workforce and public square with a very young faith. There aren’t many opportunities for them to give concentrated time and effort to their development before being bombarded by so many competing visions of the good life. I love that the Fellows program is a space for those individuals to give some needed time to consider the big questions before embarking on their career journeys.

What can Fellows anticipate experiencing in the classes and learning environment you will be leading for Muncie Fellows?

• Discuss. Dialogue. Converse with the living and the dead. Yes, the dead. We will treat texts — ancient, modern, and all spaces between — as conversation partners. We will dig into these texts together and mine them for the permanent things, the lasting principles, lessons, and ideas that teach us what it means to be human.
• Question. I’ve heard it said, and I’ve often said it myself, that the quality of your life depends upon the quality of the questions you ask. We will learn to ask quality questions.
• Encourage. Tremble. Challenge. The writer of Hebrews tells us to encourage one another as long as it is called today. As an extension of the church, the Muncie Fellows classes will be a means of encouragement. Paul tells us to work out our salvation with fear a trembling. We will do that as well, challenging one another in the process.
• Read. Write. On a practical level, we will read deeply, but that doesn’t necessarily mean an overwhelming amount of reading. The courses are designed to fit within the context of the Fellows’ lives, including the internships and service elements therein. We will also write because writing is thinking clearly expressed. We will work out our ideas with pen and paper (or keyboard and screen) and perhaps even publish or present them.
• Earn credit. Every Muncie Fellow will earn up to 12 transferable graduate credits.

What would you say to someone who may not consider themselves a deep thinker but is interested in the Fellows program?

The Fellows Program isn’t primarily an academic program. It is a program geared toward living out your calling. That said, the distinction that many draw between theology and practice or the theoretical and the practical is overstated. We can’t flourish as human beings if we’ve never considered what it means to be human. We can’t live out a calling if we’ve never considered who or what is calling us.

As I said earlier, I was a late bloomer. My hope is that whether you see yourself as a “deep thinker” or not, Muncie Fellows will be a space for you to make meaningful connections between head, heart, and hands. So yes, I suppose we’re going to ask you to think deeply, but we’ll help, and I promise it won’t hurt too much!

What do you hope individuals will take with them after graduating from Muncie Fellows?

My hope is that the Fellows will graduate with a robust vision of God’s Kingdom and their roles within it, with an understanding that the Christian story is not a religion but reality, and with a commitment to continue seeking truth, goodness, and beauty as they work to restore these glorious ruins.

How is your family processing the move back to Muncie?

We’re all pretty excited. It feels like we’re coming home.

What are you reading right now, for pleasure or in preparation for Muncie Fellows?

I’m reading quite a few books right now:

• I just finished Laurus, a new novel by Russian author Eugene Vodolazkin. It’s essentially an extended Russian folktale with the pathos and epic dimensions of something by Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. I’m especially fascinated at the general public’s warm reception of the novel (Huffington Post calls it “a masterpiece!”), given its strong Christian themes.
• The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I realize that most of you haven’t given Hawthorne a single thought since high school when you crammed the Spark Notes of The Scarlet Letter the night before the test. I actually read this guy for pleasure. He’s one of my all-time favorites.
• After Virtue by Alasdair McIntyre. This is an historical analysis of philosophy that explains how our culture has come to make moral decisions based primarily on emotion but couched in the language of logic and reason. It is compelling, helpful, and, to be honest, a bit frightening.
• Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Malcolm Guite. I actually recently finished this one, but I’m revisiting several passages. Guite, a poet, Anglican priest, and chaplain at Cambridge University, posits that Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, written when Coleridge was 19, was a sort of prophetic text that not only anticipates the struggles of Coleridge’s own life, but also serves as a guide book of sorts for the journey of every Christian.
• How to Think by Alan Jacobs. We’ll likely use this one as a text for the Fellows. Jacobs has a deceptively casual and readable style that almost makes you forget how deep the material is.
• Far as the Curse is Found by Michael D. Williams. Another one for the Fellows. This is a great summary of the grand narrative of Scripture. Williams teases out some very practical implications of Kingdom Theology without flattening the nuances of the Biblical text. I’m excited to have the Fellows read it.

What is something you are looking forward to about being back in Muncie?

How do I choose? I often tell people that Muncie is a destination. They think I’m being tongue-in-cheek, but I’m not. The people are amazing. The churches work together in a way that is foreign to most cities. Ball State is becoming more impressive by the day. The local restaurant and brewery scene is booming…I suppose I’m looking forward to everything but the potholes (and if memory serves, there are a LOT of potholes).