Greater Expectations at Irvine Bible School

Operating out of modest space in an Irvine strip mall, the Lutheran Bible Institute, which just celebrated its 50th anniversary in California, continues to shepherd a dozen students a year through its two-year diploma program.

Going into the new century, this tiny school is seeking a new vision and a new president to increase enrollment and its presence in Southern California.

President Ben Johnson, 62, stepped down this month after three years at the helm and is moving back to his native Minnesota to be closer to his children and grandchildren.

During his tenure, Johnson achieved a goal of the school’s leaders since the 1970s: accreditation by the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges, a victory won through a partnership with nearby Concordia University.

Under a merger agreement, the tiny school’s classes are part of the curriculum at Concordia.They count toward a bachelor’s degree at Concordia, also a Lutheran-affiliated school, and toward a two-year diploma through the Bible institute.

Johnson said winning accreditation last year was his greatest achievement at the school. The challenge for his successor, he said, is to increase enrollment.

“We are in the business of serving God,” he said. “Idealistic kids who want to study the Bible come here.”

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Johnson said he is concerned by “the crudeness and the crassness that’s everywhere” in contemporary culture. “But I think today’s secularism is temporary. People will recover their fuller humanity.”

He said he thinks the school will prevail because of what he calls “the theological impulse,” or the yearning to find God.

Acting President Samuel Giesy said he hopes to meet the goal of increasing enrollment. The 76-year-old Huntington Beach resident, a retired engineer and longtime layperson in the Lutheran church, said he will focus on recruiting aggressively, targeting students at Lutheran churches and Christian groups in high schools.

“We’re seeing fewer students, but we’re hoping to see more,” he said.

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Enrollment has been steady for more than a decade at about a dozen. School officials say the pool of prospects is limited by the lure of more secular pursuits and jobs with hefty paychecks.

Still, there is a niche for Christian schools of all sizes, said Leroy Fulton, vice president of administration for Hope International University in Fullerton, a small Christian school that has enrollment of 1,000.

“You just have to make your message known and search for those persons who have interest in your type of institution,” he said. “The students are out there.”

At the institute, the average student age is 19, but the school also draws older people eager to study the Bible in a spiritual atmosphere.

Kathy Davis, 52, of Santa Ana graduated from the diploma program in May.

“My goal is to do something in ecumenical work,” she said. “We’re all supposed to be one body with Christ as our head, and we need to understand where other faiths are coming from.”

Giesy said his short-term goal is to increase enrollment to about 30. He also wants to hand the reins to a permanent president within the year and draft a five-year business plan for the school, which has a $500,000 annual budget and a full-time staff of four.

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The school, which is not subsidized by the Lutheran church, is also seeking corporate and private donors, said John Bradosky, senior pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Huntington Beach and chairman of the institute’s 18-person board of clergy and laypeople.

Part of the board’s plan is to create “partner congregations” with local Lutheran churches that would contribute a minimum of $1,000 a year toward school operations, scholarships and salaries.

“We believe that students who become immersed in God’s word are going to make a profound difference in the life of the church and in our world,” Bradosky said.

The school’s Diploma in Biblical Studies represents two academic years of work, or a total of 66 semester hours: 36 in Bible and 30 in religion and general studies.

The purpose of the intensive course of study is to help students mature in their faith, develop an intimate knowledge of the Bible and prepare for Christian discipleship in their full-time vocations.

That mission has changed little since the school was founded in 1919 by Lutherans in St. Paul, Minn., as a theological institution to educate laypeople. The school opened a branch in Los Angeles in 1950.

Feeling that the city’s riots in the 1960s and rising crime rate in the 1970s had discouraged prospective students, school officials moved to Anaheim in 1978. The institute moved in 1994 to the Irvine location, which is its national headquarters. The Minnesota location now offers only adult education classes. A satellite campus in Issaquah, Wash., expanded to a four-year institution, Trinity Lutheran College.

The school started out as a place for women to study the Bible and prepare to serve as missionaries. In fact, from the first graduating class of 10 in 1921, six became missionaries to China.

The focus now is more on preparation for various aspects of the Christian ministry, Johnson said.

For example, Karyn Bodenschatz, 28, of Santa Ana graduated in May and intends to become a pastor specializing in church music programs.

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In the Lutheran tradition, eight years of study are required to become a pastor, so the curriculum is a first step toward seminary training. That background does not come cheaply: Tuition is about $20,000 a year. Johnson said many students depend on grants from private donors.

Martin Fullard, 32, said he came from England to earn his Bible studies diploma because the program is rigorous and will prepare him well for his career goal: becoming a full-time evangelist working with youth.

Fullard helps pay for his education by playing in a band that has occasional gigs at the chapel on Concordia’s campus.

Specialized classes such as “The Ten Commandments or the Ten Suggestions?” and “Why We Baptize Infants: The Biblical Basis for Sacramental Faith” appealed to him, Fullard said, as did the camaraderie among the scholars.

“We look out for one another and support each other,” said Fullard, a first-year student. “I love the program, and it’s worth the money.”