CIU Today Summer 2015

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Mat Saxon has not
taken an easy route to a
seminary degree.
our years ago the Columbia, South
Carolina native was a manager
for a Moe’s Southwest Grill in Columbia
and with his wife Nicolette was starting
a family. On Sundays he was a Sunday
school teacher at Shandon Baptist
Church, and sometimes wondered if he
should be preparing more Bible studies
and fewer burritos. In other words, he was
sensing the call to ministry.
“I very much enjoyed (teaching), and
thought it would be great if I could
pursue that.”
But pursuing that would require a Master
of Divinity (M.Div.) degree, and Saxon
didn’t even have a bachelor’s degree;
not to mention the challenges that come
with already having a full-time job and, at
that point, two children. But CIU alumnus
and former CIU staff member Jeff Miller,
who was one of Saxon’s Sunday school
students at the 6,000-member Shandon
Baptist Church, saw the ministry potential
in Saxon.
“He had so much background and so
much context and understanding (of the
Bible),” Miller said. “It was just very obvious
that he had invested the time outside
of formal education to develop those
skills. He was even teaching his youngest
daughter the Hebrew alphabet. There was
always this internal motivation and a desire
and a hunger for the Word of God.”
So, Miller recommended Saxon check out
CIU, and apply directly to CIU Seminary
& School of Ministry without first earning
a bachelor’s degree. That takes a little
doing. Accreditation standards limit the
number of non-baccalaureate students
to the seminary and the candidate must
prove the ability to withstand the rigors of
graduate-level work by writing a lengthy
essay on a theological topic.
But seminary dean Dr. John Harvey
also saw the potential in Saxon. In
an email with “CIU Today,” Harvey
said he is impressed with Saxon for a
number of reasons:
maturity beyond his
years, ability to do
graduate-level work
without a bachelor’s
degree, juggling
full-time employment
and school, and
for preaching skills
that earned him
the annual Vance
Havner scholarship,
awarded to a student
on recommendation
from the faculty.
“It is fairly common
to be able to write one or two of these
comments about many of our students,”
Harvey noted. “But it is rare to be able to
write all of them about one student.”
So, how has Saxon gone about managing
Moe’s and a Master of Divinity degree?
“Not watching a whole lot of television,”
Saxon says with a laugh. “I guess time
management is a pretty decent strength
of mine.”
He describes the first couple of semesters
when his wife was working a night job and
he would, “Race home after work and she
would hand the baby off ... at 8:15 I would
put the baby down and get the Hebrew
book out.”
Saxon deflects praise of his academic
abilities, and instead credits a supportive
and “excellent” wife and points to two
components of CIU that helped him make
it through. One of those components is
the flexibility of the M.Div. program.
Master of Divinity degrees are available
both on campus and online, which
became especially crucial for Saxon when
Moe’s promoted him to district manager.
That meant moving to Charlotte, North
Carolina around the same time his third
child was born.
“You could keep having children, change
jobs and change cities and keep moving
forward at the same pace,” Saxon said.
Saxon also credits the guidance of caring
CIU professors.
“CIU is strong both academically and
spiritually,” Saxon said. “I’ve seen
professors make themselves available.”
Saxon was especially touched by the late
Dr. Bill Larkin who passed away in 2014.
Larkin taught a couple of Saxon’s online
courses, and Saxon remembers seeing
the well-known professor on campus as
Larkin was battling pancreatic cancer just
months before his death.
“Larkin had a note on his door that said,
‘If you have any questions you can call
me’ and it had his phone number,” Saxon
remembers. “Good grief, I don’t know if
I’d do that.”
If all goes according to plan, Saxon will
have earned his degree by the end of
this summer. But unlike some graduates,
Saxon is already in full-time ministry at
the place where the call to serve began.
In the fall of 2013 he resigned from Moe’s
and became the minister of young adults
and prayer at Shandon Baptist where he
shepherds over 300 members, trains lay
teachers, develops leaders and organizes
various venues for prayer.
Looking back over the last four years,
Saxon says God has been faithful to
complete what He began.
“Waiting on the Lord can sometimes
seem unreasonably long, but when He
shows up, it sure is worth it.”
F
Mat Saxon hands out prayer guides at Shandon Baptist Church
where he is the minister of young adults and prayer.
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MANAGING MOE’S AND A MASTER’S
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