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In the forty-second episode of the third season of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Pamela Ebstyne King, the Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science and Executive Director of the Thrive Center for Human Development at Fuller Theological Seminary. King begins by differentiating between flourishing and thriving, terms that are now common in academic and ecclesial circles. King explains the differences between the two terms, the ways their use became more prominent in the literature and in practice, and why she and her colleagues use the term thriving. King then explores the contours of her own vocational formation beginning with the influence of her family, the years she spent at Stanford University, and then the years she spent at Fuller, initially as a student but then as a faculty member and now also as an administrator. Those influences wove their way into the articles and books she published, the manner in which she sought to encourage students, and the discernment process in which she engaged when determining whether to accept an appointment as the leader of the Thrive Center. King concludes by offering insights into how developmental psychologists, clergypersons, and lay leaders can work together in the years to come to increase the capacities of Christ’s body to be a catalyst for human thriving.
- Justin L. Barrett and Pamela Ebstyne King’s Thriving with Stone Age Minds: Evolutionary Psychology, Christian Faith, and the Quest for Human Flourishing (InterVarsity Press, 2021)
- Jack O. Balswick, Pamela Ebstyne King, and Kevin S. Reimer’s The Reciprocating Self: Human Development in Theological Perspective (InterVarsity Press, 2005)
Todd Ream: Welcome to Saturdays at Seven, Christian Scholar’s Review’s conversation series with thought leaders about the academic vocation and the relationship that vocation shares with the Church. My name is Todd Ream. I have the privilege of serving as the publisher for Christian Scholar’s Review and as the host for Saturdays at Seven. I also have the privilege of serving on the faculty and the administration at Indiana Wesleyan University.
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Our guest is Pamela Ebstyne King, the Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science and Executive Director of the Thrive Center for Human Development at Fuller Theological Seminary. Thank you for joining us.
Pamela Ebstyne King: Thrilled to be here, Todd. Thank you so much for having me.
Todd Ream: Terms such as thriving and flourishing are now frequent components of the vocabulary exercised in both the academy and the Church.
From your vantage point, what factors and/or conditions do you believe contributed to that rise?
Pamela Ebstyne King: Wonderful question and definitely been part of my lifelong work, so happy to engage on that. Um, I think there’s a few factors. I think within the academy, particularly in psychology we started to see a shift around the millennium to interest in positive psychology.
Um, I am a developmental psychologist. In my field, there was a recognition that when we focus on what goes wrong with young people, you might start eliminating some of those deficits or pathologies, but that does not help you promote strengths. So there became movement to shift around not just looking at youth as problems who could be solved, but resources who could be developed.
And around the same time in the field of what is now known as positive psychology, Martin Seligman and others started asking questions about how do people live good, meaningful, and happy lives? And again, the recognition that the focus on deficits and using medical model, which does look at pathologies and symptoms was not so effective for humans feeling really good and, and fully alive, as we like to say in the Church.
Um, so I think in broader culture also, people started catching on of like, “Wow, no, we need more positive ways to understand people.” And also within the Church you have some strong theological influences, like the work of Miroslav Volf who started writing specifically on flourishing. And as I think about it, I think a shift in even on how theologians started to understand the imago Dei the image of God, as being potentially relational really started to shift people’s emphasis on understanding that humans, and even in churches, we need to be relational people. And I think that opened up some new ways of considering human life and being together as a congregation.
Todd Ream: Thank you. In what ways, if any, do you distinguish then between terms such as flourishing and thriving? Is there a difference or are they roughly synonymous?
Pamela Ebstyne King: So it depends what community you’re in. Um, so being a scholar, I get kinda technical on these things. And so within psychology, I mean, within theology, the word flourishing is more used from a theological perspective. That has a lot to do with, yes, imago Dei, also eschatological visions of, of God’s purposes and telos for people.
And then within psychology, flourishing got kind of I don’t know if co-opted is the right word, but the field of positive psychology very much used the word flourishing. It was often it’s often used as somewhat of a state of being human. Um, the research involves adults, and historically, in the last 25 years, the emphasis has largely been on individual happiness and well-being. Um, eudaimonia is part of that, what is meaningful to the person also creeps in. But there’s less of an obligation or sense of inherent duty or connection to others. So we recognize that relationships are important to flourishing, but generally, measures of flourishing often are very individually oriented and focus on the, the levels of emotional well-being and happiness of the individual.
In developmental psychology, we use the word thriving. Um, and that is informed by a telos that is inherently relational. So I can think about that theologically, that if we’re created in the image of God, we are simultaneously particular persons created to be in relationship with one another and mirror the Trinity in that way of three Persons in, in a unified Godhead.
Also, though, in developmental psychology the most dominant and popular like meta-theoretical approach of the day is something we call relational developmental systems theories or dynamic systems theories, and that is inherently relational. We recognize that being human is connected to one another, and our ability to thrive and become fully alive, become our best selves, grow into our strengths, is dependent on an ecology that is thriving. So there is this necessary consideration of the links between the person and the environment or context in which they live.
So when we talk about thriving, we’re growing as an individual, but we’re also contributing beyond the self, because there will be no more thriving if the larger system isn’t thriving. And so with that becomes also an emphasis just not on individual growth and relational growth, but also moral and spiritual, because we need ongoing moral development and, like, that spirituality to fuel and guide that generous sense of growth that is connected to other people and, and the environment. So those are some distinctions.
Todd Ream: Thank you. In 2011, what was formerly the Center for Research in Child Development at Fuller Seminary became the Thrive Center for Human Development. As its executive director, would you describe quickly the history of this effort and this transition? Also, the mission of the Thrive Center and how you and your colleagues understand spiritual health?
Pamela Ebstyne King: Wonderful questions. Um, yes. So back in the 1990s, actually like 30 years ago the Center for Research in Child and Adolescent Development was founded within the School of Psychology at Fuller Seminary as a research lab. Um, and that lab really focused on, on understanding young people um, from a strength-based orientation or in this field of positive youth development. There was a lot of empirical research that was in collaboration with Bill Damon at Stanford and Rich Lerner at Tufts and some other youth-serving organizations. And those efforts grew and attracted funding over time.
And then in 2011 there was additional endowment given to develop a larger center that was not just research-focused, but actually also was commissioned to do research and develop resources so that people could thrive. Um, and so at that point, we decided to alter the very compelling name of the Center for Research in Child and Adolescent Development to the Thrive Center for Human Development.
And there was an ability to add some faculty, additional faculty and support. And, and I wasn’t part of that Thrive Center and faculty at that time. I was part-time, having lots of kids, and as research faculty at Fuller and part of the Thrive Center, but not officially part of the Thrive Center faculty or staff
Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. What communities then does the Thrive Center seek to serve, and how do you provide resources and points of engagement with those communities?
Pamela Ebstyne King: Terrific question. Um, we have actually transitioned and I think from the vantage point of higher ed for those listeners of like schools are increasingly, or universities, trying to understand how to engage communities, and also want to be great stewards of the research and wisdom and intelligence that their universities have accrued.
So Thrive Center actually now sits within Fuller’s Leadership Formation Division, which is a compilation of six different centers that actually all have an emphasis on, some do research, some use research, and then develop resources for, for laypeople. Often they are Christian leaders. Sometimes in the Thrive Center case, we focus on interfaith leaders as well as Christian leaders, and also growth seekers, individuals who are interested in growing.
I didn’t answer one of your earlier questions about what our mission is and, and what is spiritual health, which is a great question. Um, and so we, I’ll unpack that at this stage both do research and also draw on the research of others to promote resources such as the With and For podcast. We have practices, we have a a weekly newsletter blogs, a pretty, a quite robust website. And we really work to integrate psychology and spiritual wisdom, and that is really founded in Christian theology to enable people to grow and thrive.
And since COVID, the whole thriving, well-being, flourishing space is super crowded, and a hallmark or one of Thrive Center’s legacy expertise is really understanding spiritual and religious development from a psychological perspective as well as theological and also moral and virtue development. So we really lean into a concept that we call spiritual health that enables people to draw on psychological insights to grow in their faith.
And at the center of spiritual health is love. And as a developmental psychologist, I know people grow through love. So experiencing the love of God, the love of one’s community and friends and family and neighbors. The love of the environment, beauty, art, and, and love of self are absolutely essential to thriving. But it’s not just getting love and receiving love, but it’s also offering love and giving that love out. So at the bottom line, healthy forms of spirituality, whatever community I’m talking to enables people to more fully experience love and provide opportunities to offer that love to others.
Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. I want to transition now to asking you about your own sense of vocation and how it developed in your earlier years and continues to develop to this day. You earned an undergraduate degree in psychology from Stanford University, and then an MDiv from Fuller, and a PhD in marital family studies from Fuller. You then returned to Stanford to, for a two-year postdoc at its Center for Adolescence.
At what point did you begin to discern that the study of psychology would play a critical role in how you were called to exercise your vocation?
Pamela Ebstyne King: Todd, I wish I was that person who’d be like, “Yeah, I had a five-year plan and a 10-year plan, and this is how it was going to go.” And, and that is what my dad encouraged. He was always like, “You know, Pam, what’s your five-year goals?” Starting as a freshman in high school, et cetera, and.
Todd Ream: I have never burdened my own children with these questions whatsoever, so. But your dad and I met, may have met at some point.
Pamela Ebstyne King: You might have, yes. But, you know, I mean, he, he was like living and breathing Stephen Covey, really effective at managing large teams, and I loved all the challenges and invitations he offered me to grow and to think about growth in my life. Whether it was like having quarterly goals, like how are you growing relationally, spiritually, intellectually, physically? I grew up in that family. Um, and I now that I’m just saying this out loud, like that, I think, cultivated a real interest in growth and change, which becomes the arc of my vocation.
So I will actually confess to you that as an undergraduate, I had a professor at Stanford who somehow realized I was a Christian. He was like: “You should go to Fuller Seminary for grad school.” And I’m like: “What’s that?” He’s like: “It’s a Christian psychology grad school.” I was like: “Why would anybody want to do that?” And I, I didn’t know there were religious schools. I mean, I, I grew up Christian, Presbyterian, faith, really important part of my life, but I didn’t know there were Christian schools. And I, I lived miles from Wheaton, is where I grew up, so this is all ironic. So that obviously I held onto that memory, but it meant not much to me.
Um, and when I graduated from college, there was a bit of a recession, so I anticipated going into consulting and getting an MBA, but ended up working for a local church Menlo Park Presbyterian Church at that time. And they had quite a robust internship program, and they placed me in the high school department. And I think in the time there, I ended up being between high school and then running the college ministry. By the time I left recognized that, you know, kids in Menlo Park have a lot of resources, a lot of resources.
But life does not escape them, and families were falling apart, diseases strike, et cetera. And I really observed over time that kids who had a sense of faith were somehow able to navigate the challenges of adolescence and the hard balls and the turmoil that life just throws your way. And those questions I just became really curious about. Um, and somewhat conveniently Menlo in the internship program, it wasn’t a well-salaried program, but a benefit was being able to take three Fuller Seminary classes a year. And so being of Scottish origin, I was like, “Well, I’m going to take advantage of that opportunity.”
So I, I just, I took three theology classes a year over those four years, and ended up coming under care because I was advised, in case I want to be ordained, you might want to come under care of the presbytery because your work here will then count your work at the church. So by coming under care was like a process of exploring ordination. So it is then was more of a hindsight, this 20/20, of seeing a through line begin to emerge between psychology and theology.
Todd Ream: You mentioned a professor at Stanford who helped you make the connection between your interests and your background and what Fuller Seminary could offer.
Were there any other mentors along the way, whether they were through your time at Stanford, your time at Fuller, or perhaps at Menlo Park Presbyterian?
Pamela Ebstyne King: Right. Yes. Um, I yeah, so and, and that professor was someone who got fired that year, did like, yeah, that was a flash in the pan. I took social psychology with him. And then had a much better experience taking Phil Zimbardo’s Psych of Mind Control. But it was a pretty intense, wonderful time in psychology at Stanford. But those were not my mentors.
My senior year, I ended up taking a class with John Gardner, who was Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare for Johnson and started Common Cause. He came back to launch his teaching career at age 80 at Stanford and he taught a class on leadership, and somehow I miraculously got in. And that class, class really started to change my life. Um, John’s vision of leadership, I was transfixed by it and, and, and passionate about it. And he really took me under his wings as someone he mentored and helped connect me with opportunities out there.
I then moved to Pasadena to complete my MDiv, and John reached out to me and said, “I’m doing a research project on communities. You’re my only, like, religious person I know.” And I’m really not a lot of religious people floating around, at least overtly, in the ’80s and early ’90s in Silicon Valley. He said, “I’d love you to come on and help me study research in congregations.” Um, so Fuller beautifully did something they’ve never done. They worked out an arrangement for me to be paid through the American Institutes of Research and then collaborate with John at Stanford and embarked, that was my first experience of research, and I, I guess the bug bit me, or I was bitten by the bug. Um, and so just learned to love asking questions.
Todd Ream: Are there any authors who you continue to draw from or have proved formative in terms of how you think and do theology and view the world?
Pamela Ebstyne King: Yes, hugely. Um, in theology, I would say like at least in Christian spirituality, Henri Nouwen has and continues to be an enduring influence in my life. Never had the opportunity to meet him but his invitations into the life of the beloved and his contemplative approach has been very foundational for my own formation. Um, so has the work of Parker Palmer.
And but from a theological perspective, I think I came of age theologically at a time when the imago Dei um, Miroslav Volf had just written Exclusion and Embrace. Um, I had him his last year at Fuller and have managed to get grants that enabled me to go back and brush up on trends in theology. So have been really captivated by his understanding of flourishing and homecoming, and of late have actually am on the advisory board for the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. So Miroslav’s work has a very enduring influence in my, my theological thinking that informs my psychology.
Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. As you mentioned earlier, thanks to the habit or practice of Scottish thrift you took those classes and then eventually sensed that your calling was to ordination for ministry in the Presbyterian Church USA. Can you describe how that discernment process worked? And then at what points does it complement your training as a developmental psychologist, but perhaps also does it compete? How do you work those two in relationship to one another?
Pamela Ebstyne King: Those are all great questions. In the presbytery ordination process, you are not ordained until you have a call. So I went through my MDiv, did all, checked all my boxes in terms of the internships, passing ordination exams, the degrees, the trainings, the CPE, et cetera. Um, but I didn’t have a call, and then I decided to do a PhD in psychology, which was not typical. So the committee that was over me was like: “Huh? Okay. Well, there you go. Come back and talk to us,” which, of course, you stay in touch in that process.
Um, and then when I finished my doctorate, I ended up having the opportunity to do a postdoctorate with William Damon at Stanford, who becomes another huge influence in my life, along with some other developmental psychologists, Peter Benson, who is now deceased, and Richard Lerner at Tufts.
And as I get deeper into psychology, you might think, “Well, that feels like it’s pulling you farther from the Church.” But what I was studying was looking at religious and spiritual and moral development from psychological perspectives and it gave me just a new lens and appreciation for how formative religion can be for people. Yes, congregations, youth groups, the social networks, but also this relationship with God and this loving source of transcendence, which becomes kind of a technical word we might use in psychology. So they began to meld all the more, and I began to understand from a psychological perspective why faith is so important to people.
So I then was offered a position at Fuller and talked to my presbytery about being ordained to a ministry of equipping in the School of Psychology at Fuller Seminary, to train people going into various forms of ministry to understand how people connect to God and how that promotes thriving and well-being in their life. And they were on board. And so that was super exciting.
Um, I ended up just like a, a beautiful moment in my life was my ordination service, which, because I was finishing the postdoc, was actually in Memorial Church at Stanford, which most people are ordained in a denominational church. So I’m the only person that I know of or that they knew of to be ordained at Stanford’s Memorial Church. And there was a whole combination of my Fuller life. Rich Mouw, the then president of Fuller, preached. I had pastors preach. Um, my sister-in-law preached and academics were present. And so that was just very meaningful to have this installation, or I should say ordination take place in the university in, in a chapel. And that very much is a beautiful illustration of or captures a lot of my sense of calling.
Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. You mentioned that the research bug bit you as a result of the study efforts and people that you met and the opportunities that were opened. And since then, you’ve become the author of dozens of articles and book chapters.
And I want to ask you in particular, is there a point in time where you feel vocationally that in terms of one or a couple of those works, you found and have located a particularly vocationally satisfying answer to a question that was driving at you? And then is there still a question that sort of you’re still wrestling with and struggling to identify an answer that at least is vocationally satisfying for you and those that you strive to serve?
Pamela Ebstyne King: Absolutely. Oh, such great questions. Um, yes, that being bit by the bug you know, I think a lot of academics are somewhat insatiably curious people. We always have questions, and we love, we love learning. So what has been answered or what feels satiated? You know, I think for me as a developmental psychologist, a major question is what are we developing into? Like, there are a zillion theories from a psychological perspective on what is developing. We have identity, we got religious identity, cultural identity, gender identity. We have brains that are developing, our cognitive thought processes, our emotional life. There’s so many aspects of, of development.
And actually early on in my career, I was like, “Okay, if I’m going to teach human development and I’m at Fuller, I literally in desperation wondered, Well, what does God want for human development? Like, what is God’s hope for these creatures that He’s created? What is His purpose?” And that’s where I was so grateful to have theology as a resource, because especially at that time, psychology was very descriptive. Like, let’s just describe conventional development or let’s describe what deviates from that path, like pathological stuff.
But in theology, we ask these questions about ultimacy and also in philosophy. And so that’s where I got really into the concept of telos or purpose. And so I started to answer my psychological questions with theology and, and that, that started to occur quite some time ago. And the book, The Reciprocating Self, that I co-authored with Jack Balzwick and Kevin Reimer, is for me, a wonderful representation of that. Um, that has evolved over time. Um, I did a three-year grant with the Yale Center for Faith and Culture on joy, and I use that model of telos to understanding being created in the image of God, to understand the, the ultimate sources of joy for humankind, which really pan out from a psychological empirical perspective.
Like, we experience joy in relationship with people when we’re being particularly authentic and that long-term deep joy and peace is found when we’re living with coherence and integrity to those values and morals that matter most to us. Um, so that’s a great, like, that feels good.
Um, but I think the pathway from where we are here to moving towards that ultimate sense of telos of being deeply intimate, relational people that are differentiated in themselves and experiencing joy is, “Hmm, what are the psychological endeavors along the way?”
Um, so things like finding purpose, making meaning, those are big questions for me. And I think the driving question is the beautiful and glorious uniqueness of each human. Like, how do we understand the specificity of your journey of joy and wholeness in becoming fully alive versus mine, versus each of my children, versus each of my students, versus my neighbors? And then how do we understand human specificity or uniqueness connected to the context they live in?
We all have different resources. There’s so much change these days. I live a few miles from the LA fires in Altadena and how I see my friends trying to thrive and forge lives, either contemplating rebuilding their homes or dealing with rentals and stuck in insurance, but still trying to have a full life with their family. Like, how we thrive gets worked out so uniquely across time and place. So that is the remaining question.
Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. You mentioned The Reciprocating Self, the book you co-authored with Jack Balswith and Kevin S. Reimer. But you’re also the co-author of Thriving with Stone Age Minds: Evolutionary Psychology, Christian Faith, and the Quest for Human Flourishing, published with InterVarsity Press just a couple of years ago and co-authored with Justin Barrett.
Can you give us a little bit of insights into what led you to pursue that book and in particular, what its curious title says about us as human beings? Uh, what the, what the main argument is and what you hope audience members who encounter it take away from that?
Pamela Ebstyne King: Absolutely. Great question. Us academics are known for our just, know, keep you awake titles. Thriving with Stone Age Minds, it’s maybe a little provocative.
So there’s a lot of agendas behind that book and, and there was a grant behind it. And so this concept of telos is such an animating thing for me. Um, and Justin is deeply in science, science of religion, and evolutionary psychology. And so we teamed up thinking like, wow, what if we, we took on a grant that gave us the opportunity to think about evolutionary psychology? Like if we’re thinking about humans evolving, adapting, growing, getting better, that question of toward what end is very relevant. So, and then evolutionary psychology looks at how our psychological capacities are evolving or adapting over time, as opposed to, like, genetic mutation in our physiological bodies.
So, also behind that book was a real deep desire to engage Christians in thinking about faith and science. And evolution is a really hot topic for some Christians, and something that’s not looked so favorably on. So we were trying to engage that hot topic of faith and science, in we hoped an approachable manner and an insightful manner, that’s really less about perhaps our evolutionary origins, but more about how we’re growing as people.
And so the premise of the book actually is, humans are less genetically adapting these days. Our genes are changing less frequently because we have these big old brains that other species don’t have. But our brains have not adapted. They have not changed since the stone age. But because we have the capacity to think and imagine, we can solve our problems by thinking, rather than having to grow a furry coat to keep warm in cold climates. We don’t have to grow it, we can make it.
So, if this is the case, how do we understand how the human mind, how we might be proactive in helping our mind grow and change towards what ends? And we conclude in the book that actually evolution from an evolutionary perspective, thriving is just bridging the gap between, like we talk about the evolutionary gap, like, you’re in a context or you’re in an environment and it works for you. I’m happy.
And then something changes. Gas prices go up, so I need a bigger paycheck or I need to get an electric car. Now, that’s not a genetic adaptation. That’s using my mind to figure out how to adapt. But from an evolutionary perspective, it’s not really directional, like there’s no telos. It’s just overcoming the immediate challenge. And so we make an appeal, one of the things we do is to realize that in modern life, there are so many options that we have, that being adaptive is really having a sense of purpose and meaning and having values and priorities to help shape the decisions we make about how we want to adapt over those gaps or mind.
So we say, talk about minding the gap. So, in the book, there’s an appeal to telos, to consider your purposes and we provide some frameworks for that. And, um there’s a lot more in the book, but that will be the surface level.
But we also emphasize like relationality is so key about that. Like how do people get serious about their relationships? And appealing to some great evolutionary psychologists who demonstrate like when it comes to relationships, more is not more, that we have limited relational capacity. And this is, you know, as a, a scholar or a professor, you know that. Or as a pastor, you know that. You can only be intimate with so many people. You can have like in a season, five inner circle people that really, really know you. So there’s an invitation to consider like who are those five people that really know you? Who, who, who know you are, have your back, and vice versa. And then who’s like the next set of, of 12 or 13 and so on.
And we hope in that way it gives some perspective and freedom to people who are in people-serving professions to recognize the actual limitations they have in the ability to interact with people. And then maybe to help them think about how to structure the community they serve or lead so that they don’t have to be one of those five for every parishioner. But there might be small groups that are encouraged where people can have that relational intimacy that they need. So there’s a lot of helpful insights from psychology that help people thrive, flourish.
Todd Ream: Thank you. We talked about the Thrive Center at the beginning of our conversation. Now I want to ask you where that fits in with how you express your vocation. And in particular, can you tell me about the discernment process that led you to accept an appointment as its executive director, and then how your service has either shifted the Thrive Center’s research focus or the Thrive Center’s research focus has shifted your focus?
Pamela Ebstyne King: Yeah. Those are great questions. I think discernment is such a pressing issue for all of us today insofar that the world around us keeps changing. Um, higher education is changing. Fuller Seminary is changing. So it is a little bit adapt or die for us academics. Um, so in 2020, so in COVID I was presented the opportunity to consider taking on, I was appointed because of circumstances, I was appointed interim executive director of Thrive Center. And then in 2020, it became a question of, “Would you want to take this on? And how would you lead Thrive Center?” Its mission is to be both research-oriented and about developing and distributing resources, which is a capacity that it hadn’t really grown into.
So I had to discern a decision, would I be willing to give up time devoted to research and scholarship in order to lead more cultivation of resources from my research and other people’s research and the distribution of that? That was a huge discernment process. So there was a lot of prayer. There was a lot of reflection on my life of where I thought my strengths were, where I got animated the needs of Fuller Seminary the needs of the world.
And in COVID, I felt like I was sitting on a goldmine of research that informed how people can be more whole, how they can rely more effectively on their faith how they can help deal with anxiety through faith, what different types of prayers might be more suited for quelling anxiety or, or hedging off anxiety or dealing with depression or, or when is prayer and scripture reading not enough and you need to go get professional help?
So I felt through discerning, you know, needs of the world around me, the institution I was a part of, gifts I had. I love challenges. I love new. And I had a growing sense that I just don’t want to keep publishing peer-reviewed articles that not even my mother reads, but my little network of scholars read. And, and, um the psychology of spiritual and virtue development is a small, small area of people.
So through that, and also looking at where I would have support within Fuller, what opportunities were available within Fuller, and consulting, I ended up working with like a, a life coach at that time to actually help listen to myself that that’s through all that I made that decision.
Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. As our time becomes short now, I want to step back a little bit and ask you to look at the academic vocation as you have understood it and exercised it. And in what ways do you define it? What practices nurture it? What opportunities advance it? You mentioned higher education is going through a season of transition, so what forces may also threaten it? But yeah, how do you, how do you define the academic vocation as you’ve exercised it?
Pamela Ebstyne King: Yeah. So, and I, I think that’s such a beautiful question, Todd, because I’ve really come to appreciate how people uniquely embody a faculty position. Faculty don’t just wear so many robe hats. We wear so many robes, right? Um, from professor in teaching to formator in forming and mentoring students. Um, I have a deep sense of call to developing emerging leaders, so those are often my advisees. I teach less and less these days, or there are other younger scholars that I’m trying to connect to opportunities out there. Um, for me, asking what I feel like are the most pressing questions at the intersection of theology and psychology, that is an animating force in my life.
Um, now that I’m running the Thrive Center, building a team, maintaining a team, I found out I’m not so great at managing a team. I don’t love those details. Um, and I’ve really taken seriously, I mean, my, my, my title is a mouthful. I have executive director, but then I’m the Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science. Peter Benson, I mentioned earlier, is a late mentor, deeply impressed me made an impression on me. Um, he was all about changing lives.
And so applied developmental science is science that is applied, that that science that happens in the real world, not in a laboratory, not in a test tube, but it is all for application. And I take that very strongly to my vocation of how, how does research, my research and others apply to the Church, apply to your life, apply to people’s lives apply to Christian leaders’ lives? So at this juncture that those translational efforts have also dominated and, and the research has taken a little bit of backseat.
I’ve managed a vocation in, as a faculty member about, as in thinking of seasons. So some seasons are super grant-heavy. They’re around empirical data or analysis. They can be about fundraising. They can be about publishing. They can be about translating.
Currently, I’m podcasting. When that’s active, that takes a bit of time as you know. So I look at these different pathways or modes of being faculty, and at different seasons, I try and emphasize.
Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. For our last question then today, because we’ve talked around this question throughout our conversation today, but in what ways can developmental psychologists be of greater service to the Church moving forward? But perhaps also, in what ways can the Church be of greater service to developmental psychologists? How can they work together in better ways moving forward to enhance their service to the people that God’s called into relationship?
Pamela Ebstyne King: I think they can work together really well because I think they share the same telos at the end of the day, that developmental psychologists of faith and folks in the Church want people to become fully alive in the relationship with Christ and God. And from our convictions, we understand that the fullness of life is found in Christ. So developmental psychologists can offer so much insight and wisdom in how people at different ages and stages of life might experience Christ or Jesus differently. I mean, like a young person, children love stories. Their, their minds are animated by stories. Um, adolescents start questioning things, and we need to welcome their doubt and their hard questions. Young adults are looking for meaning and trying to figure out how to create a sense of purpose in their lives. How does their work, how does their faith, how do their relationships, how do they fit together?
And I feel like developmental psychologists, and I’m going to stop at middle age because, you know, we have developmental issues in middle age, right? And, and what are.
Todd Ream: I don’t know what you’re talking about at all, but I won’t ask my wife this question about myself.
Pamela Ebstyne King: Yeah, exactly.
But like even our, our, our, our seniors how do we understand diminishing capacities? And, and how does that inform how the Church can supplement and support with community? Our seniors have a developmental human psychological need for life review and, and gaining a sense of integrity of their life. They need to tell their stories, and the Church can offer places to tell their stories. I’m a part of a very intergenerational congregation, and our kids tell stories to the whole Church, and our seniors tell their stories. And we get to benefit from one another. But often churches don’t do that.
So then pastors generally have more theological insight and more insight from Scripture, or they are in the trenches in dealing with the very hard human needs of their congregation, or they see patterns of relating that are working or not working. They might be connected to issues of justice or injustice in the broader community. And so, you know, always having that reciprocating relationship of information, of here’s my strengths that I can offer you, my insights, but they might end here. How can you help me think deeper?
Christian leaders can offer samples to study for, for researchers. That’s great. We always need data and samples for data. So there’s lots of opportunities to work together.
Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our guest has been Pamela Ebstyne King, the Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science and Executive Director of the Thrive Center for Human Development at Fuller Theological Seminary. Thank you for taking the time to share your insights and wisdom with us.
Pamela Ebstyne King: Thank you, Todd. My pleasure. Thank you for the wonderful questions.
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Todd Ream: Thank you for joining us for Saturdays at Seven, Christian Scholar’s Review’s conversation series with thought leaders about the academic vocation and the relationship that vocation shares with the Church. We invite you to join us again next week for Saturdays at Seven.
