Joy Qualls, Ph.D., is the chair of the department of communications and associate professor of communications at Biola University in La Mirada, California. At a young age, she felt God calling her to something great. It wasn’t until after achieving her dreams of working in Washington, D.C., that Qualls realized just what that something was.

INFLUENCE: Your journey has taken you from the halls of Congress to the halls of the university. Did you anticipate such a route?
JOY QUALLS: Definitely not. It all began with an internship with a North Dakota senator. During my senior year of college, I took a break to join his re-election campaign. That eventually led to a role that was specifically made for me. Working in D.C. was my dream job. I loved it, but my heart was torn. It was what I had always dreamed of, but it wasn’t what I really wanted.

One day, I was praying while walking from the House to the Senate in the Capitol, and I heard God say, “I’ve given you everything you’ve wanted. But are you willing to walk away from it all for what I want for you?”

I didn’t look back. I left my job, took a position as a church secretary in Virginia, and within a year completed my Ph.D. From there, I’ve been in the classroom, and I’ve never been happier.

“We need to focus on reinvigorating the life of the Word so that the life of the Spirit can be in the forefront.”         — Joy Qualls

What did you learn in politics that prepared you for ministry?
The real lesson is that politics is everywhere. We would love to escape it, but we really can’t. The word “politics” often gets a bad rep, but it’s really just the way we organize ourselves and how those systems function.

How do we negotiate our relationships with each other, and how do we do that as people who claim to represent God? In the church world, we use those systems for the greatest good of all: the Great Commission.

How can the church and academics work together for that greatest good?
There has been a tension between academics and scholars, going all the way back to the beginning of our Fellowship. The fear was that if we focus too much on the life of the Word, we’ll abandon the life of the Spirit. So we need to focus on reinvigorating the life of the Word so that the life of the Spirit can be in the forefront.

Pastors, ministers and leaders have a great opportunity to partner with academics for the gospel. Just imagine what would happen if we got together in helping disciple new believers.

What does that type of gospel work look like to you?
Pastors and academics need to build relationships with each other. How do we systemize gifts and leaders and programs to make this happen? Pastors should be building their own base of knowledge, but also inviting scholars and theologians to speak and teach on a multitude of topics. This creates a way for us to do life in such a way that makes others want what we’ve got. That’s the art of the gospel.

This article originally appeared in the March/April 2018 edition of Influence magazine.