As the director of administration and communications of Global Mission at the Church of the Nazarene’s Global Ministry Center, Will Turner leads a team of communications coordinators from around the world and helps them tell the story of what God is doing through the Church of the Nazarene and its mission.
Will graduated from PLNU with a B.A. in Christian Ministry and a minor in youth ministry in 2013. He transferred into PLNU as a Sophomore, previously having studied graphic design and marketing at community college. When Nazarene Compassionate Ministries had an opening in marketing, Will thought the position would be a great opportunity to use (as he puts it) his weird educational background.
In the fall of 2013, Will began working towards his Master of Divinity with an emphasis in Christian Formation and Discipleship at Nazarene Theological Seminary. He will finish his program in the spring of 2018.
After completing his master's, Will plans to continue in his current role, but his wife, also a PLNU graduate in theology, will be pursuing a PhD at some point, so he is not sure what’s in store for that journey.
Will’s job, in big part, involves both serving and developing his co-workers. He says that at PLNU there was a constant focus on people and how his coursework could be funneled in his career or other areas of his life. Something else he learned at PLNU is that his education is not about him but about the ways in which he can serve the world, and that he says, makes students marketable.
Shaping others is something Will does everyday as an administrator. “It [administration] can be fun. You have the ability to shape the way people interact with their work or each other and create a culture that inspires people to be the best that they can be,” he says.
A graduate student with a full-time job, Will has seen, simultaneously, how his PLNU education prepared him as a practitioner and an academic: “Point Loma really set me up well for graduate education. I’m probably the most successful education-wise that I’ve ever been,” he says.
Will says he is grateful for having the opportunity to interact so closely with professors and students in his small classes. He says college was not just about ingesting textbook material but about wrestling with the material with a community of professors and students.
A course he mentions that changed how he views ministry is one in missional theology. It was a class in the Masters of Ministry program that he was able to take as an undergraduate student with professor, Dr. Ron Benefiel. He says the course challenged him to think deeply about what it means to be marginalized while also being a minister of God. It shaped his perspective in the view of God’s mission to renew and recreate.
Will says that many wonderful people at PLNU shaped his life. Two of his prominent mentors include Christian ministries professor Dr. Rebecca Laird and Vice President of Spiritual Development, Mary Paul.
Outside of the classroom, Will worked as a campus tour guide, was part of a club that welcomed transfer students to the PLNU community, served as the Associated Student Body (ASB) spiritual life director and participated in PLNU’s missionary program, LoveWorks. He was also instrumental in starting a ministry that was designed to help college students understand the connection between their faith and career.