Sitting at his kitchen table in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Jason Nash faced a decision: press on or walk away.
Just two days after completing his master’s degree in educational leadership at IWU-N&G, Nash stepped into the education specialist program, convinced his academic journey was not over. But halfway through, the weight of life closed in. Financial pressure mounted. Relationships grew strained. The pace of work, school, and responsibility became difficult to sustain. For the first time, finishing no longer felt certain.
“I was at a point where I didn’t know if I could keep going,” Nash says.
In the middle of that uncertainty, a small detail he had seen many times before came to mind: a Spiritcare notification at the top of his online course modules, inviting students to submit prayer requests. This time, he clicked.
What followed was not a quick exchange, but a relationship. Nash was connected with John Lee, an online chaplain at IWU-N&G. Through regular conversations, Lee listened, prayed, and helped Nash make sense of a season that felt overwhelming.
“During a rock bottom moment in my life, I leaned on God, who led me to Pastor Lee,” Nash says. “He could not have been more receptive. It was everything I needed in that moment.”
The challenges in Nash’s life did not immediately disappear. The pressures were still there, but something began to shift. Where he had felt isolated, he now felt seen. Where he had questioned whether he could continue, he began to rediscover a sense of purpose. Through those conversations, Nash came to understand that God was not absent in his difficulty. He was present in it, and that realization changed how he moved forward.
Nash completed the program, but more importantly, he did so with a deeper awareness of God’s faithfulness and a clearer sense of calling. What had once felt like an individual struggle became part of a larger story of formation.
For more than 12,000 students in IWU’s N&G programs, education often takes place in moments like these, after the kids are in bed, between shifts at work, or at a kitchen table far from a traditional campus. In those spaces, formation is not confined to classrooms or scheduled events. It unfolds in real time, in the middle of real life.
Spiritcare, IWU-N&G’s chaplaincy ministry, exists to meet students in those moments. Through phone calls, online meetings, and personal conversations, chaplains like Lee walk alongside students navigating both academic demands and personal challenges. What begins as a simple prayer request often becomes something more: a relationship marked by presence, encouragement, and spiritual guidance.
“Through crisis intervention, encouragement, studying God’s Word together, or simply praying over a request, the Spiritcare team meets students where they are in their faith journey,” says Bob Burchell, director of chaplain ministries.
For students like Nash, that presence becomes a turning point, not because every problem is solved, but because they are no longer facing those problems alone. Even from hundreds of miles away, sitting at a kitchen table, Nash experienced something essential to spiritual formation: God meets people in the middle of their lives, not outside of them.
chaplains serving N&G students*
Spiritcare support availability*
IWU-N&G chaplain telephone calls, voicemails, and emails with students in 2025*
online prayer gatherings hosted each year*
*Stats provided by Pastors John Lee and Bob Burchell of Spiritcare
