Letting God Lead

Jeffrey Keuss (MDiv ’95) was no stranger to Fuller when he stepped into the role of School of Mission and Theology dean in Spring 2025. A graduate of the MDiv program, Keuss first came to Fuller as a student at the encouragement of his pastor, who had told him, “Everything you seem to be looking for—innovation in the church, a diverse student body, global reach, a depth of scholarship, real heartfelt faith—that’s Fuller.”

His time as a student showed his pastor’s words to be true. And now that Keuss has returned to Fuller, he says these very strengths have not only remained but grown exponentially to meet the needs of Christian leaders around the globe—for today and for tomorrow.

“Academic excellence,” Keuss says, is a key Fuller distinctive. Yet he’s quick to explain that such excellence should be measured not only by the conventional metrics of the academy. Fuller faculty present at leading conferences and publish books at the forefronts of their fields, but he enthusiastically adds, “These important works don’t just sit on a dusty shelf. They trickle down into sermons, into TikTok reels, into the songs people are singing in church.” (He’s referring to Fuller professor W. David O. Taylor, who is collaborating with worship leader Matt Redman on the WOR/TH worship initiative.) Keuss likens Fuller’s academic leadership to a garden hose, “which runs down along the garden, feeding the world in profound ways.”

A Seminary for the Worldwide Church

For Keuss, this goes hand in hand with Fuller’s emphasis on innovating our education methods for the digital landscape we now inhabit. “People have a memory of a certain type of education—stone walls, cobblestone walks, leatherback chairs, lots of books in the library.” That spirit of learning still exists in both Fuller’s culture and imagination, he says, but Fuller has also opened doors to students from every corner of the world through the degrees offered in online and hybrid formats, and entirely in Korean and Spanish. “Our global community has 42 different nations represented,” Keuss says proudly, and the ways Fuller has approached being a seminary for the worldwide church means “people can continue to do their ministry where they are, to continue the jobs God has given them, even while growing their education. Fuller is living in both worlds.” Learning to steward the digital tools we have, he continues, is about following where God is leading us, for the sake of the church’s next generation.

Keuss says the seminary has always been a “big tent,” and he talks about the breadth of Christian traditions and denominations represented not only in Fuller’s diverse student body but in its faculty as well—not to mention in the disciplines of psychology, missiology, and theology interacting and informing one another, strengthening one another by the expansive wisdom and experience found in each discipline. Keuss says, “Fuller has always been deeply committed to the whole person.” Being a gathering place for Christian leaders to bring their whole, multifaceted selves to a vibrantly diverse community is a major part of what makes Fuller such a special place.

Of course, an environment of diversity is rarely a wellspring of easy answers. Instead, it welcomes difficult questions and fosters openness to one another and, most of all, to God, which leads to new kinds of growth. Keuss celebrates a resistance to definitive answers. Instead, he believes in asking the questions: “Where is Jesus showing up? Where is God leading us? And who are the people that God is calling us to care for? Fuller is calling us into a new generation of new conversations.”

Thirty years after he received his MDiv, Keuss is grateful to return to Fuller as dean during this pivotal season. Over his own vocational journey, God has brought him to roles as a church planter, a professor, an administrator, an author. Now, he looks forward to bringing the whole of his experience—and the way God has grown him through each season—to a Fuller community open to how God will use them to bring Christ’s hope and healing to today’s church and world.

Don’t Be Afraid of Where God May be Calling You

During Welcome Week of Fall 2025, Keuss addressed new students and said, “I want to give you a gift, and that gift is a box of 1,000 questions.” He went on: “Ask 1,000 questions in your classes. Be as curious as you possibly can. I want you to be fearless in hoping for something that scares you to hope for because you’re worried your heart will get broken. I want you to lean into the hard work of what it’s gonna take to do this stuff well. Don’t cheat yourself with easy solutions. Really dig deep. Really look at all points of view before you make a statement. Listen to your colleagues, listen to your fellow students. And don’t be afraid of where God may be calling you.”

He admits this last part can be terrifying, yet he says he arrived at Fuller all those years ago with his own expectations, and God took him to places he couldn’t have imagined—he never, for instance, imagined returning as dean. Keuss reflects, “You might think, ‘I don’t know what I’m becoming’ or ‘I don’t know if this is working out,’ but let God lead you. That’s my hope for Fuller students.”