Some Places Become Holy

Series: Places That Shape Us
Thursday, August 13, 2026

What was your first classroom like?

My first school had six grades in one room with a single teacher. That was in 1954.

Over the span of my elementary school, high school, college, and seminary education, I have sat in many classrooms. I have been taught by so many teachers and professors that I cannot remember them all.

Today, I consider the classroom a holy place.

Not because classrooms are perfect. Teachers and professors are not perfect. Conditions are not always the best. Supplies are not always available. Sometimes the buildings themselves leave much to be desired.

The classroom becomes holy because it is a place where lives can be transformed.

It is where we learn to read, write, calculate, and communicate. It is where we encounter facts and figures, ideas and possibilities. We are challenged to think, to ask questions, to examine what we believe, and sometimes to change our minds.

It is where our dreams begin to meet reality.

I honor Mrs. Dorothy Smith, my first teacher, and Union School, which is no longer there. That little one-room schoolhouse is a holy place in my memory because Mrs. Smith helped instill in a young mind a love of learning that placed me on a lifelong journey of asking questions and making discoveries in an ever-changing world.

Years later, another classroom became holy for me: Ennis Hall at Free Will Baptist Bible College. There, Dr. Leroy Forlines planted a seed that continues to influence the way I understand life. He taught us to think about four basic relationships: our relationship with God, with others, with ourselves, and with the universe around us.

Then there were the classrooms of Memphis Theological Seminary. I will always remember Dr. Barry Bryant summarizing the message of the Bible in remarkably simple terms: love God and love others.

There I was also challenged to explore the sources through which we seek truth: Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.

Those classrooms did more than give me information. They helped shape the way I see God, myself, other people, and the world.

Perhaps that is what makes a place holy.

A holy place does not have to contain an altar, stained-glass windows, candles, or pews. Sometimes it contains desks, chalkboards, textbooks, notebooks, pencils, and curious minds.

I continue to accept the ancient challenge to study to show myself approved before the God who created me, redeemed me, and sustains me.

So today I give thanks for the classroom. I give thanks for Mrs. Smith, Dr. Forlines, Dr. Bryant, and the many teachers and professors whose names I may have forgotten but whose influence remains.

And I give thanks for those who dedicate their lives to teaching and for the human right to education—the opportunity to learn, to question, to grow, and to discover possibilities we might never have imagined.

Some places become holy because of what happens to us there.

For me, the classroom is one of those places.

What classroom—or teacher—helped shape the person you became?