A Better Future: Online Learning Looks Ahead

"The future is the last great untapped resource we have."

So says Dr. Jay Gary, the Assistant Dean of Online Programs and Associate Professor of Leadership at Oral Roberts University. He is resolute in his role as a futurist that education—especially the Spirit-empowered, whole person education of ORU—is a must for navigating what lies ahead.

An expert at creating virtual learning environments that empower emerging leaders through new certificates and degrees, and the newly appointed Board Chair of the Association of Professional Futurists, Dr. Gary deftly melds Christianity with hope for the future in his work.

"My sense of the future is that we can change it," he says. "It's open, and we're all called to create a better future than the one we've been given."

"All Christians are practicing futurists," he continues, "because we get up and discern and live by hindsight, foresight, and insight. I just extend it because there's no reason to discount the future."

This is why Dr. Gary is involved in ORU's Online and Lifelong Learning initiatives. In his view, making a better future requires a commitment to ever-expanding knowledge.

"We learn lifelong because we can't settle for who we were," he says. "We have to keep growing. At ORU, whole person education is about understanding your whole person is for the whole world to help it become a new world. The beauty of Oral Roberts was that he understood what it meant to be a pace-setter, to open new ways of thinking and of touching people and bringing healing. That spirit is alive at ORU."

"We're helping people enter the great work of this century," he continues, "of avoiding breakdown and seeking breakthrough into a better, more just, more humane world, where God's presence is known spiritually and tangibly."