Seminary graduate spreads her love for scripture as an online influencer

Faith Womack, founder of @biblenerdministries, author of No More Boring Bible Study, and a 2022 graduate of Erskine Theological Seminary, came to Due West earlier this semester to engage with current college students. Now back home in Texas with her husband Joe Womack ’19, a PCA pastor and Erskine Seminary graduate, and their young sons, Faith speaks about how she and her husband—they met at Covenant College in Tennessee—chose Erskine and what her seminary education meant to her.

“My husband getting the Presidential Scholarship is really what drew us to Erskine,” Faith says, referring to an Erskine undergraduate scholarship which was for a short time also awarded to seminary students.

An additional attraction for the Womacks was the presence of an Erskine Seminary campus in Columbia, South Carolina, “which was a blessing because it was closer to us than any other seminary campus at the time,” when they were living in South Carolina.

The generous scholarship covered most expenses for Joe, and it wasn’t long before Faith, a busy mother, began her seminary journey, pursuing a Master of Arts in Theological Studies (MATS).

“After he got the scholarship and already had all the textbooks and things, I applied,” she says, “and it was all so smooth to accomplish it online while taking care of a baby and toddler, it was a no-brainer.”

Faith is one of many students who have benefited from the increasing number of virtual classes and programs offered in seminary education. “My MATS degree was entirely online, including transferred credits from Covenant,” she says.

“This was a very different experience than anything in person, but it is what worked for us, since we had a six-month-old and a two-year-old at home!”

She recalls those hectic but somehow manageable days. “I am a morning person, so I would wake up at 4 a.m. and watch all the lectures, take all the notes, then nap in the afternoons when my boys took their naps.”

Faith’s seminary experience meant more than just plowing through her studies in a state of sleep deprivation.

“I recently found a paper I had to write for a class at Erskine where we had to share ministry callings and discerning God’s call on our lives,” she muses. “Memories flashed back as I remembered weeping while writing it.”

Faith admits she “always struggled with how to serve the church as a woman in a complementarian denomination.” Remembering what her life was like during her seminary days, she sees herself as “a student being given the opportunity to wrestle.”

As she looked over her completed seminary assignment about discerning God’s call, “I saw in that paper a student asking hard questions about her place in the Church,” Faith says, “and being in such a safe environment to grow through those scary questions.”

Faith reflects on how her Erskine Seminary education has helped her, and concludes that, in addition to providing an accessible education, “one of the biggest things Erskine provided for me…was a time and space to grow from that education.”

The online option was not so demanding that she was “overwhelmed with studies or kids,” she says. “I got to grow and be mentored by professors who held me to a higher standard.”

She was already “sharing online” during her seminary studies, but completing her degree inspired and equipped her, so that she gained “a greater fire and love for teaching the Word, learning under teachers who did it well!”

When she spoke to Erskine College students at Fleet Fellowship in February, Faith said of her role at Bible Nerd Ministries, “My favorite thing to do online is show people the Bible is not just an old, dead, boring book!”

Her enthusiasm for scripture, which she traces in part to her experience as an Erskine Seminary student, is evident on the cover of No More Boring Bible Study, where the title is accompanied by an explanatory subtitle: “Why taking scripture seriously is easier and more exciting than you think.”

Pictured at top of page, Faith Womack speaks at an evening event in Lesesne Auditorium.