Graduate Profile: TJ Lukkasson

By God’s providential care, the generosity of my church, and the consistent support of my wife Mikayla, I am grateful to have reached graduation. I am genuinely grateful for the training I’ve received through RBS. I grew up in the Pentecostal world and attended an Assemblies of God university, receiving my undergraduate degree in Pastoral Ministries and Biblical Studies. My studies in the Historical Theology track at RBS have been an invaluable initiation into the history and tradition of the Baptist movement. I am grateful for the dedicated professors and administrators who invested so much time and prayer into creating quality courses that have helped to shape my understanding of the history of God’s people.

I have had a relatively bumpy and winding journey toward seminary education and (Lord willing) vocational ministry. As previously mentioned, my undergraduate degree was in the field of ministry, and I was hired as a youth pastor before I graduated college. I hit the ground running, preaching and counseling students on a weekly basis and I quickly sensed a continuing need and desire to learn despite having completed college. I went from daily Bible and theology lectures to being the “teacher” myself, and I knew I still wanted to learn more. So, it was at that time, in the summer of 2015, that I first discovered what a podcast was. I began to listen to preachers from around the country, and over the course of a few months, I found that there were certain men who handled the Bible differently. Despite the fact that they actually represented a range of denominations, they all had something in common: they were reformed in the “little r” sense of the word. These men were careful and thorough in their exposition of the text and they evinced a reverence for it that quickly stood out from the other more seeker-sensitive preaching that I was hearing. Over the course of a year I came to Calvinistic convictions in my soteriology and this, coupled with ecclesiological convictions I had about the necessity of elders at every local church, led me away from the multi-site seeker-sensitive church where I was doing youth ministry.

A short while later, I was hired to youth pastor at a local non-denominational church who accepted me knowing my Calvinistic and complementarian convictions. But over time, that church began promoting women leading the gathered worship of the church through preaching and the ordinances. I expressed my disagreement with these decisions to the elders and I was given an ultimatum: quietly accept these practices or resign. I was grateful for the clarity presented by the ultimatum and resigned. After this, I decided it was necessary to settle myself theologically before pursuing vocational ministry. My wife and I became members at King’s Cross Church in Kirkland, WA in the summer of 2020 and I began at RBS in 2023. RBS has been invaluable for me in learning the tradition which my biblical convictions have placed me in. For multiple years, I felt alone as the only Reformed Baptist I personally knew, but through King’s Cross Church and RBS, I am grateful to have been welcomed into a tradition with a rich history of godly men and women concerned for the glory of God.

Tyler (TJ) Lukkasson