It was perhaps the second weekend of my college experience. A few of my roommates had participated in a college prank, and the booty was sitting on our balcony—two artificial potted plants and a large doormat emblazoned with the letter G. These had been taken after dark from the entrance to the Geneva College student center.

I wasn’t a participant in the prank; so I was more like Saul, standing back, giving approval. I did feel sheepish when our Resident Assistant, Ken Smith, popped his head in the door the next day. As he talked with us, his eyes caught sight of those familiar student-center objects adorning our balcony. Nothing changed about his ever-calm demeanor. He simply suggested that those things ought not to be there by the following day.

That’s all he had to say. Soon the plants and doormat were back in their proper place. Ken hadn’t overreacted like a policeman in his first week on the job. He hadn’t underreacted like a permissive parent. As the year continued, we saw that same quiet leadership in his shepherding of those on his dorm wing.

Anecdotes like that don’t amount to grounds to make someone a college president. However, as a non-RP student attending the official RP college, I did pay attention to people’s behavior. I quickly picked up that RPs thought they had a better grasp of doctrine than us “regular” Presbyterians, and it did put me on the defensive. And while psalm singing seemed above criticism, I felt like I was being judged when I was forced to sing them exclusively during chapel services. So I was primed to find hypocrisy.

Very little about my real interaction with RPs supported this idea of hypocrisy. I quickly admired my RP professors, who seemed to not only have faith but to know how that faith applied to their subjects. I enjoyed my RP roommates and acquaintances. It was intimidating for someone like me, coming as a complete stranger, to learn that RP students from Pennsylvania had been friends with some of the RP students from Kansas for their entire lives; so at times I did feel on the outside looking in. But the RPs I got to know were normal, generally convicted, Christians like me.

Why is one non-RP student’s experience significant? For one thing, like many other non-RP students at Geneva, I’m now a member of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. Apart from Geneva, I very much doubt that would be the case. The same is true for many pastors, elders, and other members of the RPCNA. There is a mission field, and a discipleship training ground, at Geneva. It serves as an academic setting where Reformed faith and life are advanced.

But what significance does Geneva have for RPs who don’t feel much connection with the college, and don’t plan to attend? They too may appreciate the fact that this small denomination is training and bringing in new leaders, and is doing academic work to apply Reformed thought to our modern context. And Geneva’s future role continues to be enhanced through thoughtful inquiry and work both by Geneva’s administration under President Ken Smith, and by other leaders in the RPCNA.