African American Spirituality is a class that I took last summer with Professor J. Alfred Smith. Fuller invites Dr. Smith to come down from Oakland to teach at the Pasadena campus every two years. Dr. Smith structures the class by tracing African American spirituality through the course of American history. He highlights the key figures within the tradition and talks about the way that African American spirituality has been influenced by and had an influence on spirituality in America. He shows the students how to apply the contributions of African American Spirituality to their own lives and churches. The course content was incredible and illuminating, however, I think that I was most profoundly impacted by the way that Dr. J. Alfred Smith embodied and modeled spirituality. He sought to draw out the spirituality and gifts of each person in the class. He asked the class to reflect on profound questions and invited students to teach him from their own personal experiences. During each class he taught, cared for, and empowered the students as future ministers of the Church. He spoke about his political views, his flaws, and his own difficult yet fruitful journey in ministry. He did all of this with a graciousness and humility that invited students to ask deeper questions of themselves and God. I greatly enjoyed this class. I liked it so much that I hope to take it again (audit it) next year.