Author of Teaching Like Jesus: A Practical Guide to Christian Education in Your Church (Zondervan, 2000), Dr. Tolbert's passion is to bring seminary-quality interactive workshops to practitioners who work with children, teens, and adults. A graduate of Talbot School of Theology (M.A.C.E./1990; Ph.D./2006), she taught 4 years as Assistant Professor of Christian Education at Talbot. So creative were her classes that students twice nominated her for Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers.
Currently, Dr. Tolbert teaches children's and youth pastors as an adjunct Professor in the graduate school at Azusa Pacific University. She is author of Keeping You & Your Kids Sexually Pure: A How-To Guide for Parents, Pastors, Youth Workers and Teachers (www.xlibris.com). Based on her dissertation research, this book is an expose of Planned Parenthood and details their eugenic philosophy to limit births to people of color. Additionally, her research demonstrates that condom availability through school-based clinics may encourage sexual activity among African American teenagers.
Dr. Tolbert is an expert curriculum writer and has authored several curricula including I've Got the Power Abstinence 'Til Marriage Curriculum for the A.C. Green Foundation.
She is married to Elder Irving Tolbert, a banker and church elder who launched Rites of Passage, a volunteer-based ministry for boys 12-16. Modeled after the African tradition, boys receive manhood training for a year and then "graduate" in an African-inspired cermony. Classes and trips are held on Saturday mornings so that boys enjoy the company of mentors who take them on outings to museums, amusement parks, baseball games, and the like. Together, Elder Tolbert and the elders who lead this ministry have mentored over 350 boys in ten years, the majority of whom live in single-parent homes.
Elder Irving and Dr. La Verne Tolbert's daughter, La Nej Garrison, is a dynamic youth speaker and abstinence educator par excellence! La Nej earned her Master of Arts in Theology of Religion and Ethics from Talbot School of Theology, and she was the first African American woman to do so. La Nej met her husband, Matt, during their undergraduate years at Biola University. The Garrisons have two sons, Josiah Matthew and Judah Roy, both born in Japan where their dad played basketball. (Matthew is now "retired" from the game and the family resides in California. For information about La Nej, see her page on this website.)
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