Windows Winter 2009

A USTIN P RESBYTERIAN T HEOLOGICAL S EMINARY

WINTER 2009

LOOKING OUTWARD

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The President’s Preaching and Speaking Engagements November 16-17, Preacher, Festival of Faith, St. Andrew PC, Denton, Texas November 20, Speaker, Partnership Luncheon, San Antonio, Texas December 7, Preacher, Centennial Celebration, First PC, McAllen, Texas February 12, Speaker, Partnership Luncheon, Waco, Texas February 22, Preacher, First PC, Waco February 28-March 1 2009, Campbell Preacher, Sewickley PC, Sewickley, Pennsylvania March 5, Speaker, Partnership Luncheon, Fort Worth, Texas March 29-30, Preacher, Festival of Faith, First Central PC, Abilene, Texas April 16, Speaker, Partnership Luncheon, Kerrville, Texas April 26, Preacher, Trinity PC, Atlanta May 7, Speaker, Partnership Luncheon, Fort Worth, Texas June, Teacher, Justo Mwale Theological College, Lusaka, Zambia, Africa

here’s a wonderful story, perhaps a myth, that lingers in the woodwork and carpets of this place, and is often recounted as the gospel truth (I kind of hope it is). Seems that a president of this institution some two or three decades ago drove a car filled with faculty members out into the Hill Country, put them up in one motel room somewhere outside of Fredericksburg, and told them they couldn’t come out until they had hatched a brand-new curriculum. And so it is, as the story goes, that Austin Seminary got the curriculum that has survived, more or less, up to this good day.

If that is in fact the way it happened, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. Wise, churchly scholars have certainly been able to think carefully, and for centuries, regarding how best to prepare servants of the church for ensuing generations. Stick them in a motel room, knock on the door from time to time with pizza, and let them do their God-given thing until they are ready to come out with— voila!—the blueprint of the next generation (or three) of seminary education. The fact of the matter is that the curriculum they hatched was wonderful, and served the Seminary—and the church—very well.

But several years ago, under the leadership of Dean Michael Jinkins, Austin Seminary did a multi-year curriculum review that was far more deliberative. It began with a series of listening sessions in which faculty went out into the hustings—all over the country, in fact—to ask a series of open-ended questions and then to take down the rich answers that ministers and laypeople gave them. Those conversations, and the musings that they inspired, ushered us deeply into a self-study in which a bright light was shined upon every square-inch of the teaching and learning enterprise here. Over the course of several years, one idea after another was scratched out on legal pads, church bulletins, the backs of napkins—wherever faculty happened to be when a new brainstorm came on. We surveyed, we sliced and diced the information surveyed, we argued, we mused, we made this plan and then that plan and then another one, we met in departments, we met as a whole, we met in departments again, we argued some more, we politicked … and at the end of the day—at this past spring board meeting, to be exact—we presented successfully the most thoroughly scrubbed curriculum this Seminary has ever produced.

This issue of Windows attempts to give you an overview of how it all happened and why it matters. In the articles ahead, you will learn something about the Seminary’s relationship to the church, about the virtues and matters of character that form the foundation of excellent ministry, about why we prefer the word “vocation” to the word “job.” I hope you will learn as well that the faculty here is committed to doing whatever it can to form persons of both substance and passion, so that—starting next fall when this new curriculum is implemented for the first time—students will be better equipped, we pray, to meet a changing context with an old, old story.

Theodore J. Wardlaw President

CONTENTS BOARD OF TRUSTEES Cassandra C. Carr, Chair Michael D. Allen Karen C. Anderson Thomas L. Are Jr. Susan Beaird F. M. Bellingrath III Dianne E. Brown (MDiv’95) Elizabeth Christian Joe Clifford James G. Cooper Marvin L. Cooper Elizabeth Blanton Flowers Donald R. Frampton Richard D. Gillham Walter Harris Jr. Bruce G. Herlin Norman Huneycutt (MDiv’65) J Carter King III (MDiv’70) Michael L. Lindvall Catherine O. Lowry Blair R. Monie Virginia L. Olszewski (MDiv’94) B. W. Payne William C. Powers Jr. Jeffrey Kyle Richard Teresa Chávez Sauceda (MDiv’88) Anne Vickery Stevenson Karl Brian Travis John L. Van Osdall Sallie Sampsell Watson (MDiv’87) Elizabeth Currie Williams Hugh H. Williamson III Judy A. Woodward

Trustees Emeriti Stephen A. Matthews Max Sherman Edward D. Vickery Louis Zbinden

Publisher & Mailing Statement

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The teaching of ministry 2 Five steps to a new curriculum

BY MICHAEL JINKINS

5

Step one: Listen to each other

BY JENNIFER LORD AND ISMAEL GARCÍA

8 11

Step two: Listen to the church

BY TIMOTHY LINCOLN AND THEODORE J. WARDLAW Step three: Consider theological education as a formation of virtues

BY DAVID W. JOHNSON

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15 21 23 25 27

Step four: Vision statement and learning outcomes Step five: The new MDiv curriculum

Community news Continuing education news Faculty news Development news Alumni/ae news W I N D OW S Winter 2009 Volume 124

EDITOR Randal Whittington

CONTRIBUTORS Channing Burke Shuhan Chan Todd Hansen Kate Loveless Elizabeth Shumaker Georgia Smith Cover: Professors John Ahn (background), Cynthia Rigby and Kristin Saldine, William Greenway (wilderness course), Allan Cole, Ellen Babinsky, and Andrew Dearman.

Windows is published three times each year

by Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

ISSN 2056-0556 Non-profit bulk mail permit no. 2473

Austin Seminary Windows Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary 100 E. 27th St. Austin, Texas 78705-5797 phone: 512-472-6736 e-mail: windows@austinseminary.edu fax: 512-479-0738 www.austinseminary.edu

Number 1

Theological Education Fund (1% Plan)

The theological schools of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) no longer receive funding from the basic mission budget of the General Assembly. Churches are asked to contribute 1% of their operating budgets to the fund, which is then distributed to the seminaries.

Five steps

to a new curriculum

BY MICHAEL JINKINS

So, a priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into an emergency room …

The faculty of Austin Seminary undertook an extensive process of revising the Master of Divinity curriculum, beginning in 2004 and culminating with approval by the board of trustees in May 2008 to be implemented in Fall 2009. Chaired by Arun Jones, The John W. and Helen Lancaster Associate Professor of Evangelism and Missions, the Curriculum Review Committee was composed of the academic dean and the following professors: John Ahn, Lewis Donelson, and Monya Stubbs (Biblical Department); Allan Hugh Cole and David White, (Department of the Church’s Ministry); and Ismael García, Timothy Lincoln, and Cynthia Rigby (Theological-Historical Department).

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No joke.

Everyday, somewhere, a priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into an emergency room.

Or they walk into a sanctuary to lead worship, climb into a pulpit to preach a sermon, visit a prison, start a new program for at-risk youth in their community, help design a day care center, sit down with the congregation’s governing board to deal with a crisis, or negotiate a better price to put a new roof on the education building. And whenever a priest, a rabbi or a minister arrives, we expect them to bring a particular Michael Jinkins (DMin’85) is academic dean and professor of pastoral theology at Austin Seminary.

Jody Horton

parents rushed down the hall. She took them into a quiet room where they waited and prayed together.

Everyday, ministers do what Dorothy did. And they do countless other things just as difficult. As they perform their ministries, they are expected to do so with a depth of knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and spiritual insight that does not come naturally to anyone. It must be learned and cultivated.

body of knowledge, certain competencies and understandings, wisdom and character.

Where ministry happens Dorothy stands waiting at the doors of the emergency room as the ambulance turns the corner. Medical personnel rush a boy they only know by height, weight, and approximate age into the ER, then into surgery.

Dorothy knows Jim by name. In fact, she knows him by all his names: James Arthur Griggs, the name by which she baptized him. Jim, as he prefers to be called.

Jimbo, when his father asks him to get a wrench from the tool chest in the garage. James, as his mother calls him when they are having a heart-to-heart. And Griggs, the name his basketball coach yells across the court when he misses a block.

Jim was struck by a car just after the annual CROP Walk when the church kids were milling around the finish line. Dorothy was already back at the church by the time the accident happened, helping the youth sponsors set up the after-walk celebration. But Dorothy was the first person to arrive at the hospital. She was there as Jim disappeared behind the ER doors. She was there as Jim’s WINDOWS / Winter 2009

From the dining room to the kitchen Our responsibility as a theological seminary is to prepare future ministers to meet this challenge. Our responsibility is to provide an education that will enable ministers to bring the totality of life into theological focus. Our responsibility is to provide a context in which the skills and competencies essential to ministry can be gained, practiced, critiqued, and improved. Our responsibility is to provide a community in which students can be formed into the kind of ministers who can be what their congregations need them to be.

We often tell students that they do not attend seminary for themselves, but for the generations of people whom they will serve in ministry. Those unseen generations sit silently beside students in every class they attend: in theology as they wrestle with the mystery of a God so big that this God resists confinement even in our best creeds; in church history as they discover that their experience of the church does not exhaust the wealth of the church’s experience over twenty centuries; in biblical studies as they struggle to understand the meaning of the Word of God so they can bear witness faithfully and fruitfully.

It is sometimes a surprise to students that seminary is not primarily a place where you prepare to become a professional academic scholar, a specialist in biblical studies or systematic theology or pastoral counseling. Seminary is preparing them to be ministers who can bring to bear the best of biblical scholarship, theology, and pastoral counseling, philosophical insight and historical understanding, and many other disciplines, on the concerns and celebrations of the congregations and communities in which they will serve.

It is also sometimes a surprise to students that the education they gain in seminary inevitably changes their relationship to Christian faith and to the life of the church. While this is not an easy experience to endure, it is necessary and good. Recently I joked with a group of new pastors that the transition from being a dedicated lay person to being a faithful and well-prepared minister is a lot like the transition one might make from dining in your favorite restaurant to cooking in its kitchen.

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Curriculum review: a five-step program personal growth.

If someone were to ask me what was the dominant conOne of the most interesting aspects of the curricucern in the mind of the faculty of Austin Seminary as lum review was prompted by a lively discussion in a facthey set out to do its first thorough curriculum review in ulty meeting around the question: What would it mean over thirty years, I would say that it was our own experito construe theological education as the formation of ence of ministers like Dorothy who each day must virtues? The discussion was so vigorous and stimulating approach the various and challenging practices of minthat the faculty wanted it to become the focus for our istry, and who need the best education, preparation, forannual faculty retreat (August 2006). During the retreat, mation, and grounding in the faith they can get. the faculty talked about the fundamental importance of For us as a faculty, this meant that we had to think personal character and integrity for the practice of minof ourselves not primarily as biblical scholars, or systemistry. They reflected on the classical tradition which has atic theologians, or church historians, however important informed character education for centuries. And they to the mission of the church these particular fields of looked to the Christian faith to correct and critique that scholarship are. Rather, it meant that we were compelled classical tradition, asking crucial questions such as, What to think of ourselves as theological educators, teachers is the relationship between pastoral formation and responsible for helping students set their sights on the Christian sanctification? What is the relationship horizon of the practice of ministry from the moment between the means of grace (study of the Bible, the sacrathey enter seminary and to develop the capacity to intements, and prayer) and other pracgrate the astonishing array of tices of Christian faith to theologiknowledge from the perspective of cal education? In the limited time We tell students that they do not ministry. that seminary actually has students To help us think in this way, the attend seminary for themselves, but (three years), how much education faculty spent a year listening to one for the generations of people whom and formation can realistically another as we related our experioccur? And how can we reclaim, they will serve in ministry. Those ences of being called to the ministry unseen generations sit silently beside renew, and reinvigorate the partnerof teaching. This witness bearing ship with the larger church to students in every class they attend. improve the preparation of miniswas followed by in-depth reflection on some of the best recent books on ters? the subject of theological education, like Jackson Carroll, God’s Potters: Pastoral Leadership and the Shaping of Theological education for the practices of ministry Congregations and Greg Jones and Stephanie Paulsell, The All of these concerns shaped the faculty’s conversations.

Scope of Our Art: The Vocation of the Theological Teacher.

These concerns shaped the vision statement our faculty We approached curriculum review as a sort of continuing adopted to guide us as we revised the curriculum and education for professors. they shaped the learning outcomes we developed (see We also, and perhaps most significantly, went directpage 13). And in the end all of these concerns shaped the ly to the church to ask pastors, members of congregarevised curriculum of Austin Seminary. The revised curtions, and community leaders what it is our future pasriculum takes seriously the fact that biblical knowledge, tors will need to know and be able to do, and what sort theological understanding, and historical perspective are of people our future pastors will need to be. Listening essential to the practices of ministry. The revised curricuteams from the faculty went across the country taking the lum also takes seriously the fact that no one can prepare pulse of the church. Among the most interesting things adequately for leadership of a community of faith unless we heard was that the church values leadership and charone has lived and reflected critically on one’s life in comacter and it expects that its pastors will be biblically and munity. The formative aspects of seminary are not theologically well-educated. Lay people told us that they optional, but are essential to the highest quality of prepawant pastors who are confident and humble, as ready to ration for ministry. Three years is barely the minimum listen as to speak. Pastors told us that they are worried time in which a theological education can be begun and that too often people are arriving at seminary without an the basic habits of integration can be initiated; but these adequate grounding in the rudiments of Christian faith, educational and formative tasks are essential if we hope with too little experience of living and leading in a confor ministry to be practiced with sensitivity, understandgregation, and sometimes lacking the capacities for the Continued on page 20 kind of critical self-reflection that supports long-term 4

STEP ONE:

Listen to each other.

I

am always thankful for the tension John Calvin pointed to when he wrote about call.

Call is not one thing, he wrote in his commentary on Jeremiah. It is not only the way we know by our gut. Nor is it only the way our call is recognized by the powers that be. Calvin spoke of a twofold call. It is both external or ecclesiastical, and internal. He wrote about what we know: there is something to the constant tension of these two ways of knowing call. We will not necessarily know which way of knowing will take the lead. These ways of knowing correct and affirm each other. And the Holy Spirit works both angles. For our part, we are watchful for external and internal leadings.

But call takes up so much of one’s life. This is why we try to get it right. It is not a weekend diversion. It preempts our days and it is our way in the world. I know it this way: parish ministry was a gift in my life, and then certain repeated actions of that work captured me and I feel most alive in God as I immerse myself in them. For me these actions were preaching and presiding.

And now I serve the church primarily through the study and teaching of preaching and liturgy.

Two images in my office at Austin Seminary are exactly about my vocation as a teacher in the church. The first is a black and white photograph that hangs over one desk in my office.

Fans of Alvin Ailey know this is an old photo- Jody Horton graph, taken when he was still dancing. Even if you do not know Alvin Ailey’s work, you see a near impossible thing: this man extending his arms like wings but bending back, so far back, and on the tips of his toes. It looks like he will form the letter O. What is the next move? I recall worship being described as humanity at full stretch before God, and I see this in Alvin Ailey. He is fully present in that dance, giving all, outstretched, honoring Something beyond himself, a witness to these things such that they show up even in a stilled moment. I want to live that way too: that center, that doxology, that impossible balance that must give way to the next move.

I experience the teaching life as a constellation of actions. There are the words and texts. There is the subject matter, past and present and future. There are students in the classroom, in the hallways, at office appoint-

The fine art of teaching

Jennifer Lord is associate professor of homiletics and dean of the chapel at Austin Seminary.

WINDOWS / Winter 2009

BY JENNIFER LORD ments. There is study and writing and lecturing. There are other colleagues, classes, interactions. There is input and output and constant exigencies. There is God and us and the world. It is the study and teaching of preaching and liturgy but always in relation to all of theological education and, more, to life. It is impossibly balanced and I want to be outstretched and doxological.

The other image that I think about sits on my desk.

From it, three theologians look at me. These three teachers of the church, Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom, raise their right hands, extending blessing from their fourth century to a Continued on page 7 5

STEP ONE:

Listen to each other.

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id I choose my vocation or did my vocation choose me? I have come to believe that both are true. My intention was to become a pastor.

While in college two professors, Gamaliel Ortiz (a former minister) and Don Pablo Garcia (a nonbeliever), modeled that kind of passionate dedication to the art of teaching that persuaded me that teaching is worth one’s life commitment. I remember the day I opted to become a teacher, and all the strategic steps I took to get myself

clearly my choice.

Becoming a teacher within a theological seminary was not as intentional a choice. Many variables, none of which I controlled, were at play. I was not as proactive but found myself responding to events happening around me. My first teaching position was somewhat fortuitous. I did not apply for a position at McCormick Theological Seminary. They extended an invitation for me to consider an administrative position with minimum teaching responsibilities. It was supposed to be a part-time job; but in less than one week, a week of daily interviews with President Jack Stotts, it became a full-time teaching position. I was supposed to teach the courses that Jack taught. I ended up, with Jack’s encouragement and support, creating a new ethics curriculum.

These were all matters I did not choose but merely responded to as they chose me. I am glad that my responses were fitting, but they were not as intentional as the decision to go to Chicago. In this sense, my vocation chose me.

Seminary communities have taught me to understand the art of teaching to be more than a profession, but to see and experience it as a vocation. I discovered that in teaching, like in the ministry, one does not have to choose between professing a vocation and living up Jody Horton to the standards of a profession.

On the contrary, professing a vocation encourages one to be more intentional in meeting those professional duties and responsibilities indispensable to achieve excellence. It is because I have come to understand teaching as a vocation that I have continuously felt the obligation to be more professionally minded and to work harder at cultivating the skills and knowledge of my trade.

As a professional teacher of ethics, I am duty bound to keep up to date in my field and to acquire the skills necessary that will improve my teaching. Professionally, I must expose students to the best literature available to study a given subject matter. I must also assign them enough work to stretch and challenge them but not so

The ethical teaching of ethics

BY ISMAEL GARCÍA into the University of Chicago. I have less fond memories of the long and heated discussions I had with my father (a worker with minimum education) who never forgave me for refusing to accept the invitation to enter the Law School in Puerto Rico. Becoming a teacher was Ismael García is professor of Christian ethics at Austin Seminary.

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STEP ONE:

Listen to each other.

much work so as to overwhelm them. I must establish course requirements that are reasonable and relevant to the task and evaluate their work honestly and fairly. I must also make myself available to them when they need my counsel and advice; and I must remain aware that students must also fulfill the tasks assigned by my colleagues. From this perspective, one discovers that teaching ethics is not a complicated matter. It is not difficult to identify good resources among the ample resources available to us today. Nor have I found it to be complicated to meet the other requirements I mentioned above.

It is a task most reasonable people can do.

The real challenge is to teach ethics courses in an ethical manner. The ethical teaching of ethics that aims to encourage and model for students the practice of interpersonal relationships that one would like pastors to embody within their ministries presents us with a more complex set of challenges. It is this mode of teaching ethics that merges the professional and vocational dimensions of teaching.

At the heart of the ethical teaching of ethics lies the imperative that constitutes the core of the moral point of view: that commitment and disposition to have regard for others and contribute to the goodness of their lives.

Moral and ethical behavior must always bring forth the question of how what I do and what I aim at affects the life possibilities of those with whom I share life. Since we are social creatures, it is equally imperative that we remain mindful of how our actions contribute to the quality of life of the community within which we serve.

Within the dynamics of the classroom, this entails creating an environment where students have the freedom and the security to openly discuss their views.

Classes must encourage all participants to grant each other the recognition and respect due to all participants.

Classes must encourage discussion and debate among all class participants that, while at times might be controversial and heated, as most discussions of things that matter to us ought to be, are still to be respectful, civil in attitude, and constructive in intention. This is a way of cultivating what I consider to be the central pastoral virtue, being trustworthy and caring as people share their vulnerabilities. Participants must enhance the autonomy and freedom of others inviting them to consider change without forcing them to see and experience the world as we do. Participants must be willing to present their views and take responsibility to justify them and submit themselves to the critique of others. Serving others requires the inclination to carefully listen to their visions and an honest attempt to understand their beliefs and convictions and why these ideas and convictions matter to them.

WINDOWS / Winter 2009

Understanding, be it the text assigned or the arguments of a classmate, precedes the act of judging. What is being modeled here is a way to allow others to grow and mature in a manner fitting who they are and a style of leadership grounded on service that neither lords over others nor encourages servile attitudes and behaviors. In my twentyseven years of teaching, I have still to succeed in this task; it is hard work.

What makes the profession of teaching intrinsically intertwined with a sense of a vocation, that is, what turns teaching into a ministry itself, is that all our educational resources and processes intentionally uplift and point to that transcendent source of our being we call God. The study of ethics, the context and the manner in which we relate to each other as we go about the task of discerning what goes into the good life, must point beyond social convention and regulations to that which ultimately legitimized and authorized these practices: our shared faithfulness to God. The teaching and studying of ethics, as an integral dimension of the preparation for ministry, are grounded in the call to the faculty and students to interact in ways that promote and fit God’s call for fuller communion.

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The fine art of teaching

BY JENNIFER LORD Continued from page 5 twenty-first century woman. I look at them and think about vocation done in context. It is never pure call, external or internal. It always is call in context. These three teachers were both favored and exiled, were timely yet speak to the church across time, were thoughtful and insistent. Their image draws me in to know again that teachers have been serving the church for a long time.

My twofold call to teach is tempered by context, but is shaped by God who is both in and beyond context.

A friend of mine, himself a priest, spoke with me this summer about philokalia, the knack for seeing (loving) the beautiful and the good. I hope for this in my teaching life. I want the church to join in beautiful and true worship. I want the church to have beautiful and true preaching. Words and actions that are urgent and real, patterning us for full-stretch lives. Words and actions, gathering us to the triune God and each other and the needs of the world. I hope for philokalia teaching where the next step is us, full stretch, for the sake of the world.

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STEP TWO:

Listen to the church.

What are they thinking?

Austin Seminary employs a variety of measures to discern the needs of the church

BY TIMOTHY LINCOLN ustin Seminary’s faculty devoted a great deal of attention to listening to the church as it began its review of the MDiv curriculum. During the summer of 2005, the Curriculum Review Committee (CRC) conducted a survey of a broad sample of leaders, lay and ordained, throughout our nation-wide constituency. Some 1100 questionnaires were mailed, out; 688 to congregational leaders in a sample of mainline denominations (African Methodist Episcopal, Cumberland Presbyterian, PCUSA, United Methodist, Disciples of Christ, and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), one third of whom were pastors and two thirds of whom were congregants; the sample was weighted so that most surveys (465) were sent to Presbyterians. Another seventy surveys went to denominational leaders; 226 to civic leaders, and 125 to Austin Seminary Ambassadors, close supporters of the Seminary.

The response rate was 36% for the surveys overall and 44% for those mailed to congregations, very high for such a mailed survey.

In the survey, participants were asked to choose the important characteristics, management skills, and pastoral skills and commitments of an effective minister from a list of options. Respondents said that an effective pastor is a spiritual person, has solid theology, is trustworthy, is caring, and enjoys being with people. They stated that an effective pastor communicates well and develops others as leaders. Respondents also stated that an effective pastor is skilled at preaching, conducting public worship and sacraments, and has the ability to help others develop spiritually.

During the fall 2005 term, the CRC followed up the survey with a series of sixteen regionally based focus groups conducted in Texas, Little Rock, Arkansas, St. Louis, Missouri, and Portland, Oregon. Eight focus groups were comprised of laity and eight of pastors. Eleven groups were composed of members of the PC(USA). The other five groups were composed of United Methodists, Baptists, and African Methodist Episcopal members.

Participants in the focus groups were asked to reflect on what an effective pastor is able to do, is committed to, and what sort of personality she has. Participants reported that an effective pastor is able to preach, teach, administer, challenge, and empower. They reported that an effective pastor is committed to Jesus Christ and serving the needs of members. They also reported that effective pastors are loving, helpful, flexible, and optimistic.

An effective pastor has a good sense of humor.

The results of the focus groups are probably not surprising to church people. Who would think that an effective pastor would not be skilled in preaching? What came as something of a surprise, however, was the oftenreported theme that an effective pastor ought to be humble. Sometimes humble was paired with other terms such as approachable or kind. In the minds of focus group participants, a pastor must combine skills and commitments with humility in order to be an effective minister.

L Timothy Lincoln is associate dean for institutional effectiveness and director of the Stitt Library.

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Jody Horton

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STEP TWO:

Listen to the church.

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’m sitting next to a stranger on a plane, and she has just asked me what I do. “I’m the president of a Presbyterian seminary,” I say. It becomes clear that she is not acquainted with the church, and can’t even spell “Presbyterian,” and so she asks a follow-up question.

“What does that mean?” she says. “Do you serve a church on weekends and teach people how to be preachers the rest of the week?” Actually, as I ponder what to say next, it strikes me that she has more of a grasp of this seminary president business than she thinks.

“Well, not exactly,” I say, “but I used to serve a Jody Horton church—several of them over the course of twentythree years. And even now I do a good bit of preaching and teaching on Sundays. But mainly, I run a pretty busy pastortraining institution located across the street from the University of Texas.”

“Well, do you teach courses?” “Not so much.”

“Well, then, how do you while away your time?”

Here’s what I always say next whenever this fairly typical question gets asked: “I basically do two things. I represent the seminary to the church, and I represent the church to the seminary.”

nation or the larger Reformed tradition. This deep and organic relationship between the seminaries and our communion has been expressed for as long as there have been Presbyterian seminaries in America. I find it interesting in this regard that, over the last few years, when the ten Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) seminaries have had occasion to call their current presidents, eight of those presidents have been called straight from the pastoral

Shall we dance? The seminary and the church

Representing one to the other In pretty much every moment of every working day, this is the transaction with which any seminary president is preoccupied—especially if the seminary is in some sort of covenantal relationship with a particular ecclesial ethos or tradition. What this means is that Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary has the reverent obligation to seek out and listen to the mind of the church. The reverse is true, too. Over and over again, various congregations turn toward us—in earnest, and sometimes in consternation—to seek out and listen to the mind of the seminary, and sometimes, through us, to the mind of the denomiTheodore J. Wardlaw is president of Austin Seminary.

WINDOWS / Winter 2009

BY THEODORE J. WARDLAW

leadership of congregations (and the other two presidents have pastored congregations in prior chapters of their lives). If it was ever the case (and I doubt that it was) that our seminaries exhibited a wholeheartedly academic indifference toward the life of the church, it is certainly not the case now. Instead, in our time it is the case, and profoundly so, that the church and the seminary are expressing a renewed desire to be in deeper and more significant conversation with one another.

Sometimes, though, this is not as easy as it sounds.

The seminary and the church are, after all, a bit like dance partners listening carefully for the beat of the music that the culture is playing. One may wish to dance faster than the other during one song, and maybe the situation is reversed when the next song begins; or maybe, 9

STEP TWO:

Listen to the church.

with ears tuned, too, to the music of the gospel, one or they hold the baby the right way at a baptism, can they the other of us wants to sit some songs out. The church, relate easily with others? Why aren’t you offering more hearing something that might be the next great trend, courses in business and technology and advertising? wants to hurry the seminary onto the dance floor before These are good and earnest questions, and the questhe seminary, perhaps, has caught the music itself; and tioner is often pleasantly surprised to learn that Austin then again sometimes, to be sure, it’s the seminary that Seminary, in an attempt to respond to this lament, has wants to move faster than the church. been teaching such practical things for at least a decade.

The challenge in this dance is for these two proIn fact, we now have a faculty position, the Zbinden foundly important partners to find the right steps togethChair of Pastoral Ministry, that is dedicated to addresser. The church, panicked by some example of the ing such concerns as these. Moreover, the great majority unprecedented amount and degree of change going on in of the rest of the courses we offer are taught through the North America, may approach the seminary with the lens of the complexion and needs and challenges of the urgency of a “five-alarm fire” out there and demand that church. Nevertheless, it is also the seminary’s obligation the seminary do something different—anything differto remind the church that a pastor’s theological educaent—immediately! But the seminary may not be able or tion is never completed simply with the conferring of a even willing to confirm every piece of anxious analysis Master of Divinity degree—that the church, too, is nearly as rapidly as the church might wish. This may always engaged in the ongoing role of teaching and shapmean that the seminary is asleep at the wheel, or hopeing its pastors, however new or seasoned they are, across lessly out-of-date and irrelevant, as the rhetoric I occathe span of their lives and ministries. sionally hear would imply. Or, it And sometimes, the seminary may instead mean that the seminary has to say no to the church. We A pastor’s theological education is is being prudent and thoughtful not never do this glibly or disrespectnever completed simply with the to roar out of the firehouse every fully, but, for a host of reasons, conferring of a degree. The church is we are not always able to honor single time someone out there in the culture calls in what turns out to always engaged in the ongoing role of some of the church’s fondest be a false alarm. wishes. Across my six-plus years teaching and shaping its pastors, as President of Austin Seminary, however new or seasoned they are, one refrain I have heard more Holding on to the long tradition across the span of their lives and Dan Aleshire, the wise and wonderthan perhaps any other is: Why ministries. ful executive director of the can’t you place a satellite campus Association of Theological Schools in _______? Fill in the blank: “in in the United States and Canada, has written in his most West Texas, in Oklahoma City, in Dallas, in Louisiana, in recent book that “the church needs institutions that can the Rio Grande Valley, in Colorado, in Wyoming, in stand at least one step out of the fray, hold onto the long Northwest Arkansas.” The question comes, always, with tradition, and provide wisdom that transcends the immean anecdote supporting how not all persons can relocate diate need. In some ways,” says Aleshire in Earthen and move to Austin for their seminary education. Some Vessels: Hopeful Reflections on the Work and Future of people are tied down by a spouse’s job, or by family Theological Schools, “theological schools may need to demands, or by insufficient funds. I hurt for the pain function like monasteries did in the early medieval era: such situations inflict upon potential future servants of places where religious traditions are preserved, contemthe church, and am genuinely grateful for those seminarplated, renewed, and transmitted. Theological schools ies in various locations that offer theological education in have always done some of this, and in the future, may a night-school or weekend model, and for those other very likely need to do more.” seminaries, such as our sister school at Dubuque, that I am fortified by these words as I endeavor, carefully offer a good theological education on-line. and prayerfully, to parse what I am continually hearing At Austin Seminary, though, expanding our reach from the church. For instance, in many conversations beyond the longstanding extension program we have in with the church, the lament comes up that the seminary Houston would drive us, because of the huge costs is not preparing pastors sufficiently for the practical chalinvolved, to depart from a primary emphasis upon resilenges and realities of leadership that await our graduates. dential formation which we have claimed, and someCan your students read a spreadsheet, can they run a meeting, do they know anything about stewardship, can Continued on page 12 10

STEP THREE: Consider

theological education as the formation of virtues.

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hat is theological education supposed to do?

Is its purpose to produce a person who has become familiar with a certain body of knowledge and mastered a certain set of skills, or is it supposed to produce a certain kind of person? Are pastors expected not only to know and do something, but to be something? Is there a ministerial character that theological education intends to impart? That is the question that guides this essay.

In the history of the church, concern over the moral character of the clergy appears almost as early as there are clergy about which to be concerned. Moreover, concern for the character of clergy seems to overshadow concern for their intellectual competence. In the New Testament, I Timothy 3 and Titus 1 both provide enumerations of the necessary characteristics of bishops, but only Titus has an indication that bishops must have something like

theological sophistication: “He must have a firm grasp of the word that is trustworthy in accordance with the teaching, so that he may be able both to preach with sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict it” (Titus 1:7, NRSV). I Timothy only remarks that a prospective bishop must be an “apt teacher,” but stresses the necessity of high moral character: “Now a bishop must be above reproach, married only once, temperate, sensible, respectable, hospitable … not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and not a lover of money” (1 Timothy 3:2-3 NRSV). Writings from the early church show a similar concern for the morals of the clergy, often by complaining about their lack. Clergy, whether bishops, priests, or deacons, were expected to display a certain character.

This was entirely consistent with the goals of Hellenistic education in general, which attempted to

Theological education and moral character

BY DAVID W. JOHNSON

Scot Hill

mold students according to a certain ideal. Students read The Odyssey in order to emulate Odysseus. They studied the dialogues of Plato so that they could reason (and argue) the way that Socrates could.

Christians followed the same methods, but read different books: primarily the Bible, but also, as a Christian literature developed, the lives of martyrs and saints. If one looked to Abraham or Moses or Jesus or Paul, rather than Odysseus or Socrates, as one’s model of human excellence; and if one studied the Bible rather than The Odyssey as the portrayal of these models, one evolved a different kind of character. To do battle with demons in imitation of St. Anthony, or to face torture and death as did the martyrs, required a different order of courage than that required for valor in battle. The injunction, “Know your Lord,” if followed, produced a different kind of life than the life inspired by, “Know yourself.”

This character was not the mark of the clergy alone.

It was the ideal of the Christian as such. The clergy were expected to exemplify that which every Christian should be. People learned how to live the faith from the example of the biblical heroes, but they also learned it from their clergy. As St. Jerome wrote to a friend, “I know of course, that from your reverend uncle, Heliodorus, now a bishop of Christ, you have learned and are daily learning all that

WINDOWS / Winter 2009

David Johnson is director of the Supervised Practice of Ministry program at Austin Seminary.

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STEP THREE: Consider

theological education as the formation of virtues.

is holy; and that in him you have before you a rule of life and a pattern of virtue” (Epistle 52, quoted from Philip L. Culbertson and Arthur Bradford Shippe, eds., The Pastor: Readings from the Patristic Period).

From the beginning, then, the church expected that Christians should be people displaying a certain kind of character, and that the clergy should exemplify that character. That is still the case. Character is the primary expectation that parishioners have of pastors. When clergy misconduct occurs, congregations feel betrayed and violated, not only by the individual pastor involved, but by pastors and even the church in general. To feel betrayed by a particular pastor is to feel betrayed by the clergy as such. Congregants are often astonishingly tolerant of varying degrees of competence in their pastors, provided those pastors are reasonably attentive to their parishioners and display a moral character appropriate to the ministry. But a pastor who becomes involved with financial or sexual misconduct is almost always removed from the congregation, and usually from the profession itself.

Can the institutions of theological education produce this character? If so, how?

In one sense, they presuppose it. Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary asks each entering student to sign this “Declaration of Intent”: “In recognition of the claims of God upon me and in reliance upon God’s grace, I declare my intention to live responsibly in this community, to be persistent in the pursuit of learning, diligent in prayer and praise, responsive to the needs of my fellow members, and open to their efforts to contribute to my equipment for the service of Christ.” Words such as “responsibly,” “diligent,” and “responsive” form a character description, as do the requirements and expectations contained in the Student Handbook. Students are assumed to be capable of living according to such descriptions.

On the other hand, the Christian tradition has continually held that moral regeneration is the work of the Holy Spirit. It does not begin by human initiative, and it does not proceed under human control. If there is any such thing as a Christian character, whether clergy or laity, that character is the work of God. The seminary cannot control it, and sometimes cannot even perceive it.

So between the work of society and (perhaps) church in forming the character of the people who matriculate— a character we presume—and the work of the Holy Spirit in forming character—a character we can pray for (at best)—is there some middle ground, in which character is at least nourished by the seminary? That nourishment, it seems to me, is the work of the seminary community 12

as such.

The locus of character formation is not exclusively the classroom or the study. It also occurs in those places in which the community comes to realization: chapels, dining halls, lawns, lounges, and all the other places in and through which we share our lives. This characterforming community cannot be mandated. It can only be nourished.

But that, it seems to me, is true of the entire process of character formation: It cannot be mandated, forced, or imposed. It can only be nourished. One cannot grow a garden by tugging on the plants. One can only prepare the ground, plant the seed, and wait with patience and trust.

Like the sun and the rain, the Word will do its work. L

Shall we dance?

BY THEODORE J. WARDLAW Continued from page 10 times reclaimed, for over a hundred years. As we assert a key element of our core identity—the commitment to residential formation as the most effective way to pass on the apostolic tradition—we are sometimes in the position of saying no to one desire of the church in order to continue to say yes to another.

Getting the steps right And so goes the dance, as two partners committed to one another—the church and the seminary—try faithfully in every generation to get the steps right. Dan Aleshire describes what’s at stake in our dancing well: “Theological schools are called to help the church remember the past, evaluate the present, envision the future, and live faithfully in relationship to all three. Each era of the Christian tradition must identify the truest understanding of the long tradition, the most intellectually faithful Christian witness, and the most honest engagement of the culture and the church.”

Speaking from our side of the dance floor, Austin Seminary simply could not exist without the prayers and the good wishes and the financial generosity and even the critique of its many partners and stakeholders—not just in the great Southwest, but all over the country and then beyond. And I suspect that the church, too, from its side of the floor as it expresses itself throughout our Synod and elsewhere, knows of and appreciates the cords of relationship that bind us together. In our time, the beat of the music is a challenge to both partners, but dancing together—and not separately—is essential.

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STEP FOUR:

Vision Statement and Learning Outcomes

Vision Statement for the Master of Divinity Degree Program As approved by the Faculty of Austin Seminary, March 28, 2007 God calls the church to be light, salt, and leaven in a beautiful but broken world. Alive in Christ, the church must respond to the vitality of God, proclaiming and embodying a prophetic witness to life.

Amidst national and international political strife, economic injustice, social and spiritual alienation, and abuse of the natural world, the Spirit bears Christ’s joy and wholeness to broken places. As the church, we sense the call to participate in this reconciling work of God. The task of theological education is to form leaders who will prepare and embolden the church for service to God in offering healing in this world. Thus the purpose of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary’s Master of Divinity program is to nurture church leaders who will give strong, loving, and imaginative leadership to congregations that will be worshiping, learning, and serving communities.

These leaders and congregations will prize and bear witness to life in God as grounded in Christian tradition, faith, and practices; nurture relationships within the church as the body of Christ; and navigate the complexities of contemporary culture; and so recognize and answer God’s call to love God and neighbor.

Graduates of the Master of Divinity program will learn to integrate self-knowledge, the traditions of the church, awareness of the world and particular contexts, and ministerial skills in order to minister effectively in contexts to which God calls. Such pastoral leadership may take several forms, including ministries of Word and Sacrament, specialized congregational ministries, chaplaincies, and leadership in the public arena.

The Master of Divinity Degree Learning Outcomes Strong, Loving, and Imaginative Leadership As approved by the Faculty of Austin Seminary, March 28, 2007 Our graduates are leaders in the church. Graduates will: • Understand the varying perspectives of the Christian tradition, humanities, and social sciences, and how they impact personal, ecclesial, and public contexts of ministry.

• Preach and teach the Word of God through the artful integration of biblical exegesis, theological reflection, historical awareness, and cultural analysis.

• Demonstrate proficiency in the content and methodology of the pastoral arts, administering and shaping communities as places of worship, care, nurture, learning, spiritual growth, and mission.

• Pursue and evaluate knowledge through inquiry, research, contemplation, critical thinking and practice, and wide-ranging discussion and collaboration.

• Communicate effectively in speech and writing to a variety of audiences.

• Exercise leadership needed for congregations to mobilize for Christian witness in the world.

• Possess capacities for self-understanding, self-care, and spiritual practices that foster wholeness, humility, faithfulness, and vocational vitality.

WINDOWS / Winter 2009

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STEP FIVE:

The new Master of Divinity curriculum Randal Whittington

Effective Fall 2009 Required courses: Colloquy on Vocation and Ministry: 1 course Biblical languages and studies*: 6 courses Theology: 2 courses Preaching: 1 course Worship: 1 course Pastoral care and counseling: 1 course Christian ethics: 1 course World religions: 1 course Mission and evangelism: 1 course Christian education: 1 course Church history: 1 course After working together on the process for four years, the full faculty voted their Senior Capstone Seminar: 1 course approval of the new curriculum on April 28, 2008.

Electives: Ten elective courses allow the student to tailor the program to his/her own sense of call.

Supervised Practice of Ministry Through Austin Seminary’s Supervised Practice of Ministry (SPM) students will become competent in Christian leadership and will learn to reflect theologically on the practice of ministry. Students will also participate in the Profiles of Ministry program which helps them better understand their personal and vocational strengths and growing edges.

Colloquy on Vocation and Ministry, offered in the fall term of the first year, includes four distinct, yet interrelated, emphases: • Learning how to think integratively • Placing one’s own life and call in the context of the larger Christian story • Learning how to read, understand, and interpret contexts • Attending to spirituality of persons and communities Senior Capstone Seminars, taken in the final year of study, will help students practice integration of their theological education so they may be better prepared for Christian leadership beyond graduation.

• Team taught by two professors • At least one seminar on proclamation (currently “Senior Preaching”) will be offered every semester and a seminar on leadership will be offered regularly • Each seminar must attend to hermeneutics, tradition, theological analysis, contextual analysis, deepening self-awareness, and ministry activity * A note about biblical languages: Hebrew will be offered during the Spring term, beginning in 2010. While students preparing for ministry in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) must still take both Greek and Hebrew, and a full complement of courses in both languages will continue to be taught, the MDiv degree requires students to take either one or the other of these languages. New English Bible courses will also be introduced. These will be of particular value to students in traditions that do not require Greek and Hebrew and those who are preparing for ministries other than the pastorate.

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Randal Whittington

COMMUNITY NEWS

New class arrives

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ustin Presbyterian Theological Seminary welcomed forty-six new students at the start of the new academic year on Tuesday, September 4, 2008. During its opening convocation service, officiated by President Theodore J. Wardlaw, the Seminary community came together to mark the start of the fall semester. Dr. Whitney

Bodman, associate professor of comparative religion, delivered the convocation address, “Amid the Crosses.”

Thirty-nine new students enrolled in the Master of Divinity (MDiv) program and seven in the Master of Arts (Theological Studies) (MATS) program. The median age of students in the incoming class is 33. Each year the class includes a number of interna-

tional students, and this year’s entering class includes students from South Korea, Zambia, and a former missionary from Argentina.

Jack Barden, vice president for admissions, said, “We are happy to have this particular group of students on campus this year; this class is very diverse with ten denominations and almost every region of the country represented—from California to DC.”

“IQ” to be introduced alongside curriculum

Todd Hanse n

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ustin Seminary is in the process of renewing its accreditation—the approval of its educational programs by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) and the Association of Theological Schools (ATS)—a process that takes place every decade. This year as part of the reaccreditation process, Austin Seminary is developing a Quality Enhancement Plan, or QEP, tied to the instructional program and related to one of seven MDiv learning outcomes: Pursue and evaluate knowledge through inquiry, research, contemplation, critical thinking and practice, and wideranging discussion and collaboration.

Austin Seminary’s QEP was designed by a committee made up of Old Testament Professor Andy Dearman, librarians Helen Kennedy, Lila Parrish, and Kathy Fowler, and student Debbie Garber. Their proposal, “Enhancing Information Literacy for Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary Students,” was chosen in a campus-wide competition held last year.

With the shorthand IQ for “Information Quality,” the plan is designed to develop the skills persons training for ministry need to find, retrieve, and analyze information, and to use information ethically and creatively. Associate Dean Ellen Babinsky says, “We recognize that the proliferation of information and increased availability of resources require that students know how to effectively manage the quantity of available information and assess its quality. The QEP team, composed of Austin Seminary faculty, librarians, and students, will act as training partners with seminary librarians when IQ is integrated into the new MDiv curriculum in September of 2009.”

A member of the QEP team, Professor Whit Bodman has designed a special promotional “IQ” tie.

WINDOWS / Winter 2009

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COMMUNITY NEWS

Jump-start the new year with lively and provocative MidWinters Tom Long, Mary Louise Bringle, Paul Westermeyer, and Scott Black Johnston will offer a time for alumni/ae and friends of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary to combine topics of interest with warm fellowship during MidWinters, February 2-4, 2009.

In addition to the lectures, there will be a Homecoming Fiesta!, a screening of the award-winning documentary “At the Death House Door,” and opportunities for dialogue with the lecturers and other participants.

In his Currie Lectures, The Reverend Dr. Thomas G. Long will look at the seeming incompatibility of innocent suffering and the goodness of God. He says, “In the face of the terrible mystery of innocent suffering and the aching pastoral and theological questions posed by it, many pastors feel incapable of responding and retreat to a silent ‘ministry of presence.’ These lectures assume that we can and should do more, that we should in fact preach theologically substantive sermons that help Christians in the pews wrestle with the challenge to their own faith raised by innocent suffering.”

Tom Long is the Bandy Professor of Preaching at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. In 1996, he was named one of the twelve most effective preachers in the English-speaking world by Baylor University, along with Barbara Brown Taylor, Billy Graham, and James Forbes; subse16

quently, the Odyssey Channel produced a series based on that survey that featured Long. He has taught at Princeton and Columbia Theological Seminaries and was director of the Presbyterian Church’s Geneva Press. A noted writer in the field of homiletics, Long has been associate editor for the Journal of Preachers since 1983 and is the author of many books including The Witness of Preaching, A Chorus of Witnesses: Model Sermons for Today’s Preacher, and Preaching from Memory to Hope (forthcoming 2009).

Westervelt Lecturer Dr. Mary Louise Bringle plans to explore how contemporary hymns are being written to address “new things” God is doing in the world and new challenges arising for Christian faith and practice. Bringle is a noted hymnologist and professor of philosophy and religion at Brevard College. Her scholarly work bridges the disciplines of theology and psychology in a contemporary approach to the seven deadly sins resulting in the books Despair: Sickness or Sin? and The God of Thinness: Gluttony and Other Weighty Matters.

As a professor of religious studies, Bringle turned her hand to hymn text writing in 2000 as a way of making “ancient doctrinal debates accessible to modern-day students,” starting with the proposition: “If the heretics had had their own hymns, what would they have sounded like?” Bringle soon found herself drawn into an unexpected

vocation as a writer of contemporary hymn texts, reminding people that the Psalmist proclaims: “Sing to the Lord a new song,” and not “Sing to God one of those twenty good ‘old standards’ that everybody already knows!” Since 2000, she has won a number of hymn writing competitions, been featured as an “emerging text writer” by The Hymn Society in the U.S. and Canada, and had her first hymn collection, Joy and Wonder, Love and Longing.

Jones Lecturer The Reverend Dr. Paul Westermeyer will explore the role of the church’s music in the task of Christian education. He hopes to help participants “listen to what the Spirit tells the church through the riches of its musical heritage.”

Westermeyer is professor of church music at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, cantor for the seminary, and director of the Master of Sacred Music (MSM) program in cooperation with St. Olaf College. A musician and pastor whose doctorate is from the University of Chicago, Westermeyer has been national chaplain of the American Guild of Organists and president of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. His books include The Church Musician, The Heart of the Matter: Church Music as Praise, and Let the People Sing: Hymn Tunes in Perspective.

Westermeyer will be the keynote speaker for the 2009 Presbyterian Association of Musicians (PAM) professional gathering in Austin, February 5-9, following MidWinters (www.presbymusic.org/).

MidWinters preacher The Reverend Dr. Scott Black Johnston, formerly the Jean Brown Professor of Homiletics at Austin Seminary, became the senior pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City this summer. From 2003-2008 he served Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Georgia, where his achievements included congregational involvement in Katrina relief efforts through supporting the denomination with nearly $250,000 and thousands of volunteer hours; church growth from 1800 members to nearly 2300; and sponsoring a three-way inter-faith dialogue and study of sacred texts between Trinity Church, the Ahavath Achim Synagogue, and the Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam.

Black Johnston received the Beebe Prize for Outstanding Preaching while a student at Yale University’s Divinity School and earned a PhD in homiletics under Professor Tom Long at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the author of Theology for Preaching: Authority, Truth, and Knowledge of God in a Postmodern Ethos.

The Austin Seminary Association Annual Meeting and Banquet, February 4, honors the 2009 Distinguished Service awardees Marvin Griffin (DMin’90) and Bob Lively (MDiv’73), graduating seniors, and a keynote address by former Huntsville death row Chaplain Carroll Pickett (MDiv’57). To register and buy tickets, use the form at www.austinseminary.edu/midwinters where you can see a complete schedule of events. Pre-register online to receive complimentary audio CDs of the lectures.

WINDOWS / Winter 2009

Visit our new site at www.austinseminary.edu

Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary launched its new Web site, www.austinseminary.edu, in November to serve the community, those persons interested in theological education and resources, and the media. The new site was designed to help viewers easily access the myriad of lectures and events that occur here on a regular basis, as well as to get a sense of life in the Austin Seminary community.

Some of the new features offered include: • User-centric design that serves the community, prospective, or current student • Web 2.0 functionalities such as podcasts, RSS feeds, customizable news/event alerts, and personal profile creation • Enriched multimedia via photos, videos, and podcasts In addition to the new Web site, in the Fall of 2009 Austin Seminary plans to launch student and alumni/ae portals creating an online home for current and former students.

It’s as if his day job—redesigning the Seminary’s main Web site while keeping the current one current, and creating from scratch a Web site for all the Seminary’s re-accreditation materials—isn’t enough to keep web editor Todd Hansen busy!

A rock and roll drummer and night student in St. Edward’s University MBA program, Hansen has created two web sites after office hours that have drawn quite a bit of attention from the national press.

Built along the lines of social networking sites, www.drummerhunter.com seeks to match up drummers seeking bands with bands seeking drummers and www.betterthanthevan.com, matches beds to road-weary band members. Among the media who’ve reviewed Hansen’s sites are Rolling Stone, The Onion, USA Today, The Independent (UK), and The New York Times.

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Randal Whittington

STAFF NOTES

New Board Chair Cassandra Carr, center, was installed along with new trustees, from left, Karl Travis, Teresa Chavez Sauceda, Anne Vickery Stevenson, and Jeffrey Richard.

New chair, trustees installed

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ustin Seminary named Max Sherman as Trustee Emeritus and installed four new trustees and new Board Chair Cassandra Carr during its November meeting.

Jeffrey Kyle Richard is president and CEO of the Austin Area Urban League, where he manages the operations of a dozen educational, housing, and employment training programs. He earned a master’s degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree from Texas Christian University. From 2002-2005, Richard served in various positions at the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, most recently as the vice president of Education and Workforce Development.

The Reverend Dr. Teresa Chávez Sauceda (MDiv’88) has been an advocate, author, and teacher on race issues for over thirty years. From 2003-2008, she served as associate for Racial Justice and Advocacy in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), coordinating program initiatives that support the denomination’s antiracism strategy, conducting training, and monitoring the implementation of racial justice policies. With a PhD from the Graduate Theological Union, 18

she is the recipient of numerous awards including two fellowships and a scholarship from the Fund for Theological Education.

Anne Vickery Stevenson has served as a community advocate in health and women’s issues since 1981. Stevenson has held director positions at both Tradition Bank and Texas Coastal Bank since 1995 and served as a member of the board and president of Fort Bend County Family Health Center.

Stevenson has long-held ties to Austin Seminary; her father, Edward D. Vickery, served on the Seminary’s Board of Trustees for eighteen years, seven as board chair.

As a fourth-generation Presbyterian pastor, The Reverend Karl Brian Travis became pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Fort Worth, Texas, in 2007. He has served as a member of the Relief and Development Entity Study Team for the General Assembly Council and on the Formative Evaluation Committee for the Synod of the Covenant. Travis graduated Magna Cum Laude from Trinity University in San Antonio and was awarded an Honours BD from The University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Channing Burke is the new senior marketing and public relations specialist in the Office of Communications where she is responsible for strengthening the marketing and public relations program for Austin Seminary’s academic programs, fund-raising activities, and public outreach. In addition to being a member of the Public Relations Society of America, Channing serves on the board of Planet Cancer, a non-profit that provides support to young adults diagnosed with cancer. A deacon of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Austin, Burke is a licensed foster parent.

Laura Harris is the new administrative assistant to the Office of Institutional Advancement. She is married to Paul Harris, a new student at Austin Seminary. She enjoys being in ministry with her husband, meeting new people and learning about biblical archeology and cultures. Their son, Ben, is a freshman at McMurry University, and Laura enjoys collecting cats and teapots.

Ryan M. Lozano is the new development coordinator in the Office of Institutional Advancement, responsible for the Annual Fund development program. Ryan earned a BA in philosophy from St. Mary’s University, and an MA in applied philosophy with a focus in ethics in health care and finance from Loyola University in Chicago. Ryan and his wife, Gina, live in Lockhart, and are very active in their community. Ryan is an avid reader, and enjoys gourmet cooking for friends and family, fly fishing, languages, and philosophy/theology.

COMMUNITY NEWS

Kathy Muenchow is the new administrative assistant to the College of Pastoral Leaders and Christian Leadership Education programs. Kathy earned her bachelor’s degree in music history from the University of Houston and her master’s degree in art history from the University of Texas at Austin and has recently moved back to the Austin area from Maryland, where she worked in the pharmaceutical industry. She has visited the monastery of Saint Jerome in Rome and enjoys meditation and reading.

Katherine Sweet is the new hospitality assistant. From her reception desk in the McCord Community Center, Katherine is responsible for greeting callers to the Seminary’s main phone number, providing help to overnight guests, and giving assistance to campus visitors. The daughter of Austin Seminary student Jim Sweet, during college she spent a semester in Uruguay and is currently the director of youth and children at Crestview United Methodist Church in Austin.

WINDOWS / Winter 2009

Haggard fine-tuned tech program

T

Randal Whittington

Mona Minjarez is the new administrative assistant to the Office of Business Affairs. Mona earned her bachelor’s degree in social work from Texas Tech University and has recently relocated to the Austin area from San Antonio, where she worked for an adoption agency.

Mona has also served as a probation officer and a counselor to at-risk youth. In her spare time Mona enjoys reading, creating jewelry, spending time with family and friends, and exploring all that Austin has to offer in food and entertainment. Rachel Dagani, who resigned from the position Mona now occupies, delivered a son, Eli Jacob, in October.

rading in his miniature screwdriver for a nine iron, Joe Haggard retired in September after nineteen years as head of the Seminary’s computing services department. A native of the northwest and graduate of the College of Idaho, Joe found his way to Texas in the mideighties working as a systems analyst for the University of Texas prior to crossing the street to Austin Seminary. A man of varied interests, Joe studied English and history, theatre and computer science; served in the United States Marine Corp; and sang tenor in the Austin Lyric Opera chorus. A member of the choir at Central Presbyterian Church, Austin, Joe’s Irish melodies on St. Patrick’s Day were a perennial favorite of the Noontime Concert Series.

Over the years Joe has given wholeheartedly to the Austin Seminary community, sharing his wisdom, wit, as well as his financial resources in support of the Annual Fund, the library archives, and the music program. “Joe helped guide Austin Seminary through a period of unprecedented growth and change in the realm of information technology,” says Kurt Gabbard, vice president for business affairs. “His calm, deliberate, and conservative approach to implementing new technologies was ideally suited to the needs and temperament of this seminary. What Joe has been known for the most, however, is his warmth of personality, his caring nature, and his personal commitment to and investment in the mission of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.”

Austin Seminary faculty, staff, and students who worked with Joe over the last two decades agree. “Joe was one of the best bosses I’ve ever worked for,” says Daniel Loomis (MDiv’96), now pastor of First Presbyterian Church in El Dorado, Arkansas. “I looked forward to going to work just to interact with him. We became good friends and continue to this day sharing email and meals whenever I am in Austin.

I haven’t done that with any other boss I’ve ever had!”

IN MEMORIAM General Robert T. Herres USAF (Ret.), Austin Seminary board member from 2002-2006, died on July 24. A memorial service was held at First Presbyterian Church, San Antonio, followed by burial with full military honors at Fort Sam Houston.

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Randal Whittington

COMMUNITY NEWS Lectures on torture, Jewish-Christian dialogue

Curriculum review

Notwithstanding points of theological difference, over 240 religious organizations have joined together to work to end U.S.-sponsored torture through the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. Austin Seminary invited its executive director Richard Killmer to discuss the role of religious groups in combating U.S.-sponsored torture during the fall President’s Colloquium, September 24, 2008. Also participating in the discussion was David Wofford, a former military judge, and Jason Brownlee, assistant professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin.

Killmer has served as program director of the Churches Center for Theology and Public Policy located at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC.; as director of the Economic Justice and Domestic Hunger Program Ministry of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA; and as director of Professor Bill Greenway participated in the question and answer session after the the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program.

BY MICHAEL JINKINS

Fall Colloquium speakers’ presentations.

Abraham Kovacs delivered a lecture October 9 in Shelton Chapel called “Encountering the Other: Jewish and Reformed Christian Relations in Hungary During the 19th Century.” A member of the faculty at Debrecen Reformed Theological University in Hungary, Kovacs was in the United States this fall as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Anderson House Update Celebrating the upright walls and beginning installation of the roof, the Austin Seminary’s Board of Trustees and representatives of the Anderson House constructors gathered for a “Tree-Topping” ceremony at the site on November 10. The completion of the building is scheduled for early May and a Dedication is planned for the weekend of Austin Seminary’s Commencement and Spring Board Meeting, May 23.

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Continued from page 4

ing, integrity, and competence.

There is also an obligation facing us today to help provide a grounding in the Christian faith that we once simply assumed every student arrived at our doors already possessing. Austin Seminary’s new curriculum reflects a commitment to these values, a dedication to fulfill our mission for the sake of the church.

If there is one idea above all others that has been reinforced for me during this process of curriculum review, it is this: Basically, a seminary’s indispensable curriculum is the life of learning shared among students and faculty. Students learn in seminary by being together, thinking together, worshipping, praying, and singing together, eating together, laughing and weeping together, by living together, just across the corridor or around the corner from one another. The ultimate subject matter of theology is the God whose very being is the living communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And there is simply no better way to encounter the deep reality of this God and for learning to translate the meaning of this encounter in the congregations our students will eventually lead, than by living and learning in a community that reflects this living God. Any theology of theological education begins here, or it does not have much to say about the practices of ministry.

So, a priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a hospital emergency room. Whether or not this is a joke largely depends on their preparation for ministry.

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CONTINUING EDUCATION NEWS College of Pastoral Leaders

Church growth, a cross-border initiative

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eaching across borders, the Colegas2 cohort is sharing resources obtained from their College of Pastoral Leaders grant with their ministry colleagues in Mexico. Colegas2 chose to purchase laptop computers and computer education for each cohort member; they share a projector, screen, and microphone system. With this technology—brand new to them— they have been able to receive judicatory updates and hold group discussions via the Internet. This group originally included ministers who live in Mexico. Because the College is not able to grant money to people who live outside of the United States, Colegas2 has taken it upon themselves to teach their Mexican friends new computer skills, and as a result are working together on church growth seminars.

Tom Johnson (MDiv’96), leader of the Colegas2 cohort, said, “Because we had all the electronics, we were able to host a church growth conference with seven churches attending. Presenters for the conference were The Reverend Dr. Hector Rodriguez from the Hispanic Congregational Enhancement Office and the Reverend Marissa Galvan-Valle, associate for resources and relationships with Hispanic/Latino constituencies, both from the denominational office of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

“It was a stimulating presentation,” said Johnson, “and it was clear that between 70 and 80 percent of the church members were there because someone took the time and effort to invite them.”

WINDOWS / Winter 2009

Hector Rodriquez from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Office of Hispanic Congregational Enhancement leads a church growth conference in Spanish at Getsamani Presbyterian Church, San Benito, Texas.

The conference was held at Iglesia Presbiteriana Getsemani of San Benito, Texas, on November 1.

Other Texas border towns represented at the conference included Brownsville, Mercedes, Donna, and Weslaco. A similar church growth conference was also held across the border in Matamoros, Mexico, at Monte Sinai Presbyterian Church and another event is planned for December 14.

Says Janet L. Maykus, director of Christian Leadership Education and principal of the College of Pastoral Leaders, “We are always gratified to hear stories of the ministries we at Austin Seminary support through the work of the College of Pastoral Leaders.”

The Colegas2, Spanish for “group of colleagues, ” cohort was formed in the Spring of 2007 with goals to “create a community of pastors that encourage each other’s growth, motivate each other, and be of mutual support; read books about ministry; share theological reflections of the conditions of the 21st-century world; and visit, as a group, churches in the Rio Grande Valley.”

The eight members of the Colegas2 cohort are Efrain Buenfil, pastor, San Pablo Church in

Weslaco, Texas; Moises Flores, pastor, Betania Church in McAllen, Texas; Thomas C. Johnson, pastor, Getsemani Church in San Benito, Texas; Daniel Longoria, pastor, Casa de Dios Church in San Benito, Texas; David Lugo, pastor, Vida Eterna Church in Donna, Texas; Imelda P. Lugo, assistant pastor at Vida Eterna Church in Donna, Texas; Raul Martines, pastor of San Pablo Church in Brownsville, Texas; and Angel Reynoso, director of El Instituto in Weslaco, Texas.

The College of Pastoral Leaders at Austin Seminary provides pastors and other church leaders opportunities to deepen their spiritual lives, discover resources for emotional support, and increase their understanding of pastoral arts through membership in learning cohorts.

Each cohort designs their particular learning goals and strategies, and functions as a group for mutual support and professional development, over a two-year period. Since it’s beginning, CPL has funded thirty-four cohort groups comprising 250 ministers from thirty-one states. The College of Pastoral Leaders is part of the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence Initiative of the Lilly Endowment Inc. 21

CONTINUING EDUCATION NEWS Workshops on young adults, prayer, and conflict The Christian Leadership Education Office offers three events next spring that address young adults, prayer, and congregational conflict. For more information or to register for these and other events, please visit www.austinseminary.edu, and click on Continuing Education.

"Loss, Grief, and Mourning"

by Dr. Allan H. Cole Jr.

This presentation about grief and mourning contains information that will be helpful to those who mourn and to those who offer support. This is an excellent resource for adult education classes, Stephen Ministry groups, and other pastoral care teams. It is a companion to Cole’s book, Good Mourning: Getting Through Your Grief, (Westminster John Knox, 2008) Duration: 45 minutes $10 - Download $13 - CD (includes shipping) "Healthy Leadership"

by Dr. Michael Jinkins

In this practical and dynamic presentation, Jinkins draws on modern and ancient wisdom to uncover traits of healthy leaders in order to educate and inspire those in church, business, or educational leadership.

Duration: 53 minutes $10 - Download $13 - CD (includes shipping)

"Christian Spirituality"

by Dr. David Johnson

“What is spirituality?” “What is spiritual growth?” “Are there different ways of being spiritual?” David Johnson responds to these questions considering the perspective of both pastors and laypeople.

Duration: 45 minutes $10 - Download $13 - CD (includes shipping)

Visit our online store at www.austinseminary.edu

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Workshop: “A Communion of Tribes: Congregations and Gifts in Ministry with Young Adults” On March 28, 2009, join Austin Seminary alumna Carol Howard Merritt in a workshop for Christians who desire to be at the center of the convergence of young adult vocation with the church. Come discover how we can create spiritual community with young people when we: • Explore our stories • Journey into the experience of young adults • Imagine what our churches could be The presenter: Carol Merritt (MDiv’98) is pastor of Western Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., and author of Tribal Church: Ministry with the Missing Generation. The conference is co-sponsored by the Fund for Theological Education.

Who should come? Those who desire to understand and engage young people—both those who are coming to their church and those who are absent— responding to their quest for passion, integrity, and faith.

Seminar: “The Life of Prayer: Mind, Body, and Soul” On April 24, 2009, a one-day seminar will look at prayer as the chief exercise of faith for the Christian life. The group will consider why we pray, what happens in prayer, how we may pray (individually and corporately), and how to establish a prayer life and keep with it.

The presenter: Allan Hugh Cole Jr. is Austin Seminary’s Nancy Taylor Williamson Associate Professor of Pastoral Care. His book The Life of Prayer: Mind, Body, Soul (Westminster John Knox Press) will be published in early 2009.

Who should come? Provided for pastors and other church leaders, emphasis will be given to making prayer a more central faith practice in congregational life. Pastors and church leaders are encouraged to attend together.

Seminar: “Conflict Prevention and Resolution in the Church” On May 15, 2009, we will take a look at persistent conflict in congregations, one of the leading causes of clergy burnout and congregational struggles. This day-long workshop will teach methods of conflict prevention and resolution to use with a congregation. Spend the day gaining insight and learning new theories and techniques for ministry.

The presenter: Allan Hugh Cole Jr. Who should come? Pastors and lay leaders

FACULTY NEWS

Ellis Nelson’s new book takes on the congregation’s role in education

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y their nineties, many scholars are content to simply enjoy the fruits of their prior achievements. Not so, C. Ellis Nelson (MDiv’40). Even at 92, Austin Seminary’s research professor of Christian education has new ideas for the church. In his seventh book, Growing Up Christian: A Congregational Strategy for Nurturing Disciples (Smyth & Helwys. 2008), Nelson argues that the 19th-century strategies many churches still rely upon to form disciples of Christ are no longer effective. According to the publisher, Growing Up Christian offers practical, specific guidance for congregations who wish to nurture disciples of Christ more effectively.

Says Walter Brueggemann about the book, “Ellis Nelson has thought longer and better about Christian education than anyone else on the planet.

After a lifetime as a distinguished church educator, this book offers what I take to be his ‘final answer’ to the crisis of church education in a secular culture. Nelson thinks in large terms of a new cultural context wherein the infrastructure of church nurture has largely disintegrated. Nelson urges that in the twenty-first century fresh ways of nurture, socialization, and incorporation must be undertaken with careful intentionality. He focuses on the informal influences of home, family, and church community and on the formal influences of educational and liturgic enterprises. Nelson knows how ‘up hill’ such a venture now is; but he also knows, full well, that Christian nurture matches profound human hungers, and so we do not lose heart. Nelson as a practical theologian thinks practically in a way that will support and summon other educational practitioners. His ‘final word’ is a splendid, powerful, grace-filled word.”

Growing up Christian is available in Austin Seminary’s online book store at www.austinseminary.edu

Board approves tenure, reappointments, and sabbatical At its November meeting, the Austin Seminary Board of Trustees: • Granted tenure to Allan H. Cole Jr., Nancy Taylor Williamson Associate Professor of Pastoral Care.

• Reappointed Whitney Bodman, associate professor of comparative religion, for a three-year term.

• Reappointed Kristin Saldine, assistant professor of homiletics, for a threeyear term.

• Approved a sabbatical for Ismael García, professor of christian ethics, July 1, 2009-June 30, 2010.

WINDOWS / Winter 2009

FACULTY NOTES Assistant Professor of Old Testament John Ahn wrote the introductions for Obadiah and Zephaniah in the new Bible translation, The Peoples’ Bible: NRSV with the Apocrypha (Fortress, 2008), ed. Curtiss Paul DeYoung, et al. He presented two papers and presided over a new consultation on “Exile” at the 2008 Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting in Boston.

Whit Bodman, associate professor of comparative religion, organized with the Harmonium student group and others, a weekend workshop in early November, “An Abiding Joy,” featuring Dr. Walter Wink and his wife June, an artist, and Shaykh Jamal Rahman. He helped organize the Fall President’s Colloquium on torture and is working with student groups to continue work on that issue.

Associate Dean Timothy Lincoln’s article “Stewardship in Education: A World-Bridging Concept” appeared in the fall 2008 issue of Theological Education. In October he attended the fall meeting of the American Theological Library Association’s Professional Development Committee.

Jennifer Lord, associate professor of homiletics, has a contract with Westminster John Knox to write a book on preaching. She wrote a book review of the new 900+ page Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Leader’s Desk Edition, for the journal Worship.

Janet Maykus, director of Christian Leadership Education, gave a presentation on effective models of continuing education for the Association of Theological Schools gathering, June 23 in Atlanta.

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FACULTY NEWS Andrew Dearman receives honorary doctorate

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tionship between Austin Seminary and Debrecen, begun in 1993 under then-President Jack Stotts.

Dearman has been a visiting lecturer at Debrecen University, and Austin Seminary has hosted fourteen Debrecen students, many of whom have gone on to be strong leaders in their country. Elod Takats (MA’95) was a student at Austin Seminary who took classes

ebrecen Reformed Theological University bestowed on Professor of Old Testament J. Andrew Dearman a doctorate of theology (honoris causa) on November 6, 2008, in Debrechen, Hungary. Dearman spoke at the ceremony about his travels to Africa and China where biblical study is looked upon with much enthusiasm, and about the ongoing rela-

with Dearman. He went on to pursue his PhD and is now the vicerector and a professor at Debrecen University.

Dearman earned his bachelor’s degree in religion from the University of North Carolina, his MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary, and his PhD from Emory University. He has been a member of the faculty since 1982 and is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Biennial pastoral care conference launched ustin Seminary hosted the first of a newly endowed conference on pastoral care, October 16-18.

This new conference series was made possible through the Nancy Taylor Williamson Chair in Pastoral Care, established by Trustee Hugh H. Williamson III in honor of his wife. Professor Allan Hugh Cole Jr., the first faculty member to hold the Williamson Chair, organized the conference with Robert C. Dykstra, professor of pastoral theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, to recognize the significant contribution that Professor Donald Capps, now in his 40th year of teaching at Princeton Theological Seminary, has made though his scholarship, teaching, mentoring, and leadership in the various fields of study relating to ministries of care. Conference proceedings will be published in a multi-issue of the journal Pastoral Psychology.

Austin Seminary Professor Emeritus Ralph Underwood, who studied under Capps at the University of Chicago, and David Jones, director of the Seminary’s Doctor of Ministry program, who was a student of Capps at Princeton, participated in this year’s conference.

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Bob Kinney

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Pastoral care professor authors two new books

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wo new books from Allan Hugh Cole Jr., the Nancy Taylor Williamson Associate Professor of Pastoral Care, were released this fall. The first, Be Not Anxious: Pastoral Care of Disquieted Souls (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008) draws on narrative approaches to theology and counseling to suggest how pastoral care givers may minister to anxious persons. Cole focuses both on cognitivebased methods of counseling and on common faith practices—church membership, frequent worship, prayer, Bible reading, service, and confession— showing how these may provide relief from anxiety. By addressing the roles of both psychiatry and ministry as co-liberators from anxiety, he leads the pastor and the faith community in helping disquieted souls find rest.

Cole’s second book published this summer, Good Mourning: Getting through Your Grief (Westminster John Knox, 2008) focuses on coping with the emotions that arise from loss. Cole was interviewed on an international radio program, “Healing the Grieving Heart,” in September in connection with the book. Later in the month he gave a presentation and signing at Austin’s popular bookstore BookPeople along with Seminary of the Southwest writer-inresidence Greg Garrett.

Both books are available in Austin Seminary’s online store at www.austinseminary.edu.

DEVELOPMENT NEWS Good news for givers

The Dean’s Bookshelf Perspectives old and new on theological education

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he Protestant Reformation bequeathed to us some priceless legacies, none of which has proven more crucial than the value it placed on an educated clergy. John Calvin derided the ignorance of priests parroting phrases they did not understand as vigorously as he did superstition and corruption. Calvin’s Renaissance credentials kept pace with his evangelical fervor. And the Reformed movement has benefited from this. While many Christians retreated into smaller, darker corners of sectarianism as the Enlightenment advanced, some brave heirs of Calvin, from Schleiermacher onward, engaged the larger culture, confident that God is not threatened by knowledge. I have often said to entering seminary classes that there are many things that may be enemies of faith— bigotry, hatred, and fear among them—but knowledge is not the enemy of faith. If our faith is undermined by sophomore biology, we’ve got bigger problems than Charles Darwin.

There are many good books on theological education. In the nineteen fifties a classic, The Advancement of Theological Education, was produced by some of the greatest luminaries of the day, H. Richard Niebuhr, Daniel Day Williams, and James M. Gustafson. It is still worth reading. If anything, however, recent contributions to the field have only gotten better. Edward Farley’s Theologia, and David Kelsey’s To Understand God Truly are modern classics. I have particularly appreciated Shifting Boundaries, a remarkable collection of essays edited by Barbara Wheeler and Edward Farley, and Jackson Carroll’s newest book, God’s Potters: Pastoral Leadership and the Shaping of Congregations. For those who wish to understand better the purpose and significance of theological education for the future of our church, the following recent publications are especially good.

Earthen Vessels: Hopeful Reflections on the Work and Future of Theological Schools distills three decades of experience from one of the wisest persons in theological education today, Dan Aleshire, executive director of the Association of Theological Schools (ATS).

Educating Clergy: Teaching Practices and Pastoral Imagination, written by Chuck Foster, et al., brings together the research of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. They’ve produced other volumes on the teaching of law, medicine, and education.

Being There: Culture and Formation in Two Theological Schools, by Jackson Carroll, Barbara Wheeler, Daniel Aleshire, and Penny Long Marler, profiles life and learning in an evangelical and a liberal seminary, illuminating the fact that many of the most important aspects of a theological education are “caught” by living together in a learning community, not simply “taught” in a classroom.

Michael Jinkins Academic Dean

WINDOWS / Winter 2009

Thanks to the extended charitable IRA legislation, IRA owners age 70½ can direct their IRA trustee/custodian to transfer up to $100,000 from IRA funds to Austin Seminary, which is a qualified 501(c)(3) charitable organization. The IRA rollover gift is not taxable to the donor and no deduction is available for the amount given, so eligible IRA owners can take advantage of this type of giving, regardless of whether they itemize their deductions.

Individuals should consult with their own professional advisors to learn how to make a gift to Austin Seminary between now and December 31, 2009.

If you would like to make a gift to Austin Seminary but also need current income, a charitable gift annuity may be an answer. A charitable gift annuity is an irrevocable gift that provides you (or someone you name) a stable, set amount every year for life and could yield more than your current investments (see table below). At the end of your life, the remainder provides a special and enduring gift to strengthen the Seminary’s programs. For more information, please call Elizabeth Shumaker at 1-800-777-6127.

ONE LIFE Age Rate 60 5.5% 65 5.7% 70 6.1% 75 6.7% 80 7.6% 85 8.9% 90+ 10.5%

TWO LIVES Age Rate 60/65

5.3%

70/75

5.8%

65/70 75/80 80/85

5.5% 6.2% 6.9% 25

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Sunrise Beach church gives time, money, and love to Austin Seminary

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Now, two Sundays a month he makes the trek (usually in his pickup) from his ranch in Georgetown, Texas, about seventy miles east of Sunrise Beach, providing the services of a modern-day circuit rider—preaching, presiding at the Lord’s Table, and providing pastoral care.

Alsup’s involvement brought Sunrise Beach Federated Church into a rich relationship with Austin Seminary, as other Todd Hansen faculty members and students began to lead worship on the alternating Sundays. Over the years, more than sixty Austin Seminary students have provided pastoral leadership to Sunrise Beach, and since the early 1980s, many have participated in a formal Austin Seminary student Mike Lauziere greets long-time memrelationship with ber Laverne Hull after worship. He is doing his Supervised the church Practice of Ministry internship at Sunrise Beach this year. through the Seminary’s Supervised Practice of The Sunrise Beach community Ministry program. had few permanent residents in Dieter Heinzl (MDiv’97), 1964 when the church was organassociate pastor at Ladue Chapel ized. Most of the founding memPresbyterian Church in St. Louis, bers were Methodist, Presbyterians, remembers the time with gratitude. or Disciples of Christ, so for several “I believe that there are many saints years retired clergy from those in the Sunrise Beach congregation denominations led Sunday morning who put up with many a ‘strained worship. Around 1978 the invitasermon’ (and that’s putting it nicetion to lead the congregation was ly) by a student trying to figure out extended to Alsup, Austin Semiwhat it means to be a pastor. When nary’s D. Thomason, First PresbyteI look back,” he says, “I can honrian Church, Shreveport, Professor estly say that I learned at Sunrise of New Testament. or many years, a hitching post outside the Sunrise Beach Federated Church was a subtle reminder of the congregation’s ties to Austin Seminary. Church member Jim Pollard had it installed in case the pastor ever decided to bring his horse to church. In fact, sometime in 1989, according to the church history, The Reverend John Alsup did bring his horse Cowboy to try out the post.

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Beach in practice what [worship professor] Stan Hall taught me in the classroom. He once said: ‘You can preach many a lousy sermon and people will forgive you. But if you do not love them …’ Well, the folks at Sunrise Beach gave flesh to one of the most profound truths of the gospel. They loved me first, and so it was easy for me to love them back. I wish that every seminary student discerning her or his call would be blessed with serving such a community as I had in serving Sunrise Beach. Not a day goes by, honestly, that I do not give thanks for their witness to me and the love I received over those two years.”

“It has been so rewarding for us to have the opportunity to flourish and grow with each new student we get,” says member Beverly Torrence. “We are so proud of their progress from the time they first arrive ‘a little wet behind the ears’ until they graduate as ministers ready for their own church.”

For many years Sunrise Beach Federated Church has also nurtured fledgling pastors through gifts to Austin Seminary’s Annual Fund which provides need-based scholarship assistance to students. “We love supporting the Seminary and for years did so through individual donations,” says member Mary Kaplan. “In 2004 we wrote our Mission Statement which included our commitment to Austin Seminary. Several years after that the board decided to set aside 10 percent of our offerings each week for the scholarship fund as well as to continue collecting individual donations for this project. This year, our individual donations were equal to half of our total from the offerings. This shows me the importance our members put on this program, both as a congregation and as individuals.”

ALUMNI/AE NEWS MidWinters: You spoke, we listened!

CLASS NOTES

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1960s

or more than sixty years, MidWinter Lectures has been a source of renewal for Austin Seminary graduates, blending intellectual stimulation with a time for renewal and reunion.

Last spring, several Austin Seminary alumni/ae were invited to form a focus group to take a fresh look at our most traditional of events. All from the Austin area, they included Mike Murray (MDiv’61), Mark Tarrant (MDiv’05), James Lee (MDiv’00), Karen Wagner (MDiv’07), Kathy Anderson (MDiv’97), Trish Holland (MDiv’68), and Britta Martin Dukes (MDiv’05) who, together with Christian educator Martha Richardson and pastor Terrance Sherry, discussed what they liked about the series as well as ways it could be improved. Many great ideas emerged and several have been put into action for 2009.

Among the sentiments percolating to the top was an interest in engaging more alumni/ae from recent graduating classes; more interaction with faculty and current students; and more opportunities to unpack the content of the lectures with groups of colleagues. David Evans, director of seminary relations, and Georgia Smith, coordinator of alumni/ae and church relations, worked with President Ted Wardlaw to implement the new strategies.

The three-day homecoming (now known simply as MidWinters) will begin with a family-style Fiesta! at 6:00 p.m. followed by worship on Monday evening in Shelton Chapel. In addition to the seven lectures and special reunion lunches for the Classes of 1959 and 1969, there will be a hospitality room open to alums to relax, get a bite to eat, and engage in quiet conversation; Austin Seminary faculty will be on hand to visit and sign copies of their books; a social event is planned for students of former Professor Scott Black Johnston, this year’s preacher; and a coffee talk is offered to graduates from the Classes of 2006-2008.

The keynote address at the Austin Seminary Association Awards Banquet on Wednesday afternoon, will be given by Caroll Pickett (MDiv’57) whose film about his experience as chaplain for the Texas prison system, “At the Death House Door,” will be shown Tuesday afternoon during MidWinters.

The Austin Alumni/ae Association voted at its fall meeting to award the 2009 Distinguished Service Awards to Marvin Griffin (DMin’90) and Robert Lively (MDiv’73) who will be on hand to accept the honor given them by their colleagues in ministry.

Make your reservations to come to MidWinters and buy your Fiesta! and ASA Banquet tickets early by logging onto our Web site, www.austinseminary.edu/midwinters. You’ll also be able to see who else plans to attend! New this year, free audio CDs of the lectures will be given to participants who pre-register online. On site registration for MidWinters begins at 3:00 on Monday afternoon, February 2, in the McCord Center, followed by tours of the new Seminary residence Anderson House.

“MidWinters is a kind of Homecoming for Austin Seminary alums,” says Wardlaw. “In addition to a superior line-up of lecturers each year, we say ‘Welcome home’ to those who received their theological formation here. If more recent graduates have not yet gotten into the redemptive habit of coming back each year for inspiration, fellowship, and new information, I want to encourage them to make plans now to return to Austin for this particular MidWinters! They will not be disappointed.”

WINDOWS / Winter 2009

Joe B. Donaho (MDiv’63) was keynote speaker at a presbytery retreat at Ghost Ranch and is currently serving on the search committee for Headmaster of Woodland School.

Robert M. “Bob” Poteet (MDiv’67) was honored at the annual Interfaith Samaritan Counseling Center’s “Seasons of Caring” Luncheon in Houston.

1970s

James A. “Jack” Ryan (MDiv’76) was awarded the Secretary’s Award for Excellence in Chaplaincy in the Supervisory Chaplain category. The Secretary’s Award represents the highest award for chaplaincy in the Veteran’s Administration. Ryan serves as chief of Chaplain Service at the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System in Little Rock.

An Iraqi Freedom veteran himself, Ryan also serves as a chaplain with the 90th Regional Readiness Command of the Army Reserve, holding the rank of colonel.

1980s

Bobbi Kaye Jones (MDiv’80) has been appointed Austin District Superintendent of the Southwest Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church.

James E. Dunlap (MDiv’82) has been elected to the finance committee of the Association of Professional Chaplains’ board for a three-year term. He is a board certified chaplain and is coordinator of Spiritual Services for Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston, Illinois.

Twyla S. Werstein (MDiv’87) has returned to the States from New Zealand after retiring from lecturing at the PCANZ seminary.

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ALUMNI/AE NEWS to Noah Spence, son of Janice Huntsinger-Spence (MA’00) and John Spence, adopted in May 2007.

And the award for best alumni/ae in a supporting role goes to …

to David Christopher, son of Alex Hendrickson (MDiv’01) and Brett Hendrickson (MDiv ’02), born December 12, 2007.

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WELCOME…

to Eric Robert Ukropina, son of Marta Zaborowski Ukropina (MDiv’06) and David Ukropina (MDiv’06), born September 10, 2008.

To Hannah Grace Warren, daughter of Siobhan Warren (MDiv’07) and Jonathan Warren (MDiv’07), born September 30, 2008. to Simon Eric Shawgo, son of Katrina Shawgo (MDiv’08) and Eric Shawgo, born August 5, 2008.

1990s

Elizabeth Spencer Deveney (MDiv’92) married Stephen James Deveney on August 8, 2008.

George Cladis (DMin’96), vice president of operations for the New England Dream Center (NEDC) and executive operations officer for the multi-site Liberty Churches of New England, announces a $1 million gift from the Lanza Family Foundation of Scarsdale, New York, for the ministries to the poor of the NEDC of Worcester, Massachusetts.

2000s

Christopher Harris (MDiv’08) kicked off the LiveFaith workshops in Bulverde, Texas, with Sacred Spirits, a class on wine making and the theological significance of wine and its importance in the Christian faith and others.

Ryan Kemp-Pappan (MDiv’08), minister of Christian education at Douglass Boulevard Christian Church, was on a panel discussing “The Coming of Age of the Emerging Church” at the Festival of Faith at James Lees Memorial Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. His website is: thefetteredheart.com 28

NECROLOGY James E. Fogartie (MDiv’48) Spartanburg, South Carolina, September 24, 2008 James H. Hardin Jr. (MDiv’50) tallahassee, Florida, May 4, 2008 Gurney P. Whiteley (MDiv’58) Rockbridge Baths, Virginia, August 17, 2008.

George N. Boyd (MDiv’62) Denver, Colorado, September 2, 2008 David R. Black (MDiv’66) Fayetteville, Georgia, August 20, 2008 John E. Lively (MDiv’78) Wewoka, Oklahoma, August 4, 2008. To read a tribute to John by his brother Robert Lively (MDiv’73), go to: www.austinseminary.edu/lively James A. Marrow (DMin’78) Fort Worth, Texas, May 10, 2008 Gwenda G. Roberts (MATS’05) Midland, Texas, August 27, 2008

ustin Seminary’s Office of Institutional Advancement produced two videos recently for use in fund- and awareness-raising campaigns. Rave reviews go to the wonderful alumni/ae who spoke on camera about their experiences: Katie Cummings (MDiv’05), Aquanetta Hicks (MDiv’08), Ryan Jensen (MDiv’08), Steve Jester (MDiv’84), Trey Little (MDiv’03), John McCoy (MDiv’63), Bryan Merritt (MDiv98), Carol Merritt (MDiv’98), Emily Odom (MDiv’08), and Jackie Saxon (MDiv’00). Our first Partnership Video, produced in 2006, featured fine performances by Karen Vanoy (MDiv’81), Fred Seay (MDiv’89), and Asante Todd (MDiv’06).

ORDINATION Barbara Aziz (MDiv’06) to serve First United Methodist Church, Bishop, Texas.

Helen T. Boursier (MDiv’07) to serve Community Presbyterian Fellowship, New Braunfels, Texas.

Kelly A. Kaufman (MDiv’07) to serve River Road Presbyterian Church, Richmond, Virginia.

Gregory D. Amen (MDiv’08) to serve First Presbyterian Church, El Reno, Oklahoma.

Emily R. Owen (MDiv’08) to serve Matthews Presbyterian Church, Matthews, North Carolina.

If you have been recently ordained and not noted in Windows, contact Georgia Smith at 512-4044801; alum@austinseminary.edu

Alumni/ae Challenge 2008

And the winner is...

W

e give thanks that more than 3oo Austin Seminary alums made gifts and pledges of $48,375 to the Annual Fund through the 2008 Alumni/ae Challenge (formerly Phonathon). Alumni/ae giving to the Annual Fund is a compelling testament when the Seminary seeks additional funding from other entities, individuals, churches, and foundations. High alumni/ae participation is a convincing statement to other supporters and funding sources illustrating belief in our work and dedication to the institution’s mission. Importantly, when we achieve certain levels of alumni/ae giving, Austin Seminary can apply for grants from foundations that have a threshold minimum amount of alumni/ae participation to determine eligibility. Thank you to the following classes for carrying the torch and fanning the flame to increase giving!

GOLD: The Class of 1953 had the highest participation rate and money raised with 41.67%, giving $10,610.

The Gold goes to the Class of 1953.

The Silver goes to the Class of 1994.

SILVER: The Class of 1994 had the largest amount of money raised with $36,290.

BRONZE: The Class of 1956 had the highest participation rate with 72.73%.

It’s not too late to contribute to the Annual Fund that supports student scholarships as well as the Seminary’s infrastructure. You may make your gift online at www.austinseminary.edu or return the envelope inside this copy of Windows. Thank you.

The Bronze goes to the Class of 1956.

Our new “Thinking Outside the Box” two-hour lunchtime forum provides a time for Austin Seminary alumni/ae to learn from and converse with other alums in all different forms of ministry around a central topic.

Future Thinking Outside the Box events include: • February 12 at First Presbyterian Church, Kerrville, Texas, with Rev. Dr. Larry Bethune leading conversations about “Clergy Excellence and Self Care”

To register for an event, go to Austin Seminary’s Web site, www.austinseminary.edu/alumgatherings For more questions, ideas, and comments contact Georgia Smith: gsmith@austinseminary.edu or 512-404-4801.

AUSTIN SEMINARY ASSOCIATION (ASA) BOARD Frank E. Yates (MDiv’75, DMin’84), President Patti Herndon (MDiv’93), Vice President James H. Lee (MDiv’00), Past President W. Smith Anderson (MDiv’99) Charles W. Edwards (MDiv’89) Jesus “Jesse” Gonzales (MDiv’92) Dorothy C. Hunt (MDiv’03) Patricia H. Holland (MDiv’68) Patricia H. Lee (MDiv’05) Walter C. Lee Jr. (MDiv’79) Brian L. Merritt (MDiv’98) Jacqueline L. Saxon (MDiv’00) Karen H. Stocks (MDiv’85) Tricia L. Tedrow (MDiv’98) Thomas A. Tickner (MDiv’84) John D. Williams (MDiv’87) Belinda C. Windham (MDiv’91)

• March 5 at New Braunfels Presbyterian Church, with Rev. Ragan Courtney leading a discussion about “Riding the Waves of Change”

• May 14 at Jackson Woods Presbyterian Church, Corpus Christi, Texas, with Dr. Whit Bodman leading a discussion of “The Holy Land in America”

Austin Seminary Spring 2009 Partnership Events February 12: Waco / Temple / Killeen, Texas March 5: Fort Worth, Texas April 16: Kerrville, Texas May 7: Central Texas WINDOWS Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary 100 East 27th Street, Austin, Texas 78705-5797 Address Service Requested

Winter 2009

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