Lipscomb Now: Bible & Ministry 2021

2020-2021 // LIPSCOMB NOW:

Bible&Ministry

LEADING THE WAY Switch to remote teaching brought painful benefits to students and professors, pg 14

MISSIONS REDEFINED Partnering in a pandemic world, pg 16

LAYING OUT THE BASICS OF BELIEF Professor addresses life’s big questions, pg 32

2020-2021 // LIPSCOMB NOW:

Bible&Ministry

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Contents L E A D I N G T H E W AY

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COVID-19 CHANGED THIS WORLD, BUT GOD REMAINS WITH HIS PEOPLE — Throughout the past year and a half COVID-19 challenges have kept battering Christians in congregations nationwide as well as on Lipscomb’s campus itself. Isolation, depersonalization, separation and technological challenges made 2020-21 a year when Christians both on and off-campus had to re-invent routines, change behaviors and rethink their connections to each other as well as to God.

MISSIONS

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MISSIONS REDEFINED — The pandemic caused plans to be waylaid, but God’s work was not. From business to engineering, from alumni to students, the Lipscomb family took this opportunity to rethink how we can still be God’s ambassedors on this earth without close proximity.

ACADEMICS

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YOUR BROTHER’S BLOOD CRIES OUT TO ME FROM THE GROUND — Lipscomb programs bring discovery and self-reflection on racial unity to the Christian community.

JOSH STRAHAN LAYS OUT THE BASICS OF BELIEF — Professor addresses life’s big questions in book now used in Lipscomb’s classrooms to reinforce students’ core Christian beliefs.

ALUMNI

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THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MISSION — Lipscomb alumni Dave and Sidney Clayton create an agile, thriving church for an everchanging city.

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Dean Leonard Allen Senior Communications Manager Lipscomb University Janel Shoun-Smith Creative Director Lipscomb University Will Mason

Senior Managing Editor College of Bible & Ministry Emily Bruff Associate Editor College of Bible & Ministry Andrea Zahler

Layout & Design Emily Bruff Laura Copeland

Writers Emily Bruff Janel Shoun-Smith Andrea Zahler

Lipscomb Now: Bible & Ministry is published

by Lipscomb University®. Go to lipscomb. edu/bible-ministry-blog to read more. ©2021 Lipscomb University.

All Rights Reserved.

Photography Kristi Jones Olivia Malham Lauren Scott Andrea Zahler

Postmaster: Send changes of address to Lipscomb Now: Bible & Ministry College of Bible & Ministry Lipscomb University One University Park Drive Nashville, Tennessee 37204-3951 3

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT PROTECTING THE SOUL OF OUR UNIVERSITY

ince coming to Lipscomb 16 years ago, one of the groups I have had deliberate and frequent contact with is the faculty of the College of Bible & Ministry and the Hazelip School of Theology. I have seen firsthand the work of this college and school, and it has been outstanding. It is composed of nationally recognized teachers and scholars who are creative, committed and impactful.

Each year I host a summer retreat with the Bible and ministry faculty. I don’t know if other college presidents do the same, but it provides a unique opportunity to have the leadership of the university deliberately engaged with and thinking deeply with those who protect the soul of the university and our on-going commitment to spiritually form students.

Teaching theological education is challenging and introducing all undergraduates to a meaningful study of the Biblical story is one of Lipscomb’s highest priorities. A university depends on the work of well-educated and dedicated faculty to preserve its Christian mission. I am so thankful that faculty of the College of Bible & Ministry are intentional about integrating strong academics with spiritual formation and practical experience to prepare our students for lives of leadership and service.

But in a time when culture is changing and religious affiliation is declining, most schools have simply walked away from that commitment. Not Lipscomb. Not now.

Not ever.

After 16 years as president of Lipscomb University, I have announced my transition

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to chancellor, a move which will take place at the end of the summer. Rhonda (a member of the College of Bible & Ministry faculty) and I will continue to be meaningfully engaged in the university community, but I will especially miss the daily relationship with our Bible faculty and their good work.

Enjoy this publication, and I think you too will appreciate the creative work of Lipscomb’s College of Bible & Ministry as well as the Hazelip School of Theology.

For more information on the presidential transition, go to lipscomb.edu/presidentialsearch.

L. Randolph Lowry President

LETTER FROM THE DEAN C H R I S T I A N E D U C AT I O N I N A S E C U L A R C U LT U R A L L A N D S C A P E

’m just guessing that you probably didn’t read the 2018 article in Gentlemen’s Quarterly titled “21 Books You Don’t Have to Read Before You Die.” Among them is the Bible. The GQ editors wrote: “Those who have read the Bible know there are some good parts, but overall it is certainly not the finest thing that man has ever produced.” They sum up the contents in one sentence: “It is repetitive, self-contradictory, foolish and even, at times, ill-intentioned.” So much for the Bible.

These words tell us something about the new cultural landscape around us.

Most of us grew up in a very different landscape. One where the Bible was both revered and read. The restoration movement that produced modern Churches of Christ began with a focus on the freedom and duty of Christians to read and study the Bible for themselves, not depending on creeds or human traditions to tell them what it teaches.

David Lipscombbelieved that through the reading, study and meditation of Scripture believers communed with God. Through such practices God’s Spirit forms believers into the image of Christ and equips them for God’s mission. And James Harding, his colleague, could say: “The most important thing in the world is daily, diligent, prayerful study of the divine word.”

This has been our heritage in Churches of Christ.

Today we live in a very different place than those strong Bible readers of our past. We live in a very secular culture. Charles Tayler, Christian philosopher and author of A Secular Age, has distinguished three stages in the history of the secularization of Western culture. He calls our present culture “secular 3.” In secular 2 there was a divide between sacred spaces

and secular spaces, but in secular 3 the loss of transcendence settles over everything. We live now in what he calls the “immanent frame.”

Most people still say they believe in God, but God becomes an individually constructed concept. People pick and choose the religious concepts that they think will most help them follow their own path to personal “authenticity.”

Ideas of God, marriage and morality all become ideas in the service of authenticity. They are kept, altered or discarded as it may suit the individual.

Christian Smith, in his extensive study of youth and religion, concluded that the operative religion of American young people in this era is what he termed “moralistic therapeutic deism.”

Moralistic – God wants me to be a good person and not a jerk Therapeutic – God or religion should help me feel good Deism – God is a concept to decorate our lives with but not an agent who really does anything In this outlook, God does little more than ask us to be good and, in return, offers us good feelings. In secular 3, the fundamental Christian claim that God is an acting force in the world becomes marginalized, for many even unbelievable. Spirituality becomes a kind of psychological aid for one’s own journey toward fulfillment.

In this new landscape, the College of Bible & Ministry is renewing its commitment to two key goals. First, we want all Lipscomb students to learn the big story that defines who Christians are. This story is the richly textured story of Israel and its climax in the Messiah’s ministry, death, resurrection and ascension, and in the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost.

This is the defining story of Christians, and it stands in contrast to the stories that shape our culture—the story of

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empire, of progress, of the sovereign individual. It’s the story that spans the whole canon of Scripture, climaxing with Jesus and Pentecost and the renewal of Israel’s mission to the nations. To embrace this story is to put on a Christian identity.

Second, we want Lipscomb students to be grounded in the basics of Christian belief. In the College of Bible & Ministry, we are launching a new Bible major curriculum this year. Among the 17 program competencies are the following: 1. Be able to articulate basic Christian orthodoxy. 2. Be able to explain why basic orthodoxy is important and distinctive.

As North American culture becomes more post-Christian in the years ahead—and I assure you it will—we will need a stronger foundation, more clarity about the great central truths of our faith. One of our faculty, Josh Strahan, has just published a book that will help us in this emphasis.

It is titled The Basics of Christian Belief: Bible, Theology and Life’s Big Questions, and will be used in three of our required Bible courses. You can read about Dr. Strahan and his new book in the feature article on page 32.

Here in the College of Bible, we could make our own list of “books you don’t have to read before you die.” But rest assured that the Bible would not be on it. This faculty has devoted their lives to deep study of Scripture, believing that this book is more important than any other. In a time when, all around us, biblical truth is being diminished, this focus is needed more than ever as we face the challenges of the new cultural landscape.

Leonard Allen

Dean, College of Bible & Ministry

LIPSCOMB LEADS AUSTIN GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY, LIPSCOMB MERGER BRINGS NEW VISION OF THEOLOGICAL GRADUATE EDUCATION The Austin Graduate School of Theology (AGST) located in Austin, Texas, merged with Lipscomb University, and became a whollyowned subsidiary of Lipscomb in January.

Beginning in fall 2021, Lipscomb plans to offer a selection of additional graduate programs that will be unique to the Austin market and be complementary to programs currently offered at AGST. Together the two institutions have developed a new vision for the work in Austin: •

Expand the current offerings in theology to include Master of Divinity and Doctorate of Ministry programs.

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­ roaden the scope of graduate B education to include programs in areas such as conflict management, marriage and family therapy, counseling and educational leadership.

It will draw from Lipscomb’s extensive slate of graduate programs, which now include more than 1,700 students.

Stan Reid retired as president of AGST on Aug. 31 and transitioned to the role of president emeritus for the institution. John York (MA

’10), professor in the Bible college, began providing management services to Austin Graduate School of Theology in August.

Both institutions have been in existence for more than a century, share a common faith heritage and are accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.

AGST was established in 1917 as an academic chair for biblical instruction in connection with the University of Texas at Austin under the direction of the elders of University Avenue Church of Christ in Austin. The institution offers two degree programs: the Bachelor of Arts in Christian Studies and the Master of Arts in Christian Ministry.

Though the Texas institution is fully accredited and financially solvent, AGST officials found it increasingly difficult in recent years to continue to operate as an independent seminary and approached Lipscomb University administrators in fall 2019.

“We were very honored that when the Austin Grad leadership wanted to seek a partner that they looked to Lipscomb University. They defined a way to continue the reach of AGST in Central Texas with programs and resources that Lipscomb can bring to the mission,” said Lipscomb President L. Randolph Lowry.

“I am convinced that the mission begun by visionaries in Austin over 100 years ago will continue far into the future,” Reid said. “The boards and administrations of both Austin Grad and Lipscomb

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have prayerfully worked together to establish this partnership. We all see the hand of God in this undertaking. I am confident that Austin Grad, in the new arrangement with Lipscomb, can anticipate a brighter future.”

PLANTING THE SEEDS

YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO MULTIPLY THE HARVEST OF FUTURE CHRISTIAN LEADERS

THE HARVEY & VIRGINIA FLOYD ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIP FOR BIBLE He was a man of humble stature and a quiet nature, but Harvey Floyd (’53) (1931-2018), known as “the Greek man,” had a powerful impact on generations of Lipscomb University students. Floyd taught at Lipscomb for more than 40 years. He was legendary for his Greek, Holy Spirit and Romans classes among others.

Floyd’s scholarship and teaching “helped open the door to a fuller and more sound doctrine of the Holy Spirit,” Leonard Allen, dean of the College of Bible & Ministry said of Floyd. “We are in his debt… What students received from Dr. Floyd was an ardent and relentless focus on the text of Scripture and the tools one needed to teach and preach it.”

In 1992, Joe Donaldson (’78), now of Montgomery, Alabama, started a scholarship to benefit those studying biblical languages in the name of his beloved former Bible professor.

Since 2018 the scholarship started

by Donaldson has been expanded with gifts from the Ezell Foundation, Lipscomb board member Mark Lanier (’81) and many others.

If you are interested in contributing to the Harvey and Virginia Floyd Endowed Scholarship for Bible contact Tom Riley, development officer and outreach director, at tom.riley@lipscomb.edu.

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STEPHANIE BETHEL MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP Lipscomb alumna Pat Bethel (’72) and chair of the Lipscomb Black Alumni Council has established a scholarship fund in honor of her late daughter Stephanie Erin Bethel (’01).

Once endowed, the scholarship will benefit Lipscomb students, giving preference to students who suffer from disabilities or who participated in Lipscomb’s ENGAGE Youth Theology Initiative, which brings together high school students from racially diverse backgrounds to explore the contemporary call to racial justice and healing.

Shortly before entering college, Bethel was diagnosed with lupus.

Determined not to let the disease limit her life, she completed her degree and began working as a foster care case manager for the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services.

She worked with foster children for most of her career and wrote a book titled Life, Love and Lupus.

In 2007, Bethel became disabled, living with great physical pain and suffering, but she continued writing about her health challenges on Facebook, inspiring many with her perseverance and courage.

Those interested in contributing to this scholarship fund should go to tinyurl.com/bethelscholarship.

T R E N D I N G U P, T O G E T H E R BUILDING COMMUNITY, AUTHENTIC RELATIONSHIPS & FOCUS ON VOCATIONAL MINISTRY DRAWS NEW BIBLE MAJORS

hen it comes to attracting today’s young people to ministry, as a career or as a lifestyle, relationships are proving to be key.

“Cultivating relationships is something we do very well,” said Steve Bonner (’01, MA ’02, MDiv ’04, MA ’20), assistant dean of undergraduate Bible.

After his team’s first season recruiting for the fall 2018 semester, the number of undergraduate Bible majors increased by 40% and has held relatively steady for the last two academic years.

He attributes much of that increase to the intentional, personal and consistent contact made between the Bible department and both prospective and current students.

Katlyn Nowers (’11, MS ’15), who works as the program coordinator for the college, said the boost in numbers was largely due to Bonner’s ability to connect with potential Bible majors.

“He really becomes an ally for them. He wants to help walk them through the discernment process regardless of the outcome. They feel seen and heard, and they are confident in his support.

That’s why that initial class of fall 2018 was so big,” she said.

Bonner, who has a research background in adolescent psychosocial and moral development, says the key to talking with prospective students and their families is simple: be authentic.

“We don’t talk poorly about other

schools. We emphasize our own community and note the value of it— are they getting what they pay for? We try to be straightforward about who we are,” he said, and also about who the students can be. “We are here to prepare, equip and train ministers for the Kingdom of God. Why do they feel called to be a part of that? What does ministry look like for them?”

Ministry for an increasing number of students does not look like traditional preacher or youth minister roles. Many feel called to vocational ministry. “It’s the notion that what you do [for your livelihood] is actually part of the Kingdom of God because you are part of the Kingdom of God,” said Bonner.

They are able to pursue a vocational ministry degree along with another major, “and that’s attractive to a lot of students.”

“We worked closely with admissions to develop processes for recruitment,” said Nowers. An integral part of the process is a database of “touch points” with potential students, including emails from Bible faculty, texts from current students, letters to parents from the chair and campus visits.

One effective method of recruitment did not come from Lipscomb recruiting officials at all: it came from the students themselves. The fall 2018 Bible majors created their own group on GroupMe, a popular messaging platform.

“Bible majors were added to the GroupMe so they would already know each other when they arrived on campus. It really took off! Now we set

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up a GroupMe every fall for our majors so they have a way to contact each other. We organize it, but the students themselves have ownership of it so they are more likely to participate [in that virtual community],” said Nowers.

Providing Bible majors with opportunities for authentic relationships continues from recruitment into the classroom.

Bonner created Bible major-only sections of the three required Bible courses to enable a cohort model of learning. “Taking all three of these classes with the same people back to back solidifies the community feel of being in this college. They get to learn all the foundational things together,” said Nowers.

“They joy, suffer, learn and relationship together,” Bonner added.

“In theological education, students are learning so many things that are integral to who they are. So much is tied to foundational beliefs.

That kind of education can rock you, so community is important,” Nowers noted.

“I like to use a bowling alley metaphor,” said Bonner. “Students are the ball and the pins are who we want our students to be when they leave us—ministers prepared to be faithful in God’s mission.” The lane is the curriculum or the path students travel to get to the goal. To keep students on the lane, “our co-curriculars are the bumpers: high touch practices, engagement with faculty, forums, lunches, intentional vocation discernment throughout their time here, intentional spiritual formation, spiritual direction and small groups.”

While community development outside of the classroom is part of

Nowers’ role, she admits that it can be “a bit of a moving target, especially during this academic year. What do the students need and how do we meet that need?”

One person who helps her hit the target is Sydney Cipriani, a risingsenior student worker for the college who is also a Bible major. “She is integral to what we do. It makes a huge difference to have someone who is in it who can report needs, provide invaluable perspective and,” Katlyn added, “be our social media expert.”

Cipriani is not the only student to report needs, however. “A handful of our upperclassmen said they wanted to meet our new freshmen either in small groups or in a mentorship capacity. We set up a system to match them in groups of three. Our upperclassmen want to bless the students coming after them with the same intentional care they received.

I’m continually impressed with our students’ intentionality. They want to be in community with each other.

They want to process the things they are learning in class together. It’s something they value.”

It is a value Nowers shares. “One thing I have been able to maintain in all of the restrictions of this year is individual student support. My calling, my purpose is to walk through the process of theological education with our students.”

Even though they can’t come into her office, her metaphorical door has remained open. “We’ve talked through email and phone calls. I feel honored when they share their stories with me.”

“I feel so encouraged and empowered to nurture our students,” said Nowers.

“It’s the culture here. There’s a sense that this is a place where God creates opportunities and our job is to faithfully step into them.”

To learn more about majors in the College of Bible & Ministry visit lipscomb.edu/bible.

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W A Y T H E L E A D I N G

COVID-19 CHANGED THIS WORLD, BUT GOD REMAINED WITH HIS PEOPLE

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HOLDING STEADFAST TO THE POWER OF THE CREATOR

Flexibility and innovation have become the watchwords for churches around the globe.

In the past year and a half COVID-19 challenges have battered Christians in congregations nationwide as well as on Lipscomb’s campus itself. Isolation, depersonalization, separation and technological challenges made 2020-21 a time when Christians both on and off-campus had to re-invent routines, change behaviors and rethink their connections to each other as well as to God.

OUT OF THE ASHES OF IN-PERSON WORSHIP, CHURCHES CREATED NEW CONNECTIONS Churches of Christ of all sizes and locations are reckoning with the emotional impacts of the pandemic.

Out of the ashes of the dependable structure of Sunday morning, however, came many creative and innovative ways to keep connection with communities.

One church of about 60 members, South Edmonton Church of Christ in the small farming community of Edmonton, Kentucky, didn’t have the infrastructure to move to a streaming option or set up Zoom accounts.

Former student and a volunteer with the church Amy Branstetter reflected, “I know it has been very time consuming for Aaron [Trimm] and his family. They did a wonderful job with VBS. Aaron had members read Scripture, video it and then send it to him. It was really neat for the youth and adults to hear themselves and others. Haley [Trimm] did the activity on video for each night of VBS. Each child got a backpack with activities and supplies. [On] the last night of VBS it was GREAT to see everyone in-person from a distance.

We all met in the field beside the church building and had a family tailgate devotional.”

“We decided to try a drive-in service for that first Sunday morning.

We set up a temporary speaker system outside of our building so members could drive up and listen/ participate in our service from their

Lipscomb alumni and friends ministering throughout the region drew on what they knew best—one-on-one evangelism, congenial teamwork, forgiveness and encouragement—to meet the ongoing challenges with the flexibility and innovation God has instilled.

Faculty and students on Lipscomb’s campus gathered around each other virtually, with professors providing alternative materials online, revamping classroom projects to focus on thought-provoking questions, embracing unfamiliar technology and emotionally supporting students.

The challenges of COVID-19 continue, but God’s people at Lipscomb continue to lead the way to face them with strength and courage.

vehicles,” Preacher Aaron Trimm did their best to stream their services recalled. “Eventually, I ordered a radio online with an iPhone and a tripod. transmitter so we could broadcast on Now they have a flourishing an AM signal around our building. online presence.

This is similar technology to what “God is faithful. God has provided at modern drive-in theaters use. every turn.” Harrell said, “I confess “After receiving input from our that what God’s provision has been members, we went to broadcasting I have not always been interested in. over the radio as well as using outside We were not an online church but speakers whenever the weather have been pushed online.” permitted. Our church has survived a lot in 60 years, including burning to An unexpected financial donation to the congregation right before the ground in 2015. I believe we are COVID-19 hit turned out to be making it through this just fine exactly the amount needed for video as well.” equipment to stream worship services, Chris Harrell (’99) is lead minister Harrell said. at a church plant called Compass Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas. When “We have always been a church for people who have been hurt by the COVID-19 hit, the fledgling church church. Now we are reaching people

DRIVE-IN SERVICE ANCHORED MANY SMALL CHURCH COMMUNITIES

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Photo by Rachael Milligan.

W A Y T H E L E A D I N G

on the fringes who may never have any reason during the months of April the associate minister of family life come through our doors before,” he through June. at Manhattan Church of Christ in said. “They watch us and then want to New York, NY. Henegar has faced “So we shifted our weekly worship to be a part. As hard as this moment is, the difficult task of finding ways to smaller cell groups. Six cell groups of God is still here and God is calling us comfort grieving members from afar essentially two households per cell deeper and deeper.” after two of their congregants died began worshiping, studying and taking from COVID. “We have had lots of Former student Shelley Morrow is the Lord’s Supper together. members with COVID and we have the connections director at a multilost a couple of people. It’s been “Schools were also closed, so many site church called Tomoka Christian incredibly difficult. Everyone knows of our young people used this as an Church in DeLand, Florida. someone who has died. It’s touched opportunity to share the Gospel with us in a very deep way.”

“Some people are of the mindset that if their neighbors. The six cell groups the building is not open on a Sunday grew quickly. When the government A lot of ministering to those in grief morning they can’t ‘do church’,” said allowed churches to reopen their is simply being present. What does Morrow. “But it’s encouraging to worship spaces, we celebrated six that look like when ministers can’t see the people who get it; we get a baptisms. We also had doubled in size,” physically be with those to whom glimpse of God working and see the Robert Meyer said. they minister? “I worry a lot about the church in action in real and tangible isolation for people who are really in “We have employed cell groups from ways in small groups outside the pain,” Henegar said. “Everyone else the beginning, but COVID forced us church building. God is shifting starts to move on and those who are hearts and minds. It’s hard to be apart, to think of those cell groups as the grieving can become invisible. Old primary mode of fellowship [instead but people are really having to do fashioned phone calls have really of the weekly worship service]. I some soul searching and sit with and been important to comfort and be believe this change in focus helped our wrestle with some hard things.” present for those who are grieving.” congregation think differently about Similarly, Robert and Teague Meyer, evangelism and encouragement ... and The church committed to continue missionaries in Huambo, Angola, that change in focus led to growth. We the 10:30 a.m. Sunday meeting live supported by Central Church of see God doing great things during this on YouTube for the first few months Christ in Little Rock, Arkansas, saw difficult time. Angolans have been until realizing how useful Zoom organic leadership among their forced to re-envision what church is, was for feeling connected. “People church members. In anticipation and the result has been an really missed seeing each other’s of the spread of the coronavirus, immense blessing.” faces, so we moved the whole Sunday the Angolan government forbade service to Zoom.” In a moment that churches to meet in their buildings for Amy Bost Henegar (a featured could have contributed to shrinking speaker at Summer Celebration) is participation, many new book groups and small groups developed. Now that many obstacles, like a two hour commute for some members, have been removed, a much-needed digital connection point midweek has been created and will likely continue beyond the pandemic.

Many professors in the College of Bible & Ministry are also ministers in the community or provide support for global church partners. Earl Lavender (’77, MA ’86), professor, was born in Italy and spent six years as a missionary there with his wife Rebecca. Since leaving Italy they have gone back every other year to sustain the community with the church that was planted, as well as provide a lecture tour to different small churches.

Photo by Teague Meyer.

“...SO MANY OF OUR YOUNG PEOPLE USED THIS AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHARE THE GOSPEL WITH THEIR NEIGHBORS.”

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When COVID-19 closed down much of Italy in 2020, Lavender’s Italian church partners said they wished to begin a virtual Bible study. “It’s been a difficult time. One member of our church in Florence died. The

AS HARD AS THIS MOMENT IS, GOD IS STILL HERE AND GOD IS CALLING US DEEPER AND DEEPER.

economy was already struggling. But they are an incredibly resilient people.

We sing together on Zoom and I’m not complaining!”

Wrestling with questions of what church and community can look like while members are apart is especially pertinent to youth ministry where students are already vulnerable to loneliness and isolation.

David Rubio, director of student ministries and high school minister, Emily Deedy (LA ’12, ’16), high school youth minister, and David Knox, middle school youth minister, at Otter Creek Church in Brentwood, Tennessee, found themselves moving back to “the old way” of doing youth ministry with combined middle school and high school events.

“We stressed over how awesome an event will be or feel but we learned the community is more important than content. The people who want community are present. There has been freedom in not stressing about how this looks because we just want to be together,” Knox said. “So the hardest part is how do we offer them [community] in safe ways and wise ways.”

Deedy added, “It can be discouraging to realize how many students have the consumer mentality about church. Are people in love with youth group or are people in love with our programming? If students can’t go to camp or Moab (an annual adventure trip to Moab, Utah), they don’t want to come. But some students have realized that it doesn’t matter who will be there or what we are doing for them to have a good time. Those are the priceless realizations that have come from this time.”

On top of the re-envisioning of local youth ministry, Knox and Rubio are a part of the creative team and board of directors for IMPACT, a summer event that draws thousands of youth from Churches of Christ across the nation to Lipscomb each year. Several weeks before the start of IMPACT 2020 in-person events were canceled and all programming went virtual.

“We had already decided on the theme, which serendipitously was named Channel 31 [referencing old fashioned television and the wisdom passages of Proverbs],” Rubio noted.

In the face of the seemingly

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impossible task of creating a massive amount of content, “Our creative director, Todd Loyd (LA ’90, ’94), kept saying, ‘Students have nothing right now. We have to try,’” Rubio said.

Knox recalled, “A team of incredibly creative minds and hard workers were shooting footage, editing content and uploading finished videos moments before they would go live.” Kidron Cannon, a professional videographer in Nashville, gave his time at a highly reduced rate for the cause.

“We pulled it off. 1,300-1,400 students across the country participated with watch parties and otherwise. By the time it ended, everyone involved in leading IMPACT agreed: all the work and craziness was worth it,” Rubio said.

WHEN GOD IS THE CENTER OF COMMUNITY, THE COMMUNITY WILL SURVIVE. For IMPACT 2021 information go to lipscomb.edu/impact.

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T H E

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G O I N G V I RT UA L S W I TC H TO R E M OT E T E AC H I N G B R O U G H T PA I N F U L BENEFITS FOR STUDENTS AND PROFESSORS

cattered but united in a common mission, the Lipscomb community faced COVID-19 restrictions head on, diligently working remotely to finish the spring and summer semesters strong for students and to bring them back to a safe and caring campus for the 2020-21 academic year.

While students returned to fill the campus sidewalks and classrooms on Aug. 24, the way they were being taught may be forever changed.

During the previous spring and summer, all courses were taught completely online, and this academic year, every course included either an online alternative format, a socially distanced classroom or a limited or altered schedule.

For many College of Bible & Ministry professors, that change has brought the painful benefits of embracing new and different ways of teaching Christ. Painful at first, but beneficial overall.

“The interactive nature was more would this affect my life?’ Stuintimate, intentional. Students dents aren’t naturally thinking are bolder and show more parts that way.” of their personality,” she said. “I bonded with the students in a way Professor Earl Lavender (’77, MA that I otherwise would not have. ’86) found many useful ways to There is an anonymity in being incorporate technology into his able to ask questions virtually permanent pedagogy, he said. “I that could be useful, as well as realized I could do some things tapping into how students are better online than in person, such already bonding and connecting.” as it’s easy to see who is participating. You can’t replace the Josh Strahan (’04), associate classroom, but I’ve learned how professor, also found it daunting to strengthen it,” he said. to lose the face-to-face aspect of his courses, especially for the The logistics are just one aspect courses that are prone to sensiof this moment. There are, of tive discussion. course, many emotional aspects of the sudden transition profes“The ethics classes were tricky sors must consider as Lee Camp to bring online. So much is (’89), professor of theology and communicated nonverbally. As a ethics, reflected, “I think of it as professor, I want to feel the enviadapting to a new culture: and ronment,” he said. “But there have adapting to a new culture takes been unexpected positive outa lot of extra time and mental/ comes of this shift. Some students emotional navigation. So this has engage more online than they did weighed upon a lot of them in class.” fairly significantly.”

Strahan redesigned one of his courses to explore more personal questions, asking students how certain spiritual concepts shape, challenge or confirm their understanding of Christianity.

“I’ve become begrudgingly grateful for social media,” said Lauren White, assistant professor of theology. “I never would have said yes before when a student challenged me to play Ask Me Anything on the Col“I got some very sincere honest lege of Bible & Ministry Instagram. reflections that were vulnerable But seeing how our students and and open,” said Strahan, noting professors were really connecting that he may use the exercise as a and bonding over Instagram future journal project. “For me, was redeeming. it is second nature to think, ‘How 14

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Professors have risen to the occasion to accommodate students in as many ways as they can.

Like many students who had left for spring break right before the decision was made to halt in-person classes, international student and senior theology/ministry major Isaac Noh (’21) had to start online classes without his notes and textbooks. “Fortunately for me, my professors extended

much grace and offered flexible alternatives regarding assignments and projects,” he said. “I still had to work overtime to make up for all the missing material I had, but luckily I have amazing friends who proved to be a tremendous help.”

“Suddenly switching to remote was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be,” said Sydney Cipriani, rising-senior and biblical languages major. “Our professors ... understood that we were dealing with unprecedented times. Everything I forgot at school was posted online by professors. They worked really hard to make the switch as easy as they could for us.”

Senior youth ministry major Adam Parks (’21) recounted, “At the end of the spiritual formation course with Dr. Lavender, all of the students in the class were given the opportunity to share their experiences and growth from the semester. Despite the chaos that was happening in the world around us, every single person shared deeply moving and impactful thoughts and experiences.”

“ D e s p i t e t h e c h a o s t h at w a s happening in the world around us, e v e r y s i n g l e p e r s o n s h a r e d d e e p ly m ov i n g a n d i m pact f u l t h o u g h ts a n d e x p e r i e n c e s .”

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MISSIONS

Redefined

Our best laid plans were waylaid, but God’s work was not

M I S S I O N S

Lipscomb University had big plans for missions service in 2020, but God had other plans.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our best laid plans were waylaid, but God’s work was not. With more than 50 planned mission trips cancelled in 2020, our hearts grieved not only for the loss of the opportunities to personally serve our friends and partners around the globe, but also for the actual loss and suffering of fellow souls worldwide.

But throughout the university, in various departments supported and fueled by the missions office, students, alumni, faculty and staff began to look not to their own agenda, but to God’s spiritual direction.

They redefined what we normally think of as missions.

From business to engineering, from alumni to students, the Lipscomb family took this opportunity to rethink how we can still be God’s tools on this earth without close proximity.

“It soon became clear that while one door had closed, God was opening another full of new opportunities to serve our neighbors in a time of desperate need.”

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SERVING IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD On March 3, 2020, the Greater Nashville area was hit by a deadly EF-4 tornado causing hundreds of injuries, millions of dollars worth of damage to structures and 25 deaths. Just ten days later, on March 13, President Trump announced a National State of Emergency in response to the global pandemic caused by the COVID-19 coronavirus.

It was because of this pandemic that all spring break mission trips for Lipscomb University were canceled.

This was a moment when the coronavirus impact was being felt on a personal level and yet the pandemic still felt “somewhere else.” It was during this moment of uncertainty that Lipscomb senior and M\missions intern, Olivia Malham (’20), felt overwhelming clarity about a service effort needed in her own backyard.

“It was as if all of the pieces suddenly fit together. This was why I didn’t feel peace about joining a spring break team earlier and this was why I had only made very flexible plans for my week off of school. The Nashville tornado relief group came together quickly. We had immediate interest from many students, as well as staff and faculty.”

Having participated in four mission trips, Malham decided to lead her first trip to provide emergency relief for the victims of the Nashville tornado. Students, faculty and staff who had been displaced from canceled mission trips served in partnership with Community Resource Center, a Nashville organization serving the city and surrounding counties to receive, sort and distribute goods to the communities impacted by the tornado.

of Christ Disaster Response Team to remove a fallen tree and debris from an elderly man’s home in Lebanon.

Each day of what would have been spring break, about 25 students and three faculty/staff worked on these projects. In all, 70 students, faculty and staff joined the effort.

Student, Jeremiah Niehls (’20), was planning his second trip with the Guatemala medical mission team led by Alan Bradshaw, physics chair.

“While I understand the reasoning, the frustration and heartbreak of not being able to go to serve and spend time with the people of Guatemala was still very apparent... but it soon became clear that while one door had closed God was opening another full of new opportunities to serve our neighbors in a time of desperate need,” Niehls reflected.

Grace Boucher (’21) was supposed to go with the Center of Business as Mission to Jamaica. She said, “The whole reason I was going to Jamaica was to be the hands and feet of Jesus and love on His children. Now, I had the opportunity to do the same thing here in my own city.”

While the local mission effort came together relatively quickly and with great enthusiasm, it wasn’t without challenges. Malham recalls specific challenges related to the layered and simultaneous crises.

“It was difficult to balance my team’s desire to help our community with the need to social distance. My team’s heart for service was evident in all that they did, and they were willing to work as much as possible.

“I loved seeing a group of students who were all a part of different Additionally, Malham coordinated to mission trips come together to form spend a day working with the Church a new bond,” she said.

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GEA RIN G U P T O PRO TE C T TH E P U B L I C When the pandemic started, to many it seemed like the world shut down, but in the Raymond B. Jones College of Engineering’s innovation lab, things started gearing up fast and furious.

M I S S I O N S

Since March 28, 2020, the college fabricated and distributed more than 11,000 face shields to medical providers and educators in Middle Tennessee and beyond to other states.

Throughout the spring and summer 2020, the staff of the Peugeot Center for Engineering Service in Developing Communities, which coordinates teams of Lipscomb engineering students to conduct humanitarian engineering projects around the world, and a handful of engineering students, worked daily to create the face shields using the college’s laser cutter.

Face shields, used by many medical workers and first responders, were in high demand in the early days of the COVID-19 spread in the U.S. As the pandemic continued into the fall, educators began stocking up on face shields to allow students, especially those with disabilities, to see their instructors’ lips moving.

protection. The off-the-shelf version is made from 12-gauge wire and PVC vinyl—or in a pinch transparency sheets can be used—and a rubber band.

“We’re using a high power, automated laser system in our innovation lab to cut out the components,” said David Elrod (’77), Dean of the College of Engineering. “Having the tools in the innovation lab lets us readily produce face shields to help local providers, and this second initiative is a way the Lipscomb team is helping folks without access to such unique tools in distant lands.”

“Connecting engineering capabilities with those in greatest need has been at the core of our engineering college and of the Peugeot Center.

In this season, we are excited to find both virtual ways of staying connected with many of our international mission partners and to find new ways of serving our local communities,” Elrod said.

Lipscomb-made shields have been distributed free to more than 150 organizations including Lipscomb departments, individual educators and schools, numerous medical sites and individual health care workers.

One thousand shields were made for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools. Some even went to Lincoln Hospital and White Plains Hospital in New York.

In addition, the Peugeot staff created a video and downloadable instructions for making a wireframe face shield out of off-theshelf materials, a DIY face shield that health care workers in underresourced nations can use for 18

THOUSAN DS OF FAC E M A SK S W E RE P RO D U CE D AN D DIST RIBUTE D B Y TH E P E U G E O T C E NTE R .

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PA R T N E R I N G I N A PA N D E M I C W O R L D

M I S S I O N S

he Center for Business as Mission (BAM), in the College of Business, describes itself as “a holy collision of business and mission, work and faith, and Kingdom and culture.”

But what does a holy collision look like when a global pandemic keeps everyone apart?

Working through the Missions department of the College of Bible & Ministry, BAM planned to send a team of business as mission majors to Southeast Asia in May 2020. In addition to attending the BAM Global Congress in Thailand, students would meet local Christian entrepreneurs and learn firsthand what it is like to try to make a livelihood in a place of persecution.

Early in the 2020 spring semester, several students in Lauren Pinkston’s Introduction to Business class planned to use the proceeds from a class assignment (to create a small business) to benefit a local storefront owner in Southeast Asia and to develop marketing materials for her modern-style handicrafts made with traditional skills. They intended to deliver their ideas and a portion of the profits from their required group project in-person to the businesswoman on that trip.

And then March 2020 came.

Lipscomb halted all mission team travel. The BAM Global Congress was postponed. While

the pandemic had altered the path forward, the mission still remained.

It then became about keeping everyone connected.

Like businesses around the world, Pinkston’s students were forced to revamp their business plans practically overnight to reach potential customers online.

Student groups had set up donation boxes around campus to collect clothes, shoes and jewelry to repurpose and sell. Other teams made baked goods, sold sodas and created leather cuff bracelets with motivational words stamped on them. It all had to be quickly transitioned to an e-commerce format, said Pinkston, assistant professor.

end, students were able to send more than $1,000 to support the handicraft store, and the owner was able to speak with students and hear their marketing ideas through video-conferencing.

“Businesses in booming economies operate on thin margins, and the pandemic has proven a great threat to some of our greatest corporations,” Pinkston said.

“We shared in class stories about what the coronavirus was doing in Southeast Asia and what it meant for small businesses like the handicraft store that rely on tourists as a source of income. A pandemic means a loss of tourism, which is a real threat to their already fragile livelihoods,” Partnership exemplifies what BAM she said. is all about, said Pinkston. Now As for the students who would that partnership had to be carried have traveled to Southeast Asia, out at a great distance.

Pinkston hopes most of them will “Because our students were already be able to rejoin the team when it engaged with the story of a small relaunches. handicraft store in a part of the “Our students are looking for ways world without a reliable economy, to marry their faith with justice,” they were motivated to push Pinkston said of the BAM program. through to the end of the semester “Within the College of Business, we in order to serve a larger narrative,” find a very natural way of merging said Pinkston. mission with the marketplace. We The Intro to Business students believe that offering students the overcame the challenge of opportunity to use their vocations launching their group business to lift disenfranchised populations projects remotely and ended up will activate purpose-driven generating even larger profits than careers among our graduates and business teams from previous multiply the spread of the Gospel semesters. They found markets through their practice of authentic, online and within their social missional relationships.” networks back home. In the 20

A H OLY COLL ISION O F B U SI NE SS A ND M I SSI O N, WOR K AN D FAIT H, AND K I NG D O M A ND C U LTU RE .

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M I S S I O N S

KINDRED EXCHANGE

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What d oes et h ic al a n d s u s ta i n a b l e p a r tn ershi p i n mi s s io n l ook l ike ?

That was the question Abby Littlefield (’20) and Lauren Pinkston,, assistant professor, kept coming back to as they Pinkston each reflected on their own experiences working in Ethiopia and Southeast Asia, respectively.

Pinkston, who earned her doctorate in international development, witnessed firsthand the positive effect these kinds of organic business models can have on a community when she lived in Southeast Asia. “Business can be a transformative power in society and an authentic way to join into equitable relationships with people,” she says. “In missions there’s a concept called ‘rice Christians’ where we give someone rice and ask if they want to be a Christian without cultivating any relationship before or after that one interaction. That’s not equitable. Instead of entering a space with our own ideas of what people need and pushing that on them, we want to enter in a spirit of relationship and walk with people as we experience the love of God together.”

They met at Lipscomb in 2019 when Littlefield was a senior business as mission major looking for a mentor. “A friend of mine who was taking Lauren’s Introduction to Business course told me we had to meet! We shared a lot of the same professional goals and experiences.

A passion for that global community led them to start their own nonprofit missions consulting and coaching firm and web platform, Kindred Exchange, which launched in October.

“At Kindred Exchange we are creating a model for a modern, ethical missions movement,” says Littlefield. Pinkston adds, “We believe that the space between us is truly a kindred space and we want to honor the exchange between us and others with tenderness and authenticity. We can practice this through the way we spend our money, the way we design our ministries and the way we enter other people’s spaces.”

The first component they launched was a mercantile shop providing a platform for five businesses around the world.

Chosen and vetted by Kindred Exchange, these ventures are using business as a social enterprise to create jobs and promote safety in the workplace.

Through the second component of Kindred Exchange, a coaching network­, they offer that same spirit of relationship to organizations, churches and teams who want to unpack, reevaluate and broaden their vision for how best to steward the Gospel of Jesus Christ across cultures. This coaching arm of the nonprofit will launch on July 17, with a oneday virtual gathering exploring the future of short-term missions in partnership with Lipscomb Missions.

“With many borders still closed due to the pandemic, now is a good time to take a look at how we have been engaging others and lean into that kindred space together,” says Pinkston.

To learn more about Kindred Exchange or register for the virtual conference visit kindredexchange.co.

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PA R T O F A

Bigger P L A N

As a doctor at Sumner Regional Medical Center in Gallatin, Tennessee, James Parnell (’06) knows the importance of being prepared. As a Lipscomb mission team leader, he has witnessed how God moves beyond our plans.

with our other medications and supplies in the Baja Missions storage area,” he said. When COVID-19 began to ravage the U.S. as well as Mexico, Parnell communicated with the Baja Missions field director, reminding the organization that it had stored away the N95 masks that would now be helpful to local providers both with the Baja Missions clinic and other providers connected with the City of Children orphanage and local churches.

M I S S I O N S

“God works in crazy ways. I’ve been going to Baja (Mexico) for the last 20 years and love the people down there very much,” Parnell said.

“A couple of years ago, I had requested N95 masks from Healing Hands International for our Lipscomb Baja medical spring break trip that I’ve led for the past five years. We are in the process of building a clinic with Baja Missions in the small town where we go, El Zorrillo. Eventually, we would need N95 masks for the times when we see patients with possible or diagnosed tuberculosis during our medical clinic or home visits.

“We were able to donate many boxes of gloves, N95 masks, surgical masks and other personal protective equipment that we had in storage,” Parnell said.

“These were distributed among clinical providers who could put them to good use.

“We really didn’t need many, but we were surprised with a large donation of over 100 that we stored

“Clearly, God had a bigger plan He was preparing for and I’m glad we got to be a part of it.”

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“When I and my team brought in over 100 donated N95 masks, I had no idea why we were bringing so many at the time,” he said.

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GREEN STREET

M I S S I O N S

F R E S H M A N D E SI G N P ROJ ECT P OW E RS UP N E I G H BORS ST RUG GL I N G W I T H H O M EL E SSN ESS TO SUCCE E D For Nashvillians who are homeless in today’s world, it doesn’t take much to make a big improvement in their lives. A fan, a lamp, a cell phone charger. These simple items could mean the difference between success in life and livelihood or continued homelessness.

which has expanded its focus on local projects during the COVID-19 pandemic. Funding was provided by Otter Creek Church of Christ, in Brentwood, which has partnered with the Peugeot Center on other efforts.

The Sanctuary power project is just one of the realworld, service-oriented design projects that every Lipscomb engineering freshmen experiences in the Introduction to Engineering labs in their first year of college. Students in other labs designed solutions for children with cerebral palsy in developing countries and a light-duty bridge for pedestrians in Honduras.

Lipscomb University’s engineering freshman in fall 2020 didn’t know a great deal about their chosen major when class started in August, but they did know enough to become a blessing to the residents of Sanctuary, a micro-home village for those experiencing homelessness on the property of the Green Street Church of Christ in Nashville.

Sanctuary provides 15 micro-homes to Nashvillians suffering homelessness, and this past fall a mechanical engineering freshman class came up with plans to provide electrical power to the micro-homes, providing enough wattage to power a fan, a light and a cell phone charger.

“Throughout the engineering design process, students gain valuable skills toward their career like quality teamwork and communication skills, ethical and responsible decision-making and an ability to persevere through obstacles,” said Kirsten Dodson (’12), assistant professor whose freshman students designed a modular back brace, a speech therapy tool, an orthotic brace and a headrest system for a wheelchair for children with cerebral palsy.

Throughout winter 2020 and this spring, David Elrod (’77), dean of the Raymond B. Jones College of Engineering, and other engineering faculty and students installed solar panels and an electrical system for the 6x12-foot micro-homes one at a time. During the spring semester, the college hosted three work days at the site during Lipscomb’s Bison Break days.

“We believe it is imperative for students to learn these skills early in their collegiate career so they can practice them alongside their engineering knowledge throughout their time in the program,” she said.

This summer, engineering faculty hope to host a mission opportunity to build a covered, open-air pavilion, also with solar power, to allow residents access to small kitchen appliances and an increased number of cell phone chargers, said Fort Gwinn, associate dean of the college and teacher of the mechanical engineering class that took on the Sanctuary project.

“We try to make all of our freshman-year projects service-oriented, with a chance to experience the engineering design process from start to finish as well to show how engineers serve humanity,” said Gwinn.

“Solar is a good freshman project because it is mostly modular and the components are fairly well-known,” he said. “The project also gave me the opportunity to explain that engineers can’t be one-dimensional. They have to understand the other dimensions, like the electrical circuit work included on this project, to work in teams.”

The project is organized by the college’s Peugeot Center for Engineering Service in Developing Communities, 26

Gwinn’s students broke into three teams to address 1.) how to power each micro-home to provide basic ventilation, 2.) a design for the future upgraded pavilion (It is currently made from PVC pipe and a tarp.), and 3.) a standardized design for a micro-home that the Green Street church could share with others to replicate the Sanctuary model.

In the research phase of the design process, students heard from Caleb Pickering (’03), a history graduate of Lipscomb who now serves as a deacon for the Green Street church located at 146 Green Street, Nashville.

Green Street’s ministry to those experiencing homelessness grew out of an initiative called Fools for Christ that Pickering started while a student at Lipscomb. In 2015, a partner ministry donated the first six micro-homes to sit next to the church and the rest have been built by partners over the years, including Otter Creek.

The micro-structures provide basic protection from the weather and a safe place to sleep and lock up belongings, but now with solar power, they will be more comfortable in the summer and winter. The church provides periodic access to showers and meals.

As the student teams progressed through the design project, the solar panel team decided a priority should be providing enough power

SOLAR PANELS DESIGNED FOR MICRO-HOMES PROVIDE COMFORT AND CRUCIAL CONNECTION FOR NASHVILLE NEIGHBORS EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS AT THE SANCTUARY to operate a small fan for ventilation, which would not only provide comfort for residents but would also prevent mold, thus increasing the longevity of the micro-structures, said then-freshman Bibiana Zermeno-Magana of Lebanon, Tennessee.

Working on the Sanctuary project allowed her to really appreciate the “importance of finding a renewable energy source that in the long-run will help alleviate damage,” she said.

It also helped her realize that “becoming an engineer is about what your client needs. If you don’t know that, then you will do the research,” she said.

Besides making the micro-homes more comfortable, electrical power allows residents to use and charge their cell phones, which, according to Pickering, are “now more of a necessity than a luxury,” as they are a vital connection to social services and potential jobs for those suffering homelessness.

Richard Blake Crews, a Sanctuary resident of one of the powered micro-homes in December, said he was going through hundreds of batteries every two or three weeks in order keep a flashlight and his cell phone operating before the solar panels were installed. Being able to charge up his phone at night ensures his alarm will go off in the morning so he can be up and out early to his day labor job.

“So far it has been great! I have not run out of power yet. I have been able to charge my phone, and it’s crazy to walk in and be able to turn on the light,” he said. “It’s allowed me to save up money so I can get back on my feet and get out of here.”

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A C A D E M I C S

‘YOUR BROTHER’S BLOOD CRIES OUT TO ME FROM THE GROUND’

L I PS CO M B PRO G RA MS BR ING DISCOVERY AND SEL F-R EFLE C T I ON O N R ACIA L UN ITY TO THE CHR ISTIAN COMMUNITY Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum exhibit featuring soil samples from the sites of over 4,000 lynchings in the U.S. 28

m .

Few high schoolers these days get a chance to step through a window in time and meet someone who has personally shaped the life they live today.

Kaya Coleman is one of the few. As a high school senior in Birmingham, Alabama, she was accepted into Lipscomb’s ENGAGE Youth Theology Initiative and in 2018 found herself talking to and learning from a man who personally impacted her life.

In its four years of existence, as part of its 10-day exploration of Scripture, theology, Christian leadership and public service, ENGAGE has taken 58 high school students on a three-day civil rights pilgrimage to various sites in Alabama, including to the Tuskegee Human and Civil Multicultural Center, founded by Dr. Fred D. Gray, an African-American attorney who served as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s personal attorney and—most relevant to Coleman, now a rising senior at Lipscomb—who brought the case that resulted in the desegregation of Alabama’s schools.

“Dr. Gray is truly a living legend,” said Claire Frederick, faculty fellow and ENGAGE program director.

“For decades, he’s used the law to transform society and bring justice to his community. For our students who get to hear his story in person, he impresses upon each that his legal work during the civil rights movement was Gospel work. They walk away knowing that in their lives today, justice work is Gospel work.”

A personal meeting with Gray is just one aspect of ENGAGE, a Lilly Endowment-funded summer program for high school students interested in the intersection of theology and social issues; and ENGAGE is just one aspect of a years-long focus by College of Bible & Ministry faculty to move the university and the Christian community toward racial unity and healing.

From a youth ministry conference on racial reconciliation to local Churches of Christ participating in a civil rights bus trip, from faculty research and writings to nationally known scholars visiting campus, the

college has consistently reached out to Christian constituencies across racial lines.

The seeds of the college’s focus on racial unity have been sown for many years, but one of the key moments in the evolution of the college’s current effort came in 2010, when Professor David Fleer, then a relatively new faculty member at Lipscomb, signed up for a bus tour of Alabama’s civil rights historic sites coordinated by Nashville’s Schrader Lane Church of Christ.

Not only was the experience thoughtprovoking and self-reflective for him, but it revealed to him how easily and affordably such an experience could be provided to others, he said. He began coordinating such experiences for local churches, Lipscomb faculty and various interested groups.

A decade later, hundreds of individuals have participated in the journey; it was incorporated into the college’s then-new D.Min. program in 2012; and it is the tentpole experience for the ENGAGE participants. Each tour includes a stop at the Tuskegee center and a chance to meet Gray, who became a close friend to Lipscomb in 2012, lending his name to the Fred D. Gray Institute of Law, Justice & Society.

“I wanted this tour to be a pilgrimage.

With every year, it becomes more and more pertinent,” said Fleer, noting how national tragedies within the past decade, and particularly since May 2020, have brought renewed awareness of racial inequality in America.

Derrick Jackson (D.Min. ’17), pastor of the First Baptist Church in Gallatin and an adjunct professor in the college, first attended the civil rights tour as a doctoral student and was so inspired by that 29

FRED D. GRAY WITH JANTRICE JOHNSON (’03).

version of the civil rights experience, which includes more tour stops, rigorous academic readings, group discussions with guest experts and inspirational readings at the historic sites, that he designed his final project to bring together Baptist church leaders and Church of Christ congregation leaders on the trip together. Today he leads the D.Min. tour himself with Fleer.

“The topic of my project was ‘Does the leadership of our church even want to be bothered with racial reconciliation?’” said Jackson. “I felt that, anecdotally speaking, many people say, ‘Oh, we don’t want to worry about that.’ So at a minimum, there was value in just getting the story told and acknowledging that this is a major part of America’s story.

University junior Rylee Russell of McKinney, Texas.

The convenient, affordable nature of the journey has also proven valuable for community groups, Fleer said. One participating group was a Columbia, Tennesseebased group called Stand Together which included the city’s mayor, representatives from the police department, faith-based leaders and other community advocates.

“The civil rights section of the CSC is one of the most vibrant in all of the conference,” said Fleer. “Sessions often take theory or scholarly research and move these ideas toward healthy strategies of practice. In 2016, ACU Press published a dozen CSC papers in a collection entitled, Reconciliation Reconsidered. It was widely read among groups and individuals as a model of some of our best thinking and a foundation for racial healing.”

In addition to the civil rights tour and ENGAGE, the College of Bible & Ministry has launched a number of other racial justice initiatives over the years, including its 2017 annual conference for youth ministers focused on racism and racial reconciliation and a 2018 Hughes’ work Myths, revised in 2017 conversation series for selected to include what he calls “the most faculty at five of Nashville’s important of all American myths: the historically black and white myth of white supremacy,” has also universities, facilitated by Richard proven influential.

Hughes, Lipscomb’s scholar-in“Myths America Lives By has been one residence and author of the book of our top sellers since the second Myths America Lives By: White edition was published in September Supremacy and the Stories That Give 2018,” said Michael Roux, marketing Us Meaning. and sales manager of University of Hughes was awarded $12,500 in 2018 Illinois Press. “It is taught in higher from the Lilly Fellows Program to education classrooms around the host faculty from Lipscomb, United States and has experienced Belmont, Trevecca and Fisk a large increase in sales on Amazon universities and American Baptist since the George Floyd-inspired College, to discuss racial issues, protests centered white supremacy in white privilege and how to address the national conversation.” those issues on college campuses.

With the focus of the nation turned The participants shared their once again to racial inequality personal experiences with racial following the tumultuous events of inequity, discussed topics using The experience, which stops at 2020, it has become apparent just Hughes’ Myths book as a framework sites such as the 16th Street Baptist how much thought-provoking efforts and discussed actions taking place Church in Birmingham where four like those of the College of Bible & on the various campuses. young African American girls were Ministry are truly needed in America. killed and the Dexter Street Church Today Lipscomb is using the same As one ENGAGE student noted on the in Montgomery where MLK pastored format to host conversations on civil rights tour upon first sight of and was drafted to lead the historic race with student leaders from the the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy bus boycott, is spoken of in glowing same universities, to culminate in Museum exhibit featuring soil terms by former participants. a session with two of today’s civil samples from the sites of over 4,000 rights leaders and the opportunity to “It looks at what it means to be a lynchings in the U.S., “It felt like the hear an on-campus talk by a human,” said one. “Transformational,” wall was screaming at me.” national expert on antiracism said another, and “the most unique this summer.

Immediately, students connected the educational enterprise I have sight of the soil, Frederick said, to experienced,” said a third. “This is not In 2012, the Christian Scholars’ these words from the Bible: “And the something that you can get in history Conference (CSC), an academic LORD said, ‘What have you done? books. Walking away from this, I will conference for theologians and Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out be so different,” said ENGAGE alumna Christian scholars directed by Fleer, to me from the ground’.” and then-Lipscomb awarded Gray an honorary doctorate (Genesis 4:10).

“Telling the truth for what it really is and asking, ‘How do we, as Christ’s followers, actually embody Christ’s vision in a way that includes all of us,’” said Jackson.

A C A D E M I C S

from Lipscomb, and in 2016, it established the Fred D. Gray Plenary Lecture in Human and Civil Rights, which over the years has featured Gray himself, James H. Cone, Molefi Kete Asante and David Gushee.

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DERRICK JACKSON

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RICHARD HUGHES AND HIS WIFE JAN

JOSH STRAHAN L AY S O U T T H E B A S I C S O F

Belief

Professor addresses life’s big questions in book now used in Lipscomb’s classrooms to reinforce students’ core Christian beliefs.

Fueled by a desire to fight a current deism by sociologists Christian Smith trend within today’s younger generation and Melinda Lundquist Denton in their to water down Christian faith into book Soul Searching: The Religious and generally moral wishful thinking, Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, Lipscomb University Associate Professor lived out in front of him each Josh Strahan (’04) has written a new school year. book, The Basics of Christian Belief: “Moralistic therapeutic deism takes Bible, Theology, and Life’s Big Questions, ideas such as the priority of love or the hope of heaven from a Christian framework, but it doesn’t have the pillars that can support it—pillars such as the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. It lacks substance.

It’s rhetoric without reasoning. This can become especially apparent in times of crisis,” noted Strahan, “when one realizes that it offers no real basis for hope other than wishful thinking.

A C A D E M I C S

“But Christianity provides the framework to make sense of love, grace, mercy, peace and hope,” he said. “That’s part of the reason it’s so necessary to see what Christianity is doing.”

Based almost entirely on intuition, rather than on Scriptures or history or reason, this watering down of Christianity is characterized by the following commonly held spiritual beliefs, Strahan noted:

that has been incorporated into the freshman Bible curriculum at Lipscomb.

• A God exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.

• God wants people to be good, nice and Having taught courses in freshman Bible fair to each other. and the New Testament at Lipscomb • The central goal of life is to be happy since 2011, Strahan sees this trend, and to feel good about oneself. described as moralistic therapeutic 32

• God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.

• Good people go to heaven when they die.

Strahan has worked in both campus and youth ministry in Tennessee and received an Outstanding Teacher Award at Lipscomb. He has noticed more students in his college classes and in Sunday school classes adhering to this generic worldview. It doesn’t seem to matter whether his students have attended church their whole lives or not: it seems that students don’t always know the basics of Christianity, why those basics matter and, most importantly, what makes Christianity both distinct and beautiful, he said.

In The Basics of Christian Belief, Strahan sets out to explain in detail the significance of Christianity. The book is intended to be used as a college textbook or as a study guide for church groups or Sunday school classes looking to explore the significant themes of Christianity.

The book is split into three parts. First, it goes over the Biblical story line (the Old Testament, the Gospels and the New Testament) in a sweep of Scripture intended to let readers know major players and events, as well as how they fit together.

The second part of the book goes over the Apostles’ Creed, a confession of central ideas in the Christian faith that’s been around for centuries and is rooted

in early church practice. “Before there were easily accessible Bibles, before there was a lot of literacy, it was a shorthand way of handing down the faith and making sure people knew what was central,” explained Strahan.

The third part of the book is an explanation of how Christianity is doing something distinct among worldviews and religions.

Church as basic wisdom, having stood the test of centuries, cultural shifts and denominational differences.

One of the threads that runs through the book is “life’s big questions.” Strahan says exploring these questions is a great way to show comparison among worldviews.

For example, is there a God? Do we have a soul? What is the purpose of life? What happens after death? Is there a right and wrong, and how do we determine what those are?

“There is an assumption that is very much influenced by the dominant culture that all religions are basically the same,” said Strahan. “This book is a Those big questions that everyone has way of saying, no, in fact that is not true. to deal with crop up throughout the While there may be some overlapping book and provide points of comparison. beliefs and morals, Christianity is Strahan uses these as a way to illustrate offering a unique perspective on life—a what is beautiful about Christianity. distinct set of answers to questions about who God is, what it means to be “I think when we slow down, when we’re human, how to live wisely and what not distracted by the business of life happens after we die.” and the pull of smartphones and social media, we know those big questions The Basics of Christian Belief explores really matter,” he said. why we need to know Scripture and how we can benefit from the ancient wisdom passed down from the early church in the Apostles’ Creed. Strahan noted that Christianity has thrived in various locations and cultural settings for nearly two thousand years. Despite all this The Basics of Christian Belief is diversity, the Apostles’ Creed has been, available through Amazon.com. and continues to be, regarded by the 33

About the author Joshua Strahan received his bachelor’s degree in Bible from Lipscomb University in 2004, his Master of Divinity degree from Abilene Christian University in 2008 and his Ph.D. in New Testament from Fuller Theological Seminary in 2011.

He teaches courses in freshman Bible and New Testament.

PA S SAG E S I S R A E L Connecting the past, present and future

For many people the day after Christmas is a time to relax with family, play with new toys and eat as many leftovers as possible. For one group of Lipscomb students, the day after Christmas meant the start of a journey that would transform the way they looked at themselves and the world.

On Dec. 26, 2019, around 40 students traveled to the Holy Land with Passages, an organization dedicated to helping American college students encounter the landscape of their faith and meet the people who call it not just holy, but home.

A C A D E M I C S

Over the course of nine days they traveled throughout Israel's biblical locations such as Jerusalem, Galilee, the Dead Sea, Nazareth and the Jordan River. They also visited the settings of more recent geopolitical history like the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, the Holocaust museum and the West Bank barrier where they were able to connect with people on all sides of ongoing conflict and listen to their stories.

The trip’s intention encompasses both information and formation.

As these students from an array of majors who will end up in a wide variety of vocations walk through the Holy Land and listen to those who call it home, they make connections that run deep into history and wide into the modern world.

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Olivia Malham (’20), a theology and ministry graduate, said that a desire for a deeper connection was what drew her to participate in the Passages trip. She wanted to root the knowledge she had learned in her Lipscomb classes to the ground from which it had grown.

and redemption,” she said. “But the moment that hit me the most deeply was when we stopped in a shop in Jerusalem. The owner, Solomon, thanked us for visiting, and I said he had a great store. But then he said, ‘No, thank you for coming to Israel.

Tell the world about us.’”

Classroom education can sometimes feel cold and impersonal, resulting in a disconnect, Malham said.

She purchased a necklace holder with the Jerusalem skyline from his shop and remembers Solomon and everyone in Israel when she sees it each morning. Since coming back, Stevens has sought out opportunities to connect with her local Jewish neighbors at public speaking events and at a nearby synagogue.

“This trip was a special opportunity to reconnect knowledge with my faith and spirituality. Being able to walk where Jesus did and see the landscape of stories I grew up hearing was special. I had been feeling burnt out and spiritually dry, and I needed this.

It’s impossible to ignore that feeling of connection there.

Remembering took on a new dimension for rising senior and musical theater major Bennett Scott, as well.

After her first experience, she felt God calling her to forego studying abroad in Vienna to apply to the Passages Fellowship Program, which allowed her to return as a peer leader with first-time participants from King’s College. Then she signed up to travel to Israel again with the December 2019 Lipscomb team.

She was grateful for the relationship the group developed with their guides. “On past trips, a lot of the conversations were one-sided. Our guard was a Messianic Jew who was curious about faith practices in America, and our tour guide was fascinated with evangelical Christians and asked us a lot of questions while sharing about his own culture,” she said. “It was awesome to participate in Israel with people who were just as excited to connect as we were!”

“I know God is not different in Israel than he is at home, I was just “My family has a Jewish background.

After three trips, Shafer has looking for him more there. I saw the My grandfather came over during the developed a deeper understanding connection between the time I give to Holocaust. This trip was a way to get of her faith, the practice of Sabbath God and how often I notice Him.” more contact with my heritage,” and the rich connection between he said. the people of Israel and their land.

Yet it was not just the biblical She said, “I care about the Israeliconnection that she needed. Her Two experiences from those Palestinian conflict now because I favorite part of the trip was learning nine days really stood out to him. can see their faces. I know the about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “Floating out into the Dead Sea was stories of their humanity. It was from those who were living it. a beautiful moment,” he said. “But easier to put it all in a box before and the most impactful was seeing my On a visit to the wall that borders the grow numb to the news, but having a non-Jewish friends on the trip go Gaza Strip, a Palestinian man shared personal connection with people and through the Holocaust museum. We with them the difficulties of finding places makes it harder to all approached it with a mindset of work, attaining food and water and be detached.” learning and wanting to be open to how violence has impacted his life. the experience.”

“That’s what makes these trips with “We talked to families on both sides.

Passages so unique,” says Surdacki.

After the trip Bennett reached out to I saw the depth and layers of how Jewish groups in the area to keep that “It’s not just seeing Biblical sites. hard it is for everyone. We heard real They are intentional about informing connection he felt in Israel alive with stories, real emotions, real struggles. students about Israel’s geopolitical him in Nashville.

It opened my eyes to the complexity history, giving students the chance and reminded me of the value of “This was actually my third time going to hear both Jewish and Palestinian listening, being a peaceful presence to Israel with Passages,” said Bailey voices so we can come back knowing and not jumping in with your own Shafer (’20), a graphic the difficulty of peace with our hearts opinions all the time. It motivated me design major. broken for all sides.” to do the same thing wherever I work in the future,” she said.

“I S AW T HE CON N EC T I ON BETWEEN THE TIME I GI VE T O GOD AN D HOW OFT EN I NOTICE HIM.”

Madelyn Stevens (’20), majoring in English and Spanish, was hesitant to apply for the trip at first.

“As an American I didn’t know how to go to the Middle East and say, ‘show me my culture as a Christian.’” So she talked with trip leader and Lipscomb Bible Associate Professor Walter Surdacki about how she could travel to Israel with respect and grace.

Taking that posture, she discovered a deep interest in modern Jewish/ Christian relations.

“I loved listening to our Jewish tour guide and openly talking to each other about our ideas of God, Jesus

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‘ T O K E N S ’ O F H O S P I T A L I T Y, GRACIOUSNESS AND JOY PROFESSOR MASHES UP AMERICANA AND THEOLOGY TO PROVIDE GLIMPSE OF A WORLD OF WONDER

hat happens when Prairie Home Companion meets theology and deep thinking? That would be the Tokens Show, the critically acclaimed brainchild of Lee Camp (’89), Lipscomb professor of theology and ethics.

This old-fashioned, live radio variety show, produced by Camp since 2008, blends music, humor and issues of social justice in performances hosted throughout the Nashville area, including the “Mother Church,” Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium each Thanksgiving.

podcast (tokensshow.com/podcast), with guests as diverse as MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Jerry Mitchell whose work contributed to convictions in 24 cold murder cases from the civil rights era; U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith; Miroslav Volf of Yale Divinity School; Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health; David Brooks of the New York Times; Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam; and many more.

In addition, Tokens has released a new online course with Volf of Yale and John Mark Hicks, professor in the College of Bible & Ministry, as well as a new course on Camp’s new book Scandalous Witness (tokensshow.com/courses).

F A C U L T Y

Tokens is an idea that hit Camp when he and his wife, Laura (’91), went to see Prairie Home Companion’s Garrison Keillor at the Ryman on New Year’s Eve 2006. Camp wondered what an old-time radio format focusing on a philosophical, theological or ethical issue combined with satire, music and provocative interviews, would look like.

Since debuting in Lipscomb’s Collins Auditorium, Tokens has been lauded by the critics and has featured numerous musicians, authors, theologians, scholars, historians, activists and many more deep thinkers. It has gone on the road for some special performances across the country, and its patron base has grown steadily.

In May 2020, Tokens began airing its own

For Camp and his devoted Tokens audience, it looks like a world governed by hospitality, graciousness and joy; life marked by beauty, wonder and truthfulness; and social conditions ordered by justice, mercy and peacemaking. The show exhibits “tokens” of such a world in music, songs and conversations about things that matter.

“We have fun, and we make fun: of religion, politics and marketing. And ourselves.

You might think of us as something like musicians without borders; or as poets, 36

philosophers, theologians and humorists transgressing borders,” said Camp.

“We are a cultural experiment for serious Christians who like to think, and yet, don’t take themselves too seriously,” he continued. “And for non-Christians, shouldn’t there be more Christians like that? And for Muslims and Jews and Bahai and Buddhists and agnostics who long for cultural celebrations that actually say something. Not ignoring our differences, but trusting that in our deepest convictions we may find space to welcome—and learn from—one another.”

Camp’s conception for the variety show was fueled by his students who would often point him to Americana, folk and contemporary music in response to his lectures on matters such as social justice, war and peace, or practices of reconciliation.

“We offer beautiful, artistic work that is not just about entertainment but that also challenges us and pushes us a little,” Camp said.

“There is something about music that grapples with significant questions that is humbling and moving and pulls people into an issue.”

Camp, a theologian and author, also has a musical gene. He is often featured on vocals or in musical numbers in Tokens performances. Always one who seeks to learn something new, Camp has learned how to play upright bass along with a few other instruments since the inception of Tokens.

Each episode features the Most Outstanding Horeb Mountain Boys, made up of some of the top musicians in Nashville. Special musical guests have included Vince Gill,

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Odessa Settles, Amy Grant, Annie Moses Band, Ellie Holcomb, Over the Rhine, Ricky Skaggs and Suzy Bogguss.

Tokens’ quick rise in popularity and reputation is due in large part to the caliber of guests Camp has incorporated into the program, including nationally known thought leaders such as Walter Brueggemann, Shane Claiborne and Tobias Wolff.

“Personally, Tokens allows me to explore parts of myself that I wouldn’t explore otherwise and to explore things I have long repressed,” Camp said. “Producing Tokens has allowed me to rediscover parts of myself that allow me to develop relationships and community. It allows me to contribute to the community in ways that are meaningful to the community.”

Visit tokensshow.com for more information and to listen to live episodes Sundays at 2 p.m. Central on 90.3 WPLN or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the mid-1990s, he began transitioning from full-time congregational ministry to teaching at Johnson University in Knoxville and Harding School of Theology. “I was asked to share with other ministers what I had learned about church leadership through my successes, failures and specialized studies,” he says.

He is excited to continue sharing his ministry experiences with students in his new role at Lipscomb. “Advancing the mission of God today is highly complex, fraught with conflict, challenging both within and without,” he says. “So we want to help people develop spiritual and emotional wholeness and the kind of relational intelligence that allows them to work meaningfully with an in-depth understanding of their local missional context.

“I feel blessed God is giving me the opportunity to interact with some of the finest young women and men on the planet who devote themselves to works of Christ’s mission that go so far beyond anything that I will ever be able to do. It is a joy for me to walk alongside them and to plant seeds into their lives that will help them become more effective leaders.”

CARLUS GUPTON APPOINTED DIRECTOR OF DOCTOR OF MINISTRY PROGRAM

Carlus Gupton (’82) became the director of the Doctor of Ministry program in the Hazelip School of Theology in January, but his relationship with Lipscomb goes back much further.

“My first ever connection with Lipscomb was in the summer of 1976.

I came as part of an admissions event when I was a junior in high school. I remember sitting down in Carl McKelvey’s office. He made a huge impact on me in that one little meeting,” Gupton says.

Gupton was raised in a Mayfield, Kentucky church that “grew preachers.” He began preaching himself at a small neighboring congregation when he was just 17 years old. Soon, under the mentorship of his own preacher, John Hoover, Gupton let go of his plans to be a professional trombonist and decided to pursue professional ministry.

“I have always had a strong and deep love for local churches,” he says. “I believe they are the lifeblood of Kingdom work and are important to God’s economy. It is out of my love for the local church that my education was shaped, particularly the idea of education that leads to thriving congregations.”

AARON HOWARD APPOINTED ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ETHICS, RECONCILIATION

F A C U L T Y

That is not to say he has an idealized view of the Church. After all, it was in that same small congregation when he was 17 that he experienced his first major church conflict.

Lipscomb’s College of Bible & Ministry and George Shinn College of Entertainment & the Arts has appointed Aaron Howard as assistant professor of ethics and reconciliation.

“Because I was the preacher, they looked to me to help lead them through it. And I was in high school!” That crisis could have severed his connection with the Church but ended up strengthening it instead. “It helped me see the Church for what it is: finite expressions of an infinite God. Churches aren’t perfect, but it is through the crucible of the ups and downs of congregational life that faith is shaped. What other community stays with people through all the transitions of their lives?” Gupton continued preaching while he earned degrees from Lipscomb (BA), Harding University (M.Div) and Abeline Christian University (D.Min).

Howard will teach graduate courses in the Hazelip School of Theology and undergraduate courses in the arts college’s worship arts program as well as organize and lead the university’s first gospel choir.

“He is a man who brings a rare combination of three things: toplevel Bible and theology training, expertise and long experience in worship ministry, and a passionate commitment to Christ. I am thrilled that he is joining the Lipscomb faculty,” says Leonard Allen, dean of the College of Bible & Ministry.

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Howard’s background as both educator and minister demonstrates that commitment. He has taught at an elementary school in Los Angeles, Christ Presbyterian Academy in Nashville, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and Vanderbilt Divinity School, where he received his Ph.D. in religion, ethics and society. Prior to his Lipscomb appointment, Howard was the director of diversity, community and inclusion at Franklin Road Academy where he oversaw all diversity and inclusion initiatives. He has also served as a worship minister in a number of congregations.

“Christian education at its best doesn’t just teach to inform minds but seeks to transform our loves,” says Howard. “We can become so academic in our theological pursuits that we can talk about Jesus without really knowing who He is. God gives us our minds for reflection and cognition and also calls us into worship and deep communion with him.”

The gospel choir will offer students a new avenue to engage God in worship. “Reverent worship does not have to be just contemplative and reflective,” he said. “It can be emphatic and exuberant. Gospel music is embodied. It’s affective, rhythmic and visceral. It draws on the black tradition in which I was raised. Your whole body is engaged when you sing gospel music—you sing full-throated and with emotional intensity. It’s also one of the most popular music forms in the world. I definitely look forward to introducing it to the Lipscomb community.”

As a former two-time national freestyle wrestling champion and World Cup silver medalist, Willingham understands the importance of converting knowledge into action. “There’s nothing like a worldclass competitor on the other side of the table to expose whether something is just in your head rather than something you’ve actually absorbed into your being. They will expose it pretty quickly.”

The choir will also offer students a new way to engage with each other. “I am passionate about the multi-cultural church, and I believe music is one of the best ways to build community. I hope that a natural result of spending this kind of time together in worship will be the formation of deep, meaningful, significant cross-cultural relationships,” said Howard.

Willingham says he felt exposed when he first began congregational ministry. “I was so equipped when it came to theology but totally ill-equipped for ministry. It was such a disconnect. I almost didn’t survive it after being fired three times.”

When one of those congregations rehired him, Willingham, under the mentorship of Charles Siburt at Abilene Christian University, transformed the experience into a doctoral thesis on how to have healthier church conflict. Then, after 15 years of pulpit ministry, Willingham joined the faculty of Harding University where he combined teaching and field work for the next 20 years.

Randy Gill, assistant CEA dean and director of the worship arts program, said, “Aaron Howard will be an invaluable addition. He brings a depth of experience and scholarship to his new role. As an experienced worship leader and teacher, he is well prepared to serve our students in the classroom, as the director of a new gospel choir and as a mentor to young worship leaders.”

Now his practical approach to ministry training is shaping the college’s new initiative. “I had a training model [as a wrestler] where what you learn you have to physically be able to do,” says Willingham. So these are not “classes for the sake of classes” but a place where students can “learn what they need to learn to get the job done that needs to be done. You can’t separate theory from practice.”

RANDY WILLINGHAM APPOINTED COMPETENCY BASED EDUCATION DIRECTOR Randy Willingham, who joined the College of Bible & Ministry faculty in June 2020, knows exactly why he is here.

“This is the very purpose that led me to go into academia in the first place: to teach a skill students can translate into action in a way that has an impact,” he says.

According to Willingham, the initiative is not just for professional ministers. It is also for church members who want to develop as lay leaders. “This is a vehicle that does not ignore the training and development they have already received in their fields, but baptizes it. It is able to take that training, direct it and apply it.”

Willingham serves as the director of CBM’s new CompetencyBased Theological Education Initiative. The initiative focuses on developing ministry competencies in the context of local congregations. Students complete courses when they demonstrate a basic level of competency in specific skills.

He says this ministry training will help people connect, collaborate, create and deepen their capacity for leadership, adding, “students who go through this training will increase in each of these areas and find they not only have a deeper capacity but that they themselves are capacity-deepeners for others.”

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LEE CAMP’S SCANDALOUS WITNESS OFFERS NEW INSIGHTS INTO FAITH AND POLITICS IN THE U.S.

That picture of power—one that is nonviolent, a suffering love even to death—is scandalous to both the right and the left, because neither side wants that kind of claim, that kind of politic. That is the scandalous politic Camp is trying to play out in this book.

Lee Camp has also authored Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World in 2003 and Who Is My Enemy: Questions American Christians Must Face About Islam—and Themselves in 2011, plus numerous articles.

He completed his graduate studies at Abilene Christian University and University of Notre Dame.

Americans seem to be more divided than ever, and politics are at the center of this societal divide. Lee Camp (’89), professor of theology and ethics, has answered some of this anxiety with hope in his new book, Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians, available at Amazon.com.

Scandalous Witness attempts to find a space where Christians can find their place between the right and the left in American politics. In his writing, Camp presents a way to talk about Christianity in regard to politics that is “neither right nor left nor religious.”

JOHN MARK HICKS’ SEARCHING FOR THE PATTERN OFFERS ALTERNATIVE UNDERSTANDING FOR WHAT GOD REQUIRES

The book is broken down into 15 propositions, such as “Christian Partisanship is Like a Fist-Fight on the Titanic” and “Christianity Is Not a Religion; Christianity Is a Politic.” Camp believes these propositions can radically change the nature of the conversation about Christianity and politics.

In Searching for the Pattern, John Mark Hicks tells the story of his own hermeneutical journey in reading the Bible.

He describes his transition from a “blueprint hermeneutic” to a theological one. Some suggest that moving away from a patternistic commandexample-and-necessaryinference approach for understanding what God requires leaves no other alternative, or at least none that both respects biblical authority and seeks to obey the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah.

F A C U L T Y :

S C H O L A R S ’

C O R N E R

When Camp looks at Christianity in light of American politics today, he sees militarism and nationalism on the far right and a “sort of shame-based moralism” on the far left. Both these partisan perspectives fall short of the Good News of the Gospel, he says.

Camp notes that in the Western world religion is often defined as a private matter between a person and God, shaping our rights to do what we want in our private spaces, Camp argues.

But the notion that this so-called religion should really say something about politics is seen as taboo in our society.

The problem with that idea is that it denies what Christianity inherently is: what Camp calls a “politic.” Christianity naturally addresses many of the same issues that politics addresses, because the Bible addresses those issues as part of its message.

Hicks offers just such an alternative. His theological hermeneutic is deeply rooted in the way the Bible presents itself as a dramatic history of God’s plan to redeem the world as well as his own experience of growing up among Churches of Christ. Seeing the Gospel of Jesus as the center of the Biblical drama reorients us to what provides our Christian identity and unites us as disciples of Jesus.

Camp posits that politics cares about such questions as: How do we live together? How do we deal with offenses? How do we deal with money? How is authority mediated, employed and ordered? What does it mean to be human?

Unfortunately, it seems that Christianity in the U.S. has been scandalized by false allies, Camp says. On both the right and the left, Christians are looking at the political platforms being presented as “Christian” and realizing there is no way they fit with the Good News of Jesus.

“Growing up in Churches of Christ, I embraced and practiced a hermeneutic that sought an implicit blueprint for the work and worship of the Church in Acts and the Epistles,” said Hicks.

“I shifted through the commands, examples and inferences within the New Testament to deduce a blueprint, which then became the standard of faithfulness and a mark of the true church.

That’s very different from the original scandal of the Gospel as Paul used that language in I Corinthians, Camp explains in the book. Instead, Paul talked about the world being saved by someone who loved even to the point of death and was crucified on a cross.

“The inadequacies of this approach as well as its subjectivity

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“Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians,” online course, available at www.tokensshow.com/courses

(every conclusion and most steps along the way were inferences) created doubts. This is not how the apostolic witness called people to Gospel obedience,” Hicks said. “The problem is the location of the pattern. The pattern is not found in an implied blueprint in Acts and the Epistles.

John Mark Hicks “Justice McDuffie Barnes: Alabama Advocate for the Apostolic Church,” Restoration Quarterly 62 (2020), 153-171.

“Paul does not call people to obedience based on a blueprint located in the practices of the church. Instead, he calls them to obedience based on the pattern manifested in the incarnation, life, death, resurrection and exaltation of Jesus.

This is the Gospel we obey—the story of Jesus—rather than a blueprint we have inferred from the text but is not explicitly there.

Women Serving God: My Story in Understanding Their Story in the Bible (KDP Amazon, 2020).

Editor and contributor, Resisting Babel: Allegiance to God and the Problem of Government (Abilene: ACU Press, 2020).

Co-author, Discipleship in Community: A Theological Vision for the Future (Abilene: ACU Press, 2020).

“The pattern is not an inference. On the contrary, it is the story in which we live. It is the narrative air we breathe. The pattern of God’s work through Christ in the power of the Spirit is clear, objective and formative. It is the story told in Scripture; it is an explicit pattern. We will find unity when we confess the same pattern. Our pattern is God in Jesus through the Spirit, or our pattern is Jesus.”

Searching for the Pattern: A Study Guide (KDP Amazon, 2019).

Richard Hughes “Wrestling with White Supremacy,” Vocation Matters, the official NetVUE blog, February 10, 2020.

“The Grace of Troubling Questions,” Vocation Matters, the official NetVUE blog, May 12, 2020.

John Mark Hicks has published fifteen books and lectured in 20 countries and 40 states. Hicks received his B.A. in Bible from Freed-Hardeman University, his M.A.R. in Theological Studies from Westminster Theological Seminary, his M.A. in Humanities from Western Kentucky University and his Ph.D. in Reformation and Post-Reformation Studies from Westminster Theological Seminary.

“Finding Vocation in Loss, Suffering, and Death,” Vocation Matters, the official NetVUE blog, May 19, 2020.

“Escaping the Web of White Supremacy,” The Cresset: A Review of Literature, the Arts, and Public Affairs, Valparaiso University, Advent-Christmas, 2019. “‘The Politics of the Day’ and ‘The Politics of Heaven’: The Apocalyptic Orientation of Barton W. Stone,” in Resisting Babel: Allegiance to God and the Problem of Government, ed. John Mark Hicks (ACU Press, 2020).

Reclaiming a Heritage: Reflections on the Heart, Soul, and Future of Churches of Christ, 2nd edition, with a new epilogue by the author and additional reflective essays by Leonard Allen, John York, Lauren White, David Fleer and others (Abilene: ACU Press, 2019).

COLLEGE OF BIBLE FACULTY’S RECENT SCHOLARLY WORKS:

“My Life in the Churches of Christ,” in Staying the Course: Fifteen Leaders Survey Their Past and Envision the Future of Churches of Christ (Los Angeles: Keledei Publications, 2019).

Holly Catterton Allen “Resilience, Trauma, and Children’s Spirituality” (with Lipscomb students Kaylee Frank and Megan Larry), in Bridging Theory and Practice in Children’s Spirituality (Zondervan, 2020).

“Resisting White Supremacy” and “White Supremacy and the Gospel of Grace,” in Slavery’s Long Shadow: Race and Reconciliation in American Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2019).

“Family Ministry,” in Christian Education: A Guide to the Foundations of Ministry (Baker Academic, 2019), 213–225.

Phillip Camp Review of Tyler D. Mayfield, A Guide to Bible Basics in Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 74:3 (2020), 310.

Leonard Allen Co-editor, Answered by Fire: The Cane Ridge Revival Reconsidered (ACU Press, 2020), with Carisse Berryhill.

Josh Strahan The Basics of Christian Belief: Bible, Theology, and Life’s Big Questions (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020).

Lee Camp Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020).

“Free Will, God’s Providence, and Quantum Entanglement,” Theology and Science 18 (2020), 59-73.

Concluding and retrospective chapter in John Mark Hicks, et al, Resisting Babel: Allegiance to God and the Problem of Government (Abilene, TX: ACU Press, 2020).

Paavo Tucker “Why Love Matters for Justice: Political Emotions Between Narrative and Law in the Holiness Code,” in Biblical Ethics: Tensions Between Justice and Mercy, Law and Love, ed.

Markus Zehnder and Peter Wick (Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press, 2019), 83-104.

Tokens: Public Theology, Human Flourishing, the Good Life, 15-episode Podcast, Season One, available at https:// podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tokens-with-lee-c-camp/ id1513178238

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Spirituality F O R

ALL AGES

L I P S C O M B P R O F E S S O R P R O M O T E S I N T E R G E N E R AT I O NA L S P I R I T UA L I T Y T H R O U G H T W O NAT I O NA L C O N F E R E N C E S .

Since 2016, Lipscomb’s Institute of Christian Spirituality within the Hazelip School of Theology has served as the host for two alternating academic conferences designed to promote an intergenerational approach and research-based foundation to worship, ministry and spiritual development.

F A C U L T Y

In 2021, the Children’s Spirituality Summit and the pioneering InterGenerate Conference were combined into one virtual conference held May 24-26. Over 900 people from the US and 13 other countries registered.

These two conferences, both chaired by Holly Catterton Allen, professor of family science and Christian ministry, draw up to 500 participants combined from about 32 states and seven international locations and represent more than 15 Christian faith traditions. Both academicians and practitioners from churches, schools and faith-based organizations attend these conferences to discuss ways to apply current research and fresh theological insights to their daily missions.

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The InterGenerate Conference explores how to become more intentionally intergenerational in outlook and practice.

Allen, author of the 2012 book Intergenerational Christian Formation: Bringing the Whole Church Together in Ministry, Community and Worship (InterVarsity Press), argues that intergenerational ministry nurtures spiritual formation in all ages. While age-segregated activities are also valuable for spiritual formation, the pendulum has swung too far toward agespecific approaches in churches, she said.

“We believe that intergenerational experiences uniquely and

“We define children’s spirituality as a child’s Presentations at the InterGenerate relationship with God and Conference explore support for intergenerational ministry from how that interacts with biblical, theological, empirical and their relationship with sociological foundations, while also providing best practices for how to self and others, drawn carry out intergenerational Bible from the first and second study, worship, story-sharing, service and missions, and other great commandments. forms of ministry.

We work to show how all The academic proceedings three relationships are of the 2017 InterGenerate Conference were published by inter-related,” Allen said. organization she founded and currently chairs.

Abilene Christian University Press as InterGenerate: Transforming Churches through Intergenerational Ministry, and the proceedings of the 2019 conference were published in the book, Engage All Generations: A Strategic Toolkit for Creating Intergenerational Faith Communities (ACU Press, 2021).

The complementary Children’s Spirituality Summit focuses on how to better nurture children’s spiritual development by connecting child development, sociological and psychological research with Biblical and theological understandings.

The CSS coordinating board, also chaired by Allen, is also committed to holding a research-based event that provides plenty of guidance as well on how to apply that research in real-world settings.

especially nurture spiritual formation across all ages,” said Allen, referring to the InterGenerate task force, an

Academic paper presentations at CSS typically share current research, unpack Biblical and theological insights, and address current issues connected with children’s spiritual formation.

Workshops explore fresh avenues for nurturing children’s spiritually through, for example, centering prayer, labyrinth walking, leaning into stillness, quietness and wonder, and connecting the biblical metanarrative to children’s spiritual growth and development.

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Proceedings from the 2016 conference, Story, Formation, and Culture: From Theory to Practice in Ministry with Children, have been published by Wipf & Stock/ Pickwick and proceedings from the 2018 conference, Bridging Theory and Practice in Children’s Spirituality, have been published

by Zondervan (2020).

Allen has more than 25 years of experience in educational psychology, intergenerational Christian formation and children’s and family studies. Before coming to Lipscomb, Allen was director of the child and family studies program and professor of Christian ministries at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas.

Allen has published articles in such journals as Christian Education Journal, Lutheran Education, Lifelong Faith, Christian Scholar’s Review and Christianity Today and has written book chapters in more than 20 works.

The online joint Children's Spirituality Summit-InterGenerate Conference convened May 24-26, 2021 with over 900 participants from all across the United States and from over a dozen international locations. More information at childrensspiritualitysummit.org or intergenerateconference.com.

A L U M N I

BROWN HOUSE M I N I S T RY

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Proximi ty. Communi ty. Opport uni ty.

The Brown House is unremarkable. in unexpected, wild and beautiful It is just a house, after all—a brown ways. Although, Amy admits, there one. was an adjustment period in the beginning as they tried to discern “There was nothing particularly how to love their neighbors as special about it,” said Amy Pierce, Jesus would. “I thought I knew a former Lipscomb student who, what they needed and what I could along with her husband, Adam offer. But I didn’t know them and I Pierce (’95), moved into the didn’t know us.” unremarkable brown house in the early 2000s. Before that, they had According to the “What We Do” been living a few blocks away in section of The Brown House the historic district of downtown website, their ministry today Northport, Alabama. “We wanted includes after-school tutoring, a to be intentional and purposeful community library, a community with our lives but at that time we garden, weekly youth group weren’t,” she said. programs in the summer, seasonal events, help navigating social and “We had no profound revelation,” emergency services, counseling added Adam. “We looked at Jesus’ and the Brayden House which life on earth and saw where he offers free housing and meals for spent His time and who He spent displaced parents of babies in the His time with. Then we looked at NICU of the local hospital. our lives and saw that they were not modeled after His. We thought that maybe we should put in a little effort to our lives so they would look more like Jesus. How could we live in community with people like He did?”

“But,” said Adam, “what we really do is none of those things.”

Their ministry, according to Amy, is “to have a sense of awareness day-to-day. I try to be intentional in coming to know and love my neighbor. There are these boundaries that exist between us based on racial history, socioeconomics and culture. I cultivate actual relationships with my neighbors across those boundaries.

For example, when someone sees the clothesline in our backyard, they may ask, ‘Hey, can I hang my laundry on your line?’ and then we get to hang out in the backyard and get to know each other while their clothes dry.”

While neighbors regularly come to them with different needs, “it’s not about fixing a problem,” Adam

“We wanted to do community, to walk with people, and there was this community right down the street,” Amy recalled.

The community right down the street was West Circle, a government housing neighborhood with around 200 duplexes and apartments. “When a house became available in West Circle the timing just seemed right.

We moved in and we’ve been here for almost 20 years now.”

Without a list of goals, a step-bystep development plan or even a vision board, the Pierces’ ministry in West Circle was able to form naturally over time through the relationships they made with their neighbors. Like many naturally-formed things, it grew

AM Y P I E RC E WI TH S TUDE NTS I N TH E B ROW N HOUSE MIN ISTRY.

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A L U M N I explained. “Our sons are friends, then the more time we spend in so we get to know each other. We those places, the more Christ-like see each other in the garden. We our view of the world, ourselves sit at the table and talk about our and our neighbors becomes.” lives. There are times when we can When worldviews shift, so do help, and there are other times we priorities. After 20 years cannot meet their needs. But I can Adam finds that he cares more listen and be a friend. Sometimes about being present with other ways to help reveal people than being perfect on themselves out of that friendship. theological principles.

“There is often a lot of shame and “Does it really matter what I embarrassment in having to ask believe about free will when our for help, but there’s an ease in friend [who doesn’t have a home] communicating about life with knocks on my door?” he said. “I’m friends. So, the question for us, convinced that is what’s most then, is not ‘how can I help?’ It’s important. ‘how can I create relationships?’

Where can we be friends? And our neighbors have helped us, too. Ministry is often one-sided.

Relationships are reciprocal. You want them to be. One neighbor gave us chicken; Amy showed her how to use a Crock Pot. That’s the way community works.”

This reframing of ministry is reflected in the Pierces defining mission for The Brown House: proximity, community and opportunity.

“Maybe some people can become more Christ-like without moving.

Maybe it’s a sign of our inherent weakness that we couldn’t get there where we were,” Adam said.

But for them, physical proximity to the West Circle community was a needed step toward Jesus. Loving their neighbors did not have to be a metaphor. Why not just become neighbors?

Are we being Christ where Christ is needed?

Are we being Christ’s presence in the world?”

While Adam, a business owner with a Lipscomb physics degree, has seen his life with God and neighbors become more in line with Jesus since moving to West Circle, he says the groundwork for that life was laid years before while he was a student at Lipscomb in the “crowded Bible classes of [then-Bible faculty] Randy Harris.”

“Once you spend time with people in the types of places Jesus stayed, how you see and interpret the world shifts. You see and understand what you didn’t before. Some 15 years after graduating If we think Jesus was right—that from Lipscomb, Adam heard He was the best humanity can be— Harris speak again at an event and

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realized just how transforming those classes had been. “His way of acknowledging the mystery and vastness of God coupled with an ethical and moral approach to neighbors was hugely impactful on my life. In many ways what he taught in his classes have become deeply held beliefs of my own.”

When Amy thinks about Lipscomb, she chooses to imagine its future possibilities instead of reminiscing about the past. She sees the faces of specific children who have grown up alongside The Brown House. “Maybe there are opportunities at Lipscomb for them. I know Christian institutions want to make an impact and this would be a way to do that. We can be purposeful and intentional about giving opportunities to students from communities like West Circle.”

Amy is adept at imagining possibilities. Being purposeful and intentional about opportunities for their neighborhood continues to be at the heart of The Brown House even during the pandemic. At the same time COVID-19 restrictions placed limits on proximity, they inspired creative responses to the needs of the community.

“Our after-school tutoring ended abruptly when schools closed.

It was so sudden that there were no goodbyes, no hugs. Our tutors became pen pals. We started seeing people around the neighborhood less because they were staying home. I didn’t see some neighbors for weeks,” said Amy. “The neighbors I did see I would talk to standing back in the doorway.”

When the pandemic continued into the summer and fall, other Brown House activities had to be canceled or changed, too, like the weekly Thursday night events and the yearly talent show. “We did have a socially distanced cookout, which was our neighbor’s suggestion,” said Amy. In lieu of hosting the 10th annual Halloween party, the Pierces created an online fundraiser to raise $10,000 to “celebrate 10 years of community Halloween fun.”

each student has their own binder, paper, markers, glue and sanitizer that stays with Amy when they leave. All snacks are now individually packaged, all water is bottled and all faces are masked.

“We don’t do this alone,” said Amy. “We have an army of people who enable us to do this. We are not lacking in volunteers, and I’m extremely grateful for that.”

A nursing club at the University of Alabama bought all of the binders and school supplies. Two donors “Our community garden gifted them with wagons when involvement was the best it’s been Amy mentioned on social media this fall. White, Black and Latino that she needed a way to haul all gardening together. It’s a good all of the school supplies back outdoor activity and stress reliever, and forth from her house to the I think,” she said. “There is a local outdoor tutoring site. church that has partnered with us to build extra seating on our back “People are reaching out to us porch and build picnic tables for saying, ‘I don’t know what to do. more outdoor seating.”

How can I serve?’ So, it’s not ideal, but we’re doing what we can. And When the fall semester began, it seems to be worth Amy started to work at the local doing anyway.” elementary school in the mornings to help fill in any gaps teachers In West Circle, Adam and Amy may be experiencing with behavior Pierce have discovered a way of and academics. life worth doing. “For me,” said Adam, following Jesus “had to be “We went back and forth about an immersive experience to be whether to start our after-school impactful. So that’s what I tell tutoring again. We don’t want to others. Commit. Commit to an risk anyone’s health and at the act of service with those Jesus same time we don’t want our kids spent his time with. Volunteer as a to fall behind. We want them to chaplain, visit prisoners, become have some sense of normalcy. So a foster parent. And don’t just do our decision was ‘let’s try it and it for a couple of months. Make a modify as we go,’” she said.

10-year commitment to spend time Instead of 20-25 kids meeting with the marginalized and see inside around kitchen tables and what happens.” huddled together on the floor, tutoring now takes place outside You can see what’s happening with 10-15 kids, each one sitting with The Brown House and inside a hula hoop. Instead of discover ways to get involved at saying hello with a hug, they brownhousecommunity.org and greet each other by touching toes. by following them on Facebook Instead of sharing school supplies, and Instagram.

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A L U M N I

THE

ENTREPRENEURIAL L IP S CO MB A LUMNI CREAT E AN AG I LE , T HR IVI N G CH URCH FOR AN EV ER- CH ANG I N G C IT Y ust two years out of graduate school at Lipscomb University, Dave Clayton (’04, MA ’06) found himself calling an open-air park shelter in Green Hills Park his new church home. His wife Sydney (’02) and 10 other friends had committed to pray and discern in regards to their role in planting a new church in Nashville.

With very little money to obtain a meeting location, from May to September in 2008, they met for worship and fellowship at either the park’s pavilion, a nearby baseball field’s bleachers or the clubhouse of a nearby apartment building, depending on the weather or the availability.

From these humble beginnings grew a congregation that has thrived and grown to serve thousands of Nashvillians as members as well as coordinating a continual church planting ministry and multi-state spiritual initiative.

Clayton, who served as the founding director of Lipscomb’s campus ministry department from 2003 to 2009, organized the core group that eventually established Ethos Church and later began devoting his fulltime energy to the mission of Ethos in Nashville and beyond.

Ethos Church was “birthed out of the spiritual and physical needs we saw emerging in a changing city,” said Clayton, and while Ethos Church looks a lot different today than it did in 2008, the city of Nashville is still changing, emerging and facing

challenges like never before.

Clayton and Ethos are facing those challenges the same way they have from the beginning: “how do we very tangibly take our cues from Jesus, together as a group.”

LN: As you were growing up in Charleston, S.C., did you have aspirations to become a church planter?

Clayton: It was not on my radar at all. My family loved Jesus and the Church, but I never thought about church planting. I came to Lipscomb to study theology, but I was also really interested in entrepreneurial pursuits. So I didn’t come in with a clear focus to plant churches.

not yet learned how to live into and walk in the ways of Jesus. Those two things are very, very different. I would see students who got up and went to chapel and checked all the right boxes, but there was a serious lack of the fruit of the Spirit in their life. I say that empathetically, not judgmentally. It really stinks to be a Christian your whole life and never experience the joy of the Kingdom.

So we started creating places for community, finding ways to serve together and teaching students how to share their faith in meaningful ways. In my junior year, I started student-led Bible studies. On Sunday nights we created a gathering called

As far back as I can remember I have always started things. In high school I apprenticed under a guy who was a serial entrepreneur. He must have started 60 businesses. I worked for him for two years, and it was the best education I ever got. He taught me how to make something new out of something that wasn’t even there.

LN: How did that entrepreneurial spirit play out as you studied at Lipscomb and went on to become a campus minister at the university?

DAVE CLAYTON WAS NAMED YOUNG ALUMNUS OF THE YEAR IN 2013.

Clayton: It’s just the way my mind is wired. It’s just what I have always done spiritually. It started when I was a junior at Lipscomb by recognizing the profound spiritual needs that were still in the lives of students, even though they were on a Christian campus. I was seeing students who had come from a Christian background but who had

“Only Jesus builds a Church. Our job is to stay close to Him, listen to Him and try to obey Him.”

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L MISSION

PHOTO BY MATT VAN DEN MEIRACKER.

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A L U M N I The Offering. Basically we were creating places for people to connect with God and each other.

LN: What sparked the desire to establish a new church in Nashville?

Clayton: [Ethos] was definitely a calling from God that was birthed out of the spiritual and physical needs we saw emerging in a changing city.

The city was growing rapidly, and on the most basic level, the church was not growing as quickly as the city.

We saw a renewed focus on the urban core, and thought about how that would impact a younger generation moving in as well as the group of people who had lived there for a long time and were being pushed out. So we started to say to ourselves: where do we see God at work in this situation? How do we live out the ways of Jesus there in front of these two groups?

The reality is that when we started, we had no idea what this thing was going to become, and we still don’t know what it will become. We try to follow a simple principle: how do we very tangibly take our cues from Jesus, together as a group. And that principle has provided a lot of mobility, allowed us to view the church as a whole where everyone has a part to play and everyone gets to be a meaningful contributor.

include three meeting locations, all rented and all located close to downtown Nashville. The church also employs a house church model, where groups meet throughout the week in homes to develop deeper, meaningful relationships and to carry out missional activities.

Church offices have migrated around the city over the years.

LN: How does the Ethos Church’s vision for obtaining and using meeting space relate to the overall outreach ministry of the congregation?

Clayton: We at Ethos have never owned a building, but we have very intentionally chosen spaces that are welcoming to non-Christians, are located in high-traffic areas in the city and have provided a low financial commitment to the church.

Every leader has to pour their life into something. For me, I don’t want that something to be a building. And it is also pragmatic. The place where we feel called to do the majority of our ministry is in the downtown area, and that is expensive.

Only Jesus builds a Church. Our job is to stay close to Him, listen to Him and try to obey Him. We recognize that there are a lot of people who are close to Jesus, but their life doesn’t seem to work out the way they would have wanted. So we don’t turn that [principle] into a formula for success; we are just trying to follow Him.

Our goal is to serve anybody and everybody with a heartbeat. All of our locations seek to serve the poor and the upwardly mobile — and everyone in between.

Our first meeting location (the Cannery Ballroom) is located close to the Rescue Mission and the headquarters for Room in the Inn (a faith-based outreach to those experiencing homelessness) as well as Cummins Station and The Gulch (two successful commercial and real estate developments).

Those locations represent two totally different groups who both desperately need Jesus.

Over the course of nearly 12 years, the Ethos Church has grown to

Our goal is to determine how we mobilize those two groups in order to

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serve and do life with Jesus together.

Whoever God sends us, it is our job to send them out into the mission.

After seeing Clayton take initiative while still a student to create spiritual programming and opportunities for other Lipscomb students, the university approached him about applying his skills as Lipscomb’s first campus minister, a position that didn’t even have a firm job description at the time.

LN: How did your time working as campus minister at Lipscomb impact the work with Ethos?

Clayton: Some things I started in campus ministry have had obvious carry over, such as events focused on serving the city as a community or Resurrection Week activities at Easter time, but the biggest thing I took away from time at Lipscomb, I think, is the example I saw from leaders like Scott McDowell (then Lipscomb’s vice president of student life), to see the potential in others and to give people space to live out that potential. Scott McDowell made a space at the table for me, and I have tried to do that with a lot of other people since.

LN: You are also the executive director of Onward Church Planting. Tell me about the thought process behind that initiative.

Clayton: One thing we realized several years ago, as Ethos was really growing, was that we needed to address how to disciple and train future leaders and send them out. There are some things we have learned along the way, so we developed a way to share those things so that they advance the Kingdom of God, not just advance the particular mission of Ethos. So we invite leaders to come and just do life with us as we train them for

DAVE CLAYTON, CENTER, AT LIPSCOMB’S SUMMER CELEBRATION EVENT WITH CARL MCKELVEY, LONGTIME LIPSCOMB ADMINISTRATOR AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF LIPSCOMB’S CENTER FOR SPIRITUAL RENEWAL, AND SCOTT SAGER, LIPSCOMB’S VICE PRESIDENT OF CHURCH SERVICES.

ministry. We pour our energy into them, and then we bless them and send them out.

That is one of the ways we have seen the Kingdom advance most significantly. In addition to our hub in Nashville, we are in the process of launching a hub in Europe and two hubs in Africa, in hopes that we will be able to release dozens of new church planters into Europe and Africa.

It comes through the same idea: doing it the way Jesus does it, and letting it go from there. We have had 70 to 80 leaders go through that journey with us. Some leaders

move here and get a job in the city as they train with us. Others stay at home and come in every month to get training or get trained through Zoom. We have more than 40 churches and campus ministries and nonprofits we have started out of that effort.

Nashville to pray for every person in the city by name. That first year (2019) we had 419 churches join us to pray for every person in the city, every day, for 30 days.

LN: Tell me about the latest big initiative on your plate: Awaken.

The next year (2020), we did it again with more than 700 churches in Nashville, and we had churches in 11 cities across the state join us and churches in other nations join us.

Clayton: We really believe that when you look at the ways that God is moving all across the world, it almost always starts in a place of prayer and fasting. So a couple of years ago, we felt God calling us to mobilize all the churches in

This is one more way we are trying to advance the Kingdom, by talking to God about His lost children. God can do something powerful there.

Awaken has taken on a life of its own and gone well beyond Onward and Ethos.

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A L U M N I

KAYLA FORD SAYS,

“Here am I. Send me,” TO RESIDENCY AT B ROOKLY N ME T HODIST H OSPITAL

Sometimes all God needs to ease pain is a listening ear.

In August, Kayla Ford (’17), a May 2020 Yale Divinity School graduate, moved to the U.S. city hardest hit by the first wave of the coronavirus to be that listening ear.

When Ford accepted a spot in New York City Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital’s residency chaplain program in February 2020, COVID-19 was something still limited to TV news reports on China’s efforts to stop it. She was still working toward her Master of Divinity from Yale and was planning to move to New York City immediately after graduation.

She could not foresee at that time that New York City would become the first U.S. epicenter of a virus that is continuing to change Americans’ daily lives. That New York residents would spend 78 days in total lockdown and emerge to still face economic, racial and health care challenges.

Like many 2020 graduates, she was facing a completely different job market and practice setting than she expected, but she is facing those challenges in a city that has seen more than 936,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 32,800 deaths at the time of printing.

Unlike many of her fellow graduates, Ford did not see her post-graduate placement cancelled, and she relocated to NYC as planned in August 2020. Even with only hundreds, rather than more than 10,000, COVID cases a day in

the state, New York City was still in great need of spiritual comfort, she said.

“It’s a job that is normally very emotionally exhausting. It is challenging personally and spiritually,” said Ford, who graduated with a double major in English and philosophy.

“But this job is something I have been preparing for regardless of COVID-19. So when the pandemic happened, I knew that I had already signed up to do that hard job, so I might as well, because we will certainly need chaplains right now. It is a sad but true reality, at this point in time, that there is still a need for hospital chaplains.”

on what it means to be human and why people suffer.

Ford sees the resident chaplaincy at Brooklyn Methodist as the “A lot of work in chaplaincy is perfect opportunity to not only listening to people’s stories and bring comfort to people, but to also helping them to find meaning in explore her particular interest in their suffering,” she said. Likewise, ministry: the theological questions her experiences on mission trips to inherent in human suffering.

Guatemala and to the Bronx, New York opened her “up to different Ford grew up in Tennessee and types of suffering. I was drawn to Texas and came to Lipscomb to the people,” she said. major in philosophy intending to go to law school. But her classes “I got to know myself better in in Bible, religion and literature, college and realized that I am participation in mission trips and more of a healer than an arguer. service as the chaplain of her social I am more naturally gifted to club Phi Sigma convinced her that professions related to ministry divinity school would be a better and people.” path for her.

Yale Divinity School seemed like She was intellectually challenged a good option for her continued by the questions posed in her studies as the divinity school dean, philosophy of religion and Gregory Sterling, is a member of a Christian ethics classes and applied Church of Christ congregation, a to graduate schools in hopes of New Testament scholar and a exploring theological questions 52

KAYLA FORD, SECOND FROM LEFT, WITH HER PHI SIGMA SOCIAL CLUB PALS DURING HER YEARS AT LIPSCOMB.

frequent attendee at Lipscomb’s annual Christian Scholars’ Conference.

At Yale she took courses in pastoral care, trauma, ethics and narrative care, a technique to bring meaning to people’s lives through the sharing and restructuring of their stories.

She also took a course in a women’s prison, similar to Lipscomb’s LIFE program, which she did not have an opportunity to participate in during her undergraduate years. In her second year of divinity school, she was accepted for a chaplaincy internship at Lenox Hill Hospital, also in New York City, for the summer of 2019.

Chaplains traditionally provide pastoral care, generally defined as social, emotional and spiritual support, in a secular setting, such as the military, prisons or hospitals.

At Lenox Hill, Ford spent her summer visiting with patients and their families, sometimes at their request and sometimes as a friendly drop-by. Chaplains frequently attend to patients who may be nervous about a surgery or who just received upsetting test results as well as families grieving a loss, she said. At Brooklyn Methodist, chaplains are required to attend to the family at every in-hospital death, she said.

“Patients want listening,” Ford said.

“People want to be heard and seen.

They want to honor the suffering they are going through, so they want to talk about it because the burden is too much to carry alone.”

Prayer is a common activity with

patients and their families, she said. contagious patients with the flu, “There is something emotionally pneumonia or C. diff and staph cathartic about hearing your infections. struggles spoken out loud with “Patients who had these conditions another person.” were some of my most thankful Physical touch is a powerful tool patients because of how much it in these situations, one that Ford meant for them to see someone. notes is now lost in many situations They were so, so lonely,” said due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ford. “COVID poses real challenges to the way we do pastoral care.

“Hand holding or touching of any While I’m grateful for the ability kind is not allowed,” said Ford. to videoconference, it isn’t quite While the hospital had relatively the same. Regardless, I know God’s few COVID-19 patients by fall, presence traverses time and space Ford was still required to wear a and transcends physical barriers.” mask and goggles to interact with any patient at all in the hospital, Ford had all the normal human whether they are contagious or not. fears of anyone walking into a health care environment during “That is the big challenge COVID a pandemic. She worried, not so brings. How can we be present to much for her own health, but that people’s suffering without being she may inadvertently pass the present physically? How can you virus along to others. She also had make them feel heard and seen, all the normal fears of someone and not alone, when they are moving to live in the largest and alone?” densest city in the U.S. But she “The way in which I communicate doesn’t plan to let those worries has changed. I try to convey that stop her.

I’m happy or glad or sad in other “I know that I am doing important ways, through my eyes or my hands and meaningful work. I am happy or my posture. Another way COVID to do it, because I know it is really has been challenging is that each needed,” Ford said. patient, no matter if they have COVID or not, has very limited “I remember [during my internship] visiting hours and is only allowed having patients leave and my two visitors per day. This has been knowing they had had the very isolating for several of my opportunity to say something patients. Especially in crisis it can they had never said before or to be extremely difficult to not be have someone to hold their hand. with family.”

You can tell when they have this moment of relief. I am always Ford had already experienced happy to provide relief. It is God wearing personal protective doing the work and using me equipment during her Lenox as a tool.”

Hill internship to minister to 53

CENTERING

C O R E To be a more intentionally Christian university Knowing the right thing to do is impossible without first knowing who you are. This is true for both individuals and institutions. Lipscomb’s Centering Core reminds us of who we are and of who we can be together.

In February 2018, when the Board of Trustees approved and adopted the Centering Core statement, the nation was still early in what we now have seen is a years-long season of division during which Christian institutions must work to continually rise above all the secular standards surrounding them, including the marginalization of the Christian faith.

“We get so involved in the issues we face as faculty that we can forget the reasons we’re all here at Lipscomb in the first place and how we as Lipscomb faculty should face them,” Lipscomb’s Provost Craig Bledsoe said recently. “It centers us as an institution in our diversity. Our faculty come from diverse backgrounds and experiences. So the Centering Core is the signpost we have at the beginning of every meeting that allows us to move forward together in a positive way.”

Dr. Bledsoe points to this shared identity as one of the reasons Lipscomb was able to transition from in-person to online classes so quickly in response to the pandemic last spring. “In two weeks our faculty (about 300 professors) went from teaching in-class to online with an amazing spirit that reflects the values of this institution. Our work is Kingdom work. That’s my motivation for being at Lipscomb and that’s what will get me through what I need to get through.”

According to research by Christian historian George M. Marsden, intentional “traditions and mechanisms” are one tool Christian higher education institutions have effectively used throughout the centuries to stay strong in their foundation of faith.

President L. Randolph Lowry and the Board had all this in mind when they charged College of Bible & Ministry leaders to initiate an intentional conversation about how Lipscomb defines itself as a Christian university today. They were asking, ‘What is—and what should be—the centering core of this university as we face the challenges of today’s society?’

Today, Lipscomb’s Centering Core is read at the beginning of every university-wide faculty meeting and board meeting and is discussed at orientations for new faculty and staff.

The Centering Core is not an external motivator. It is not a tool to be picked up and used when needed. It is not a list of external rules faculty and staff must abide by.

“It’s what we mean when we say Christian,” says Hicks. “This is the story I tell in my classes. We want to help our students understand how to live into this story. This is what the theology and ministry faculty is committed to — to show how this story gives meaning to our work, how it gives meaning to our lives.”

My fellow professor, John Mark Hicks, who helped create the core statement said: “The Centering Core reveals our identity in terms of a narrative we believe. It’s a story we embody, incarnate, lean into and live out.”

The core is based on the Apostle’s Creed and has been expanded to include practices and values shared throughout the Christian community.

Leonard Allen

Dean, College of Bible & Ministry

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WE BELIEVE We believe in God the Father, who created the heavens and the earth, making all human beings as divine image bearers.

We violated the image of God in others and ourselves, and abandoned our role in the creation.

In response, God chose Israel as a blessing and light to all peoples, in order to renew the creation.

We believe in God the Son, Jesus the Messiah, born of the virgin Mary.

He was fully human and fully God. Baptized in water and anointed with the Spirit, he proclaimed the reign of God: preaching good news to the poor and brokenhearted, announcing forgiveness by calling all to repent and believe the good news, and commissioning his followers to make disciples, baptizing them into the communion of the Father, Son, and Spirit and teaching them to embrace this new way of life.

Jesus was crucified, giving his life for the sin of the world.

God raised Jesus from the dead, breaking the power of sin and evil, delivering us from death to eternal life, and inaugurating new creation.

God enthroned Jesus as the Lord of creation.

We believe in God the Holy Spirit, the giver and renewer of life, whom the Father, through the Son, poured out upon us, enabling us to love God and neighbor, and binding us together with all believers in the church, the Body of Christ, and together we give thanks at the table of the Lord.

The Spirit spoke through the prophets and apostles, and inspired Scripture to equip us for every good work.

The Spirit empowers us to witness to Christ as Lord and Savior, and to work for justice and peace as we seek to live holy and joyful lives.

We believe in the resurrection of the dead, wait for God’s new heaven and new earth, and pray, “Come, Lord Jesus!”

Approved by Lipscomb University’s Board of Trustees on February 3, 2018. Edited May 9, 2019.

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