THE STUDY CENTER
LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
An Exciting New Chapter Begins STAFF
DEAR FRIENDS,
Every year when the fall semester begins, it’s “off to the races” at the Study Center, and this year was no exception. We started with our larger-than-ever Foundations Week retreat for incoming students followed by our signature Move-In Day Lunch. Then, wanting to further welcome students to our new and expanded space, we decided to match our traditional end-of-semester Exam Snacks with a similar event on the first day of classes: FDOC Snacks. It was a huge hit. Since then, we’ve kicked off our regular undergraduate and graduate programs. You’ll hear more about these ministries in the pages that follow.
This year there was also “the race before the race” as we sprinted to get the new and renovated spaces ready by the time students arrived. (In fact, that happened last year as well: the patio installers were still placing bricks hours before our 2023 Move-In Day Lunch!) The push this time around was to get our certificate of occupancy. Thankfully, it all worked out and we praise God for our new space. It’s such an incredible provision for this ministry and we know that it’s thanks to the Lord’s generosity through so many of you.
Looking ahead, don’t forget the Study Center’s Grand Celebration on April 4th and 5th. We’ll celebrate the Lord’s faithfulness to this ministry over the past 50 years, spend time with old friends, hear from friends of the ministry, and see the old and the new at 128 Chancellor Street. We expect to reach our capacity for the event, so I hope you’ll RSVP and register right away.
Blessings to you all and enjoy the newsletter!
YOURS IN OUR LORD,
BILL WILDER Executive Director
FITZ GREEN Senior Director for Education & Programming
KATIE BLACK Director of Undergraduate Ministries for Women
RICK CAMPANELLI Director of Graduate Ministries
CHLOE CARTER Ministry Intern
HANNAH FRITZEEN Director of Hospitality
STUART HORNSBY Director of Development & Parent and Alumni Relations
DREW MASTERSON Director of Undergraduate Ministries for Men
JAN MATHEWS Administrative Assistant
LYDIA MARLIN Communications & Project Manager
TRISH OWEN Librarian
DEBBIE RODRIGUEZ Director of Finance
DANIELLE WILCOX Advisor for Strategy & Advancement
817-1050
Bill Wilder Executive Director
A Warm Welcome What We’re Reading
Move-In Day Lunch at the Study Center
BY CHLOE CARTER
Last month we had the joy of hosting our Move-In Day Lunch—an annual event since the 1990s. Move-In Day Lunch welcomes UVA first-year families to the Christian community on Grounds, helping the students to find a home at the Study Center before classes begin.
This year we served a family-style lunch in our new main meeting room. There, families made connections with each other, heard from Study Center friends and staff, and got a glimpse into the community that will support their students while they’re at UVA. The afternoon concluded with a ministry fair on our front patio, where students could connect with a number of the many Christian ministries active on Grounds.
Move-In Day Lunch provides a meaningful start to each student’s UVA journey, introducing them to the rich community here in Charlottesville. We look forward to seeing these new relationships flourish and to supporting our students as they embark on this exciting chapter of their lives!
We asked... What do you enjoy most about life at the Study Center?
BILL’S PICK
PERELANDRA by C.S. Lewis
Imagine a world in which Adam and Eve make a different choice. In 1945 a recent UVA graduate, Chad Walsh, came across a copy of Perelandra, the second volume in a space trilogy by C.S. Lewis. It changed his life. “Here, at last, was science fiction as science fiction at its fullest development should be,” he later wrote. “In Perelandra, I got the smell of Christian truth. My senses as well as my soul were baptized.”
TRISH’S PICK
READING FOR THE LOVE OF GOD by Jessica Hooten Wilson
Reading has the power to transform. In this book, Wilson shows us how to read as a spiritual practice through the lens of how Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Frederick Douglass, and Dorothy L. Sayers approached the act of reading.
DEBBIE’S PICK
FIRE ROAD by
Kim Phuc Phan Thi
This book covers the story of Kim’s life and journey through excruciating physical pain, trauma, and loss during the Vietnam War and fall of Saigon. Not only is it a deeply moving book about suffering, but it is also a story about God’s faithfulness on a journey toward healing and faith in Jesus.
“One of my favorite study center rhythms is the weekly Bible study with Drew and Katie. The way that they crawl through a text, examining every verse with different translations, the historical roots and cultural context, and looking at references to other parts of the Bible, makes these texts more clear and personal than I am used to in a Bible study.”
–SELBY IRELAND ‘25
Incoming Students at Move-In Day Lunch 2024 PETER LARSON
large-scale event at the Study Center. We have been waiting for this new season for years and are thrilled to be able to open wide our doors to welcome so many more into the building this year!
We are looking forward to a full year of ministry and to hosting our 50th Anniversary Grand Celebration in April. Additionally, next summer we will host staff and interns from study centers across the country for the Consortium of Christian Study Centers Annual Meeting.
In the meantime, we are serving students and the Christian community on Grounds every day through weekly rhythms of small groups, prayer, scripture reading, and much more. We are filled with gratitude for the Lord’s faithfulness and looking forward to how he will work in our new space and through the ministry of the Study Center in the years to come.
Faith, Friendship, and Formation
Reflections on Foundations Week
BY DREW MASTERSON
What a joy it was to wrap up our largest-ever Foundations Week recently! We schedule this four-day program for incoming first years strategically, during the week before the start of classes. We have three main hopes for these students: 1) that they form strong friendships, 2) that they get familiar with Grounds and Charlottesville, and 3) that they gain a solid grounding in a biblical worldview and an understanding of the competing worldviews active at UVA.
When I started at the Study Center, a “full class” of Foundations Week students was twelve. This year, by God’s grace, we had the privilege of hosting twenty-three. This growth was made possible by the Center’s brand-new main meeting room and prep kitchen, which served as our base of operations for the week.
As word about this formative program gets out to more incoming students, we hope to continue growing the group without compromising the experiences that make it so special in the first place.
RON LONDEN (5)
Students line up for dinner down Chancellor Street
President Ryan stops by to visit with students
A Home for Service & Community
BY LYDIA MARLIN
TWO OF THE MOST DEEPLY formative initiatives in our undergraduate ministry are the Internship Program and the Residential Scholars Program. Both get at the heart of our mission and vision at the Study Center.
The Internship Program teaches students to love their neighbors through service. This year thirteen interns are serving at the Study Center daily, ensuring it remains a clean and inviting space, supporting the function and organization of the library, leading our hospitality events such as Exam Snacks, and much more. In Liturgy of the Ordinary, Tish Harrison Warren quotes a sign hanging on the wall of a New Monastic Christian community house: “Everyone wants a revolution. No one wants to do the dishes.” In a university context that (with good reason) encourages students to dream big and lead well,
the Intern Program is all about washing dishes. The intern team worships the Lord through these small yet profound acts of hospitality toward our neighbors.
The Residential Program fosters intentional community for Christian formation. This looks like residents celebrating together, mourning together, and working through conflict together—but above all, belonging to each other (Rom 12:5). Male participants live together at the Study Center while female students reside in the “Yellow House” next door. Each resident engages in a mentoring relationship with an older Christian who can offer perspective and encourage spiritual growth. Residents participate in house meetings for sharing and prayer, gather on a weekly basis for dinner and worship, and participate in a community retreat at the start of the year.
Darden Christian Fellowship Highlight
BY RICK CAMPANELLI
The Darden School is among the most challenging programs in America, and it affords tremendous opportunities. For over thirty years, Darden Christian Fellowship (DCF), supported by the Study Center, has communicated good news: that the greatest opportunity students can discover in their time here is to put the kingdom of God first and grow in their relationship with the Lord.
Each Tuesday we host First Coffee devotionals at Darden, where a DCF member, alum, or faculty member offers a scripture. As their peers pass by on the way to class, students from across the US and around the world enjoy bagels as they fellowship and pray together. On Fridays this fall, the DCF Bible study is diving into the letters of John, and on Mondays an evening book club is working through J.I. Packer’s Knowing God. All of this, we pray, will bless our students, their families, their work, and their communities.
Every year we host a dinner for interns, residents, and staff to have the chance to meet one another, fellowship together, and hear from our executive director, Bill Wilder, as he shares his hopes for the upcoming year. This year Bill shared Romans 12:1–2 as the inspiration for the mission and vision of the Study Center. Through the intentional life of our residents and the hospitable service of our interns, we are calling these students to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom 12:2).
As Bill pointed out, this is a community project enabled by the Holy Spirit. Together, in their learning, service, and care for one another, these interns and residents are living into the new age that has already dawned with the resurrection of Jesus as we look forward to the full restoration of the world.
Fall Rhythms at the Study Center
Each semester we offer multiple small groups for students to dig deeper into various subjects and investigate the truths of the historic Christian faith. To the right are two of our current small group offerings.
See www.studycenter.net/ small-groups for all of the groups this semester.
I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE... LIVING AS EXILES IN AN ELECTION SEASON
led by Katie Black and Fitz Green
What difference does it make if we believe that Jesus is King? As Christians, we are called to proclaim our allegiance to him, not to a political party. What are the implications of this for how we live in a democracy? Using Preston Sprinkle’s book Exiles: The Church in the Shadow of Empire, this group is extracting insight from the metaphor of exile in the bible and what it means for us as Christians living in America today.
DATE CHANGE
What Makes My Life Worth It? A Veritas Forum Conversation with Curt Thompson and Ed Freeman
THE STUDY CENTER is partnering with The Veritas Forum to host an honest conversation exploring two very different perspectives on the meaning and purpose of life. Curt Thompson, MD, a psychiatrist and the author of The Soul of Shame and Anatomy of the Soul, believes meaning is rooted in an overarching story that has God as its author. R. Edward Freeman, PhD, a professor of business administration at the Darden School of Business well-known for his work in business ethics, holds that we are the authors of our own stories.
To accommodate one of our speakers, this event will be postponed until early next semester. Keep an eye out for the updated date for this event. We hope to see you there!
YOUR BRAIN ON JESUS: THE NEUROSCIENCE OF LONGING, BEAUTY, AND COMMUNITY
led by Drew Masterson
What do we do with our deepest longings? Renowned clinical psychiatrist Curt Thompson wrote The Soul of Desire to invite us to consider how the good news of the Christian story harmonizes with recent findings in neuroscience and developmental psychology. By weaving the two together, Thompson articulates a compelling vision of the Good Life to counter our culture’s recent slide into individualism, tribalism, and consumerism. This group is reading and discussing Thompson’s insightful book in preparation for his visit to UVA next semester for a Veritas Forum Conversation.
Grand Celebration
JOIN US FOR A SPECIAL WEEKEND, Friday, April 4, through Saturday, April 5, 2025. Together, we will thank God for 50 years of ministry and commit the next 50 years to his guidance.
We’re pleased to announce that our keynote speaker will be Andy Crouch, a partner for theology and culture at Praxis, a venture-building ecosystem advancing redemptive entrepreneurship. He is the author of Playing God and Culture Making, among others. For more than 10 years he was an editor and producer at Christianity Today, including serving as executive editor from 2012 to 2016. His work and writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Time. Andy studied classics at Cornell University and received an MDiv from Boston University School of Theology.