A PUBLICATION OF THE CENTER FOR CHRISTIAN STUDY
A HOME AWAY FROM HOME BY JAY MC CA B E , PAGE 3
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FALL 2011
THIS ISSUE: A Home Away From Home: Creating Space for the Gospel in Students’ Lives by Jay McCabe, page 3
Creation and New Creation: How Should Christians View Concern for the Environment? by Fitz Green, page 6
A Time of Transition in Graduate Ministries: Welcome Sharon and Fitz! by Bill Wilder, page 10
STUDY CENTER STAFF BILL WILDER
Executive Director bill@studycenter.net
LANE COWIN
Director of Undergraduate Ministries for Women lane@studycenter.net
SHARON DECKER
Director of Graduate Ministries sharon@studycenter.net
On the cover: Even during summer break there are plenty of students in town for summer school, internships and more, including those pictured here (L-R): Lansdale Henderson, Natalie Kirchner, Caleb Gross, Marie Vallido, Adam Rice, Melanie Fish, Rachel Vogel and Drake Diamond. (Cover photo by Elisa Bricker.)
FITZ GREEN
Director of Educational Ministries fitz@studycenter.net
JAY MCCABE
Director of Undergraduate Ministries jay@studycenter.net
A lumni , Parents and Stu d e n ts:
STUDY CENTER TAILGATE
SHELLY PELLISH
Director of Development, Alumni + Parent Relations shelly@studycenter.net
DEBBIE RODRIGUEZ
Director of Finance + Administration debbie@studycenter.net
ASHLEY WOOTEN
Director of Communications ashleyw@studycenter.net
AMY ZELL
Director of Counseling Resources amy@studycenter.net
WHO WE ARE We are a non-profit education and outreach ministry serving the University of Virginia and Charlottesville since 1968. We seek to serve Jesus Christ by fostering the serious consideration in the university environment of a Biblical worldview, and by encouraging and facilitating wise discussion of the Truth in light of the challenges of contemporary culture.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15 2 HOURS BEFORE KICKOFF EAST LOT A #182 Kindly RSVP online, www.studycenter.net/tailgate
CONTACT US Phone: (434) 817-1050 Email: info@studycenter.net Website: www.studycenter.net Twitter: studycenteruva Facebook: studycenteruva The Study Center Newsletter is published for our friends and supporters. University Christian Ministries, Inc. (dba Center for Christian Study) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit
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corporation EIN 51-0192618.
Photo by Elisa Bricker
A favorite time of the year for staff (although perhaps not for students) is during exams, as we work with parents to provide exam snacks three times daily. The snacks create a gathering time for students to take a break and enjoy fellowship in the midst of exams.
A HOME AWAY FROM HOME: Creating Space for the Gospel in Students’ Lives
by Jay McCabe, Director of Undergraduate Ministries jay@studycenter.net
HO SPI TALITY TO REL ATIONS H IP If you ask our students what makes the Study Center a significant place for them, you’ll almost certainly hear about the hospitality. That’s such an important part of what we do, so we figured it was time to share the ways that our hospitality ministry is leading to transformation of hearts and minds by the gospel. When a student enters the front door of the Study Center, we hope she immediately senses this is a home for students. To the left you find our recently renovated Front Room, inviting you to settle into a cozy chair and enjoy a book or casual conversation. Just beyond the Front Room is a never-ending, warm pot of Dave’s Blend from Para Coffee, free for the taking, and a kitchen where students tend to gather
for study breaks. Since these spaces are often a student’s first impression of the Study Center, we have tried to make them warm and welcoming, like stepping into a home. And, of course, we hope they’ll be drawn down the hall to the main meeting room, upstairs to our comfortable library and brand new reading room. It doesn’t stop there. Once students experience the hospitality extended at the Stud, they begin to invite and welcome their friends into this community. We have a group of students, aptly named the “Student Advisory Committee” (SAC), which helps us plan and think about our ministries at the Study Center. One of our discussions with that group last semester focused on the question “How can we make the Study Center more welcoming for students?”
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and it was clear that the responsibility rests on students as much as the staff. The SAC members as well as our Study Center residents (in the Elzinga Residential Scholars Program) do a wonderful job of taking ownership in this way, especially when the staff have left for the evening or weekend. In recent years, the
Whether relationships begin outside the walls of the Study Center or within, the next step is the same in each case – take the time to get to know each student by listening to their questions and stories, and then invite further discussion around the gospel of Jesus Christ. guy residents have taken it upon themselves to offer rides or escorts to students leaving the building late at night. This is a great example of the way students see this as not only a house, but actually their house. That hospitality also moves outside the walls of the Study Center in other ways. The fact is that most U.Va. students will not find their way into the Study Center building or community, so we recognize the need to meet them on “their turf”. For this reason, we’ve begun helping with summer orientations for incoming students where we have the opportunity to let families know about the Move-In Day Lunch and our ministry partners on Grounds. In August, we have a table at the Student Activities Fair so we can let students know about the resources available at the Study Center and our upcoming events. Whether relationships begin outside the walls of the Study Center or within, the next step is the same in each case – take the time to get to know each student by listening to their questions and stories, and then invite further discussion around the gospel of Jesus Christ. In this way, outreach and hospitality both lead to deep conversations and the formation of loving relationships with students. We continue to find that
these interactions provide the best “soil” for students to be transformed by an encounter with Jesus. PA RT N E RS HIP S OL D A N D N E W One new way that we are putting this combination of outreach and hospitality into practice is by forging a more intentional partnership with First Year Fellowship (FYF). FYF is a student-led ministry that pursues relationships with first years in order to help these new students transition into the U.Va. Christian community. Since these are goals the Study Center shares with FYF, it has been a good fit to join efforts. Working with FYF will also enable us to connect with more students and provide a natural place for students to return to the Study Center and participate in our ministry after the Move-In Day Lunch. We are also in regular conversations with other undergraduate ministry leaders about ways to work together. We have been blessed to have the staff offices for InterVarsity and Reformed University Fellowship in our building, and to host weekly large or small group meetings for many groups, including Athletes in Action, Agape Christian Fellowship, Chi Alpha, and Young Life. We consistently ask these ministry partners for input and insight as we make plans each
semester and try to find ways to make a greater impact together than we could on our own.
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Photos by Elisa Bricker
This year’s Move-In Day Lunch happened over two days, allowing us to welcome over 160 first year students and their families to Christian community at the University of Virginia.
We are also increasing our capacity to care for students by adding to our undergraduate ministries staff. On July 1st, Lane Cowin became our new part-time Director of Undergraduate Ministries for Women. She will be working 20 hours per week, overseeing the women’s side of the Elzinga Residential Scholars Program and building relationships with female undergraduates. Lane brings great relational ministry experience and a freshly earned M.Div. Lane Cowin from Gordon-Conwell to this position, and we are all delighted to have her on board. CHR I STI AN S TUDY A ND FORMATION The final two emphases of our undergraduate ministries are Christian study and formation. The Center has always existed with the special calling of addressing the intellectual challenges that arise for students in the university environment. Each student who attends the University of Virginia has already proven that he is academically capable, and we affirm this as a gift from God for the benefit of His kingdom. But all too often, while students are growing in their knowledge of a particular subject and receiving a world-class education at U.Va., their understanding of Scripture remains at a rudimentary level. We insist this need not be the case. The Study Center provides a place to ask questions and receive some well-thought out answers about the possibility of a
thriving Christian faith in the university environment. This is the heart of Christian study: not that we expect all students to read only theology and the Bible, but that all knowledge is best understood as part of God’s world and in light of God’s Word. We are drawing upon a rich history of Christian engagement with the university, both in affirming truth, goodness and beauty as God’s creative intent, and in critiquing the ways sin has distorted our understanding of God, the world and ourselves. During the school year we have educational programs geared specifically toward undergraduate students– in the form of small groups, lectures, seminars and courses. We are careful to choose topics that are relevant to both a thorough understanding of the Christian faith and the questions being raised in our contemporary setting, so this past year we studied and discussed Genesis 1 and science, the historical Jesus, the gospel of Mark, the importance of doctrine, Biblical justice, St. Augustine’s Enchiridion, and Biblical theology. In addition, there were innumerable one-on-one conversations between students and our theologically-trained staff, where the Truth was explained and taught on a personal level. We consider it a great privilege to care for students while they are at U.Va. and to help direct them to love God in this stage of their lives. Our hospitality and outreach ministry opens doors for relationships, where we can then invite students to deepen their knowledge and experience of faith in Jesus, which will shape them into who they were made to be. And that is how hospitality leads to Christian study, and Christian study to Christlikeness.
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CREATION AND NEW CREATION How should Christians view concern for our environment? by Fitz Green, Director of Educational Ministries fitz@studycenter.net
Across the country “going green” is the fashionable new thing. I for one took notice when reusable bags became a common sight at the grocery store. In Charlottesville our students face many such influences. “Green books” have now replaced blue books for exams, and first year students are instructed to buy eco-friendly cleaning and dorm supplies before arriving on Grounds. It has been said that environmental concern is the new morality; we experience more social pressure to care for the environment than almost anything else today. As Christians we have good reasons for caring about this world and all of God’s creatures in it. Indeed, the current interest in the environment is an excellent opportunity to proclaim the hope we have in the gospel. How can
we tell the story of the world’s place in God’s saving plan? That story begins with a creation that God affirms seven times to be good. Humans enter as the culmination of creation, to act as stewards—even rulers—of everything God has made. Scripture sees humans representing the wisdom and goodness of God to all creation, just as a king was seen as representing God to his people and land. This is what is meant when God gives humans “dominion” over the earth and its creatures. It is what we see when Adam and Eve are placed in the garden and told to tend it and take care of it. Of course, that’s not the end of the story. Unfortunately, our relationship to the earth is distorted by the Fall. Adam’s sin introduced death into our bodies and into the world; the ground itself is cursed because of his sin. Even so, on the cross Jesus defeated sin and death, restoring us to our rightful calling both to worship of God and to act as stewards of his creation. The good news of the cross is then followed by the good news of the resurrection. Because Jesus rose from the dead, we can expect our own bodies to be renewed at the
Addressing issues of cultural concern is an important goal of our educational programs, including last year’s lecture by John Walton “Genesis 1 and the Claims of Science.”
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As Christians we have good reasons for caring about this world and all of God’s creatures in it. Indeed, the current interest in the environment is an excellent opportunity to proclaim the hope we have in the gospel.
coming resurrection (see 1 Cor 15) and given a place on a renewed earth. This is the hope of Revelation 21: a new Jerusalem that comes down from heaven to earth, restoring the whole earth to its proper worship of God. So how do we fit into this redemptive story? In the Fall, our relationships with each other are broken, characterized more often by selfish concerns than love for another. Our relationship to God’s creation is also broken, characterized by death and decay. Our “dominion” over the world and all of God’s creatures is too often that of tyrants rather than of stewards. The good news is that we await something better. The biblical picture of salvation is not one that lifts us out of nature to rescue us from it. Rather it fully heals and restores our God-given place in nature. When we accept Jesus as Lord, we find ourselves living in an in-between time: we are no longer under God’s judgment, yet we live in broken bodies and in a broken world, and long for Jesus’ coming again to bring complete restoration to both. Once again, this helps us to see how “going green” presents a real opportunity. We can and should look for ways to live out our proper human role as stewards of what God has made, anticipating in our words and actions our future inheritance as God’s appointed rulers over creation. At the same time we have to refuse the temptation to put our final hope in our own efforts to save the world. That hope is founded on the resurrection of Jesus and fixed on his glorious restoration of all things.
On October 24 Douglas Moo will be speaking at the Study Center on, “Creation and New Creation: Ecological Concern and New Testament Theology.” The Kenneth T. Weston Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College Graduate School, Dr. Moo has written extensively on Paul, including the NIV Application Commentary on Romans. He observes that care for creation runs throughout the Old Testament, but can seem to be lacking in the New Testament. We miss its place in the New Testament if we make the soul the focus of God’s saving work and separate it from the body. Reading Paul, Dr. Moo emphasizes the importance of the resurrection of Jesus, which points to our own hope of resurrection existence in the new creation. Moo’s talk will show how Paul’s use of “new creation” in Gal 6:15 and 2 Cor 5:17 draws on OT passages in which the promise of God’s salvation extends beyond Israel to the Gentiles and to the very re-creation of the world itself. As Paul writes in Rom 8:22, creation itself waits with eager longing for the coming restoration, just as we do.
OCTOBER
24
Creation and New Creation: Ecological Concern and New Testament Theology Monday, October 24, 6 - 7:30 pm
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FALL 2011 LECTURES + SEMINARS Please join us in any of our lectures or Saturday Seminars this fall, free of charge. Register on our website by visiting www.studycenter.net/lectures or www.studycenter.net/seminars.
AUGUST
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BEING A CHRISTIAN IN COLLEGE: FOLLOWING JESUS AT UVA Wednesday, August 31, 5:30 - 6:45 pm
SEPTEMBER
10 21
UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE: THE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF SCRIPTURE Saturday, September 10, 1 - 4:30 pm
TWO VIEWS: BAPTISM
Wednesday, September 21, 6:30 - 8 pm
OCTOBER
24
CREATION AND NEW CREATION: ECOLOGICAL CONCERN AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY Monday, October 24, 7 - 8:30 pm
NOVEMBER
4
5
FILM AND VOCATION: THE KING’S SPEECH Friday, November 4, 8 pm
UNDERSTANDING VOCATION: A BIBLICAL VIEW OF CALLING Saturday, November 5, 1 - 4:30 pm
30
THINKING GREEK?
Wednesday, November 30, 5:30 - 6:45 pm
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FALL 2011 SMALL GROUPS studycenter.net/smallgroups Small groups at the Center provide opportunities for community and Christian learning. Some gather to read Scripture, others for encouragement and prayer. Some gather to read discuss an influential theologian or work of literature, others to consider a particular cultural or academic issue from a Christian perspective. Undergraduate Men’s Small Group with Jay McCabe Undergraduate Women’s Small Group with Lane Cowin Faith, Reason and Science Reading Group
with Bill Wilder
Great Christian Thinkers: Ephrem the Syrian with Fitz Green Pauline Letters & Theology Reading Group with Bill Wilder
Photo by Sarah Cramer
Christianity & Culture Reading Group with Ken Myers
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A TIME OF TRANSITION IN GRADUATE MINISTRIES: Welcome Sharon and Fitz! by Bill Wilder, Executive Director bill@studycenter.net
Most people have their first introduction to the Study Center within one of our undergraduate ministry contexts, perhaps through one of the many events here at the Study Center or out of a connection with one of the staff here. So it might be easy for newcomers to miss our strong commitment to graduate students, extending all the way back to the earliest ministry of the Center. For many years now we have had a full-time Director of Graduate Ministries who provides biblical expertise, pastoral care, and, yes, a bit of organizational memory to the three graduate fellowship groups we sponsor: at the Law School (Law Christian Fellowship), the Darden School (Darden Christian Fellowship), and on Grounds (Graduate Christian Fellowship). For the past nine months our graduate ministries have been in transition as we have looked for a new director for our graduate students. That’s not an easy task under any circumstances, especially when you’re replacing a dedicated and well-loved pastorscholar like Tim McConnell, our most recent grad minister (who accepted a call to the pastorate last fall). Fortunately, Tim helped us begin a process of discernment on the Center’s Board and with the grad student leadership: where do we go from here in our graduate student ministries? At the end of this important process we decided to seek a graduate minister with a deep love for the Lord, strong theological training, a pastoral heart for graduate students, and with a background in business or law. That’s a tall order. For several months, we searched near and far for the right person. As it turned out, the right person was right at hand. Late last spring Sharon Decker, a member of our Center Board and Parent Council, expressed an interest in doing her ministry internship at the Study Center. What an answer to prayer!
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A little background will help here. For the past few years Sharon has been working on a Master of Divinity degree while also serving as the founder of the Tapestry Group ministry in Charlotte, North Carolina. Before that, Sharon enjoyed a successful career in business, becoming the first female vice president at Duke Power followed by her Sharon Decker tenure as president of Doncaster women’s apparel. Sharon continues to serve on several corporate boards, including Coca-Cola Bottling and Dollar Tree. Along with her business background and theological training, we knew that Sharon brought a commitment to the Lord marked in particular by a love for contemplative prayer. We were delighted, then, at her willingness to serve in this position during her internship this year (during which time she will take temporary leave from our Board). Sharon represents just the kind of graduate minister we would like to have in that position long-term: deep Christian commitment and training with an ability to relate pastorally to the vocational challenges particular to our North Grounds ministries (the Law and Darden Christian Fellowships). At the same time the Study Center is also pleased to welcome Fitz Green as our full-time Director of Educational Ministries. Fitz served part-time in that position last semester, so the name may be familiar to you. Despite his title, Fitz will also have a hand in our graduate ministries as he continues to work with the Graduate Christian Fellowship (GCF). As a
Fitz Green, second from right, joins the Study Center full time this year as the Director of Educational Ministries and continues to provide leadership to Graducate Christian Fellowship after years of serving as President of the GCF group.
long-time member (and student president) of GCF, Fitz well understands the unique challenges and demands of being a graduate student on Grounds. Now finishing his dissertation, he has the gifting and call for academics; he and his wife are also some of the most hospitable people I know. I’m grateful that the Graduate Christian Fellowship will continue to benefit from his knowledge and care. And, of course, Fitz continues to steer our Educational Programs, which are central to both our graduate and undergraduate ministries. Please pray for our graduate ministries in this time of transition: for Fitz as he moves into a full-time
role that includes his oversight of the Graduate Christian Fellowship; for Sharon as she moves into this interim position with the Law and Darden Christian Fellowships in the midst of her other important commitments; for the student leaders of the graduate fellowship groups as they do ministry along with pressing academic demands; for the Board and the staff of the Study Center as we look toward funding and filling the new vision for graduate ministries on a permanent basis. May the Lord work in all these ways to grow grad students in their commitment to see their faith worked out in their vocation, as in every area of life.
October 29 - Family Weekend
R E C E P T ION
PA R EN TS & FAM I L I ES Join us at the Study Center, Saturday, October 29 from 5 - 7 pm for hors d'oeuvres, live music and refreshments before you head out to dinner. This is a wonderful opportunity for parents to connect with Study Center staff as well as other families. R S V P : WWW.ST U DYCE N T E R. NE T /FAMILYW E E KE ND
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Photo by Elisa Bricker
TH E ST UDY CE N T E R STAFF L-R, front row: Amy Zell, Bill Wilder, Lane Cowin; back row: Shelly Pellish, Fitz Green, Jay McCabe, Debbie Rodriguez, Ashley Wooten. Not pictured: Sharon Decker.