A PUBLICATION OF THE CENTER FOR CHRISTIAN STUDY
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FALL 2015
FROM BEING WELCOMED TO FEELING AT HOME PAGE 10 BY B IL L WIL DE R PAG E 3
THIS ISSUE: Avoiding The Faith-Deferral Program in College by Bill Wilder, page 3
Study Center In Turkey: Our Spring Break Trip by Fitz Green, page 5
Fall 2015 Educational Programs Lectures, small groups and course listings, page 8
From Being Welcomed to Feeling at Home by Lane Cowin and Jay McCabe, page 10
STUDY CENTER STAFF BILL WILDER
Executive Director bill@studycenter.net
LANE COWIN
Director of Undergraduate Ministries for Women lane@studycenter.net
FITZ GREEN
Director of Educational Ministries fitz@studycenter.net
JAY MCCABE
Director of Undergraduate Ministries for Men jay@studycenter.net
On the cover: Upperclassmen volunteers prepare to greet incoming students at our annual Move In Day Lunches. This year, we welcomed more than 200 first year families over two days. (Photo by Brittany Fan)
VINCENT MORRA
Facilities + Program Assistant vincent@studycenter.net
TRISH OWEN
Library trish@studycenter.net
SHELLY PELLISH
Director of Administration + Development shelly@studycenter.net
You’re invited to the
STUDY CENTER TAILGATE
DEBBIE RODRIGUEZ Director of Finance debbie@studycenter.net
LISA ROHRER
Communications + Program Assistant lisa@studycenter.net
JACLYN STOKES
Communications + Program Assistant jaclyn@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 1976. We seek to serve Jesus
Saturday, October 17, 2015 2 HOURS BEFORE KICKOFF. FIND US IN EAST LOT A #182
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.
Open to students, parents, alumni and friends! Come share great food and catch up with friends as we get ready to see U.Va. take on Syracuse.
RSVP: 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 corporation
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AVOIDING THE FAITHDEFERRAL PROGRAM IN COLLEGE Over the years I have often encouraged students not to enroll in the “faith-deferral program” while they are in college. “Seek to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ while you’re here,” I’ll say, “even as you gain a world-class education at the University of Virginia.” Otherwise, I warn, they risk an increasing gap between a stagnant understanding of faith on the one side and a growing vocational expertise on the other. Should the two ever be (or seem to be) in conflict, there will be little chance of an even contest, much less a balanced conversation. Many Christian parents worry that something like this will happen to their sons or daughters in college, graduate or undergraduate. We all know of cases where someone “lost their faith in college.” Thankfully, college is not the challenge to faith that it used to be. Research suggests that there is less of a drop-off in religious involvement for those who go to college than for those who don’t. Still, “less of a drop-off” is not exactly an inspiring goal. How can college become a positive opportunity to grow in faith even as a student grows in other areas? One answer is community. Studies show that one reason college-attending students do better with respect to faith than non-college-attending students is the general
by Bill Wilder, bill@studycenter.net Executive Director
availability of strong Christian communities on University campuses. U.Va. is especially blessed in that respect, in part because an earlier generation had the vision to acquire and expand this house on Chancellor Street, not just for its own ministry but for the other Grounds ministries as well. It’s a safe place to come, ask hard questions, and seek the answers together. It’s a community in which students are encouraged to find their identity in Christ, an identity that is shaped and formed by the gospel. Granted, this is a lifelong journey for each one of us. It is a daily challenge to find our identity in Christ and his Word rather than enlisting him in our own efforts to define ourselves. It’s so easy to ask how Christ is relevant to something else that defines us (career, political affiliation, gender, race, the list goes on and on) rather than to ask how each of those things is relevant to our identity in Christ. Often we are better at “integrating” our faith into these more fundamental realities for us than we are at judging everything else in our lives in the light of our being in Christ. So how do we begin to see our world in light of the gospel, by God’s grace? At the Study Center we often seek to see our world along two lines of sight—affirmation and critique. As for the first, there is much we can affirm in the world around us. When God created the world, at the end of each day of the week he said that it was “good.” The resurrection of Jesus is the ultimate
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affirmation of creation’s goodness, because it is the beginning of a new creation that fulfills all of God’s creation purposes, despite human sin.
the hope of resurrection life, that out of their identity in the crucified and risen Lord they will say a hearty “yes!” to God’s good gifts in this world and a resounding “no!” to the turning of those gifts against God, his people and his world.
This means that we should begin with a strong “yes!” to the gifts of creation. Marriage, food, sex, bodies, art, institutions, learning, commerce, power: all have their Learning how to do this is not easy. It takes practice. place in this creation as we look forward to the next. But college is a great time for that--and the Center for Our posture in the University environment, then, is Christian Study a good place for that. We work to proessentially forward leaning: attentive, curious, hopeful. vide many opportunities for students to articulate their That’s what we strive for in our conversations at the Study Center, thanks to the great, good news “When we say ‘affirmation and critique,’ of resurrection.
then, we’re referring to the way in which
At the same time, Christians believe that the esthe resurrection and the cross work sential goodness of creation has been turned and themselves out in students’ engagement twisted by sin. If the resurrection of Jesus calls for our affirmation of creation, the cross calls for our with the world.” critique. It calls for our critique, sometimes even a prophetic denunciation (think of racial injustice or sexual violence), because God himself has judged the hopeful yes’s and their prophetic no’s here—in Bible world for its sin in the cross, in anticipation of that study and vocational small groups, in personal converfinal judgment when he makes everything right. Of sation and professional counseling, in seminary classes course, this critique begins with ourselves. Jesus does and community lectures, from the books in the library say something about removing the beam in our own eye or the audio on our website, in meetings with our staff before plucking the speck from someone else’s! or other Grounds ministers. When we say “affirmation and critique,” then, we’re referring to the way in which the resurrection and the cross work themselves out in students’ engagement with the world. We have great hopes for these students: that, by God’s grace, they will hear and believe that Jesus died and rose again, that they will repent of their sin in PAG E 4 S S T U DY CE N T E R NEW SLETTER FA LL 2 0 1 5
Perhaps then, far from deferring their faith in the college years, students will grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ even as they get that world-class education at U.Va. (Photos by Brittany Fan)
STUDY CENTER IN TURKEY Introducing our Spring Break Trip by Fitz Green, Director of Educational Ministries by Lane Cowin, Director of Undergraduate Ministries for Women Try to imagine for a moment what lane@studycenter.net
the apostle Paul’s life was like. When he traveled on his missionary journeys, what kind of roads did he walk? What kind of houses did he stay in? Where did he eat? Where did he preach? Can you picture it? Many times it’s easy for the accounts we read in the New Testament to feel like mere stories. Sure, we might believe that they happened, but the people and places and events are so distant from us that it’s difficult to comprehend that they really happened, to real people just like us. Difficult, yes, but is it possible? Certainly. Here’s one way. You can visit those same towns today, you can see with your own eyes the ancient markets, the roads, the houses. That’s why Study Center staff took a trip to biblical Turkey last year, and this year over the week of U.Va. spring break we’ll be leading a trip of our own for students, parents and alumni. Our mission is to see people transformed by the truth of Scripture. Part of that transformation involves imagination. We don’t read the Bible to take things out of it, we read to place ourselves in it. We submit ourselves to Scripture’s vision of a world created good by God, wrecked by sin, redeemed in Jesus’ death and resurrection, and awaiting the restoration that he will bring at his return. How do we see our lives as fitting into that world, and live our lives as proclamations of the good news that Jesus is raised from the dead?
Visiting a place like Ephesus opens our imagination and makes scripture come alive. To read from Paul’s letters while standing in the very marketplace where he preached, or to read Acts 19 while sitting in the same grand theater where a riot broke out because so many were becoming Christians-there is nothing like it. Visiting the very places where the gospel began to spread to the ends of the earth opens scripture up to us in new ways. It is our hope that this experience will help people to read Scripture in a way that is deeply transformative. Helping people to foster scriptural imagination is one part of our vision. You could describe another part of that vision as the formation of a uniquely Christian identity. Students are shaped into this identity every time they walk through our doors, declaring with their bodies, “I belong to Christ’s people.” Our Turkey trip offers another chance to grow in understanding of the one to whom we belong. We are not alone on this journey but are united in Christ to a great cloud of witnesses that stretches from Heb 11 through centuries of faithful Christians who now worship before God’s throne. To stand in Hagia Sophia, and to look up into the dome, you can almost feel the host of heaven with whom we join in singing “Holy, holy, holy” as John sees in Rev 5. Or standing before John’s tomb, you may be struck by how the young disciple whom Jesus loved lived a full life after Jesus’ death, passing on Jesus’ teaching and discipling others in turn. Having received the message of the gospel from him, we turn and do the same with our lives. What a glorious inheritance.
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FALL 2015 EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS Please join us in any of our lectures this fall, free of charge. Register on our website by visiting www.studycenter.net/registration. We encourage you to check our website for updated dates, times and locations of all events at www.studycenter.net.
studycenter.net/lectures
SEPTEMBER
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CLASSROOM FAITH: THE ROLE OF PERSONAL BELIEF, BOLDNESS AND HUMILITY IN U.VA. CLASSES Wednesday, September 9, 6 - 7:00 pm with Jay McCabe
OCTOBER
28
TWO VIEWS ON SPIRITUAL GIFTS
Wednesday, October 28, 6 - 7:15 pm with guest speakers
NOVEMBER
12
UNDERSTANDING AND RESPONDING TO ISLAM
18
THINKING GREEK: A STUDENT PANEL ON GREEK LIFE
Thursday, November 12, 6 - 7:15 pm with David Marshall
Wednesday, November 18, 6 - 7:30 pm with Lane Cowin, Jay McCabe + student panels
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FALL 2015 SMALL GROUPS studycenter.net/smallgroups
Please check our website for the meeting times and locations of our fall small groups. FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS Undergraduate Women’s Bible Study with Lane Cowin Undergraduate Bible Study with Lane Cowin & Jay McCabe
FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS Graduate Christian Fellowship Bible Studies with Fitz Green Darden Christian Fellowship Bible Studies with Bill Wilder Law Christian Fellowship Bible Studies with Fitz Green
FOR STUDENTS & COMMUNITY Christianity & Architecture: Buildings, Landscapes & Cites with Louis Nelson Christianity & Fiction with Fitz Green & Sam Heath Faith, Reason & Science with Bill Wilder Nature, Grace & the Church: Evangelical & Roman Catholic Distinctives with Fitz Green & Nate Smith What Matters? Wendell Berry on Faith, Economics & the Environment with Jay McCabe & Spencer Phillips What is Ministry? with Lane Cowin & Fitz Green
FALL 2015 COURSES studycenter.net/courses
Please visit our website to for costs, descriptions and registration.
Photo by Elisa Bricker
GOD AND VOCATION: HOW FAITH AFFECTS ALL WE DO IN LIFE
Thursdays, Sept 3 - Dec 17, 2015, 6:30 - 8:30 pm with Bill Wilder ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE
Thursdays, Sept 3 - Dec 17, 2015, 9:30 am - 12:30 pm with Wade Bradshaw
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FROM BEING WELCOMED TO FEELING AT HOME
An Introduction to our First Year Care and Elzinga Residential Scholars Programs by Lane Cowin, Director of Undergraduate Ministries for Women and Jay McCabe, Director of Undergraduate Ministries for Men lane@studycenter.net and jay@studycenter.net
“Committing to attend U.Va. was one of the most exciting, yet terrifying, decisions I’ve ever made. My transition was plagued by doubt, insecurity and
I (Lane) remember my first year at the University of Virginia very well. I arrived at college excited about the possibilities for what I would learn and who I would become. I was also nervous about whether I would find good friends and if I would succeed academically and socially in the ways I thought were expected of me. I believed in God but doubted if I could ever be sure about what he was like or what he wanted for my life. I eventually reached a place where I felt totally lost, not knowing if anyone could help me find the answers to those questions. I was lonely too, because I was keeping all of this to myself.
inadequacy as I entered this rigorous environment away from the comfort of home. At the Study Center’s Move-In Day Lunch, however, I met dozens of people who were excited to connect me to the Christian community at U.Va. Right away, I felt the Lord’s comfort and peace sweep over me. Through some of the most vulnerable times of my first year, from Move-In Day to Sorority Recruitment and exams, the Study Center has remained a calming constant.
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God’s message of acceptance, adequacy and power resonates through the hallways of the Study Center, renewing my friends and myself daily.” Megan Flanagan, NURS ‘18
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It was at that point in my college career that I met the Center for Christian Study staff and student community. The staff welcomed me in and engaged my questions about who God was and what he wanted for me. They introduced me to Jesus and his Word and helped me to wrestle with the claims of the gospel. They introduced me to a number of Christian students that in turn welcomed me into their fellowship groups on Grounds and invited me to attend their churches. I was surrounded by new friends willing to live life alongside me, many of them sharing my questions and helping me to work through them.
This good work of extending deep hospitality in Christ’s name and inviting others to learn about Christ continues here at the Study Center. We are particularly excited to welcome first years as they arrive wondering who they will become and what community will be their own. Our staff is here to provide individual counseling and mentoring to first years as they navigate university life. We invite students to participate in our educational programming, which includes lectures and small groups that address questions relevant to students making their way through college. Throughout the year our First Year Dinners connect students with others who want to grow in their love for Jesus and their understanding of what it means to follow him. We also count it a privilege to introduce them to other Grounds ministries staff and student communities who share in the desire to develop students’ knowledge and love of God. Our greatest purpose in welcoming First Years is to help them begin to form deep relationships within the Christian community at the University of Virginia, that they might encounter Jesus Christ through the study of his Word and his world, and through worship and prayer together among his people.
While the Study Center acts as an initial site of connection for incoming students, it is also a place of return for upperclassmen. The Elzinga Residential Scholars Program is a unique program we offer to students after their first year. Eight male students live in the Study Center basement apartment and 12 female students live in the Yellow House next door. Together these students engage in weekly dinners and discussions, meet for sharing and prayer within their households and are paired with an older Christian mentor during their ERSP year. We have a number of goals for the Elzinga Scholars, but two stand out in particular. We want to see them grow in their love for God and form meaningful friendships with one another. Our greatest hope is that students would leave this program with a firm confidence that there is a God who created them, loves them and has rescued them through the death and resurrection of Jesus. One requirement for participation in the program is a commitment to Christ, so we assume everyone has some understanding of the gospel. We also assume that there is room for growth! One way we work to achieve this goal is through personal mentoring. These times provide space for sharing struggles, failures and questions that we all experience in the Christian life, along with opportunities to be reminded of God’s love for us “while we were yet sinners” and the power of the Spirit to help in our weakness.
Our second aim is for students to form deep and lasting friendships with one another. The majority of our Residents are not close friends before entering the program. However, the men and women begin to share in one another’s burdens and rejoice over one another’s achievements by setting aside time each week to meet and pray within their respective apartments. Though they come from different ethnic, cultural or theological backgrounds, these students take up the term housemates and over the course of the year understand one another as members of the body of Christ. This means they leave the program more deeply connected to one another, united by their understanding of God’s love and motivated to find Christ-centered community outside of the program as well. We know our Elzinga Scholars will wind up in a variety of places and careers, but our hope and prayer is that all will pursue a growing, personal relationship with Christ, deep friendships with others and participation in the local Christian community wherever they land. For most students this will include church membership and loving their neighbors at work and home. It will also involve disciplines of prayer, service and Scripture study. But even with all those good things in place, we hope they remain motivated and captivated by God’s love, which is the greatest thing of all.
“I was originally attracted to the Elzinga Residential Scholars Program because of the intellectual and discipleship aspects of the program, but the Lord also used it to foster some of my deepest friendships here at the University. Coming from first year dorm life where I was the only believer, it was challenging to be living in the proverbial heart of Christian activity on Grounds. However, I can now see how God dealt with many areas of sin in my life while showing me exactly what a community centered on Him truly looks like. As a group, we helped each other painfully recognize the weight of our sin, which led us to constantly dwell on the power of God’s grace.” Randy Galindo COMM ‘15
WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE ELZINGA RESIDENTIAL SCHOLARS PROGRAM? Check out our website at: studycenter.net/ersp
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You’re invited to the Study Center’s
Photo by Brittany Fan
FAMILY WEEKEND RECEPTION
Saturday, October 24 from 5 - 7 pm Join us for a casual evening of 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. RSVP: WWW.STUDYCENTER.NET/FAMILYWEEKEND