An Open Letter to Our Friends By Drew Trotter President, Center for Christian Study
INSIDE Our New Director of Graduate Ministries Thank You to Volunteers
Praxis V12 N3 Fall 2008
Pr a x i s
Finding Life at the Study Center
A
s of December 31 of this year, after almost 22 years of service, I will be stepping down as President of the Center for Christian Study. Bill Wilder, our Director of Educational Ministries, has agreed to become Acting Executive Director, and I cannot think of a better choice for this transitional period. Under his able leadership, the Center for Christian Study will surely continue to thrive. And thrive it does. The Center is blessed with a superb staff; the work they do so well makes a difference for the King in many lives, as it always has. I take joy in the new direction God is leading me, but I also have a natural sadness that a wonderful era of my life is ending, and I am filled with gratitude for the privilege it has been to serve in a place where God is so evidently active in so many interesting and important ways. Ever since the April Fool’s Day (an oddity that sometimes made me wonder at its appropriateness) in 1987, when I started here, until only very recently, my calling to the Center was without question for me, and I often reflected on how fresh it all still seemed after so many years. That is in great part due to the leadership of our Board and the diligence, ingenuity and wisdom of our staff, which never failed to challenge me, excite me, and encourage me in the tasks God gave us to do. It has been quite a ride for me, and that ride will continue for others, as the staff of the Center presses on in the exceptional work of intellectual and spiritual formation participants in the ministry of the Center have come to expect. Please continue to support the Center with your gifts and your prayers, as I shall; it is a work that is crucial to the life of the University of Virginia and the Charlottesville community. But what is my new calling? From January to July of next year, I will be finishing a book I have been working on for some time, a book on movies entitled Show and Tell: How to View a Movie Responsibly. Then, beginning July 1, I will become National Director for an organization called Centers for Christian Study, International (CCSI), a group, which has a passion for seeing study centers planted across the nation, and, as the name implies, also beyond our borders. My
job will not be so much in the “planting” area of things, though, as it will be in unifying and strengthening centers that already exist alongside a number of universities in our land and in raising awareness of the study center movement of which our Center here in Charlottesville has always been a leader. To this end, last July I was part of a group of study center leaders that founded the Consortium of Christian Study Centers. As National Director of CCSI, I will serve as Executive Director of the Consortium, which will operate as a subsidiary of CCSI, but with its own elected Board of Directors from the study centers that choose to join the Consortium. There are presently as many as 15-20 other centers in various stages of development and spread from South Carolina to Oregon and New Hampshire to Southern California that may wish to join the Consortium.
Founding members of the Consortium of Christian Study Centers, left to right: Bob Osburn, David Mahan, Karl Johnson, Rick Howe, and Drew Trotter. Not pictured: Randy Bare (photo courtesy of Randy Bare)
It is satisfying to be able to write that I leave the Center for Christian Study with no regrets, and, while I have a great sorrow in my heart, it is accompanied by an equally intense joy at the memories I will always carry of ministry at the Study Center. I have far too deep a sense of my own deficiencies to imply that there are not things I could have done better, but I rejoice in the grace of our Savior to allow me to witness the many testimonies to His great name I have observed in this place. I am grateful for the staff and Board members alongside whom I have been privileged to work down through the years for the part they also played in making this so. I am even more grateful for the opportunity God has given me to serve him at the Center for Christian Study. I want to thank you — our students, parents, alumni, donors,
Continued on right inside page