The Study Center, Spring 2020

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PUBLICATION

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CENTER

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CHRISTIAN

STUDY

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SPRING

2020

THE S T U DY C E NT E R

THIS ISSUE: New Things Present and Past, pg. 3 Bill Wilder Welcoming Students to our Table + Spring Programs Calendar, pgs. 4–5 Katie Hightower

STUDY CENTER STAFF BILL WILDER

Context & Community, pg. 6 Carly Vanness

Executive Director bill@studycenter.net

FITZ GREEN

A Gospel Imagination, pg. 7 Fitz Green

Senior Director for Education & Programs fitz@studycenter.net

RICK CAMPANELLI

Director of Graduate Ministries rick@studycenter.net

KATIE CARR

On the cover: Two students settle in to a study spot in the stacks of the Library during Fall 2019 Exam Snacks (photo by Brittany Fan). Page 2: Families enjoying food and fellowship at Graduation Day Lunch 2019 (photo by Brittany Fan).

Page 3: Bill Wilder at the C.S. Lewis play at the Paramount Theater (photo by Brittany Fan). Page 4: (banner photo) Fitz Green discusses denominations at Lunch Club while students listen and take notes; other description on page (photos by Brittany Fan). Page 5: descriptions on page (Lunch Club photo by Brittany Fan, ERSP photo by Katie Carr). Page 5: (Spring Programs Calendar, top to bottom): Students fill the Main Meeting Room for pizza and trivia during First, Second, and Third Year Dinner, spring 2020 (photo by Carly Vanness); DJ Carter shares his story at his “Abortion & Race” lecture in fall 2019 (photo by Brittany Fan); former board chair, Louis Nelson, and his family at Family Weekend Reception 2019 (photo

by Carly Vanness); a group of fourth-year interns with Carly Vanness and Rachel Gaffin at Graduation Day Lunch 2019 (photo by Brittany Fan). Page 6: (banner photo) the view from Herodion; other descriptions on page (photos provided by staff members). Page 7: (banner photo) the audience at the Paramount during the C.S. Lewis play Question & Answer with Max McLean; other descriptions on page (photos by Brittany fan, bottom photo provided by FPA).

Communications Manager katiecarr@studycenter.net

NIKKI FLANNERY

Development Manager nikki@studycenter.net

ETHAN HIGHTOWER

Director of Undergraduate Ministries for Men ethan@studycenter.net

KATIE HIGHTOWER

Director of Undergraduate Ministries for Women katie@studycenter.net

WWW.STUDYCENTER.NET 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 EIN 51-0192618.

STUART HORNSBY Campaign Manager stuart@studycenter.net

JAN MATHEWS

Administrative Assistant jan@studycenter.net

TRISH OWEN

Introducing our Parents Seminar Experience the Study Center in a new way through our Parents Seminar.

Parents—join us for fellowship and learning as we discuss why our bodies matter in light of the resurrection, why our bodies are worth paying attention to, and what this means for your college student.

Why Bodies Matter: How Hope of Future Bodies Affects Life in our Present Bodies When: Saturday, April 4 from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Where: Center for Christian Study Speakers: Bill Wilder, PhD, and Ellen Foster, LPC Contact Nikki Flannery at nikki@studycenter. net with questions.

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Librarian trish@studycenter.net

BILL PORTER

Facilities Coordinator billporter@studycenter.net

DEBBIE RODRIGUEZ Director of Finance debbie@studycenter.net

CARLY VANNESS Programs Manager carly@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 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.

CONTACT US Phone: (434) 817-1050 Email: info@studycenter.net Website: www.studycenter.net Find us on social media: @studycenterUVA

New Things Present & Past

by Bill Wilder Executive Director, bill@studycenter.net

In keeping with the new year (and decade), this newsletter highlights all the new things happening at the Study Center.

Some of these things began last semester, such as the Foundations Week in the days before the Center’s Move-In Day Lunches.

Then there was the C.S. Lewis on Stage play in November, an event hosted downtown by the Study Center with over 500 students and almost 600 townspeople attending. We also introduced a new biblical curriculum for our Elzinga Residential Scholars (the seven men who live downstairs and the thirteen women who live in the yellow house next door).

You’ll hear a bit about each of these initiatives from Katie Hightower, our Director of Undergraduate Ministries for Women.

She also describes a weekly gathering this semester that we call Lunch Club, a very Study Center mix of hospitality (home-cooked lunch) and Christian study (the staff here addressing tough questions about God and faith). You’ll also hear from Senior Director Fitz Green, who takes some time to reflect on the gospel vision in Max McLean’s powerful portrayal of C.S. Lewis. Finally, Programs Manager Carly Vanness tells of an exciting new annual opportunity coming up for students at the Study Center: a spring trip to Israel! (For the big picture you’ll also find a full spring calendar of events at the Study Center in this newsletter.)

Something else new around here is the departure of a longtime Study Center staff person, who was herself responsible for a number of fresh approaches to undergraduate ministry in her time here. After eighteen years of ministry here in one capacity or another, our Director of Counseling Resources and former Director of Undergraduate Ministries for Women, Amy Zell, has now moved to a staff counseling position at New City Counseling here in Charlottesville.

Amy and her husband, Wes, began as the Study Center’s new undergraduate ministers (and the first married couple in those roles) on January 1, 2002. The Center’s longstanding fellowship group for undergraduates (Fraternity-Sorority Fellowship or “Frat-Sor”) had ended by then, so the arrival of Amy and Wes inaugurated a new era in our undergraduate ministries. Wes began developing a residential ministry with the guys renting the basement apartment. This ministry eventually grew into the Elzinga Residential Scholars Program with its women’s and men’s cohorts and weekly dinners.

Amy and Wes also developed the hospitality side of the ministry.

Taking advantage of the building addition in the late 90s, they adopted and expanded the Move-In Day Lunch that Susan Yates had been hosting for Falls Church families in our building. They hosted weekly dinners at the Study Center with Amy cooking and students pitching in to help. They served afternoon tea in the front room, bringing students in for a warm drink and good conversation. Amy put up the first sign announcing Rush Hospitality during sorority recruitment. Bible studies and book groups continued apace, but wherever possible they encouraged a L’Abri-like combination of food, conversation, and working together.

In 2006-07 Amy began transitioning from undergraduate ministries to her counseling role at the Study Center, a role in which she served for over twelve years. During that time she cared in deep and wise ways for students and staff and many others.

Thank you, Amy, for your long and faithful service at the Center for Christian Study. You and Wes made a big difference in the lives of students and in the shape of this ministry. We’re grateful for the ways you responded to a new situation with creativity and thoughtfulness. May that legacy continue in the work we do here and in the new work you’re taking up. May the Lord establish the work of your hands.

And now to all our readers: welcome to this new edition of The Study Center! I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Amy Zell (second from left, bottom row) with her fourth-year small group in her first year as Director of Counseling Resources

From left to right: Amy and Wes Zell with Debbie Rodriguez and her husband Paul at an early 2000s Study Center gathering

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Welcoming Students to our Table

by Katie Hightower Director of Undergraduate Ministries for Women, katie@studycenter.net

The Study Center welcomed the school year with an exciting, brand new initiative—Foundations Week— followed immediately by the 20th year of our beloved tradition of Move-In Day Lunches. This blend of fresh ideas with existing, proven programs has emerged as a theme for this year of ministry.

Our building continues to provide a home away from home for students and any who enter our doors. The smells of freshly-brewed coffee and the crackle of a fire invite students to find a warm place to study. On Fridays the aroma and laughter of interns baking for small groups stimulate an appetite for food and fellowship. The walls of bookshelves in the Library and Richman Room capture the minds of curious thinkers. We continue to gather students for friendly competition over trivia during Class Dinners and for engagement with questions our culture is asking in our lectures. We’ve also created opportunities for students to engage in new ways, like bringing C.S. Lewis to the Paramount in Charlottesville in the form of Max McLean’s one-man play based on his autobiographical memoir, Surprised

by Joy. In May, we will take nineteen students to Israel to tour biblical sites and learn about the landscape we read about in the Bible. This trip has been a dream for the Study Center for many years, and we anticipate amazing conversations and meaningful experiences for everyone involved.

Ethan and I continue to lead the Elzinga Residential Scholars Program, where we focus on community, consistency, and character development all rooted in Christ. We made significant changes to the program’s curriculum this year and have seen the community become deeper and more united. In the fall, we focused on education and community-building. We played Bunco (a dice-rolling tournament-style game), had a prayer and musical worship night, decorated Christmas cookies, and also studied the big picture story of the Old Testament using a new, innovative curriculum. This spring, we are studying the Gospel of Mark and PAG E 4 S T H E ST U DY C E N T E R N E W S L E T T E R S P R I N G 20 20

asking how the Old Testament helps us understand who Jesus is and how he fulfills God’s promises. We have witnessed many “aha!” moments as our students understand the Bible and the story of God’s work in the world in a new and deeper way. Mentoring, sharing meals together, and serving one another remain essential to the mission of this program. It is truly a joy and privilege to know these students and walk with them during their time at UVA. Our staff is passionate about teaching the Bible. The residential program is one way we do this. In addition, we teach in small groups, though our groups are discussion-based and the topics are narrower. As Home-cooked meals are a key element our staff brainstormed small of Lunch Club every week. group topics for this semester, we kept coming back to an idea that had been tossed around several times before: What would it look like for us to have a weekly time of teaching our students? We knew it would include feeding our students, of course, and thus was born Lunch Club!

One of the major goals of Lunch Club is to create a space that is not intimidating for a student—a space that doesn’t demand prior knowledge or experience. We want students to know they are welcome even if they feel they have nothing to contribute to the conversation. The theme for this semester is “Questions You’ve Always Wanted to Ask,” and we want students to be able to show up confused and questioning. We spend 20 minutes serving up delicious and homemade meals, 20 minutes answering—or beginning to answer—a question or two, and then 20 minutes of further Q&A or discussion. The questions we address are literally questions students asked. During Exam Snacks in the fall, we hung a huge piece of paper on the wall and

spring programs calendar invited students to write down questions they had about God and theology. Some questions emerged as popular, with students writing “+1” or “+2” next to them, and other questions centered around common themes like suffering or how to interpret the Bible. We assigned a question or theme to each week and divided the topics among our staff and a few local guest speakers. My first Lunch Club topic was, “How do I know that Scripture is really the inspired Word of God?” Later this semester, I will tackle, “Why do Jesus and Paul seem so different?” and the pastoral question, “How do I know if I have enough faith?”

We had no idea how many students to expect for our first meeting of Lunch Club, and we ended up having to bring in Katie Hightower and Tristan Amatruda more tables and set up an extra (Com ‘20) wrap up lunch preparations. row of chairs! We definitely see engagement from students who love the Study Center and spend a lot of time here, but we have also met new students.

One of my favorite things about Lunch Club is that it’s created more opportunities for students and staff to interact. Not only has it led to questions about theology but also has given me opportunities to walk with students in their questions about living faithfully. We care for students’ minds, hearts, and bellies!

When I think about how Lunch Club sits at the intersection of Christian education and hospitality, I can’t believe what a natural fit it is for our ministry at the Study Center.

1/6–11 Rush Hospitality 2/4 First, Second, and Third Year Dinner

jan–feb 1–7 Library Book Drive 19 March Madness Lunch 24 Two Views: Baptism with Ethan Hightower & Keith Goad

march 4 Parents Seminar with Bill Wilder & Ellen Foster

14 Fourth Year Dinner

april 4/30–8 Exam Snacks 17–27 Israel Trip 19 Graduation Day Lunch

The Elzinga Residential Scholars gather for dinner each Thursday night. The banner in the background depicts the overarching narrative of the Old Testament and serves as a helpful visual while Katie and Ethan Hightower teach the new curriculum.

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Context & Community

by Carly Vanness Programs Manager, carly@studycenter.net

In May, Fitz Green and I are leading a group of nineteen students on a trip to Israel. In preparation for this trip, six staff members went to Israel in January.

Our first stop was Jaffa, an ancient port city that has now been incorporated into Tel Aviv. As we wandered around this ancient city trying to find the house of Simon the Tanner, I experienced my first of many “where are we and why is Bill so excited about it?” moments. I had not done my homework before going on this trip and had very little context for all of the amazing places we were visiting.

It was difficult, at times, to match what I did know—what I had read in my Bible and learned about at work—to what I was seeing around me while in Israel. In our advertisements for our student trip in May, we used the slogan “walk where Jesus walked.”

However, that idea was hard to grasp while strolling down asphalt streets, visiting churches built in 1969, and navigating sites overflowing with tourists in rain ponchos. But the longer we were there, the more I was able to take in the incredible reality of what we were seeing. There were moments—like standing on Herodion looking out to Bethlehem and Jerusalem, or at the Mount of the Beatitudes overlooking the Sea of Galilee—where that reality

Carly Vanness and Katie Hightower stop to take a photo with historic columns in Beth She’an.

The group’s tour guide reads Psalm 42 next to the stream of water in the midst of a desert climate.

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was truly overwhelming. It was this lake, these mountains, this landscape that were witnesses to the gospel.

As we stood atop Mt. Precipice, looking to Nazareth on one side and the Jezreel Valley on the other, our tour guide told us the name of each of the mountains standing out around us. We then took a moment to note where each mountain is referenced in Scripture, to recall the events that were tied to that location, all within view of this one spot. It was incredible to glimpse the history written in the mountains that Jesus could see in front of him every day.

Being able to physically visit these places has given me a deeper and richer understanding of what happens in both the Old and New Testaments. I have read these passages and known in my head that they reference actual places. Until this trip to Israel, I had not been able to fully grasp that these places are both radically different than what I have grown up knowing and real, physical places that exist in time and space.

Experiencing a desert climate firsthand was eye-opening, even in the middle of the rainy season. As we were driving, we often passed groups of cars pulled over on the side of the road because people had stopped to enjoy the rare treat of a small but flowing stream. Whenever we would get back on the bus after being drenched with rain, we would repeat after our tour guide, “Never complain about the rain in Israel.” Seeing the preciousness of water in this climate helped me understand the language in scripture about rain, and about streams of running water, at a deeper and richer level.

It was amazing to be in Israel. It was especially amazing to be there in community—to see Fitz overwhelmed by the majesty of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, to ask Bill questions about holy war while standing at the ruins of Jericho, to geek out with Katie about the altar ruins at Tel Dan. Being able to process and debrief together was such an integral part of this experience; I can’t imagine trying to wrap my mind around the trip without these friends. It will be wonderful to see how this reality of community will be a part of our trip with the students in May. I am excited about all of the ways that we will learn from and grow with each other and for the things that we will see, remember, and love better because of the people traveling with us.

A Gospel Imagination

by Fitz Green Senior Director for Education & Programs, fitz@studycenter.net

Christian formation is at the heart of what we do at the Study Center. We express our goal for student formation like this:

We have a fundamental commitment to set before students—believers and unbelievers alike—a comprehensive vision of God’s Kingdom and then to encourage them to accept that reality and then anticipate it by way of reflection, discernment, imagination, and other practices and habits of virtue.

This goes beyond simply proclaiming that the gospel is true— and we do that every day! We desire to put a “vision of God’s Kingdom” before students and to cultivate their imaginations to see that reality. It’s a different sort of engagement than the kind that happens in a classroom.

In response, Max spoke about his own journey into theater and how he’s sought to be his own person rather than conform to the expectations of peers.

At the end of it all, it’s the legacy of Lewis the person and the example of his faith that remains. Max told me why he thinks this play is so powerful for people—it’s being able to see the transformation that happens in Lewis. At the beginning, Lewis is an atheist and he’s firmly convinced. There is no God. The universe is cold and dark and empty. He gives such strong voice to people’s unbelief that when his atheism begins to erode you know something really amazing has happened. Lewis didn’t just change his mind. His heart—his whole person—changed drastically, stunningly, miraculously. This can only happen in a universe that is not empty but full of God’s presence as he is at work in the world by his Spirit. And that is the gospel vision we desire for students.

That’s why we were so glad to partner with Fellowship for Performing Arts (FPA) to host their play, C.S. Lewis on Stage: The Most Reluctant Convert. FPA has done a number of successful shows in New York, and they realized that they had something unique to offer to universities: the ability to engage students’ imaginations with the gospel through a play.

As I was standing in the lobby of the Paramount Theater right before showtime one of the volunteer ushers, an older retired woman, said to me, “I’ve never seen so many college students here. This is wonderful!” It was great to bring together 500+ students from eight different fellowship groups, along with friends they’d invited, friends of the Study Center, and members of our community. We packed out the Paramount. And as for the main event, Max McLean plays a wonderful Lewis: sharp, witty, joyful, larger than life. A student told me afterwards, “I thought I’d be bored just listening to one man talking on stage the whole time, but I got so wrapped up in the performance that the play was over before I knew it!” The evening had an impact for many in attendance.

After the play we took Max out for dinner with a small group of graduate students. It was fun to see this mix of students in engineering and chemistry, philosophy and Spanish, interact with an esteemed, professional actor. They’re in such different worlds! And yet students were engaged and excited to ask him questions about Lewis on the one hand, and the craft of acting or how to live as a Christian in a challenging profession on the other.

A group of graduate students with Kevin Offner, our InterVarsity partner in the Graduate Christian Fellowship, at the Study Center for dinner before the play

A student stands to ask Max McLean a question during the Question & Answer portion of the evening.

A gathering of graduate students share a meal with Max McLean after the play.

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Are you coming to town for UVA Reunions this summer?

Join us at the Study Center for a reception with light refreshments and to catch up with old friends in a familiar place!

Classes of 1960, 1965, 1970, 1975, 1980, 1985: Friday, June 5 | 4:30–6:00 p.m.

Classes of 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015: Saturday, June 13 | 4:00–5:30 p.m.