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We are forever grateful to our Student Ambassadors, who are not only enthusiastic about their choice of Perkins for their theological education but also perhaps even more enthusiastic to share their personal stories and experiences at Perkins with prospective students during our virtual recruitment events (planned and hosted by Samantha Stewart and Caleb Palmer). We know that prospective students enjoy making connections with current students, and we believe our group of Ambassadors are second to none. Without further ado, meet two more of this year’s Ambassadors featured in a series of Online Perspective Magazine publications.

Deneen Goldsmith: In Her Own Words

“I chose Perkins because I believe that Perkins provides the education and the tools for me to develop the discipline needed and necessary for faithful interpretation of God’s Word.  As a member of the UMC, it is my mission to make disciples for the transformation of the world. Thus, my Perkins education contributes to the mission of the UMC to expand the kingdom of God. I count it a privilege and an honor to be a part of the Perkins School of Theology family as I continue to grow spiritually, mentally, physically and educationally.

I chose to pursue ordination as a deacon in the UMC. I am a wife and a mother, and the deacon track allows me to fulfill my first ministry (which is my family) and fulfill my ministry in the Church. I am passionate about serving the people of God through word, service, and acts of compassion and justice. That said, I feel called to the deacon track in the UMC because it rightfully defines my call to ministry.”

My goals upon completing Perkins are to utilize my gifts and strengths in the area of business administration specifically in the area of marketing/ branding and leadership development.

Deneen is a certified candidate in the Texas Conference. Her current ministry is at the Journey of Faith UMC in Humble, Texas. She is a third-year Master of Divinity student in the Houston-Galveston Hybrid Extension Program.

 

Emma Ward: In Her Own Words

“I am a lifelong United Methodist and knew that a United Methodist seminary would make me the best future United Methodist pastor. Can you tell I love being United Methodist? I looked up the 13 United Methodist seminaries and narrowed down that list to those that had user-friendly websites. I figured that if a seminary could not give me a good website, they could not give me a good education either. I requested information from those schools; almost instantly, I received an email from the enrollment office asking if I was able to take a phone call. They were so intentional. I had been taught that I would have to fight to have my voice heard in grad school, but Perkins showed me that they cared enough about me to remember random things I had told them on the phone when I came to visit the campus. Not only did they offer me a welcoming environment to call home, but they offered me academics that would help me grow mentally as well as spiritually. Long story short, Perkins was the obvious choice. I found Perkins by looking up the 13 UMC seminaries. I only live two hours away from Candler and about four from Asbury so those were the only two I knew about until I researched for myself!

I love the community! This community fosters serious academic growth but also serious self-care. I believe some religious academic environments can get toxic fast… not only do you have to be a perfect student, but you have to be a sinless Christian as well. The students and staff around me at Perkins recognize that we’re all human and we have our own struggles. I have never been treated as a theology-paper-producing robot but always as a girl who is worthy of God’s grace as well as that of others. This recovering-perfectionist has found her safe space through Perkins.

After graduation, I plan to pursue ordination as an elder in the United Methodist Church. I believe it is crucial that we have people serving our local churches that have been educated in ministry and theology. If we do not, our churches will continue to become more biblically illiterate and judgmental. I could write you an impressive paper on how Jesus’s actions could be applied today but the average church member is not going to look up a journal article to learn more about Jesus. They are going to go to church or reach out to a pastor that their friend has sworn, for a pastor, is low key cool. We need to be able to share the information we learn in seminary and the best way to do that is by being present in our local churches so that we can have intellectual conversations about God in more places than academic conferences.”

Emma is a first-year Master of Divinity student at the Dallas location. She is a member in the Holston Annual Conference and comes from Chattanooga, Tenn.

 

Aren’t they terrific? As always, we ask for your continued prayers for our recruitment efforts as the climate and environment is extremely competitive. We are committed to intentional recruitment efforts even in the midst of such uncertainty on many levels and appreciate all that you do to send prospects our way. A personal recommendation seems to work a great percentage of the time. Please always reach Samantha Stewart and Caleb Palmer, current Ministry Discernment Associates, or any of us in the Office of Enrollment Management. Samantha currently oversees and guides the work of our group of Students Ambassadors.

Sincerely,

MPG

For Perkins student Pamela Brantley, the pandemic has at least one silver lining. It’s enabling her to participate in the National Capital Semester for Seminarians (NCSS).

“Normally, I couldn’t spend a semester living in D.C., but this year the program was completely virtual for the first time,” said Brantley, a first year M.Div. student in the Houston-Galveston program. With three young children and a husband with a job in Houston, moving to D.C. would not be an option. However, NCSS offered the program virtually in the Spring 2021 semester, enabling seminary students from across the country to participate.

NCSS is a semester-long, intensive program of study in ethics, theology and public policy. Seminary students from across the United States participate in the program offered by Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington. (Details below.)

Brantley is pursuing ordination in the Texas Annual Conference as her second career.  Before attending seminary, she graduated from the University of Michigan Law School and worked as an attorney for 12 years. Prior to law school, she worked for the Michigan Department of Civil Rights; as an undergraduate, she interned in the office of Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm; and while in law school, she was on the editorial board of the Michigan Journal of Race and Law.

“I have a lot of interest in how religion, law and politics all work together,” she said.

Normally, NCSS participants would continue their seminary studies at Wesley while in D.C.; this year, they’re continuing their regular studies at their home seminaries. Brantley is attending the NCSS program on top of her regular M.Div. studies, and will earn four credit hours.

“I didn’t plan on taking five courses this semester, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” she said.

Participants meet for two sessions each Monday, typically including guest speakers, lectures and discussion on class readings. The program is taught by Wesley professors Sondra Wheeler, a United Methodist, and Mike McCurry, former press secretary for President Bill Clinton and also a United Methodist.

“Mike McCurry is very well connected in D.C. and is able to bring very interesting guest speakers to the class,” she said. “Every week I think it couldn’t get better, but he just finds the most fascinating speakers.”

She added that, while McCurry is a Democrat, he works hard to bring speakers from a diverse range of viewpoints. Recent speakers included Tim Goeglein, Vice President of External and Government Relations for Focus on the Family and a former special assistant to President George W. Bush; and Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who shared his experience of the January 6 insurrection in the Capitol.

“He gave us some really interesting on-the-ground reports about what happened to him that day,” Brantley said.

This spring’s cohort includes a diverse group of students from different seminaries around the U.S., another aspect that Brantley appreciates. While many of her Houston-Galveston classmates are United Methodists serving as local pastors or aspiring to parish ministry, the NCSS group is comprised mainly of seminarians who don’t plan to become pastors.  A wide range of denominations are represented, too. That’s a plus for Brantley, who hopes to become a hospital chaplain after graduation.

“As a chaplain, I’ll need to interact with patients of different faith backgrounds and political beliefs,” she said. “We’re very tribal these days. I want to help move the conversation forward.  I want to see how Christians can help break down those walls.”

About the National Capital Semester for Seminarians

Perkins students are eligible to participate in the National Capital Semester for Seminarians (NCSS), a semester-long, intensive program of study in ethics, theology and public policy. Before the pandemic, seminary students came from across the United States to participate at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington; In 2021, NCSS was offered virtually for the first time. NCSS is open to any student who has completed at least one year of a degree program at an accredited seminary and is recommended by his or her home seminary. For more than 40 years, seminarians have come to D.C. to study the intersection of faith and politics; interact with policymakers; formation; engage in community organizing; and dive deeper into specific issues at the intersection of faith and politics. Perkins is one of 36 participating institutions in NCSS; students from these institutions are charged for tuition at their home institution’s regular tuition rate and pay the charges through their home seminary.

For more information, visit https://www.wesleyseminary.edu/ncss/

In a typical year, Dr. Marcell Silva Steuernagel travels to Grand Rapids, Mich., in January to participate in the annual Calvin Symposium on Worship. This year, his role was a bit different: bringing Brazil to the symposium.

“I’ve been involved with Calvin for several years, and I usually go to Michigan in January to present a paper or lead worship,” he said. “This year, because of the pandemic, they decided to take advantage of the online format and have people worship with congregations in different parts of the world.”  Some joined from locations where worshippers had gathered in person; others, like the Brazilian service, were entirely remote.

Silva Steuernagel, who is Director of the Sacred Music Program at Perkins, put together an online worship service for the 2021 virtual symposium, “Worship with the Church in Brazil.” All of the worship leaders – with the exception of himself and another Brazilian musician based in the U.S. – participated from various parts of Brazil. The lively service, titled “Esperança: A Liturgy to Renew Hope,” showcased Brazilian rhythms and sounds, and featured readings and music in Portuguese as well as Spanish and English.

“The organizers asked me to put together an immersive experience that would feel like an in-person worship experience in a congregation in Brazil,” he said.

Silva Steuernagel relied on a network of Brazilian musicians and liturgists, some of whom were part of the Brazilian delegation at the 2019 event. This year, he called on the delegates to put together the prayers and readings, along with musicians in Brazil he has worked with and knows. He curated music that was composed primarily of Brazilian worship music – instead of western hymnody translated into Portuguese – and that highlighted the flavor of Brazilian congregational music.

“It was a long process, because there was a lot of back-and-forth with the musicians to get that kind of live, improvisatory Brazilian-music feel,” he said.  “We really wanted to make sure we captured that vibe.”

The annual symposium is sponsored by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship at Calvin University and the Center for Excellence in Preaching at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Steuernagel added that the Calvin Symposium is one of the most well-attended events on worship in the U.S., attracting thousands from around the world. This year’s conference ran January 6–26, and attracted registrants, including students, faculty, artists, musicians, pastors, preachers, scholars, teachers, worship leaders and planners, and worshipers.

“Calvin does a really good job of bringing scholars and practitioners together,” he said.

Silva Steuernagel’s work with Calvin in the last few years has focused on multi-lingual worship, and that was part of the design of the worship service.

“We’re looking for better ways to worship in more than one language, other than the classic, clunky mode where the preacher says a sentence, you stop, and translate the sentence. Our goal was to move away from English as a presumed common denominator.”

He recalled an instance when he produced a multilingual worship service, without every piece translated. An American attendee commented afterward: “This was beautiful. I just wish we had translations with everything, because we didn’t know what was going on.” Steuernagel replied: “That’s how everyone else feels all the time. This idea that English is the lingua franca, the common denominator, of Christians worshipping around the world is not true at all.”

In the Calvin worship service, he designed it so that the worship flowed seamlessly between Portuguese, Spanish and English. He chose a few hymns from the hymnbook Santo, Santo, Santo/Holy, Holy, Holy (GIA Publications, 2019), and invited Brazilian participants to each create their own prayers and poetry. Maria Monteiro, a Brazilian and lecturer in Church Music at Baylor University, delivered the sermon, “Hope. Esperança. Esperanza.”

“I’m really proud of the way that we worked together to craft the liturgy,” he said. “The result is a good example of how to leverage the digital medium to create and keep some sort of worship flow when people can’t participate in the ways they’re accustomed to participating. The rhythm of liturgy changes when you’re doing it online. Sermons are shorter, transitions are different. Editing helps keep the pace lively and engaging.”

The worship service is viewable online, and Steuernagel says it’s worth a look for anyone who plans worship services online, for those looking for creative alternatives for incorporating more than one language into worship (in person or virtual), and for those interested in becoming more culturally hospitable in Christian worship.

Watch the service here: https://worship.calvin.edu/resources/resource-library/worship-with-the-church-in-brazil/ 

The decision to hold the Bolin Family Scholarship Evening program virtually this year turned out to be providential. The event took place on February 16, a night when much of Dallas was paralyzed by a winter storm. But the Zoom program was able to proceed as planned.

The speaker was David Brooks, New York Times columnist, best-selling author and regular commentator for the “PBS NewsHour” and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Brooks returned, having spoken in 2020 on campus to a sold-out crowd at the Perkins’ Bolin Family Perkins Scholarship Luncheon.

The event was named for sponsors Jane Bolin, a member of the Perkins Executive Board, and her husband Pat. Sponsors for the event at various levels were all members of the Perkins Executive Board.  The planning committee was made up of the officers of the Executive Board, including Chair Bishop Mike McKee and Vice-Chairs, Katherine Glaze Lyle and Dodee Frost Crockett, Dean Craig Hill, Advancement Associate Lee Henry, and Development Director John Martin. All told, the 2021 event raised $175,000 for the Perkins Student Scholarship Fund.

For the program, Brooks offered his thoughts on the past year, asking the question, “How can we repair a society that’s become pretty broken?” He approached the question through the concept of Bildung – a German word for “the complete moral, intellectual, and civic formation of a person.”

His own formation, Brooks said, included the positive influences of a church camp he attended as a child. He’s still in touch with many of the friends made there.  “That’s the kind of nurturing community that instills certain values,” he said, adding that he was also formed by New York – where he grew up – as well as Grace Church School, where the seeds of his own spiritual formation were first planted.

Bildung has no equivalent word in the American vocabulary, Brooks added. “We think about teaching and learning and not formation,” he said. “As a result, this formation is not happening at a deep level.”

A crucial question now, he said, is: “How are young people being formed in this year of isolation?” Many young adults reported feelings of loneliness before the COVID-19 pandemic; those have increased significantly over the past year.

“That is the hardest part of a hard year,” he said. “It is the sense that we are not as connected as we were.  We are not being formed into the people that we could be. But these trends didn’t start in 2020; they’re been happening for a long time.”

Why? Brooks cited two theories.

“First, as a society, we chose personal freedom over connection,” he said. Americans no longer grow up in big families. They’ve chosen personal space and privacy over connection. There are fewer social connections. “Second, we chose achievement over equality,” he said.  He described the ways that the American meritocracy passes advantages from affluent, well-educated parents on to their kids. About three quarters of the students in elite colleges in the U.S. come from families that are among the top 1% of earners.

“As a result, a lot of people and parts of the country are being left behind,” he said. “People in big media and big tech don’t see them. We’re being raised in atmospheres of isolation and a loss of trust.”  He expected the pandemic might rally the nation; instead, it has fostered distrust and conspiracy theories. That distrust is a crisis, Brooks added – but crises have the advantage of revealing problems and pointing to potential solutions.

“It’s the hard times, ‘in the valley,’ that can open up our spirits and our souls,” he said. “The past year has been a hard year but a revelatory year. I hope it has shifted our culture, that we will come out of it different than we went into it.”

Brooks said that Americans “need to get a lot better at seeing each other. The Bible is full of stories of failures of the knowledge of the heart. We have to get better at that skill of seeing.”

Americans society needs to create a denser social architecture, “to lift up those who are community builders, who are trusted, who create community.”  He also called for an expansion of morally functional institutions.

“Every institution can become a thicker community, one that surrounds people with thick emotional spiritual and moral bonds,” he said. “It’s not passing people along. It’s doing Bildung.”

Brooks described the work of his wife, Anne Snyder, author of The Fabric of Character: A Wise Giver’s Guide to Supporting Social and Moral Renewal (2019). She developed a list of questions to assess how well institutions are forming people: Does the organization have a strong purpose? Does it have liturgies or rituals that unite people?  Does it enjoy the full engagement of all of its members? Does it put relationship wealth at the foundation of its success? Does it offer opportunities for struggle and growth? Are vulnerability, accountability and joy part of the experience?

Brooks concluded by citing the work of Samuel Huntington, who noted cycles in history marked by periods of vast change and low social trust that tend to occur every 60 years.  If the pattern holds, another cycle would’ve begun in 2020.

“The good news is, we’ve been through this before,” Brooks said. “Each time, we come out different. So, I leave this with a sense of optimism about the future. Our culture needs to get knocked in the nose sometimes. But it gets up different.”

David Brooks Recommends

At the conclusion of his talk, Dean Craig Hill asked Brooks what books he’s currently reading. Here’s his list:

Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution by Carl R. Trueman and Rod Dreher

The Meritocracy Trap: How America’s Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite by Daniel Markovits

Ray Jordan, Adjunct Professor at SMU’s Simmons School of Education, will lead “An Introduction to Black Theology” course as part of the Perkins Summit for Faith and Learning on March 19-20. This course will examine the relationship of African Americans with Christianity and the Church by asking “Why Black Theology?” and “What is Black Theology,” and “Why Black Theology, Now?”

In addition to teaching graduate level courses in the SMU Liberal Studies program, Jordan is a pastor at First Community Church, a UCC congregation in Dallas, and a consultant to churches and corporations in diversity and inclusion. We asked him to share a preview of the course; here are excerpts.

Can you explain what you mean by Black theology?

The Black Church has often been called an ‘invisible institution’ because it was created during the era of slavery, when enslaved Africans had few, if any, rights at all. Particularly any rights that had to be acknowledged by the greater society.

Faith was one of the very few areas in which enslaved Black people had some autonomy or agency. Interestingly enough, while they were given the faith of their slave masters, they didn’t accept it wholeheartedly. They saw it, interpreted it, and expressed it through a unique lens. Other than the indigenous faith of Native Americans, Black Theology was one of the first, if not the very first, faith systems on American soil. The faith of white colonial folks and later white Americans was really the faith of European traditions brought with them.  The faith of enslaved Africans was unique, and continues to be unique, in the ways African Americans interpret the text and express their faith through lived experience and social consciousness.

In the course, we will take a look at what is unique about Black Theology – how it can serve not only persons of African descent but the greater society as well.

Can you give an example of how Black theology is unique?

The term “Black Theology” was crafted in the late 1960s and early 1970s, primarily by the father of Black Liberation Theology, Dr. James Cone, a storied and beloved academic, theologian and Methodist minister. He began to formulate the idea of Black Theology around the idea of human dignity and as a response to the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. That was really the calling card.  He was one of the first to document Black Theology in an academic sense. He interpreted it for the masses, created hermeneutics and an exegesis, and made it into an academic discipline.

The core of Black Theology and the ways it is unique go all the way back to the era of slavery. It was centered around an idea we would think of as human rights today. But really, at the core, it’s better thought of as human dignity, as captured by a centuries-old saying in African American religious circles: “The god in the belly of the slave ship was not the same god on the decks of the slave ship.”

African slaves, from the beginning, would’ve come from myriad religious expressions, such as Islam and ancestral worship. What they garnered from their introduction to Christianity was the idea of human dignity. The idea that every human being is made in the image of their creator and therefore every human being is deserving and worthy of dignity, respect, love and compassion. But that is not what they were experiencing.  From the very beginning, Black folks were beginning to look at their white counterparts, scratching their heads, and saying, “Hmm. You are using a text that says, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ but you’re not practicing it.”

The Bible spoke of the great exodus of the Hebrew people, which left Black people asking, “Where’s our Exodus?”

So, at the center of Black Theology, really, is an elevation of human dignity of all people, but also a critique of the white theology they were experiencing with slave owners and people that were complicit in slave owning and later white populations they would’ve encountered during Jim Crow. So human dignity is the core, the kernel, the heartbeat of Black Theology as well as a critique of their white counterparts.

As you tell this story, it’s surprising that slave owners shared their faith, given how empowering that faith ultimately became.

It was not a foregone conclusion. There was lots of discussion with church leaders and theologians of the 17^th, 18^th, 19^th centuries, beginning with the questions, “Should we introduce faith? Should we baptize our slaves?”

There were some differences. Many leaders of the Church at the time supported the slave trade. The justification was, well, these people are in darkness. They worship other gods, so we can justify their enslavement by introducing Christianity to them. That’s the way we can make ourselves feel better about it.

There were some people who were not resigned to being intellectually disingenuous, who were saying, “Wait a minute, folks, if we are baptizing slaves, doesn’t the Bible tell us to treat our fellow Christians as brothers and sisters?   How we can justify slavery?”

So, it was not a foregone conclusion that Christianity would be offered to enslaved persons. There were actually excerpts of Biblical texts that were excised from what was given to enslaved people, so they wouldn’t feel empowered to stand in their own human dignity. So they would somehow be pacified to remain in their so-called inferior state.

So, faith was really a tool weaponized against enslaved Africans. But those enslaved Africans took that tool, and inverted it, and from it, received great inspiration and encouragement and power to transform their condition. It really is quite a remarkable story.

Is there any prerequisite or assumed knowledge base for those taking the course?

No. All knowledge levels are welcome. You don’t have to be proficient in anything in order to join the course.

This course sounds like it’ll be of broad interest. Who might find it of particular interest?

There are three primary audiences as I see it. First, those who care about human rights and how the faith of Christians has always been interrelated with some struggle for human rights in the world. Though there have been great failings, there have always been those interested in that intersection.

Secondly, Christians who want to understand the experience of being Black in America. Anyone who wants to understand what it has been like. I often hear from my white counterparts: Help me to understand this experience. This course will do that.

Finally, the third group would be persons who want to deepen their own faith. Elie Wiesel once said, “Once you hear a witness, you become a witness.” I encourage people to study atrocious human rights violations, from all eras and from all around the world, because it strengthens and deepens your own humanity. You can’t hear a harrowing, transformative story of faith doing the impossible, without being affected by it and deepened by it yourself.

To learn more about Jordan’s course and the March 19-20 Perkins Summit for Faith and Learning, click here.

“Reboot: The Congregation as Youth Worker,” the Lilly Endowment funded initiative at Perkins, has released the first guide for churches interested in implementing an innovative model for a congregational ministry with youth. Along with co-directors, Bart Patton and Rev. Dr. Priscilla Pope-Levison, Victoria Sun Esparza, founder and CEO of In the Water designs and Perkins alumna (M. Div. 2019), developed this guide to help congregations assess their current youth ministry’s challenges and opportunities through design-thinking strategies. Read the story and find out where to download the guide here.