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Seminary Releases Impact Report

April 15, 2020

Calvin Theological Seminary (CTS) has released its 2019 Impact Report, highlighting specific stories of travel courses students have taken to countries such as Mexico and offering a look at the role CTS has played in enhancing the faith of students who have come from more than 25 countries to study at the seminary in Grand Rapids, Mich.

The Impact Report also touches on expansion of seminary programs, offers statistics on numbers of graduates, and sketches some of the high points of the year.

“This Impact Report gives all of us an opportunity to look back and turn all praise and glory to God for what he has done and is doing,” writes seminary president Jul Medenblik in an introduction to the report.

“We are still rooted in the Reformed tradition and serving the local church by focusing on leadership development, but we do so in new ways and with new tools of connecting. We are thankful for the stories that are yet unfolding. . . .”

The impact report is rich with stories, ranging from an account by Cory Willson, professor of missiology, on a trip to Mexico led by Mariano Avila and his wife, Rosy, to personal accounts by students of what the trip meant to them.

Anne Marie Scherer speaks about what inspired her when she visited a ministry for poor families on the seminary-led trip to Mexico City:

“The most memorable experience for me was in visiting families and workers. What I believe was most memorable about this experience was the perseverance to do justice and to care for these families in poverty even though the workers at [the ministry] Los Niños de la calle knew they could neither ‘fix’ systemic poverty nor possibly be able to care for all of the children in Mexico City — let alone within the small region that they were helping.”

In another story in the impact report, Joy Elizabeth Lawrence shares her skepticism about attending the seminary while  living in Grand Rapids and then enrolling in its distance-learning program.

“I never planned on going to Calvin Theological Seminary. First, I'd already been to seminary for an academic degree. Second, I'm not Christian Reformed. Third, I imagined it would be stodgy,” she writes.

But at some point, John Witvliet, director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, recommended that she take his course on worship.

“I'd only had one class in worship in my first round at seminary, and I knew this would be different, so I registered. This class led to the invitation to apply [to CTS], which led to acceptance and financial aid.”

When she started her classes, Lawrence quickly realized how wrong her initial impressions of the CRC seminary had been. She was learning many different things and being challenged in new ways; it didn't matter that she wasn't part of the CRC.

The program was rigorous, she said, but that was only part of the attraction. The curriculum focused on her own spiritual formation as an individual and as a pastor; it helped to lead her into her own spiritual renewal.

“When my family moved away from Grand Rapids (for a much-prayed-for job for my husband) after two full-time semesters in the M.Div. program [at CTS],” said Lawrence, “I became a distance-learning student. I considered transferring to another seminary closer to my new home, but after visiting there, I knew that God was continuing to call me to finish where I'd so surprisingly been placed by him.”

Also in the 2019 Impact Report are some of the highlights that took place during the academic year:

  • The 2019 Stob Lecture Colloquium was presented by Willie Jennings, professor of systematic theology and Africana Studies at Yale University. He was interviewed by Danjuma Gibson, Calvin Theological Seminary’s professor of pastoral care.
  • Historian George Marsden celebrated his 80th birthday at Calvin Seminary in 2019, sharing stories and thoughts from his career. Marsden is a professor of history emeritus, University of Notre Dame, and is a CTS distinguished scholar in the history of Christianity. He was interviewed at this event by fellow CTS distinguished scholar James Bratt.
  • In February 2019, Calvin Seminary, in collaboration with Christian Schools International (CSI), announced the new certificate in Bible instruction. This fully online program is designed for the K-12 Bible teacher. Students in the CSI program will gain valuable biblical and theological insight, enriching their teaching.
  • Calvin Seminary’s Dig program brought together high school students interested in exploring issues around vocation and calling. Through intentional conversations and insightful excursions, Dig participants were encouraged to see how their specific gifts and work can connect with the larger mission of the church.
  • In Calvin Seminary’s opening convocation, the recently named CTS Board of Trustees chair emeritus, Sid Jansma, Jr., spoke about "Creating with God,” sharing insights he gained through years of service to the seminary and from his experience in the business world.

In one story, Karin Maag, director, H. Henry Meeter Center, wrote about how the center remembered the Swiss Reformation. On Sept. 13 and 14, roughly 80 people gathered at Calvin Seminary for a two-day conference to mark the start of the Swiss Reformation.

“More than 500 years ago, in 1519, Huldrych Zwingli began his public ministry in the Swiss city of Zurich. Although Martin Luther is better known, Zwingli’s Reformation laid the groundwork for Reformed Protestantism, later taken up and developed by John Calvin and John Knox,” she wrote.

In addition, the impact report includes  a story about Garland Mason III, who served 23 years in the U.S. Army and then enrolled in the master of theology program at Calvin Theological Seminary.

One of three students chosen to speak at the 2019 Scholarship Dinner, Mason explained that he was moved to consider ministry by what he had found to be a “spiritual vacuum” in the military community’s lack of resources devoted to caring for returned veterans.

“While the military is effective in its purposes,” he said, “there is more to be done for soldiers after they return home from war.”

In seeing that need, says the impact report, Mason found his calling to stand in the gap. And through his studies Mason is preparing for work in parachurch ministry to soldiers and their families.

“No one knows a soldier like a soldier,” he said in anticipation of the work God is leading him into.

For more information, visit CTS Impact Report