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 Keith Russell |
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FROM THE PRESIDENT Dear Friends: Thank you! I want to express gratitude to all who actively and lovingly support our mission here at ABSW. Many of you are longtime supporters and many of you are new contributors. We are delighted by the growth in numbers of you who deem our school as worthy of support. Part of the joy of attending the June Biennial meeting of the American Baptist Churches in Providence was to see and greet so many friends, alumni/ae, trustees, and well-wishers. Our Biennial breakfast was an uplifting time to share all that has occurred at the seminary and to give thanks to God for all the blessings we have received in these last years. Ever since acknowledging a call to ministry when I was sixteen years old, I have been drawn to the reality of God’s promise in Isaiah:
"Do not remember the former things, I have been both fascinated by and committed to the power of the new that God promises. It seems to me that God’s presence is found more in new creation than in propping up or defending that which is old or represents the status quo. It has been my privilege during more than thirty years in ministry to witness God doing new things. In unexpected ways God has often demonstrated to me the power and possibility of the new. I believe that these last several years at ABSW have been a demonstration of God’s action plan for a new creation. Do you perceive it? We have seen the new breaking through in the courage to restore and renovate Hobart. The focus on a new curriculum has brought the faculty to the edge of a new reality that is both frightening and fascinating. Can we learn to teach differently, to build different relationships, to have new partners, to consider the church setting to be at the heart of all that we teach? We have been led to create a far more complicated curriculum that requires new partners, new resources, and new insight. "Behold I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" Having redesigned our curriculum, we now have turned to developing and strengthening our outreach. The Asian American Center is designed to establish new relationships with Asian churches across the West and to provide the kind of training and resourcing that pastors and leaders need to be faithful in their ministries. The Rev. Philip Tse will help us develop this new resource. We have also begun the Global Prophetic Network under the leadership of the Rev. Desmond Hoffmeister as a way of connecting the concerns of the churches in the United States with the struggles and lives of the churches in Africa, Latin America, and beyond. We are committed to lifting up the "prophetic function" of ministry and are seeking to provide training and continuing education for church leaders both here and abroad. This new venture will seek to develop partnerships with prophetic ministries around the world and then seek to make these realities available to students and church leaders here. Even though we are running to keep up with all the new things that we perceive God doing, we know that we have only just begun. Isn’t it exciting? Thank you for your help, your prayers, your good wishes, and your financial support. I pray that we will have the courage to keep running and believing. At this moment, I simply want to say thank you! Pray that our courage as a faculty, administrators, and trustees will "stick" when we encounter the problems, frustrations, and irritations that are part of the trappings that always accompany the new. I am grateful to know that God is doing a new thing. I can actually see it. Can you? May God richly bless you! Faithfully yours, |
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