Midwinter Lectures at Austin Seminary!

Part of our discipleship involves enriching our mind! We are grateful that our campus borders Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and this week we have an opportunity to attend some of the Midwinter Lectures. They will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Every year, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary hosts and event, inviting three lecturers to discuss intersections between current culture and Christian Faith. In addition the to the lecturers, the seminary also invites an extraordinary preacher to lead worship.

This week four incredible individuals will be addressing the seminary and the surrounding community:


Currie Lecturer: Thomas W. Currie

The Thomas White Currie Lectures were first held in 1952 and have been sponsored for many years by the Tom Currie Bible Class of Highland Park Presbyterian Church of Dallas, Texas.

Dr. Currie will focus on the nature of Christian ministry, and give an account of ministry which is rooted in an understanding of Jesus Christ and the church he has chosen to embody with his own presence and ministry.

Dancin' with The One Who Brung Us: Jesus Christ and the Embarassing Work of Ministry.

Lecture One: The Embarrassing Work of Ministry
Dancing with Jesus is inherently embarrassing, requiring that we ask for help, that we follow Another, and that we risk not knowing where we are going or what we are to do. All disciples encounter this embarrassment; ministry begins by embracing it.

Lecture Two: The Embarrassing Place of Ministry
Christian ministry is embarrassing in part because it is located, embedded in a congregation’s life in a particular place and time. Such ministry is embarrassingly particular because the love of God is embarrassingly particular, embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, who locates himself on the cross among thieves and sinners of all sorts.

Lecture Three: The Embarrassing Role of Theology in Ministry
Ministry is embarrassing because Jesus Christ is the great embarrassment with whom we all get to deal. This embarrassment is so severe that we are tempted to think that we can have Jesus without the theological baggage he brings, that we can do ministry without following, without the hindrance of other people, without the church even. Theology is essential for ministry not because it seeks to make believers ‘orthodox’ but because it seeks to be faithful to that One whose grace is relentlessly embarrassing even as it is unexpectedly joyful.

Dr. Currie is Professor of Theology and Dean of Union-PSCE at Charlotte. He received a BA from Haverford College,his MDiv from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the PhD from The University of Edinburgh.

An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Currie served as a pastor from 1976–2001. He has taught courses in theology and homiletics at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and in extension programs in Houston and Midland, TX. He has a particular interest in the theology of Karl Barth and in the short stories of Flannery O’Connor. He is the author of several articles and four books, including The Joy of Ministry (2008).

Westervelt Lecturer: Barbara G. Wheeler

The E. C. Westervelt Lectures were established in 1949 by Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Flato of Corpus Christi, Texas, in honor of the parents of Mrs. Flato.

Barbara Wheeler will address "Differing Deeply: Religious Tensions and the Future of Mainline Protestant Denominations."

Today differences within mainline religious denominations over theological doctrines, social issues, and religious practices are often greater than differences between denominations. Using the Presbyterian Church as an principal example, the first lecture will explore the ways that differences threaten the future of denominations; the second will propose ways that the same differences can become the basis of vitality and faithfulness in the years to come.

Lecture One: Made with Human Hands: Idols of the Left, the Right—and the Center.

Lecture Two: For This Reason: the Dignity of Denominational Differences

Barbara Wheeler is Director of Auburn’s Center for the Study of Theological Education, which she founded in 1991 while serving as Auburn’s president, a post that she held for thirty years. Ms. Wheeler writes and speaks on American religious life and theological education. She consults widely with seminaries, denominations, foundations and congregations concerned about the future of religious leadership and religious institutions. She is principal author of numerous research reports published by Auburn (www.auburnsem.org ) has contributed to and edited a dozen volumes on the future of mainline Protestantism, congregational studies, and theological education. She is the co-author of Being There: Culture and Formation in Two Theological Schools (Oxford Press) and author of numerous published articles on theological education and religious life in North America.

Barbara Wheeler is a member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and an ordained elder in Bethel Peniel Presbyterian Church in Granville, NY. She has served the church at the national level as a member of the Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Presbyterian Church, the Board of the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, the Committee of 7 to Study Presbyterian Publishing, and the Special Committee on Theological Institutions. Currently she serves as a member of the Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song, charged with producing a new hymnal for the denomination.

Jones Lecturer: Rodger Y. Nishioka

The Robert F. Jones Lectures were established in 1949 by the Women of the Church of First Presbyterian Church, Fort Worth, Texas. The lectures are funded annually in memory of their pastor of thirty-five years.

Rodger Y. Nishioka holds the Benton Family chair in Christian education at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA. While he teaches in the area of Christian education and practical theology, he specializes in ministry with youth and young adults and has completed a research project comparing the participation of young adults in mainline Protestant congregations and non-denominational independent Christian movements.

Prior to his joining the faculty at Columbia, Nishioka served for 12 years as denominational staff in youth & young adult ministry for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Rodger received his undergraduate degree from Seattle Pacific University, his master’s degree in theological studies from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, a Doctor of Divinity degree from Austin College and his Ph.D. from Georgia State University in Atlanta.

Nishioka has published several articles, chapters, and books largely focused on ministry with youth and young adults and the educational ministry of the church as spiritual formation.

Lecture One: Marked as the Imago Dei: Human beings and our capacity to imagine
This first lecture will discuss what imagination is and how we as human beings are both gifted by God and charged with the amazing ability to imagine.

Lecture Two: But it’s just a rock! Nurturing the religious imagination in a cynical age
This second lecture will examine the challenges to imagination in a cynical and skeptical age and how church leaders must nurture a religious imagination inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Preacher: Brian K. Blount

Brian K. Blount is President and Professor of New Testament at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Virginia. He was called to this position in 2007, after serving for 15 years as the Richard J. Dearborn Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Princeton Theological Seminary.

An MDiv graduate of Princeton Seminary in 1981, he obtained his BA from the College of William and Mary in 1978. After graduating from Princeton Seminary, he went on to become the pastor of the Carver Memorial Presbyterian Church in Newport News, Virginia from 1982-1988. William and Mary’s first African-American to receive membership in the Alpha Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society received his PhD in New Testament Studies from Emory University in 1992. He returned to teach at Princeton Seminary the same year.

In 1998, Professor Blount became the first African American to be tenured in the Department of Bible at Princeton Theological Seminary. His primary work has been in the Gospel of Mark and in the area of cultural studies and hermeneutics. He is the author of five books:

Cultural Interpretation: Reorienting New Testament Criticism (Fortress, 1995);
Go Preach! Mark’s Kingdom Message and the Black Church Today (Orbis, 1998);
Then The Whisper Put on Flesh: New Testament Ethics in an African American Context (Abingdon 2001);
Can I Get A Witness? Reading Revelation Through an African American Lens (Westminster John Knox Press, 2005).
Revelation. A Commentary in the New Testament Library Series (Westminster John Knox Press, 2009).

He has edited a volume of essays on worship with Leonora Tubbs Tisdale entitled Making Room at the Table: An Invitation to Multicultural Worship (WJK, 2000). He is also the coauthor of a book with Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann and theologian William C. Placher entitled Struggling With Scripture (WJK, 2001). He has also co-authored the book Preaching The Gospel of Mark in Two Voices (WJK, 2002) with Gary W. Charles, the pastor of Central Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, GA. He is an editor of The Discipleship Study Bible, also by Westminster John Knox (2008). As a part of his work for the Bible, he has also written the introduction and notes for Mark and Matthew. He is an associate editor of the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible for Abingdon Press. He is also the General Editor for True To Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary by Fortress Press.

The author of numerous articles, he also preaches and directs adult education classes in local congregations. He is married, and he and his wife, Sharon, have two children, Joshua and Kaylin.

Hope that you will be able to join us!