February 1997
Back Issues

Contents

• Ashworth Named Associate Director of Development
• Emmanuel Heritage Society Dedicated
• Emmanuel Library Catalog Added to Web Site
• From the President: On Finding Oneself in a Museum
• New Scholarships Formed
• Emmanuel Counseling Program Guided by Mission of the Church
• Emmanuel Business Office Staff
• Coming Events
• Summer School 1997
• 1997 Doctor of Ministry Class Schedule

Ashworth Named Associate Director of Development

Emmanuel School of Religion is pleased to announce that Dr. Wayne Ashworth of La Habra, California, has accepted the call to the newly formed position of Associate Director of Development. Dan Lawson, Executive Director of Development, announced the appointment saying, “Dr. Ashworth brings a history in educational development experience that will greatly benefit Emmanuel. We are extremely pleased to welcome Wayne, and commend him to our donors and supporting churches.” Ashworth joined the Emmanuel staff on the Seminary’s campus in early January.

Since 1980 Ashworth has served as Director of Business and Development for Whittier Christian Schools in southern California. From 1973 to 1979 he was Vice President of Business Affairs at Pacific Christian College in Fullerton, California. He is a 1965 graduate of the University of Oregon, where he was awarded a Bachelor of Business Administration (B.B.A.) degree. In 1969 he received a Master of Education degree in Business from Oregon State University. Pacific States University in Los Angeles awarded him an honorary doctorate (L.L.D.) in 1977.

Ashworth’s assignment will include a major emphasis in field work for Emmanuel in the middle states, from Maryland in the East to Nebraska in the West, from Minnesota in the North to Tennessee in the South. In addition to field work, Dr. Ashworth will edit Emmanuel’s monthly update publication The Clipboard, write appeal letters, coordinate phonathons, and give oversight to Emmanuel’s efforts in submitting grant proposals to foundations.

Wayne and his wife Beverly have two grown sons both living in Southern California. Beverly is an English teacher and a graduate of Milligan College. Both Wayne and Bev have a long history of involvement with the Christian Churches. They were married by Dr. Fred Thompson at First Christian Church in Chicago 31 years ago.

Emmanuel Heritage Society Dedicated

Emmanuel School of Religion recently dedicated the Emmanuel Heritage Society, a wills society committed to encourage friends to make Emmanuel the beneficiary of a “Planned Gift.” Over 40 friends from across the country have responded to a challenge to enroll in the Heritage Society to:

• Provide the Seminary with an opportunity to express appreciation to the donor.
• Encourage other friends of Emmanuel to give a planned gift. While humility may very well justify a person’s wish to remain anonymous, friends of Emmanuel may assist the School even more by setting an example of stewardship for others to follow.
• Insure the future existence of Emmanuel.

In addition to these 40 Heritage Society enrollees, Emmanuel has received correspondence from 40 other friends who prior to the establishment of the Society had indicated that they were remembering Emmanuel with a planned gift.

The visible symbol of the Heritage Society is the Book of Wills. This Book contains letters and pictures of all Heritage Society members and is located in the Seminary’s Memorial Room.

A Planned Gift that names Emmanuel as the beneficiary may be given by naming Emmanuel in a will, in an insurance policy, trust, charitable gift annuity, or life estate agreement. A Planned Gift benefits the School at the time of the donor’s death, but may have a diversity of benefits for the donors during their lifetime.

Friends who wish to enroll in the Emmanuel Heritage Society are encouraged to contact President C. Robert Wetzel or Executive Director of Development Dan R. Lawson at (423) 926-1186.

Emmanuel Library Catalog Added to Web Site

The Emmanuel Library is now offering free World Wide Web access to its catalog of holdings at http://esrl.library.net. The site can also be accessed from Emmanuel’s home page at http://www.esr.edu.

This new electronic resource contains catalog records for over 95,000 books, audio cassettes, videos, and other items held in the Library’s various collections. The Emmanuel Library is especially known for its extensive Beauford H. Bryant New Testament Seminar Collection and its Restoration Movement Collection.

From the President:
On Finding Oneself in a Museum

It was the 43rd anniversary reunion of our graduating class from Hugoton High School. A goodly number of our 35 graduates had not only survived but had returned for the 1995 all-school celebration. This small Kansas town boasts an unusually fine historical museum, something that was not there during our school days. Thus a group of us graying graduates did the tour.

The museum was filled with memorabilia from the early settlers of Stevens County, and it had a good collection of the pictures and equipment that made Hugoton the “Natural Gas Capitol of the World.” The curators, Gladys and Maurice Renfro, had obviously done a superb job in gathering and displaying the collection.

Then it happened. As we were looking through the pictures, I saw myself! There along with Robert McClung and David Parsley we were 22 year olds being ordained to ministry by the First Christian Church. My first reaction was, “I am not old enough to be in a museum.” Then I looked at my classmates, a mirror of myself, and realized that I was.

After recovering from the initial shock, I felt a strange sense of satisfaction. For a person whose family had moved often until settling in Hugoton, this museum picture gave me a sense of place. Even though I had now been gone for over 40 years from this town where I had been baptized, married and ordained, it was still very much a part of me, and I was a part of its history.

At the door of the Mildred Welshimer Phillips Chapel here at Emmanuel is the Founders Plaque. On it are the names 231 individuals and couples who, in the formative days of Emmanuel School of Religion, contributed at least $1,000 toward the founding of the School. The Chapel itself is a memorial to a marvelous Christian lady whom I first knew as the Dean of Women at Milligan College. The beautiful building we occupy here at Emmanuel is named for her husband, Mr. B. D. Phillips. Each year the Emmanuel Contributor Report lists the funds established by people who wanted to honor someone they loved and respected while at the same time seeing their stewardship continue after they themselves had passed on to their eternal reward.

Recently Emmanuel established the Emmanuel Heritage Society. This is one more way in which friends of the School can become a part of the history of Emmanuel School of Religion as they make their stewardship from this life work for the Kingdom in years to come.

It’s not a bad thing to find oneself in a museum, especially when the museum takes the form of an investment in the future of the Kingdom.

—Dr.C. Robert Wetzel, President

New Scholarships Formed

William J. and Audrey M. Richardson Scholarship

The William J. and Audrey M. Richardson Scholarship was recently established at Emmanuel School of Religion to aid needy students in their effort to obtain a graduate level theological education. Having been a teacher for many years, Dr. Richardson and his wife, Audrey, have a first-hand appreciation for the financial stresses that students endure. In establishing this endowed scholarship, it is their desire to lessen the financial burden of a student family each year by underwriting the tuition costs.

We are delighted to receive a scholarship in the Richardson name, as Dr. Richardson has been associated with Emmanuel School of Religion since 1978 when he joined the faculty as Professor of Church History. Presently he serves the seminary as Adjunct Professor of Church History. Two of his sons, Steve and John, and one grandson, K.C., are Emmanuel graduates.
 

Rowland And Ivabelle Evers Scholarship

In setting up their financial plan, Rowland and Ivabelle Evers of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, took out a life insurance policy on Mrs. Evers to be set up in a trust with Emmanuel School of Religion as one of the beneficiaries. The Evers requested that the funds be placed in an endowment account and a scholarship fund be set up with the earnings used to help deserving students at Emmanuel in their preparation for Christian ministry. Mr. and Mrs. Evers have been long time supporters of Emmanuel with a compassion for ministerial students suffering financial hardship. Ivabelle Evers passed away recently, and the scholarship was awarded for the first time this fall to an international student, John Seo.
 

Harley L. And Reba F. Teel Scholarship

Harley and Reba Teel have a great concern for the urban centers of our world. In acting on that concern, the Teels have established a scholarship at Emmanuel School of Religion to encourage students who are interested in preaching and urban evangelism either in the United States or abroad. Mr. and Mrs. Teel have supported Emmanuel for many years. We are pleased that their names will be permanently associated with the school through this endowed scholarship.

Emmanuel Counseling Program Guided by Mission of the Church

Jim Street is Emmanuel’s new Professor of Christian Care and Counseling. Here he shares his thoughts with Envoy editor Dan R. Lawson.

ENVOY: Dr. Street, what do you mean by “Christian Care and Counseling?”

JIM STREET: Well, it’s a very loaded phrase. First, I want to convey the fundamental claim that all counseling which is done in and through the church ought to be guided by the mission of the church. I see the mission of the church as related to and oriented toward the worship of God in and through Jesus Christ. Second, I define “Christian Care and Counseling” as a form of pastoral and congregational presence which aims to assist those undergoing crises and transitions in such a way that they endure and emerge out of those changes as more the disciples of Christ than when they entered them. Third, I see Christian Care and Counseling as being both a process and a content.

ENVOY: What do you mean when you say that Christian Care and Counseling is “both a process and a content?”

STREET: Many forms of secular counseling claim to be primarily about certain processes. They deny that they intend to teach a particular content or deliver a particular message. I believe you cannot separate process and content. In other words, when Christians offer care and counseling they are presented to people in particular ways but they also say certain things. I try to convey this idea to my students by placing the “ing” of the word “counseling” in parentheses. Yes, what we do in counseling is a process. And yet, we also offer “counsel.”

ENVOY: I noticed that you said “when Christians offer care and counsel...” Does that suggest that you believe this ministry belongs to all Christians?

STREET: I believe it belongs to all Christians who are gifted in that way. I believe that too many times in the church we have come to see the minister as the “local psychotherapist.” The minister is supposed to do the care and counseling. To be sure, the minister is supposed to do some of that. However, I think a major job of the minister is to assist those people in the congregation who are so gifted to become a pastoral presence themselves.

ENVOY: How does your belief that Christian Care and Counseling include the offering of “counsel” affect the way you teach here at Emmanuel?

STREET: I think those who offer care and counsel must be theologically astute. I would go so far as to say that those who counsel in the name of Christ and on behalf of Christ’s church need to be more Biblically and theologically astute than “psychologically” astute. For that reason, it is more important to me, and I think to the church, that those who counsel as Christians understand the counseling task in light of such things as the Lord’s Prayer as the theories of secular psychotherapy.

ENVOY: Does that mean that you think those psychological theories are unnecessary?

STREET: I think they are inadequate. We certainly must be in conversation with those theories. After all, we cannot understand our culture without understanding the ways it has been “psychologized.” And, I find that some of those theories remind me of some things I should have remembered on the basis of the Christian story. For example, when I read Freud I am reminded of how self-deceived I can be. His is a “modern” way of speaking about sin. I’d rather use the language of “sin” because, as Alexander Campbell reminded us, words carry a particular kind of freight. And for those students who believe they are called to minister in mental health facilities such knowledge is essential.

ENVOY: In what other ways do you see psychological theory as inadequate?

STREET: Psychological theory for the most part does very little to help us understand evil. And, of course, most of it is developed without reference to God. Further, psychological theory, being psychological theory, tends to convert the language of the church into the language of the clinic. And, psychological theory does very little to help us understand the fact that life can be and often is tragic.

ENVOY: What are the most important things which you want to convey to the students you teach here at Emmanuel.

STREET: Two things. First, they must understand that Christian Care and Counseling is a ministry of the church and therefore must be shaped in light of the church’s mission. Second, that when all is said and done the best form of care and counsel which Christians have to offer is themselves.

Emmanuel’s Business Office Staff

Beth Dickson, Cash Receipts Coordinator; Renee Payton, Bookstore Manager and Faculty Secretary; Randy Matney, Director of Finance and Data Processing; Rebecca Schroeder, Assistant to the Director of Finance; Doug Theobald, Supervisor of Buildings and Grounds.

Coming Events

The Robert O. Fife Lectures in Christian Reformation

“Reflections on Christian Reformation.” March 11-14, 1997, in the Mildred Welshimer Phillips Memorial Chapel on the campus of Emmanuel School of Religion. Four lectures on diverse approaches to Christian Reformation. This inaugural series of lectures is presented by namesake Dr. Robert O. Fife, Adjunct Professor of Church History.
 

Making Sense of Medical Choices: A Short Course in Medical Ethics

April 5, 1997. A continuing education seminar presented by Emmanuel School of Religion. Led by Dr. Mary Lynn Dell who is an attending physician at the Egleston Children’s Hospital, a medical staff psychiatrist at Grady Memorial Hospital, and assistant professor of psychiatry at Emory University School of Medicine, all in Atlanta.

Summer School 1997

CMP 791: Seminar in Preaching
Dr. Myron J. Taylor, Adjunct Professor of Preaching
June 3-13

CMM 701: Seminar in Mission: Urban Church Health
Dr. Gordon Moyes, Superintendent of Wesley Mission Sydney, Australia
June 16-20, 23-25

CME 701: Family Life Education
Dr. Rick Townsend, Professor and Chair of Marriage and Family Studies, Johnson Bible College
July 7-17

CD 796: Seminar in Doctrine: From the Jewish Messiah to the Christian Trinity
Dr. Ronald Heine, Director of the Institute for the Study of Christian Origins, Tübingen, Germany
July 22-August 1

1997 Doctor of Ministry Class Schedule

*Registration for Doctor of Ministry degree classes must be completed three months prior to the beginning of the class in order to prepare reading assignments. All classes meet at Emmanuel School of Religion with the exception of the Northwest course.