University of Alabama Christian Faculty and Staff Fellowship

What a great semester it's been. We won't meet on 4/24, so 4/20 was the last meeting. Turns out I have to be out on sick leave. I hope you have a great summer and look forward to reconnecting in the fall.  It's also time to think about a book for next term.   I created an interest survey of books to consider for next term . Don't worry. There are only 5 books on the list plus one wild card, and I pasted the abstract for each book for your reference.  If you choose the wild card, I'll use my despotic powers and select the book for the term. Otherwise, we'll go with the book ranked most highly by everyone.   Meanwhile, in light of the fire at Notre Dame and the subsequent discussion of restoration, I found some reflective statements on why it's important to create beautiful things for God's glory, an idea relevant to the book we studied this term. These are extracts from Art for God's Sake: A Call to Recover the Arts by Philip Graham Ryken: ...

Join the Christian Faculty Network for a lunch gathering on 4/17 - Finishing up Love Your God With All Your Mind .  Come to the Christian Faculty Network lunch meeting on Wednesday, April 17 at 11:45 AM (done by 12:45 PM). We meet at the Baptist Campus Ministries building (University Boulevard and 4th Avenue).  Plan on the best meal deal in town: You can get lunch there for $1 thanks to the generosity of local churches. Don't forget to thank the church workers for what they do for the students.  We had an interesting discussion of Chapters 6 and 7 of our book. We'll take up Chapters 8 and 9 on April 17 and discuss meeting on 4/24.   Our book for this term: Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul by J.P. Moreland (NavPress, 2012). The title is linked to Amazon. Make sure to get the 2012 version. It's an updated version of the book from 1997. If you have the 1997 edition, you'll find Chapters 7-9 are differen...

Join the Christian Faculty Network for a lunch gathering on 4/10 - Finishing up Love Your God With All Your Mind.  Come to the Christian Faculty Network lunch meeting on Wednesday, April 10 at 11:45 AM (done by 12:45 PM). We meet at the Baptist Campus Ministries building (University Boulevard and 4th Avenue).  Plan on the best meal deal in town: You can get lunch there for $1 thanks to the generosity of local churches. Don't forget to thank the church workers for what they do for the students.  Thank you kindly to Phil Bishop for making Nate Mirza available to us. We'll come back to our book at the next meeting and focus on Chapters 6 and 7. This last half of the book will get very interesting.  Our book for this term: Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul by J.P. Moreland (NavPress, 2012). The title is linked to Amazon. Make sure to get the 2012 version. It's an updated version of the book from 1997. If you have t...

 Join the Christian Faculty Network for a lunch gathering on 4/3 - Hear from Nate Mirza about serving international students  Come to the Christian Faculty Network lunch meeting on Wednesday, April 3 at 11:45 AM (done by 12:45 PM). We meet at the Baptist Campus Ministries building (University Boulevard and 4th Avenue).  Plan on the best meal deal in town: You can get lunch there for $1 thanks to the generosity of local churches. Don't forget to thank the church workers for what they do for the students.  We had a wonderful overview of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale from Kenneth Minkema, Executive Editor, Jonathan Edwards Center .  We have a guest speaker for our 4/3 gathering, Nate Mirza, Navigators International Student Ministry , who will help us understand the experience of international students in our universities. That knowledge can help us serve this group better.  Some information about Nate: With more than 40 years of ministry ...

Join the Christian Faculty Network for a lunch gathering on 3/27 - Hear from the Director of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale   Stewart Swain, Campus Minister for Reformed University Ministry (RUF) , gave a fascinating talk at our 3/20 gathering about his faith journey and what RUF is doing. They took 41 students to Israel over Spring Break. If you want to find out more, contact Stewart <stewart.swain@ruf.org>.   On 3/27, we'll dial up Kenneth Minkema, Exec. Editor & Director , Jonathan Edwards Center, Yale , to learn something about what the center is doing with Edwards's works. Jonathan Edwards is widely considered the most important American theologian, so it seemed relevant to what we've been discussing about the Christian mind.   If you have some thoughts about a book to discuss next term, I'll add it to the interest survey if it's not already on there. You can email me at LTHurt@ccs.ua.edu.   Have you heard of the Fellowship for Pe...

No gathering on March 13 and then we'll resume on March 20. Here's to a wonderful Spring Break.  Come to the Christian Faculty Network lunch meeting on Wednesday, March 20 at 11:45 AM (done by 12:45 PM). We meet at the Baptist Campus Ministries building (University Boulevard and 4th Avenue).  Plan on the best meal deal in town: You can get lunch there for $1 thanks to the generosity of local churches. Don't forget to thank the church workers for what they do for the students.  Barry and Karen McGlothin gave a wonderful overview of Navigators International. It's exciting to think about how we can impact the world from right here just by ministering to the international student community.  We'll pick up on Chapter 6 of our book at the next meeting.  Our book for this term: Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul by J.P. Moreland (NavPress, 2012). The title is linked to Amazon. Make sure to get the 2012 version. It's an upda...