How Can and Should We Reach and Train Our Future Pastors and Christian Leaders?

This article represents a plenary session address for the Asbury Seminary Faculty Retreat, September 20, 2019, by Ed Stetzer, the Billy Graham Chair of Church, Mission, and Evangelism at Wheaton College, Dean of the School of Mission, Ministry, and Leadership at Wheaton College, and Executive Director of the Billy Graham Center. The article addresses six significant trends facing theological education. Following this, three mission challenges are derived from the trends, followed by three implications moving forward.

The Next Steps

This chapter explores the tension and competition between various missionaries and missions agencies in Ecuador as each group tried to position itself to contact the Waorani. Rachel Saint and Elisabeth Elliot reconciled for the first of many times before Rachel and Dayomæ traveled to the US for This Is Your Life and speaking engagements, a trip that lasted a year. Dayomæ converted to Christianity and was baptized by V. Raymond Edman, president of Wheaton College, where three of the missionaries killed by the Waorani had attended. In Ecuador the missions first involved in the Waorani project continued efforts to make contact. Mission Aviation Fellowship resumed flights over Wao clearings. Brethren missionary Wilfred Tidmarsh ventured near Waorani territory. In November 1957 two Waorani women, Mintaca and Mæncamo, came out of the rainforest. Elisabeth Elliot befriended them, brought them to live with her, and sought to learn the Wao language.

Connecting Users with Special Collections

Buswell Library at Wheaton College in Illinois faced a cataloging backlog of thousands of rare materials focusing on American and British Protestant evangelism and missions. Cataloging staff used creative thinking to solve challenges such as lack of staff time and expertise. We collaborated with special collections staff to determine specific user needs, then used our knowledge of metadata practices to meet those needs. Many complicated items appeared in the workflow, but we found creative ways to make them accessible. To communicate the project to the rest of the library, we presented at a staff meeting, explaining the types of materials cataloged and sharing tips for searching for them. The project significantly increased the amount of special collections items cataloged annually and allowed us to connect faculty and students with our valuable research materials.

Spiritual Formation and Soul Care in the Department of Christian Formation and Ministry at Wheaton College

This article examines a model of formation within higher education that is committed to educationally based spiritual formation, desiring to see students formed as people who love God and neighbor, devoting their lives to redemptive labor in the world. Deeply influenced by the evolving relationship between the department, the institution, and the broader evangelical culture, the Christian Formation and Ministry department of Wheaton College seeks to equip students with the theological and theoretical foundation, the personal maturity of character and faith, and the practical ministry skills necessary to lead and participate in the formational and caring mission of the church in the world. Wheaton College’s unique approach to teaching spiritual formation and soul care in both their undergraduate and graduate programs is examined through a historical context of the department, a liberal arts and learning-centered approach to education that includes biblical foundations, philosophical framework, pedagogy, and teaching curriculum and assessment.

American Evangelicals and African Politics: The Archives of the Fellowship Foundation, 1960s–1987

This article describes the archives of the Fellowship Foundation, best known as the organizers of the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC. The secretive character of the Fellowship probably accounts for its lack of visibility in African historical narratives to date. This article makes a case that this evangelical network was significant as a clandestine “track two” diplomatic organization with ties throughout Africa. Historians of international relations, it is suggested, may find useful sources in the public archives of Fellowship Foundation correspondence at the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College in Illinois. The article reviews the records for several countries and offers examples of the banal, secretive, and sometimes usefully suggestive evidence to be found in the correspondence.

Professor Graham

Billy Graham has consistently been portrayed as a prominent example of anti-intellectualism. What this perspective misses is that from the time he decided for Wheaton College, his life and career unfolded as a series of pilgrimages to elite universities. To be sure, Graham was not an intellectual, nor was he simply a paradox of anti-intellectual intellectualism. Rather, Graham’s relationship to intellectual life is best understood as an expression of intellectual virtue. For all of his moments of anti-intellectualism, the arc of Graham’s cast of mind bends toward curiosity, mutual understanding, courage, and, most of all, humility. In this way, Graham contrasts with the polarized situation of intellectual life in America past and present, and, as a target of both theological liberals and theological conservatives, he represents a critical figure of American ideological centrism.