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Fall 2010 SPIRITUAL FORMATION COLLOQUIUM
Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? – Luke 24.32
INTRODUCTION
In George Bernanos’ novel Diary of a Country Priest, a crusty old clergyman tutors his protégé in the theology of vocation. “We’re all called to the priesthood, I agree,” he explains, “but not always in the same way. So to get things straight I start off by taking each one of us back where he belongs in Holy Writ. I tell myself that long before we were born, Jesus met us somewhere, in Bethlehem, or perhaps Nazareth, or along the road to Galilee – anywhere. And one day among all the other days, His eyes happened to rest upon you and me and so we were called, each in his own particular way, according to the time, place and circumstance.”
The old preacher argues that vocation happens at the point where God’s Word for everyone becomes God’s word for me. The history of our faith confirms that thesis.
St. Anthony sat in church and heard Matthew 19.21, Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor. “It was,” writes his biographer Athanasius, “as if the passage were read on his account.” Anthony liquidated his goods and headed to the Egyptian desert to transform the faith forever.
The unconverted Augustine, hearing a child’s sing-song voice chant Tolle, lege – “take up and read,” took it as “nothing less than a divine admonition that I should open the Bible and read the first chapter I should come upon.” He flipped to Romans 13.13-14 and found that “with the conclusion of this sentence, it was as if a light of conscience and security had streamed into my heart, and all the darkness of my former hesitation was dispelled.”
Martin Luther labored long under the burden of his sin until Romans 1.17 gripped his heart as it assured him that The just shall live by faith. “I felt myself,” he wrote of that moment, “to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.” He burst forth from his monastery to turn Christendom upside down and right-side up.
On Sunday, January 6, 1850 the teenage Spurgeon, yearning for true conversion, stumbled into a Primitive Methodist Chapel in Colchester where, sitting among only a dozen others, he heard an illiterate layman bawl out Isaiah 45.22, Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. “I saw at once,” Spurgeon declared, “the way of salvation.”
On Tuesday, September 10, 1946 as she sat on a train for Darjeeling, Mother Teresa felt John 19.28 impressed upon her heart. The Savior’s I thirst became the basis of her call “to satiate the thirst of Jesus by serving Him in the poorest of the poor.”
This semester we invite our chapel speakers to preach from their own transformative texts, the place where Jesus’ gaze has rested on them with particular power, whether for conversion, calling, or encouragement. This will be a “preaching semester,” and we encourage students, faculty and guests to bring their Bibles to chapel each week.
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SCHEDULE
September 2
President’s Chapel
Dr. Tony Celelli Ph.D. (ABD)
President
South Texas School of Christian Studies
September 9
Dr. Richard Jackson
Director
Richard Jackson Center for Encouragement and Evangelism
Philippians 2.5-11
“What it Means to be Born Again”
September 16
Becky Jackson
Minister of Music
Wesley United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
Psalm 139
September 23
Dr. Doug Jackson
Assistant Professor of Spiritual Formation
South Texas School of Christian Studies
September 30
Self Symposium Chapel
Dr. Calvin Miller
October 7
Dr. Karen Bullock
Fellow and Professor of Christian Heritage
Director of Ph.D. Program
B. H. Carroll Theological Institute
October 14
Andres Garcia
October 21
Dr. Ron Lyles
Pastor
South Main Baptist Church
Pasadena, TX
“Missing this Call is a Really Big Deal:
1 Samuel 3
October 28
Dr. Joe Rangel
Lecturer in Christian Missions
South Texas School of Christian Studies
Luke 9:23
November 4
Glen Melin
Pastor
Grace Bible Church
Corpus Christi, TX
November 11
Dr. Ronnie Mariott
Pastor
First Baptist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
November 18
Dr. Ken Hugghins
Pastor
Elkins Lake Baptist Church
Huntsville, TX
Philippians 1:6
December 2*
Christmas Chapel
Joshua Segundo
Chaplain
Metro Ministries of Corpus Christi
*Our undergraduate students will be our special guests for this service.
COLLOQUIUM LUNCH GROUPS
For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves ? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves.
– Luke 22.27The brothers should wait on one another. No one is to be excused from kitchen duty... for he can thus obtain greater charity and commendation.
- The Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 35, “Weekly Kitchen Service”
So basic to Christian formation is service at mealtimes that St. Benedict carefully spelled out the duties of believers in community to wait on one another at table. Those brothers preparing for their week of service repeated a prayer for strength and received the blessing of the rest of the community. In keeping with this ancient Christian custom, and as a part of our life together at the School of Christian Studies, we will take it turn to serve the noon meal to one another. Those whose week it is to serve will report to Deanne Celelli for instructions at the close of morning classes. They will prepare the food for distribution, serve it to their sisters and brothers, and clean up afterward.
Group A
Weeks: 9/2, 9/23, 10/21, 11/11
Scott Britton
Jesús Hernandez
Max Moorman
Tracy Tellado
Group B
Weeks: 9/9, 10/7, 10/28, 11/18
Larry Brown
Becky Jackson
Emily Powdrill
Daniel Ward
Group C
Weeks: 9/16, 10/14, 11/4
Timmie Henson
Andrea Mayhood
Matt Singleton
STUDENT SCRIPTURE READERS
"Give attention to the public reading of Scripture." – 1 Timothy 4.13
The Rule of St. Benedict states that the ministry of reading Scripture aloud is so important that the one who undertakes it must ask the entire community to pray that the reader be protected from the sin of pride. We will participate in this blessed – and daring – ministry by reading the word of God aloud to one another as part of our chapel services.
| September 2 | Larry Brown | Luke 14:25-33 |
| September 9 | Scott Britton | Philippians 2.5-11 |
| September 16 | Timmie Henson | Luke 16.1-13 |
| September 23 | Jesús Hernandez | Luke 16.19-31 |
| October 7 | Becky Jackson | Luke 17.11-19 |
| October 14 | Andrea Mayhood | Luke 18.1-8 |
| October 21 | Max Moorman | Luke 18.9-14 |
| October 28 | Emily Powdrill | Luke 19.1-10 |
| November 4 | Matt Singleton | Luke 20.27-38 |
| November 11 | Tracey Tellado | Luke 21.5-19 |
| November 18 | Daniel Ward | Luke 23.33-43 |