Letter From the President

When I was a pastor of a new church plant, I was privileged to witness how God used the Bible to change people and bring them together in His family. I still remember Joanne, who helped lead our first women’s Coffee Break, and her excitement in helping people read the Bible for the first time. I also remember the joy of the people reading and understanding the Bible for the first time.

The “holy” exchange of people of faith pouring out their hearts and minds into the lives of others was something that made for disciples on both parts of that exchange. For discipleship and disciple-making, the Bible needs to come to life for people in their context.

The material in this issue of Forum Magazine will take us on a journey of engaging Scripture in various places and contexts. Even this past year, we (faculty, staff, and students) have been introduced to a new way of hearing God’s Word through the Public Reading of Scripture.

This issue of Forum Magazine will take you to different parts of the world and different times (such as when Revelation was written). It is worth the journey of exploration, and we need to keep encouraging people to engage the Bible to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ.

In that same new church plant, I was privileged to become a trusted pastor to a woman in her 50s who had been abused. She was seeking to find out if God could really love her when someone so close to her had not. In one of our conversations, she confessed that she did not know the Bible and asked if it would be okay to start by reading a Children’s Bible. You know my answer: “Yes, what a great idea!” I was so glad to buy her a Children’s Bible to help her not just come to know the Bible but come to know the God who loved her.

In His Service With You,