Category Archives: Prayer Letter

Upon Us for Good

As I pen my first letter to you in my new role as interim president of Bethlehem College and Seminary, I’m reminded of Paul’s prayer for the beloved saints in Philippi: “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because […]


Our First Seminary Graduates in Cameroon

On May 13, Bethlehem College and Seminary’s extension site in Yaoundé, Cameroon, will graduate its first five students who have completed our four-year Master’s of Divinity Program. Yesterday Dieudonné, Vera Tando, administrative assistant, and I experienced the weight and significance of this coming event. We were invited to the home of the former prime minister […]


Meaningful Dialogue

This semester I’ve been teaching World Religions in our evening program. During one class session, I mentioned that there’s been a concerted effort from some religious and political groups to minimize the differences between orthodox Christianity and other factions. For example, many Americans have promoted the idea that Islam and Christianity are not all that […]


Bethlehem College and “Classical Education”

Under the authority of God’s inerrant word, Bethlehem College exists to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ by equipping men and women. How did Bethlehem College arrive at this mission statement and what model of education do we, Bethlehem College, use […]


To Highways and Hedges: A Vigor for Church Planting

And the master said to the servant, “Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.” —Luke 14:23 Christ has committed himself to the advance of the gospel through building his church. The foundation upon which Christ builds the church is the apostolic testimony of the gospel, namely, […]


A Message from the Interim President

Dear Friends of Bethlehem College and Seminary, This has been a challenging week for our school as we announced the resignation of our second president, Dr. Joe Rigney, and my appointment as interim president. I want to share with the school’s wider network of friends, alumni, and supporters some of the remarks that I made […]


Leadership Transition at Bethlehem College and Seminary


Evidence for the Resurrection: The Disciples’ Belief

Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, said that “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testify about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are […]


United for Life

This message was given at the United for Life rally at the Minnesota State Capitol in February 2023. Ten years ago, I stood in the capitol rotunda and addressed a similar crowd–perhaps some of you were there–and urged our legislators to uphold marriage as the lifelong union of one man and one woman for the […]


Beauty Should Stir Our Hearts as Well as Our Minds

For centuries, the Western tradition of thought conceived of beauty as a symmetry, harmony, or proportion between different elements of a thing. It was most likely the sixth-century B.C. Pythagoras, Greek mathematician and philosopher, with his school, who first argued that the origin of all things lay in number, which marked the birth of an […]