The Oikonomia Network is delighted to announce that Fuller Theological Seminary has become one of our partner schools. We are deeply grateful to God for this new partnership, and look forward to much fruit as we walk together in the mission he has given theological education in our time.
Fuller has become a leader in making vocation a part of theological education. In 2013, the faculty voted to make vocation a central pillar of the school’s new curriculum. This now includes four core courses on vocation required of all students. One comes at the outset of the curriculum, which helps incoming students see vocation as a framing issue that they need to keep in mind throughout their subsequent studies.
However, Fuller’s history with vocation goes back much further, as Hugh De Pree Professor of Leadership Development Scott Cormode notes in a statement on Fuller’s new partnership with the ON:
Fuller Seminary has been committed for many years to the intersection of faith with work, vocation and economic issues. Twenty years ago, Fuller’s Board of Trustees established the Max De Pree Center for Leadership to honor the legacy of Max De Pree, who devoted his life to work at this intersection. In recent years, Fuller has partnered with Princeton, Duke, Luther Seminary, and the Catholic Theological Union to create resources to teach seminary students about what we together called “Christian callings in the world.”
Joining the Oikonomia Network is the next exciting step in working with other Christian schools to, in the words of the ON, to “help people live integrated lives wholly centered on discipleship to Christ [and to] find meaning and fulfillment in callings outside the walls of the church that create value for others, provide for their households and help communities and economies flourish.” We have been committed to these goals for two decades and we are pleased to join with others who share our commitments.
Cormode, Vice President for Vocation and Formation Tod Bolsinger, De Pree Center Executive Director Mark Roberts and other Fuller leaders are already well known to many in the ON. Roberts is slated to speak on vocation in the household at the ON’s Karam Forum event on March 2-3 (register now!) and we look forward to many more opportunities to learn from each other in the context of this new partnership.
Schools are invited to become partners of the ON by the ON steering committee. This follows a relational process of mutual discernment, focused on the ON’s student outcome goals, in which we ask one another how partnership with the ON can help a school accomplish its educational mission. Feel free to contact us with questions.
