We had a delightful time at Asbury Theological Seminary this August for our latest faculty retreat; we remain grateful to the amazing folks at Asbury and at Berea College who put in a lot of work to ensure the time would go well, and especially to our star presenter Christina Bieber Lake, who brought us a transformative word about the need to set boundaries to protect our humanity through the tough times for theological education that we’re called to live in.
Asbury wrote up the retreat as a news item, leading everyone at Asbury to ask: Who is that handsome fellow with the world in his hands? (And leading your Karam Fellowship president to ask: Sure, he can hold the world in his hands, but can he juggle three worlds at a time?)
Participant feedback was through the roof – we asked those who were with us how likely they’d be to recommend the retreat to a colleague on a scale of 1 to 10, and fully two-thirds of the responses were a perfect “10”!
And here’s the best news: All you west-coast Fellowship folks won’t have to miss out on the opportunity to “make this year different,” because Christina will be headlining a faculty retreat at Biola University in Los Angeles this January 2-4!
Mark the date on your calendar today, and watch this space for more information.
Here’s a look back at our August retreat:
Christina brought us two powerful workshops on the need to guard our humanity, including firm boundaries when our administrations keep demanding more bricks with less straw, and regularly planned times for revisiting the experiences that made us want to teach in the first place.
We visited Berea College, an institution historically rooted in Christian missional conviction. Berea students are required to work as part of their curriculum, and in exchange get their education 100% tuition free; one of our tour options included craft workshops, like this broom shop, where students combine tradition with innovation.
We enjoyed lunch in Berea’s historic Boone Tavern.
After touring Berea, we reconvened at historic Union Church, where Jay Moon (pictured not holding the world in his hands) led us to consider how we might envision combining tradition with innovation ourselves.
The retreat concluded with a workshop in which we reflected on our experiences and identified next steps in our journey. And, as we always do, we sang together to celebrate all the Lord has done for us!
