Lee University Partners with Church of God for Conference, Missions Week
Cleveland, TN—Lee University and the Church of God recently partnered on two separate ministry initiatives.
Lee’s annual Missions Week, which took place the week of October 22-28 saw students, professors and church leaders come together to draw attention to the needs of both the harvest field and missionaries around the globe. This year’s emphasis focused on the need for water as basic human necessity and the door of opportunity for witness it opens. Church of God World Missions and Operation Compassion recently adopted a water initiative and presented the need to students who responded with a $6,500 offering toward installation of wells in Guatemala. The week’s events also included lectures and chapel speakers with testimonies and experiences from around the globe.
In a separate event, Lee University’s School of Theology and Ministry (STM), in partnership with the Tennessee Church of God Executive Office, recently hosted a Ministers Resource Conference. With the theme “How to Minister in Today’s Cultural Context,” the conference taught ministry students and Church of God state ministers how to effectively conduct their ministry in a rapidly changing world. Leaders from Lee’s STM and the Church of God spoke at the conference.
Sessions included “How to Read and Understand Today’s Culture for Ministry;” “How to Preach in Today’s Culture;” “Fostering a Church that is Hospitable to the Cultural Outsider;” “Ministering Faithfully in an Age of Diminishing Christianity;” “How to Shepherd in Today’s Culture;” and “How to Care for Yourself in Ministry.”
Dr. Steven Hall, associate professor of pastoral ministry at Lee said, “The Resource Conference was an example of how the expertise of the academy and field need to work together rather than work apart,” said Hall. “As Lee President Dr. Mark Walker stated at the opening of the conference, the School of Theology and Ministry is dedicated to benefiting the local church directly and immediately.”
According to Hall, with the recent $1.24 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to establish The Center for Excellence in Pentecostal Preaching at Lee, these kinds of events will become more common.
“Rarely does the academic world of theology and ministry engage practical issues that pastors face as was done at the Ministers Conference,” said Dr. Terry Cross, dean of the STM and distinguished professor of systematic theology. “It was historic in the sense that it was the first of its kind and, hopefully, will not be the last.”
The mission of Lee’s School of Theology and Ministry is to train future ministers for service in a complex world. The STM believes the growing issues of today’s world point toward a need for future ministers to be educated in a variety of topics and methods for best serving the advancement of the Kingdom of God, and it seeks to send graduates into the world who are capable of meeting the world’s needs. For more information click here or call (423) 614-5080.
