By Rev. Dr. Heather H. Lear, V.P. for Grants
“The E. Stanley Jones Professors of Evangelism are on the cutting edge, addressing the realities and answering questions most church leaders are just now beginning to ask.” Over my week-long experience August 4-11, 2024, at the 15th Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies at Keble College, I regularly heard academic and denominational leaders from across the global Wesleyan family express a similar sentiment.
Every four to six years, lay and clergy scholars gather in the town where Methodism began to listen, learn, and address current issues in the academy, church, and wider world. The theme of this 15th Institute was, “The World is My Parish: Glad Tidings of Salvation in an Age of Crisis.” The Institute’s program includes plenary sessions, worship, and subject-specific working groups.
“Just as when the E. Stanley Jones Professors of Evangelism were first established to form evangelistic pastors for the Methodist Church, the Foundation is filling the need to train and educate ministry leaders, and in the process these professors are changing the conversation around evangelism.”
– Dr. W. Stephen Gunter
Director of the E. Stanley Jones Professorship Program
The Foundation for Evangelism’s presence was profound in the Mission and Evangelism working group, as Dr. Stephen Gunter and I, along with four current E. Stanley Jones Professors of Evangelism (ESJ Professors): Prof. Achim Härnter (Reutlingen School of Theology), Rev. Dr. Bryan Stone (Boston University School of Theology), Rev. Dr. Daniel Shin (Drew Theological Seminary), and Rev. Dr. Mark Teasdale (Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary) made up almost 30 percent of the group’s composition and papers presented. Rev. Dr. Sergei Nikolaev, President and ESJ Professor at Moscow Theological Seminary, as well as three former ESJ Professors were also members of the Institute, contributing to other working groups.
All of us with ties to The Foundation for Evangelism found time to check in and fellowship during the week, and I was grateful and humbled to hear how important each professor’s connection to and the support of The Foundation for Evangelism is to their teaching and ministry, both personally and professionally.
The ESJ Professors program is one of The Foundation for Evangelism’s great legacies and continued sources of transformation, both in the academy and local church. These leaders are shaping students in classrooms as well as the cultures in their seminaries. They are conducting research and writing the resources scholars and denominational leaders use across the Wesleyan family to help local churches invite and form disciples of Jesus Christ.
As the entire institute worshipped on Wednesday night in the same chapel at Christ Church where John and Charles Wesley were ordained, I gave thanks to God for the privilege of being part of an organization that, for over 75 years, has sought to equip and empower Wesleyan-tradition Christians to fulfill the brothers’ mission of spreading scriptural holiness across the land, meeting people where they are, inviting all to come and see what it means to follow Jesus, and daily sharing and living out their faith through loving God and their neighbor in authentic, tangible ways.
At The Foundation for Evangelism, we’ve identified our first two values to be Evangelistic and Wesleyan, and these E. Stanley Jones Professors of Evangelism continue to remind and educate the church how these values are practiced and embodied.
