It is hard to believe that we are closing in on our May graduation exercises. We offer our congratulations to an impressive group of graduates from the Seminary. As we near the end of this academic year, this Moving Times is packed with interesting and important news. We encourage you to read it and to turn it into a "prayer and praise" list.

The questions on everyone's lips seem to be, "How's the building coming?" and "When will it be done?" The answer to the first question is that the building is coming along very well (as you'll be able to judge from the pictures taken at the end of March and just a few days ago). As to the date, the answer is that Fiskars Construction is hoping to meet the July 1 deadline. Then we shall need a month, at least, to furnish the facility and move in. So we hope, plan, and dream to be in place by Fall Semester. We offer our thanks to all who have contributed in a variety of ways and our gratitude to God for providing this important resource for the Seminary and for the church.

Thank you for reading The Moving Times and thank you for praying for the Seminary and its ministry.
 

Boise Field School of Evangelism (March 23-April 28)
An On-Site Report by Dr. Russell Burrill

Boise, ID Church:
Field School of Evangelism Host Site

We opened our meetings Friday night, March 23, in Boise, Idaho. We filled the church twice, with around 200 non-members attending. The meetings continued with 2 meetings each night at 5:15 and 7:15 p.m.

Everyone is excited about what God is doing. One unique experience happened to James Ash while he was visiting prior to the start of the meetings. He was looking for an interest name that had asked for a Bible study. On finding the street, which was difficult, they parked in front of the house. He got out of the car and a man across the street waved at him. James waved back and the man suddenly realized that he had mistaken James for someone else. James then walked over and talked to the man, who was taking a smoking break outside. James handed him a brochure and told him about the meetings. The man immediately responded and said: "You are an Adventist". James was shocked, but the man continued and told how he was brought up an Adventist, had attended Andrews and studied theology, but now his life had taken a different turn. It was no accident or coincidence that James came there at that time. When he went to the house of the "interest", he found no interest, but knew God had sent him there to contact this former Andrews seminarian.

God seems to be preparing people here for the message so pray for us. There are 10 seminarians working here in the field school. (You can check with Runnette if you wish their names).

The pastor of the Cloverdale church, the largest church in the Idaho Conference and the host for the meetings, is Eric Brown, who graduated from seminary in 1999. Not many young seminarians get started in such a large church, but Eric is doing a great job.

Early in the meetings we had 20 people make a decision to accept Jesus, coming forward on our first altar call. Many seminarians had the thrill of leading the people to Jesus after they responded to the invitations. The seminarians are also training a lay person, who visits with them and also helps lead people to Jesus. Pray for us.

Late breaking news (April 19) . . .

I'll just bring you a quick update. Last Sabbath we had our first call and 40 people came forward for baptism. The students worked extra hard all week and have received an additional 20 decisions in the homes. We still have one more week to go, but praise the Lord for over 60 decisions so far. We have the date set for baptism for 40 of them as of yesterday. We expect more decisions this weekend. Keep us in your prayers. I just came down with a bad cold that is starting to affect my voice. The students are all in good spirits and excited about the meetings.

Editor's Note: In addition to Dr. Russell & Cynthia Burrill, Elder & Mrs. Ed Schmidt are assisting in the field school. Students on the team are as follows: Jeremy Arnall, James Ash, Ryan Ashlock, Chad Carlton, Bill Collier, Luis Colon, Tobin Dodge, Josue Murillo-Campos, Fidel Soto, and Eric Stubbert. We invite your prayers for this team in this last week of the meetings.

InMinistry Design Team Visits Bethel Theological Seminary
St. Paul, Minnesota
(Photo courtesy of www.bethel.edu)

On March 13 and 14 seven Andrews staff members journeyed to Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota in behalf of the Seminary. 

Bethel has successfully implemented an in-ministry MDiv  program that has important parallels to the MDiv delivery system our Seminary plans to begin this summer. 

The team was made up of Richard Choi, NT Professor; Dan Cress, University Director of Networks and Servers; Dave Merling, OT Professor; Jon Paulien, Distance Education Director; Andrew Pfeifer, Seminary Educational Technologist; Randy Siebold, assistant to the Vice-president in Instructional Design ; and Walt Williams, Director of the new InMinistry program.

Bethel’s in-ministry program reaches out to pastors who cannot leave their place of service to further their education.  Using a combination of on-campus intensives and Internet courses, students are constantly encouraged to combine theory and practice.  This unique, accredited program of ministerial education was born in over ten years ago in an intense financial and enrollment crisis.

The Andrews group found the Bethel Experience exhilarating.  Among the things emphasized at Bethel was the need to rethink seminary education on the basis of a compelling vision of God’s plan for ministry in today’s world.  Seminary education should enable students to experience the power of God and to become able by the Spirit to transform the lives of others.  Ministerial education needs to affect being and doing as well as knowing.  Every part of the curriculum needs to be justified on the basis of the core vision.  Technology must not drive what is taught at the seminary, what is taught must drive the technology.  Technology is a tool to enable the transforming work of seminary content to do its work at a distance, as well as in the campus classroom.  Technology enables the building of community even among people who have spent little time in the same geographical place.

The Andrews team came home all fired up about the possibilities of the new in-ministry program at the Seminary. 

Our profound thanks goes out to our generous hosts at Bethel, Greg Bourgond, Gail Swenson, and Kristin Anderson in particular.

-- Jon Paulien

Randy and Dan react animatedly

Thanking God for a renewed vision 
of ministerial education

About 40 Conference Ministerial Directors, 4 Union Ministerial Directors along with pastors from 16 conferences attended the Mentoring Conference sponsored by Denver Seminary, March 29-31 in Denver.

Based on reports from attendees, the Conference was greatly appreciated. In fact, many recommended that this become an annual induction training for introducing mentoring and the InMinistry delivery system to new participants. John McVay and I made presentations to the Seventh-day Adventist delegates regarding our program at Andrews and found most Ministerial attendees highly supportive of the new MDiv option.

The Director of Denver's mentoring program was highly impressed with the number of Adventist leaders present and the quality of their questions and participation. He verbalized hopes of working closely with SDAs in the future in customizing their seminars to our needs as well as utilizing Adventist expertise in pastoral preparation - which they do not address. On the reverse side, many of our men were highly impressed with the deep spiritual atmosphere and Christian cordiality exhibited during the long weekend on the part of Denver Seminary staff.

-- Walt Williams

As follow up to the visit to Bethel Theological Seminary, members of three design teams met in retreat on April 12 & 13. The purpose was to highlight quality features of Internet-based courses and to initiate the three design teams into their duties.

Such courses play a minor, but important, role in the new MDiv InMinistry delivery system. A total of 1/7 of the course work in the the program is to be offered through quality, Internet-based classes.

The retreat was organized and led by Dr. Jon Paulien, Director of the Seminary's Distance Education Center. Other Seminary faculty members in attendance were Richard Choi, David Merling, Jiri Moskala, and Randy Younker. Also participating were Andrew Pfeifer (Seminary Director of Education Technology), Walt Williams (InMinistry Supervisor), Larry Lichtenwalter (MDiv Dream Team member), Denis Fortin (Associate Dean), and John McVay (Dean). The retreat benefited from the expertise of other AU staff and faculty including Lorena Bidwell (, Randy Siebold (Specialist in Instructional Design & Technology), and Jim Jeffery (School of Education).

With the conclusion of the retreat, three design teams are now functioning with each team responsible for the design of a single course. Teams are working on courses in Biblical Archaeology and mini-refresher courses in Greek and Hebrew.

David Neff, Editor of Christianity Today, to Speak
PMC Youth Chapel, Thurs., May 3, 10:30-11:20 a.m.

David Neff is slated to address Seminary students and faculty on Thursday, May 3, 10:30 a.m., in the PMC Youth Chapel. The wider University community is warmly invited to attend as Neff addresses the topic, ""Largely Poor, Uneducated, and Easy to Command': What the Washington Post doesn't know about American evangelicals."

Neff is editor of Christianity Today and executive editor of Books & Culture magazines and editorial vice-president of Christianity Today, International. In his sixteen years at CT, he has written on topics as diverse as physician-assisted suicide, Palestinian statehood, English evangelicalism, and sexual addiction.

"One of the joys of being a journalist is the freedom to investigate almost any topic," he says. "If the whole world is God's world, we must feel free, nay compelled, to bring a Christian vision to every corner of creation."

A graduate of the Seminary's M.Div. program, Mr. Neff is one of the most visible graduates of Andrews University. We welcome him and invite all to attend this important event.

Dean McVay and his wife, Pam, had the privilege of traveling in China recently with a group of Seminary presidents from around North America. The group, representing the Fellowship of Evangelical Seminary Presidents, toured China from March 16-26 at the invitation of the China Christian Council. The focus of the tour was on visiting seminaries in the cities of Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai.

The group conducted talks with students and faculty members of the following seminaries: Yan Jing Theological Seminary (Beijing); Nanjing Theological Seminary; Jiangsu Bible School; Shanghai Theological Seminary. These schools represent three different types of seminaries sponsored by the Three Self Patriotic Movement, the official Protestant church in China--national, provincial, and regional.

In addition, the tour group met with representatives of the China Christian Council in the three cities as well as representatives of the Amity Foundation and the Amity Printing Company.

The challenges of Christianity faces are huge. And the need for training pastors and lay people is large as well. Using official figures, there are over 41,000 official churches and meeting points and only some 2,000 trained pastors. "We came away with a sense of awe, both in view of the daunting problems as well as at what God is doing," says Dean McVay.

If you would like to see more pictures (a lot more!) of the China tour, follow this link.