A new start
9 September 2021
The sun is shining. New students are settling in. And our chapel services are back to being in person. It has been a wonderful first week back at College in many ways.
Of course, we’re not quite back to “pre-Covid” times. Nor are we “post-Covid.” The right prefix is hard to find and we’re wrestling with all the same challenges as many other churches organisations. We can’t just press the reset button and we don’t want to either. Instead, we’re looking into the autumn with a renewed sense that we are in the Lord’s hands and privileged to train students for ministries which will be shaped by Covid and a hundred other challenges. The breadth and depth of those pastoral, apologetic and societal pressures will require deeply-formed and theologically-minded missionaries, evangelists, pastoral workers, and ministers. That’s the core of our work and we’d love your prayers and support in that task.
New faces and some farewells
We announced the appointment of Sydney Tooth last year as a Lecturer in Greek and New Testament and we’re delighted that she’s now joined the Oak Hill community with her husband Doug and their daughter Sophie. You can learn more about Sydney here.
Alongside her we’ve also welcomed David Fordyce as our new librarian. David has taken over from Evelyn Cornell who has served as the College librarian for 9 years. We’re so grateful to the Lord for her expertise and service and for bringing David to join us. You can read more about David here.
As we announced last year, Dan Strange has now moved on to serve as the Director of Crosslands Forum which was recently launched, and you can find out more here. This summer we also waved a fond farewell to Chris Ansberry and his family. Christ taught Old Testament and Hebrew for 9 years here and served as our Postgraduate Course Director. He has taken up a role at Grove City College in Pennsylvania as Associate Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies and as the Director of their Accelerated Pastoral Degree Program. We’re thrilled that Matthew Bingham has taken on the reins as our Postgraduate Course Director. Please do join us as we pray for Dan, Sydney, David, Evelyn, Chris and Matthew in these new roles.
Events and resources to serve the church
We’re thrilled to be able to invite people back onto the campus for a range of events this year, as well as being able to extend their reach via Zoom. You can find out about those here.
And we’re beginning a new round of conversations with people exploring in depth training for ministry. We’d love to hear from anyone interested – we have Open Mornings coming up later in the year and other events to look out for on our website.
