It Really Is Happening

In August, 1969 I set up residence in Room 25, Roberts Hall, on the campus of Atlanta Christian College. For the next four years, except for the summer months, Roberts Hall – Room 25 my freshman year, Room 18 sophomore and junior years, and Room 2 my senior – the campus of Atlanta Christian College would be my home.

Graduation from ACC in May, 1973 ended that sense of official home, and I was soon to be married to my favorite ACC alumna, Vicki Kindt. We both headed off to graduate school. We had a great experience in graduate school, but that wasn’t home. Our ACC roots ran deeper than we realized. The graduate school’s alma mater was sung to the same tune as the ACC Alma Mater – but we never once changed the words. ACC was in our blood.

In August, 1976 we were back at ACC – a homecoming of sorts. If I’ve done the math correctly this is 35 years for me teaching at ACC. In those 35 years I’ve seen a lot of changes in my home, and none quite as dramatic as those changes announced in chapel on 2 February 2011. I’ve been involved with ACC – either as a student or faculty member – over half of its existence. You might think a person with those kinds of roots would think “that’s too much change.” But you’d be wrong.

When I was a student in the late 1960s and early 1970s, you pretty much had to plan on being a preacher or your diploma didn’t have much value in the job market world. That’s not to say there was no value in the education, but if your focus was on “job training,” then you needed that job to be in vocational ministry of some sort. If you happened to be female, that challenge was even more formidable.

Oddly, there was a lot of criticism of ACC in those days and in the days before the College moved more towards a liberal arts education. The criticism was that if you didn’t want to be a preacher, then there was nothing for you at ACC. Thankfully, under the leadership of presidents like Dr. Jim Donovan and Dr. Eddie Groover, ACC did make that move. The curriculum was broadened, new majors added, accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools was achieved, and, marvel of marvel, today we are graduating more biblical studies/ministry majors than ever, as well as a host of other young men and women who, while not thinking of vocational ministry, will go out and help transform the world! We really take serious the biblical idea of “the priesthood of all believers” – not unlike early leaders in the Stone-Campbell movement did.

How could that be anything but good? Yet, some of the same people who were critical that we only trained preachers now suggest that we don’t train preachers anymore. We do train preachers. As a preacher who went through ACC and who values the education I received here greatly, I would still quickly say that I wish the biblical education and ministry education that our students are receiving these days had been available in the early 1970s. I’m not criticizing my education at all and certainly not the people who taught me, but simply saying that we continue to make great progress in what is offered at ACC in lots of areas, ministry training included! The facts speak for themselves.

We always hear that ACC no longer values our restoration heritage. Somewhere between the time of Alexander Campbell and the present, Christian churches trended towards a kind of isolation from the rest of the religious world that, at least in some contexts, became sectarian. Oddly, Alexander Campbell himself named the college he founded Bethany College, not Bethany Christian College. Located in Bethany, West Virginia, it was given a geographical name that still serves as its identity.

And, speaking of Campbell, my reading about his life and reading more pages of the Millennial Harbinger that I should admit to in public, has taught me that he was extraordinarily interested in sharing his sense of biblical Christianity with any who would listen. He believed that preachers ought to be educated in the same classrooms where doctors, lawyers, and other professionals were educated. Convinced that the trustworthy testimony of Scripture, as it bore witness to Christ, was the foundation of the church, he wasn’t afraid to be surrounded by believers who hadn’t yet reached that point. What I know to be true at ACC is that “the integration of faith in every discipline” is being taught by men and women who truly believe the gospel has power to transform. We aren’t afraid for any and all to hear that. For me, to think of the impact that what is taught at ACC is having in churches of all sorts all over the place is reason enough to spend my life engaged in this ministry. The critics are right – we aren’t sectarian; but they are wrong if they understand that to think we somehow have deserted our conviction that “the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.”

The move from East Point to West Point is certainly a decision with great potential for emotional upheaval. I’ve come to work at 2605 Ben Hill Road, East Point, GA for 35 years. I met my wife and asked her to marry me on this campus. Our children grew up hanging out with ACC students (and turned out pretty well despite that fact!) and I’ve encountered the presence of God on this piece of His earth in ways like nowhere else. I’ve got roots here.

But I don’t think God is confined to one place only. The potential of the new place just gives God new places and new people to continue what He’s been doing for decades on this campus. Our mission hasn’t changed. Our commitment to Christ as Lord of the universe hasn’t changed. Our biblical studies faculty isn’t changing. It’s just location and name. And location and name are little more than entry ways to opportunity to do what we’ve always done.

What some seem to have missed in all the news is the fact that the East Point campus isn’t disappearing. At least Old Main, Burns Hall, and the Library will remain a vital part of Point University. We already have more students who will remain in these facilities that we have ever had in the entire student body in the history of our College. Like all students who have been a part of the education offered here, they are being educated to be points of influence in a world desperate for what they have to offer.

So, no doubt there is a little emotional attachment to the name Atlanta Christian College. And sometimes when I’m involved with students on the campus, or when I’m in a chapel worship service, or sitting in my office with a group of students listening to their dreams and plans, I feel like I should “take off my shoes, I’m on holy ground.” I’ve got roots here and those roots run deep within my soul.

But I couldn’t be more excited about what God is doing through this community of believers. It is mind boggling to think that God is positioning Point University to be a major point of influence in places we never would have dreamed about and in ways that we can barely begin to comprehend. Perhaps the apostle Paul was correct when he said, “now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20,21)

I understand the challenge of digesting all of this. I understand that some might ask, “why did you take Christian out of the name?” I understand the roots so many of us have on this piece of earth in East Point. Those concerns can and are being addressed in ways that are open, honest, transparent, and, at least to me, convincing. What I don’t understand is the automatic assumption that change means deserting who we are. When Paul became the aggressive “pointer to the cross” (1 Corinthians 1:18-25 – “we preach Christ, crucified”) he left behind his old religious name Saul, and began to use the more acceptable Gentile name his parents gave him alongside of his Jewish name – Paul. If we can open a fraction of the doors with Point University that the old Saul opened with Paul, then, buckle your seat belts, we’re on for a ride!