Robert Lowery

On Monday, January 29, the Bloomington Pantagraph published a piece on Lincoln Christian Seminary’s new Doctor of Ministry program:

LINCOLN — Five ministers sit as students around a horseshoe-configured room for a class titled “DMIN1003 — Developing a Biblically Grounded Ministry.”

Each has skills they want to gain or improve upon as they return to college for doctorate degrees. Each has experience. Kevin Dell is the youngster, and he’s showing some gray at age 35.

Each also is part of Lincoln Christian Seminary history as the school has taken a leap forward this month with its first doctor of ministry class.

Robert Lowery teaches the course, and program director Jeff Snell monitors. They exude joy that a program talked about with various degrees of seriousness during two decades has now landed, with the enrollment of the first six students, one of whom dropped the first class because of an illness.

Snell sounds a tone of being pleased with the expected outcome: Better ministers, better equipped.

“I think we are slowly building something that will be a strong contribution to the mission of the school,” Snell said Jan. 10, the third day of the doctor of ministry classroom activity.

Read the rest at the Pantagraph.

Thanks to Steve Arney for the story and Steve Smedley for the photographs.

As mentioned last week, Dr. Lowery was one of the three speakers at the Deans’ Installation. Dr. Lowery’s remarks begin around 42:00. Get your audio below:

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Scott Sarver’s photos from the ceremony can be found here.
Microphone photo credit: el_davo

Technorati Tags: Revelation, sermon, Robert Lowery, Lincoln Christian College

On Tuesday, January 17, 2007, Dean Karen Diefendorf, Dr. Paul Boatman and Dr. Robert Lowery were formally installed as deans of Lincoln Christian College and Seminary. Dean Diefendorf addressed one of the school’s core values, servant-leadership, and Dr. Boatman spoke about authentic Christian community. Dr. Lowery spoke on the call to be a child-like college and seminary. The opening paragraphs of his remarks are posted below.

One day Jesus visited the campus of Lincoln Christian College and Seminary. And the newly installed academic deans, along with their colleagues– the staff, administration, faculty, students, trustees, and even their family members–gathered around him. And one of them asked Jesus: “Who is the greatest seminary and college in the Kingdom of heaven?”
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Colleagues and Friends:

This afternoon Marilyn and I met with a specialist associated with Memorial Hospital in Springfield, Illinois. Dr. Fullerton clarified my situation. He explained that the octreotide scan that I had in late December did indeed reveal that the tumor was not a carcinoid malignant one. We were told that the doctors had me undergo the scan because they believed that the scan would show that the growth was indeed malignant. They were pleased with the results. However . . .

We experienced a major set-back this afternoon when he said that cancer of other forms has not been ruled out. Indeed, we found out that we were meeting with him at the request of another specialist because that specialist believes that the growth should be considered cancerous until it is determined otherwise. Dr. Fullerton plans on meeting with several radiologists in the next day or two to determine if I should undergo a laparoscopic biopsy or a major surgical biopsy. Other kinds of scans may be ordered as well to see if the tumor is growing or not. The doctor desires to do the former but is not certain if he can do so due to the location and size of the tumor. In any case, the growth must be identified so that we know what to do in the days ahead.

He informed us that in 75% of the cases like mine, malignancy is present. If the biopsy does indeed show there is a malignancy, then the options of treatment will need to be weighed. Surgery is not an option for removing the tumor due to its location, size, and involvement with other organs. If it is malignant, a combination of medicines plus chemotherapy would be, at best, a stop-gap treatment only to slow the growth.

As I took in this information, a verse from Psalm 46 kept coming to my mind: “Be still and know that I am God.” If one of my memories from third year Hebrew class is accurate, the Hebrew word in v. 10 means “let your hands drop . . . drop to your knees” and trust God.

Of course, we are stunned by this. Tears have been shed. In the last few hours, my mind has gone a thousand different directions. We continue to pray that God will be honored in all of this. We continue to appreciate your friendship and your prayers as we continue this journey. We ask you to pray that God will place me in the 25%. Above all, we pray that God will find us faithful and trusting in the days ahead.

As we begin the New Year, may we do so with a renewed commitment to serving God so that at the end of 2007 (if the Lord has not returned, of course!) we will be found faithful, particularly in how we study and apply God’s Written Word. Accordingly, may we commit ourselves to the following:

• To interpret and apply Scripture wisely and sensitively;
• To enter into the world of the text, dwell there for a while, and wrestle with it before we try to bring the text to our world;
• To be open to surprise as we study Scripture, to be taken aback, to be disarranged by texts we thought we “controlled” or knew;
• To see ourselves as practical theologians, engaging analytically, constructively, and lovingly Scripture and the practice of ministry;
• To keep a conversation going between the text and tradition, not only looking at recently written commentaries and other resources from journal articles to websites but also in going back to the early centuries of the church;
• To ask the big questions, questions that excite the imagination, questions that may turn popular (and sometimes traditional!) readings on their head;
• To discover how to combine loyalty to Scripture and criticism (I use this word in its true sense, namely, explanation) as well as combining devotion (I use this word in the sense of devoting ourselves to using our minds when reading God’s Word) and creativity;
• To balance our personal study of Scripture with studying Scripture within the Christian community;
• To interact with others without becoming parrots of others;
• To remember that demonstrating good hermeneutics principles (e.g., interpreting the obscure by the clear, interpreting Scripture by Scripture) and exegesis (i.e., drawing out the authors’ original intended meanings through the study of grammar, the meaning of words, etc.) is both a science and an art;
• To comprehend the difference between interpretive pride and interpretive humility;
• To appreciate that the deeper we probe Scripture the more powerfully it speaks to our lives;
• To fathom that though we are able to discover the meaning of passages found in Scripture, may we always marvel at the mystery that remains;
• To be content to live with uncertainties with regard to what we perceive to be difficult texts in Scripture and the certainty of our beliefs;
• To grasp that a healthy tension will naturally and necessarily exist between interpretive status quo (May we rejoice in those moments when we become convinced, or at least more certain, that we know what a passage meant and what that passages means to us today!) and interpretive journey (There will always be more to learn about that same passage!); and
• To always remember that ultimately Scripture is the subject and we are the object.
• To pay to the sound counsel of Alexander Campbell’s words as recorded in Christianity Restored: