Fall Speaker Series “Kickoff” – August 26
In May of 2011, my family and I made the move from Marietta, Georgia to Wilmore, Kentucky to begin my three years of seminary education at Asbury Theological Seminary. My very first seminary class was a week-long intensive in June on The History and Doctrine of the Wesleyan Movement. I spent eight hours a day for five straight days soaking up all I could from the wise and pastoral leading of Dr. Steve Seamands.
Just a month before, I had been walking the hallways of a fifty-story high-rise office building in downtown Atlanta as part of a Fortune 500 company, completing 24-month financial forecasts, earnings reports, and attending meetings of the C-suite in the corporate headquarter’s boardroom. Suddenly, I found myself beginning each day with deep reflections on God’s loving self-revelation through His Word and the Word made flesh, singing hymns, and laid out in times of travailing prayer. We ended each day sharing in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. To say I experienced a culture shock would be an understatement. I had already been to graduate school and earned an MBA, but this was something more than just information.
This was the beginning of a re-marking, a deep work of the Spirit in me and in my family. Steve Seamands was my guide into that new world of God’s great love and power. I would go on to study “Basic Christian Doctrine” and at least one other class with Dr. Seamands, but it was this first experience that has stayed with me so profoundly. I think it was because I was in such desperate need of God’s grace, love, and healing touch, and that was exactly what Steve offered alongside such excellent instruction. It was perhaps the first time I started to think I could be valued more for who I was than for what I did.
Steve Seamands is a renowned scholar, teacher, and even pastor, but that’s not why I think you should make August 26, at 6pm a priority, to be with us for dinner and to hear him speak. No, you should sign up to share dinner and hear the first in our Fall Speaker Series because Dr. Steve Seamands is himself a man who has experienced the deep transformation of knowing who he is in God’s eyes, and he has a unique way of helping others know it as well. Register here for a dinner on August 26; it’s only $10/person. Come hear more about removing the obstacles to fully experiencing God’s love for you.