Report of the
Board of Higher Education
During the 1999 calendar year, the Board of Higher Education (BHE) has met three times, for a total of nineteen times since its inception in the fall of 1994. It continues to oversee the work of the Pinebrook Educational Foundation (PEF), to develop working relationships with Biblical Theological Seminary, and to consider how else it might foster higher education in the BFC.
The Pinebrook Educational Foundation
The Board of Directors of the PEF for the past year was as follows:
Term expiring in 2002: Olivia M. Barnes, Stephen C. Cassel
Term expiring in 2001: Raymond R. Dotts, Jay H. Fasnacht
Term expiring in 2000: Gary E. Karch, Robert C. Newman
The report of the PEF is appended to the report of the BHE.
Working Relationships with Biblical Theological Seminary
The BHE has been working on putting together three projects involving Biblical: (1) a BFC chaplain who would visit Biblical regularly to counsel students and encourage some of them to consider service with the BFC; (2) a course on the history, doctrine and polity of the BFC to be offered at regular intervals at Biblical; and (3) an internship program in which BF churches would take pastoral interns from Biblical.
1. Retired BFC missionary Ronald W. Hoyle served as BFC chaplain to Biblical during the fall of 1998 and spring of 1999, visiting the seminary approximately monthly during the regular seminary terms. We thank Ron for his labors with us in the Lord. This past fall, retired BFC missionary Ed Moyer, who is located closer to the seminary than Ron, has joined us as chaplain. We appreciate Ed’s enthusiasm and willing spirit.
2. Due to insufficient registration the two times we have tried to offer this course (spring 1997, fall 1998), we have shelved this project for a few years at least. Biblical Seminary Registrar George Clark said he was not surprised that this course would not fly, and doubted that a similar course for the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) would be able to make it either. In fact, one PCA student is taking such a course by independent study with Professor Fred Putnam.
3. The pastoral internship machinery for BF churches at Biblical Seminary is up and running and can be used by interested churches at any time. Since the internship program was instituted at Biblical, several BF churches have availed themselves of this opportunity – Graterford BFC with Ryan Roush working under Dave Watkins; Spring City with Colin Wong working under Carl Martin and Peter Gundersen reporting to Jake Susek; Kutztown with Tom Post under John Studenroth; and Quakertown with Michael Roberts under Dave Gundrum. Also Pat Paul has done a counseling internship at Graterford under Dave Watkins. Internship brochures were printed and handed out at Annual Conference in 1998 and again in 1999.
Other Ways of Promoting Higher Education in the BFC
The BHE and PEF have been seeking to make their work better known in the Bible Fellowship Church. An article on a youth tour of Christian colleges was published in the September 98 issue of Fellowship News, and the results of our BHE survey on college attendance and outreach in the November 98 issue. John Studenroth’s article encouraging lay people to study theology appeared in the January/February 99 issue. Olivia Barnes wrote an article reporting the four scholarships awarded by the PEF in the 1998-99 school year that was printed in the September 99 issue. Dave Watkins and Ray Dotts presented our work at the 1999 Ministerial Conference in September.
We have begun discussion of the possibility of encouraging BF churches to have an annual Christian Higher Education Sunday, perhaps at the beginning of school in the fall or near graduation in the spring, at the option of a participating church, with perhaps a bulletin insert, a recognition of their own college students, or a welcoming of visiting students from a local college, and a special sermon or speaker.
A BHE meeting in 1998 discussed J. P. Moreland’s book Love Your God with All Your Mind. Partly as a result of this, John Studenroth decided to become a full-time evangelist to college faculty and graduate students at Kutztown University (and other colleges in the Berks County area) beginning in the year 2000. Now several BF churches have joined together to form a University Outreach Board to provide oversight and funding for this endeavor. We pray this will be the beginning of still greater things as the BHE and BFC seek to reach out to the unsaved around us.
We also accepted with regret the resignation of James Smock from the BHE in October.
We continue to discuss the possibility of having seminars to strengthen believers in their outreach to people with college education, perhaps in conjunction with IBRI, the Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute.
Brothers, thank you for praying for us this past year. We are seeing the Lord begin to move among us. Please pray that we will desire His agenda above our own, and that He may use us powerfully to strengthen the BFC in understanding the times in which we live and becoming more effective in reaching the lost.
Resolved that the Annual Conference ratify the election to the Pinebrook Educational Foundation of Gary E. Karch and Robert C. Newman for terms to end in 2003.
The Board of Higher Education: Robert C. Newman, Chairman; Raymond R. Dotts, Vice-Chairman; John C. Studenroth, Secretary; Stephen C. Cassel; G. Wayne Clapier; James Smock, David J. Watkins.