Charge to the President

By Chris Currie, Pastor of St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church, New Orleans, and Chair of the Presidential Search Committee

When the search began for the next president of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, the Presidential Search Committee sought to listen to the whole of this seminary community from students to staff to faculty to trustees to alumni to the larger constituency and friends of this institution. After that work, we distilled what we heard into a narrative and set of values about the next leader of this institution. At the top of our list was a person with a pastor’s heart who loved the life in the local congregation and the Seminary’s orientation toward the church.

We sought a strategic visionary, not afraid to experiment and try new things, someone who cares about the distinctive—and dare I say winsome—ways this particular seminary delivers theological education. We also sought someone who understands context and the peo- ples who make up this region and culture, someone who possesses wonder and humility in all that they do, you know somebody who might schedule a choral concert, an academic forum, a play, and some salsa dancing all tied together at their Presidential Inauguration. We also sought a person committed to the beloved community and the diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging that is abundant in Christ’s body. Though a collective effort, our listing of institutional values ended with this statement, composed by search committee member Jill Duffield (DMin’13). It read: “God will accomplish abundantly more than we can ever hope or imagine. Hence, we look to the future not in fear, but with hope, knowing that whoever is called to be our next president will be equipped through the Holy Spirit and upheld by a beloved community ready to expand its hospitality, increase its impact, and rejoice in being lost in wonder, love, and praise.”

Such values and statements can come across as institutional word salads or aspirational works of fiction, but such values led us to someone not only qualified, but called. We found someone not only who could do the job, but who could inspire us to walk side by side in our Godgiven calling with radical hope. In his own words to the committee, candidate Irizarry had this to say: ‘The assessment on the current state of theological education is at this point vox populi among those who care for the formation of skilled church leaders. (Basically: there are big challenges and strong headwinds up ahead)” … but, our candidate continued, while clear eyed about all the challenges, “I consider the opportunities may outweigh the challenges.”

Wait, what? Who is this person who sees the world still shot through with the glory of God, who is this person who believes he might in fact be called for such a time as this, who is this person who seems to be practicing unsinkable hope? And rather than José then telling us how he was going to single-handedly fix theological education, turn around the numerical decline in church and enrollment, tell us how to fix political polarization and the institutional challenges of our country in year two of his presidency, the only reason candidate Irizarry gave us for his radical belief that the opportunities may outweigh all the challenges was this: he said, “This statement can only be made with a sense of hopefulness stemming from faith, in the confidence that God is making new things, and our call is to full participation in this co-creative process.”

I am confident that José so fulfills those institutional values and embodies that optimism and confidence about theological education that he doesn’t need to be charged to carry them out. It is already evident in his leadership of this institution. But I do have a charge, and it is a bit more peripheral, if you will. The first point of my charge is called “Austin City Limits.” And that is to look and see well beyond them. Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary has a diverse geographic constituency, and I think sometimes the job of the president is to encourage students, graduates, and members of the community to consider places or positions in the world that they had no intention of ever living or serving, places and congregations outside the demographic of a Whole Foods or Central Market that may be in need of pastors willing to love them enough to live among them and preach the gospel to them. I believe there are approximately 750 pastor positions of some kind or another in our national church looking for strong pastoral leadership. My guess is that many of them are in places, our world—and maybe we— would not deem strategically significant. Yet strangely God seems to do some of God’s best work in such places, places like Nazareth and Bethany and Corinth and Galatia, places beyond our preferences for where God’s grace extends. So be community facing, not only in the Austin community, but beyond the Austin city limits.

Second, keep Austin Seminary weird. What I mean by this is not so much trying to preserve that winsome vibe, but resisting the culture’s notion of value. To quote the recent New Yorker article, “The End of the English Major” by Nathan Heller, “In a quantitative society for which optimization—getting the most output from your input—has become a self-evident good, universities [and maybe theological institutions] prize actions that shift numbers” and create “value” for what we do.

But the most un-quantitative investment we will ever make in this world is to baptize a baby and then ask parents to live the Christian life and be responsible for that child’s as well. We don’t stop there, but we also ask children and youth and relative strangers to make promises to that baby, we ask them to volunteer their time teaching Sunday school or helping that child make a joyful noise in the children’s choir or at a Sunday night youth group, not to mention sending them to Montreat or MoRanch or maybe even saying to them at one point in their life, out of the blue, Have you ever considered going to seminary and serving in the church? An unquantifiable investment. An extravagant use of our resources. Maybe akin to Mary taking that pound of expensive perfume and anointing Jesus’s feet with it and filling up the whole house and gathering of people with her wasteful extravagance, even as they pondered all the value that could have gotten for it in the marketplace or if they could have applied better analytics.

I think seminaries, and seminary presidents, not to mention pastors and seminary faculty and seminary graduates, have the prophetic mantle and obligation to encourage us to live like that. We are hardwired for the quantitative world. We would rather prove and measure our value. José, don’t ever stop being that person who said, I know what the demographics are saying, I know what the vox populi is saying, but the only way for the Christian community and the Seminary to face the future is to live with a “hopefulness in the confidence that God is making new things and our call is to full participation in this co-creative process.”

I wish you and Milly many, many fulfilling years in this work—twenty is a nice round number, and we have a recent precedent. There is a lot that will unfold that we cannot foresee, but embrace this work, engage the life of the mind, the fullness of heart, and the richness of soul that is so ingrained in this community, and “God will accomplish abundantly more than we can ever hope or imagine.” Hence, we look to the future not in fear, but with hope, knowing that whoever is called to be our next president, strike that, that José Irizarry will be equipped through the Holy Spirit and upheld by a beloved community ready to expand its hospitality, increase its impact, and rejoice in being lost in wonder, love, and praise.” Thanks be to God.