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Vol. 68 No. 3 April 1974 News Bulletin From Columbia Theological Seminary

Decatur, Georgia

STUDENTS SPEND SUMMER IN PARISH

A year ago James (Jug) Dunovant was
dispensing pills and bandages from a
Columbia, S. C. pharmacy. Meanwhile,
his pal Gil McLaurin had just received a
fistful of diploma from Southern Mis-
sissippi University.

Mike Winters was being separated
from Uncle Sam's Army, and Bob
Hawkins was ending a 16-year news-
paper career with a nostalgic column.

This month this quartet, along with
about 20 others, will pack off again to
get a 10- week taste of ministry in
churches throughout the realm of the
Presbyterian Church in the United
States.

Lyman Mobley is off to the "show
me" state of Missouri, and Dick Druary
is going back to Houston.

It is the annual exodus of juniors for
labor in the field of supervised ministry
under the direction of experienced min-
isters.

The Rev. Jasper (Jap) Keith, Jr.,
seminary program director, indicated
that response from churches to assist
in the training of students in this phase
of ministry had been "outstanding, most
encouraging."

Earlier in the school year Keith sent
out inquiries to prospective congrega-
tions, and affirmative replies poured in
to the seminary.

"We're sending out a good crop this
year," he said. "The students have been
enthusiastic about their studies and they
have done well in their hospital and ur-
ban ministry courses."

While in the parishes, students will
work in all phases of church life. During
the summer they will be evaluated and
nurtured by the local minister and by
members of the congregation.

Here is a list of students, their pres-
byteries and the church where they will
work this summer:

Shirley Adams, Atlanta, Trinity Pres-
byterian Church, Atlanta; David Ander-
son, Memphis, Emory Presbyterian
Church, Atlanta; John Brown, Mecklen-
burg, Anderson-Oconee-Pickens Mental
Health Center, Anderson, S. C; Jerry
Bustle West Florida, Covenant Presby-
terian Church, Decatur, Ga.; Dick Dru-
ary, Brazos, First Presbyterian Church,
Houston, Tex.; James Dunovant, Conga-
ree, Morrow Presbyterian Church, Mor-
row, Ga.; Bob Hawkins, Tuscaloosa,

W. K. Price CTS '64 discusses Project Find-Out com-
puter printout with Dean of Ministry Development,
Jack B. McMichael. Price designed the computer pro-
gram for this survey of ministers and compiled and
helped interpret the data received.

Tallapoosa Presbyterian Church, Talla-
poosa, Ga.; Woody Johnson, Westmins-
ter, Ingleside Presbyterian Church,
Scottdale, Ga.; Homer Kimmons, South-
west Ga., First Presbyterian Church,
(Continued on page 2)

G

RADUATES HEAR
WINTER AND TELFORD

Forty degrees were awarded here in
Columbia Theological Seminary's 142nd
commencement exercises June 2.

Immediately, most of the graduates
scattered to the ends of the earth in ser-
vice of the Church. Some graduates went
home overseas to serve on seminary
faculties. However, most went out into
the parishes of the Presbyterian Church
in the United States.

The Rev. George Telford, staff as-
sociate for Corporate Witness and Public
Affairs with the GEB, preached the
baccalaureate sermon at Trinity Pres-
byterian Church.

Graduation followed at 4 p.m. with
Mississippi Lt. Governor William Winter,
a ruling elder in the church, delivering
the commencement address at Columbia
Presbyterian Church.

(Pictures of the graduates and their
call listings will be published in the sum-
mer issue of Inform.)

Inform

F

ROM THE PRESIDENT

Columbia Theological Seminary did
not begin in the city in South Carolina
whose name it now bears, but rather in
the manse of the Rev. Thomas Goulding
in Lexington, Georgia, where a handful
of students gathered in the late fall of
1828. The dining room table at which
they studied and learned is in my office
still. It is a tangible reminder of our
beginnings.

Recently it occurred to me that we are
returning symbolically to that beginning
with our program of supervised ministry
in churches. Every student must spend
one summer with a local congregation.
He or she is to participate fully in the
ministry of that congregation preach-
ing, offering pastoral care, planning and
carrying out programs in the church.
The local pastor is supervisor to the
student, and most important a
committee of officers and members is
also supervising.

This year, in our new Doctor of Min-
istry program for students in course,
several students will spend the entire
third year in a local congregation. They
will share in the life and ministry of that
congregation for twelve months, under
the pastor and a committee of members,
and they will be learning and minister-
ing at the same time.

Students, of course, have served in
churches for many years. What is new
is that for the summer they receive eight
hours of credit and for the year thirty-
two hours of credit. Jasper Keith and
other seminary staff members will give
supervision. But the credit is earned on
the certification of a supervising pastor
and a teaching congregation, who thus
become formally a part of the process of
education for ministry.

Not as once around a table in a manse
in Lexington, Georgia, but now in
churches, manses, homes and places of
work of church members all over the
South, men and women are learning and
being taught to be faithful and effective
ministers of Jesus Christ.

C. Benton Kline, Jr.

T

WO LEAVE STAFF

Two mainstays in the life of Columbia
will be missing when school begins next
year.

They are Dr. Dean G. McKee, profes-
sor of Biblical exposition, and the Rev.
Steve A. Bacon, vice president for de-
velopment.

Dr. McKee retires at the close of the
current session. He came to Columbia
13 years ago after a distinguished career
as teacher, dean and president of Bibli-
cal Seminary of New York.

He is a favorite of students of the New
Testament, spending many extra hours
in discussion outside the classroom. Dr.
McKee was honored on a recent Alumni
Day by faculty, staff and former stu-
dents.

Although retiring, Dr. McKee will re-
main at his home on Kirk Road near the
seminary.

"Dean McKee has been an outstand-
ing teacher and wise counselor to stu-
dents," said President Ben Kline. "We
are delighted that he and his fine wife
will continue to make their home in this
community."

Steve Bacon served the seminary near-
ly 10 years. He is well known among
Presbyterians in the area served by Col-
umbia.

Steve is now associate pastor of At-
lanta's Central Presbyterian Church.

"I think it will be years before we
really understand all that Steve has
meant in the last decade to Columbia
Seminary," Dr. Kline said. "Starting
where he did and adding to his duties
bit by bit made him a very important
person here and throughout our consti-
tuency."

These sentiments were echoed by
President Emeritus Dr. J. McDowell
Richards who headed the institution
when Bacon and McKee were hired.

(Continued from page 1)
Bennettsville, S. C; Robert MacKay,
Killian Hill Baptist Church, Lilburn,
Ga.; Gil McLaurin, South Mississippi,
Memorial Presbyterian Church, Colum-
bus, Ga.

Alphonso McLean, Florida, churches
in DeFuniak Springs, Fla.; Lyman
Mobley, First Presbyterian Church,
Caruthersville, Mo.; Don Olinger, Mont-
gomery, Unity Presbyterian Church,
Fort Mill, S. C; Jackie Owenby, Ashe-
ville, Andrews Presbyterian Church,
Andrews, N. C; Ben Scott, Pee Dee,
First Presbyterian Church, DeFuniak
Springs, Fla.; Joan Standridge, Atlanta,
Central Presbyterian Church, Athens,
Ga.; Gordon West, Suwannee, First
Presbyterian Church, Fort Walton
Beach, Fla.; Mike Winters, Everglades,
Sunrise Presbyterian Church, Hialeah,
Fla.; and Leslie Young, North Alabama,
Trinity Presbyterian Church, Clearwater,
Fla.

Inform

A

BIBLE AND A
STETHOSCOPE

Marilyn Washburn is apt to show up
for class with a large sack slung con-
spicuously across her shoulder, and if
it's late enough for the shadows of old
Campbell Hall to be bent out onto Co-
lumbia Drive you can locate Marilyn
merely by following the trail.

Inside the sack might be a copy of
something or other by Barth, other thick
books, a Bible and a stethoscope.

Stethoscope?

What's an aspiring woman of the
cloth doing with a stethoscope? Hoping
to detect a faint throb of a pulse among
the exegetes, maybe?

So far as anyone knows Marilyn hasn't
been called to whip out the medical in-
strument at the seminary yet, but who
knows? She's due to be around for
awhile.

In fact, in a couple of years Marilyn
hopes to have earned two titles, reverend
and doctor, the former from Columbia,
the latter from Emory Medical School.

With this tandem packet of credentials
she hopes to be of use to the calling of
Jesus Christ in the missions field as
healer of souls and bodies.

"Missions is a real possibility," says
Marilyn, who already has begun to talk
about distant dots on the globe, includ-
ing Africa, Asia and the suffocating
tribes of American Indians.

Lesser people would soon wilt under
the heavy, demanding pace this young
woman sets for herself. However, her
closest friends describe Marilyn's drive
as a steady cadence and no wasted mo-
tion. That is to say: Marilyn Washburn
is rarely ruffled. Confusion and despair
are two elemental spirits that avoid her.

A woman with a double-barreled stu-
dent career, a husband and the business
of domestic life to manage wouldn't ap-
pear to have much time to attend to the
small amenities. Just isn't so with Mari-
lyn, because her Church, Decatur Pres-
byterian, hosts a family night supper and
services on Wednesdays, and Marilyn's
always there. Ditto for Sunday worship.

Her husband, Bill, is the son of mis-
sionaries. He was brought up in Zaire
(formerly the Congo) where he taught
two years after graduation from South-
western at Memphis. Now Bill works as

a computer programmer. Marilyn says
he also understands the tedious mech-
anics of a dust mop, the art of cooking
and the feeling of "total depravity"
standing before a sinkful of dirty dishes.

Marilyn was raised in Miami, the
daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Rob-
erts. Mr. Roberts is a lawyer and a com-
mercial airlines pilot.

"Bill is a great supporter," Marilyn
coos. "He's all for me studying medicine
and ministry. Sure, we don't spend as
much time together as we'd like, but
often we just make time for ourselves."

Like this quarter they took a seminary
course together. (Course designers here
at Columbia long ago rigged up a cozy
plan whereby spouses of students can
audit courses with their mates free of
charge. The plan has been eagerly re-
ceived by wives whose husbands attend
night classes.)

Marilyn has completed most of her
classroom work in medical school. From
here on it's mostly clinical work. Not
surprisingly, some of her courses at
Emory are virtually duplicated at Col-
umbia. Psychiatry, for instance, was cov-
ered in a course called "Ministry to Per-
sons." Likewise, the character of her
ministerial instruction has been invalua-
ble in the approach and method of medi-
cal school.

"So far I haven't been able to tie
much of anything from the Old Testa-
ment with medicine," she sighed.

The first move for most freshly an-
ointed doctors these days is to trot off
to another place for a specialty. How-
ever, Marilyn says that if she specializes
it will be as "general as I can get it." In
a word, she plans to do family medicine,
a specialty of its own in this age of com-
plexity.

A few weeks ago down at Atlanta's
sprawling Grady Hospital Marilyn

bumped into a Columbia student doing a
chaplaincy practicum down there. Right
off, she suggested a quick cup of coffee
and an open ear to hear, astonishingly, a
gripe she'd been carrying around from a
morning medical class.

"Those guys," she cut a one-eighty
swoop with her right arm, her teeth
clinched at a table of medical students
across the dining hall, "are giving me a
hard time because I'm in seminary.
They're calling me names."

"What names are they calling you?"
her Columbia chum asked.

"The exorcist," she shouted.

Her friend had to get a fresh cup. He
spilled the first one as he doubled over
laughing.

M

ISSIONS HIGHLIGHTED
AT ROCKEAGLE

More than 450 young people turned
out for the annual Society for Missionary
Inquiry (SMI) retreat at Rock Eagle
State Park the last weekend in April.

SMI is a Columbia organization for
students interested in the missions. Main
speaker was Herb Barks, president of
Baylor School for Boys at Chattanooga.
The group was entertained by Paul
Stookey, formerly of the Peter, Paul and
Mary folk singing trio.

SMI President Luke Harkey said the
young people contributed a significant
amount of money for student mission
projects.

Seminary leaders were Columbia Pro-
fessors L.. R. Dewitz, C. G. Gonzalez,
S. C. Guthrie, E. N. Loring, J. B. Mc-
Michael, T. S. Nease and R. S. Wallace.

1974 SUMMER PROGRAM
for ministers

July 15-19

The Theology of Pastoral Care

Dr. Thomas H. McDill

July 22-26

Administration: A Tool for

Ministry

Dr. Jack B. McMichael

Room, Board Tuition $50.00 each
for information write

Dr. Jack B. McMichael,

Dean of Ministry Development

Columbia Seminary

Inform

.Friendship circle
program draws 300

A vivacious group of more than 300
persons took part in Come and See Col-
umba Day activities in mid April. The
annual event sponsored by Columbia
Friendship Circle drew participants from
Georgia and surrounding states. All of
Columbia's supporting synods were rep-
resented.

Contact with students and faculty
members was a key note of the program.
Seniors Libba Fairleigh and Lynn Shur-
ley were worship leaders and President
C. Benton Kline the preacher at the
opening worship service. Music for the
service included selections by students
David Anderson, Sarah and Ben Scott,
and Ron Crews and a violin duet by
Professors Fred Bonkovsky and Hubert
Taylor.

Friendship Circles, where small
groups of visitors learned about Colum-
bia from a student and a faculty mem-
ber, were the highlight of the day.

During the business session, led by
CFC President Mrs. Walter Wood, Jr.,
it was reported that the 1973-74 project,
Books for the Library, received gifts of
$22,268 from 4820 CFC members.

Mrs. Sara Anne Johnson of Atlanta's
North Avenue Church was elected 1974-
75 CFC President. Vice President Mrs.
Jumelle Rogers of Bennettsville, S. C.
will serve a second year. Secretary for

I to r Mrs. Gwaltney, Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Rogers

the new year will be Mrs. Betty Gwalt-
ney from First Church, Daytona Beach,
Florida.

"CFC Adds the Plus" will be the 74-
75 project. The importance of supervised
ministry within local congregations as a
plus to the classroom was emphasized in
a presentation by Professor Jasper Keith.

E

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INFORM

COLUMBIA SEMINARY

DECATUR, GA. 30030

/THICS STUDIED
IN CITY SETTING

Beginning next winter, the junior class
at CTS will participate in a new, field-
centered experience in theological learn-
ing. An introductory course in Christian
Ethics will be closely linked to the stu-
dents' experience of supervised ministry
at Grady Memorial Hospital and inner-
city Atlanta.

Dr. Frederick Bonkovsky, associate
professor of Christian Ethics, will teach
the new course. Dr. Bonkovsky, who
joined the faculty last fall and partici-
pates also in the middler supervised
ministry, holds a Harvard doctorate in
ethics and social science. Previously,
Prof. Bonkovsky pastored an inner-city
church in Boston, Mass., and did similar
field teaching for Gordon-Conwell Sem-
inary. The new CTS course in ethics is
subtitled "The City of God and of Per-
sons."

Prof. Jap Keith, who directs the pro-
grams of supervised ministry comment-
ed: "This is a healthy move. The faculty
recognizes that supervised ministry gives
experiential, relational, and practical
learning. Dr. Bronkovsky's course will
provide cognitive insight and structural
awareness of the dynamics of ministry.
Pastoral care to persons will be viewed
within the broader context of ministry in
community, structures, and systems. I am
excited about this new design and be-
lieve it will open new avenues to learn-
ing the work of ministry in today's com-
plex society."

COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY DECATUR, GEORGIA 30031

Vol. 68. No. 3/Apnl 1974

Published 7 times a year/Jan.. Feb.. Apr.. May, July, Oct., Nov.

Inform

SECOND CLASS

POSTAGE

PAID AT
DECATUR, GA