Summer Institute Update

Dave Lewis, a member of the HF Advisory Board sends in this report from last month's Summer Institute. Reading it filled me with memories of my summer institute, the great speakers and inspiring discussions with other fellows. I hope it does the same for you!

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Thank you for your prayers about the summer institute. God is good and he blessed the event. It was a wonderful week. The institute was held June 15-21 at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, DC. Thirty four fellows attended from a variety of different fields from philosophy to business to performance art to music and social sciences. The theme for the week was "advancing truth faithfully" and the week included a number of activities around those themes. The fellows visited the Holocaust Museum's exhibit on Nazi propaganda and watched Shattered Glass, a movie about New Republic author Stephen Glass who fabricated portions of a number of articles he wrote for the magazine. Jill Jensen, Brian Bakke, and the MSF team did a wonderful job with logistics and encouragement. Jerry and Jeannie Herbert led the week
ably with a bit of help from Laurena Ketzel-Kerber (HFAB chair) and myself.

There were some wonderful moments during the week but let me describe a few. Jennifer Mills, a performance artist at the Art Institute of Chicago, did a slide show of her different performances from the last 6 months and explained what she did. It was a really lovely explanation of how she wanted to bring joy back into art and use art to highlight some of the exclusivity and monetization of the art world. It was encouraging to see God work out his good pleasure in her unique skills and vision.

Alex Macdonald, a fellow at Julliard, did a piano performance on the last night. He practiced all week early in the morning in the hotel lobby! He played 30 Goldberg variations for us, preceded by a discussion of Bach and an explanation for how they are crafted, how they relate to each other, and what Bach was trying to accomplish. It was a beautiful performance.

The fellows were broken into six disciplinary groups and asked to give a presentation at the end of the week about what they had learned about integrating faith and vocation in their fields. We had scientists performing a skit depicting how they often were in the difficult position of speaking truth to non-believing scientists but also to the science-skeptical church. The social scientists did a skit surrounding a job interview where academic interviewers were asking, "what is this Harvey Fellowship?" The artists performed for us. They contrasted an academic seminar that was a cacophony of jargon and cross-talk with a very moving and authentic public confession of past failures to speak truth.

Of course, we had wonderful talks by former fellows doing exciting work and Margaret Thompson (Eileen's sister) gave a wonderful charge on Sunday to the fellows. There was warmth and inspiration from the Bakke's, lots of hanging out in the hospitality suite at the hotel, and new friendships developed. I think God heard our prayers to handle the logistics, prepare the fellows for the time, and send them out marked back to their homes. Thank you for praying with us about this event and please join us in thanking God for his goodness and the privilege of being able to work with him in this world.