Who's on Campus?

Many exciting visitors come to Houghton College throughout the year for concerts, lectures, colloquia, chapels, performances, panel discussions and more. While we do not have the space to present information on every person or group, in each issue of Milieu we try to share with you a sampling of the interesting guests who have been on campus recently:

Ravi Zacharias, internationally known lecturer and author, spoke at a chapel in September. Zacharias has addressed writers of the peace accord in South Africa, President Fujimori's cabinet and parliament in Peru, and military officers at the Lenin Military Academy and the Center for Geopolitical Strategy in Moscow. He has given the main address at the National Day of Prayer in Washington, DC, and has spoken twice at the Annual Prayer Breakfast at the United Nations in New York. His weekly radio program, "Let My People Think," is broadcast over 1,500 stations worldwide. Zacharias' most recent books include The Grand Weaver and Walking from East to West: God in the Shadows.

The Houghton College Artist Series' 2007-2008 season began with a performance by the American Brass Quintet and pianist Billy Childs in October. The group is the longest continuously performing brass quintet in North America and has played in virtually all of the world's major concert halls and music festivals. The quintet has over 45 recordings and over 100 commissioned works, including a new piece by Billy Childs, which it performed. Childs won two Grammys in 2006 and is known to both the classical and jazz music worlds for his work with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Monterey Jazz Festival and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

Christian composers and performers Keith and Kristyn Getty presented a concert and a chapel in August. Keith Getty is best known for his hymn compositions; with Stuart Townend he co-wrote "In Christ Alone," "See What a Morning" and "Joy Has Dawned." He has also composed and arranged music for film soundtracks, including re-orchestration of excerpts from "Music from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy," and worked on recordings by Michael W. Smith, Natalie Grant, Bebo Norman and Watermark. Kristyn Getty is a contemporary gospel singer who occasionally diversifies into the worlds of jazz and Celtic music. She has performed with artists such as Alvin Slaughter, Moya Brennan and Kiki Dee. She has co-written many popular Christian songs with her husband including "There is a Higher Throne."

Ben Patterson, campus pastor at Westmont College since 2001, presented a series entitled "The Case for Joy" during Houghton College's Christian Life Emphasis Week (CLEW) in September. Patterson is a contributing editor to Christianity Today and the Leadership Journal and has written several books including He Has Made Me Glad, which was the primary source for his CLEW talks. Patterson spent six years as dean of the chapel at Hope College in Holland, MI, where attendance at the voluntary chapel program grew from 50 students to more than 1,000. Previously, he was the founding pastor of Irvine (CA) Presbyterian Church.

Douglas Perkins '67, training director for Coastal Pacific Xpress, Inc. in Vancouver, BC, Canada, was the first speaker for the business department's 2007-08 Guest Executive Dinner series. Perkins received a master's from Trinity University and a doctorate from Seattle University. For the past five years he has been working in organizational development giving particular attention to leadership training.

The director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture and the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School, Miroslav Volf, presented two lectures at Houghton College in October. A native of Croatia, Volf has forged a theology of forgiveness and nonviolence in the face of the horrendous violence experienced in Croatia and Serbia in the 1990s. While he maintains active interest in many aspects of faith's relation to culture, his primary work has focused on theological understandings of work, the church, the Trinity, violence, reconciliation and memory. The author of 10 books, Volf has given many prestigious lectureships including the Dudleian Lecture at Harvard; the Chavasse Lectures, at Oxford; the Waldenstroem Lectures, Stockholm; and the Gray lectures, Duke University.

Derek Webb, a former member of the band Caedmon's Call, filled Wesley Chapel for a concert in September. Webb is touring in support of his new album "The Ringing Bell," released in May.