May 6, 2009 | By Paul F. South
NEW ORLEANS -- Six professors, 16 students and one staff member were honored at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary's celebration of excellence May 5. The annual service, which recognizes excellence both in and out of the classroom, was held at Leavell Chapel.
Dr. Mike Edens, Dr. Robert Stewart and Dr. Reggie Ogea were recipients of the Marvin Jones Awards for Excellence.
Edens was chosen as the Outstanding Classroom Teacher. Edens is associate dean of graduate studies at NOBTS, as well as a professor of theology and Islamic studies. A career Southern Baptist missionary before joining the NOBTS faculty, Edens served in Cairo and in Baghdad. He joined the NOBTS faculty in 2007.
"Mike and (wife) Madelyn are true missionary heroes," said NOBTS President Chuck Kelley. "We're so grateful to have them here. He honed his craft in Islamic studies not in the classroom of a university or a seminary or a college, but in the streets of the Middle East, by spending many years of their lives in Cairo, which is the intellectual center of the Islamic world and all over the Middle East. Thank you so much for all that you put into these classes with those students. We're proud of you."
Stewart was chosen by his peers as the Jones Award recipient for scholarly research. He occupies the seminary's Greer-Heard Chair of Faith and Culture. Stewart directs the Greer-Heard Point Counterpoint Forum, which attracts some of the world's leading evangelical and non-evangelical scholars to dialogue on issues of faith. Stewart, who joined the NOBTS faculty in 2000, is also director of the seminary's Institute for Christian Apologetics.
"One of the ways one develops as a scholar is by getting to know not only those people that you really love and agree with, but also getting to know very well the people with whom you deeply disagree," Kelley said. "And Dr. Stewart has so embodied that, building not only an intellectual knowledge and understanding of those who are opposed or skeptical or hostile to the Christian faith, but building personal relationships with them as well."
Kelley added, "This is a product of a lot of hard work that takes place in the quiet corners of an study or an office, studying and reading and learning, but also in time dedicated to phone calls and letters and discussions, both with friends and with those whom you cannot stand to say ‘amen' to almost anything that they believe. Yet you listen, and you learn. Thank you for embodying for us what it means to be a thorough Christian scholar of excellence."
Ogea was honored for excellence in churchmanship, the embodiment of the seminary's commitment to service in the local church. Ogea, professor of leadership and pastoral ministry, serves as associate dean of the seminary's professional doctoral programs. He joined the seminary faculty in 2003, after years of pastoral and mission work.
"Dr. Ogea eats, lives, sleeps and breathes the local church," Kelley said. "He has been active at every level in the local church, outside the church, around the support of the local church, and has done such a wonderful job bringing the church into the academy, informing what we do as a seminary and how we prepare our students."
Kelley added, "He is someone who does not hesitate at all to take on a very difficult and challenging interim (pastorate). He does not hesitate at all to take on a very happy and rejoicing church. Wherever the church is, in its pilgrimage along the way, Dr. Ogea is happy to work with them."
In other faculty awards, Dr. Jeffrey Riley received the Ola Farmer Lenaz faculty grant. Riley, who will be on sabbatical in the 2009-10 academic year, will use the grant to travel to the Third World to study the ethical implications of living and serving in a missional, cross-cultural context. Riley has served on the NOBTS faculty since 2003 and is associate professor of ethics.
Four other faculty members also received special Lenaz faculty grants to assist in research both in North America and abroad. Dr. Gerald Stevens has already received an Association of Theological Schools Lilly Grant for research, and will receive an additional Lenaz grant funding for his work.
Dr. Bill Day, Dr. Preston Nix and Dr. Jake Roudkovski also received Lenaz grant funding to study how to revive churches that have seen no baptisms. Kelley has spoken often about the crisis of the lack of growth in nearly 90 percent of Southern Baptist churches in every setting. The research by Day, Nix and Roudkovski hopes to get to the root of the problems.
The following were chosen as the outstanding students in each of the seminary's degree programs:
* Kevin Joseph Desselle Outstanding Student in the Associate Degree Program at Leavell College
*Katherine Unsworth, Outstanding Student, Baccalaureate Degree Program, Leavell College.
*Jason Bennett Palmer, Outstanding Student, Master of Divinity Program, NOBTS
*Ben Kimmel, Outstanding Student, Master of Divinity in Christian Thought
*Michael P. Bragg, Outstanding Student, Master of Divinity in Christian Education
* Misti DeLee Coleman, Outstanding Student, Master of Arts in Christian Education
* Jason Glen Waggoner, Outstanding Student, Master of Music in Church Music
In other student awards, Steve Walters received the Breazeale-Guidry Award for Excellence in Biblical Studies; Timothy Joel Bray received the Broadman & Holman Seminarian Award; Timothy Wayne Mims received the LifeWay Pastoral Leadership Award; Steven Matthew Solomon and Andrea Leigh Robinson received the Zondervan Awards for Greek and Hebrew respectively. Staci Lee Caldwell received the North American Professors of Christian Education Award. Blake Newsom received two awards: the C.C. Randall Award in Evangelism and the COSBE Scholarship. Michelle S. Dugas received the James A. Headrick Award for Excellence in Christian Counseling.
Two students, Byron Brown and Delio Delrio, received the Robert S. Magee Doctoral Fellowship for the 2009-2010 academic year. One staff member was also recognized, Alton "Bizzy" Bene.
Members of the faculty applauded the performance of the entire student body during the 2008-2009 academic year. Spring commencement will be celebrated Saturday, May 16, at 10 a.m. in Leavell Chapel. The seminary will award the 17,000th diploma in its history at graduation exercises.
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