Students Return for the Spring Semester at AU
January 14, 2020
There was a fresh energy in the air on Asbury University’s campus Monday morning as friends embraced, heads bowed in prayer and classrooms filled. The spring semester has officially arrived at Asbury and students have returned to campus.
Faculty and staff gathered on the steps of the Student Center to pray for new and returning students as they enter into a new semester, year and decade at Asbury. A Chapel service was held Monday morning in Hughes Auditorium to mark the new semester.
Members of the Visionary Class of 2020, who begin their final semester at Asbury this week, were briefly recognized during the service.
Asbury President Kevin J. Brown spoke in the inaugural Chapel service of the semester on the topic of unconventional wisdom.
Dr. Brown centered his message on the words of Proverbs 4:7-9 which states, “The beginning of wisdom is this: get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding. Cherish her, and she will exalt you; embrace her, and she will honor you. She will give you a garland to grace your head and present you with a glorious crown.”
Dr. Brown encouraged students to draw upon the unconventional wisdom of the Christian faith and laid out three key areas they can apply wisdom to their lives today. He advised students seek to have a well-furnished mind, work to create new culture and be laborers instead of leaders.
“It may be possible for you to bypass knowledge in order to ‘hack’ an exam, but it is impossible for you to bypass wisdom in order to hack a life lived well,” Dr. Brown said.
Dr. Brown provided students with a series of prompting questions to ask themselves when seeking to discover these aspects of unconventional wisdom.
“How do you navigate moral complexity?” Dr. Brown asked. “What are the standards that govern your beliefs and practices? We say scripture, tradition, the community of believers, the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If those things aren’t my mode of authority, that means I am my mode of authority and that’s a terrible, terrible thing.”
Dr. Brown explained that Christian community and the obligations that it presents in our lives are the very things that help us have a wise balance of freedom, service to others and a dedication to something larger than ourselves.
“A life of meaning is found, ironically, in losing ourselves to our commitments outside of ourselves and restricting our actions in moderating our choices and is found in our obligations that we have to one another,” Dr. Brown said.
This semester, Chapel services will feature a large variety of speakers ranging from Asbury professors to spoken word poets and missionaries. View the complete chapel schedule.
Please join us in praying for our students as they begin the second “first day of school” of the 2019-2020 academic year at Asbury University.