Cedarville University January 2019 Updates

  • Courage is Central to Leadership Conference
  • WOW Factor Set for Worship 4:24 Conference
  • Agatha Christie Murder Mystery Comes to Cedarville
  • Student-Run Business Supports Haitian Hospital
  • Personal Library of One of America’s Foremost Bible Teachers Coming to Cedarville
  • Among the Best in Ohio: Cedarville Gets High Marks
  • Cedarville Freshman Starts Nonprofit Printing 3D Custom Prosthetics


Courage is Central to Leadership Conference
CU LeadCedarville University’s fifth annual CU LEADership Conference, “Lead with Courage,” will be held January 19, 2019, in the Dixon Ministry Center. Opening session starts at 10 a.m with a keynote address by U.S. Air Force Col. Todd Fogle in the Jeremiah Chapel. Registration is open to high school and current Cedarville University students at cedarville.edu/culead.
 
CU LEAD equips high school and college students as they strive to be better leaders in all areas of their lives.
 
“We want students to have a biblical definition of leadership,” Brian Burn, director of campus experience, said. “If you wait to learn about leadership until you have a title, then you really aren’t leading, so we define leadership in three words: stewardship, influence and service.”
 
The conference is broken into three tracks: high school students, Cedarville University students who desire to be in a leadership role on campus and Cedarville students who currently hold a leadership positions. One main session is offered for all attendees with breakout sessions for each track.
 
Fogle, a Cedarville alumnus and commander of the 492nd Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Florida, will lead the main session. Twenty-three faculty and staff speakers, along with five current Cedarville University students, will conduct breakout sessions.
 
“Students should attend CU LEAD because it really opens the door for leadership opportunities at Cedarville,” said Savannah Johnson, a senior nursing student and resident assistant from Rapid City, South Dakota. “Whether you are going to use what you learn in a position at Cedarville or not, what you learn from CU LEAD prepares you in life.”  


WOW Factor Set for Worship 4:24 Conference
The Worship 4:24 Conference will be held January 25-26 at Cedarville University in the Dixon Ministry Center. The conference begins Friday at 10 a.m. and continues with general sessions, a night of worship and more than 100 breakout sessions until Saturday afternoon. More than 700 are expected to attend.
 
Worship ConferenceDove Awarding-winning singer-songwriter Meredith Andrews will be the special musical guest for this year. Andrews has contributed to multiple worship songs performed in churches across America, such as “Open Up The Heavens,” “Lamb of God,” “Not For A Moment,” and “Spirit of the Living God.” She will lead worship in chapel on January 25.
 
“Worship 4:24 is an amazing conference that has impacted my worship drastically,” explained Brandon Slifer, junior worship, youth ministry and Christian education major from Tipp City, Ohio. “Not only have I had incredible opportunities to work with and learn from big name Christian artists, but I have also gotten connected with worship pastors, authors and professors from all over.”
 
A new element of this year’s conference is the Weekend of Worship (WOW) for high school students who have a heart for worship and who may have enjoyed Cedarville’s summer worship academic camp.
 
“Our worship camp is the largest academic camp at Cedarville,” explained Roger O’Neel, associate professor of worship and director of Cedarville’s worship program. “We have a lot of students that love it, but then there is nothing for them for a whole year.” WOW is an initiative to solve this problem and continue the success of the worship camp.
 
On January 24, WOW will host a night of worship with one of the Cedarville worship department bands. There will also be a meet-and-greet with the conference’s musical guest artists. The students will also experience college life by staying in residence halls and eating in the dining hall.
 
Worship 4:24 is co-sponsored by the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio. Originally, the State Convention of Baptists had its own conference, the Ohio Worship Leader Conference. Ten years ago, Cedarville University's Department of Music and Worship partnered with the State Convention of Baptists to rebirth their conference into something bigger and better, Worship 4:24.
 
The Worship 4:24 conference is designed to equip and inspire worship teams, from the leaders and praise teams on stage to the graphic designers and tech crews behind the curtains.

“Worship 4:24 is a great conference to attend in order to grow and be encouraged as a worship leader,” explained Michael Hoskinson, senior worship and business management major from North Canton, Ohio. “It is an awesome encouragement to worship the Lord with hundreds of worship leaders.”
 
For online registration and more information about Worship 4:24 visit www.worship424.com.


Appointment with DeathAgatha Christie Murder Mystery Comes to Cedarville
The Cedarville University theatre department will present “Appointment With Death,” an Agatha Christie murder mystery premiering Thursday, January 31, at 8 p.m. in the DeVries Theatre. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. for the two-hour show. The show will run until February 10.
 
“Appointment With Death” is set in 1940 in Petra, Jordan. A group of tourists settle into a luxurious hotel for a peaceful vacation as they recover from the impact of World War II. But, not long after their arrival, someone is murdered, and a detective has only 24 hours to find the culprit. Christie’s popular story is filled with intrigue, suspense and danger in an exotic and unfamiliar land.  
 
“Getting to know new people in the cast who are immensely talented, and sharing M&M’s during breaks, is my favorite part of rehearsals,” said Abigail Krakora, junior theatre performance major from New Carlisle, Ohio, who plays Mrs. Boynton. “Acting necessarily intersects with my faith. When I play an evil character, like in this show, I'm reminded that our default setting as fallen people is to be evil and selfish.”
 
Krakora continued, “Without Christ, that's where we'd all be. Christ died for everyone while they were still evil and in sin, and I am reminded of that when I play characters still stuck there. It makes me appreciate Christ's gift even more.”
 
“My character is part of the Boynton family, and we’re building a very interesting family dynamic that I’m excited for audiences to see,” said Hunter Johnson, sophomore theatre performance major from Woodstock, Illinois, who plays Raymond Boynton. “Everything I do is filtered through a worldview of Christianity. Theatre and acting are things that I feel confident in and are worlds that I feel called to go into. My Christian beliefs inform the choices I make in theatre, and I feel the two actually meld easily.”
 
The show features a diverse cast of actors from many academic years and majors. Evan Ellis, a freshman English major from Broomfield, Colorado, was introduced to the theatre department when he joined the props crew for the fall production of “Fools.” He is cast in Christie’s play as Lennox Boynton. “Gaining skills here can help put me in positions where I can be a witness to secular actors one day. I want to shine the light of Christ in the world of theatre,” said Ellis.
 
This is the second production directed by Dr. Dawn Schluetz, assistant professor of theatre, who is in her second year at Cedarville University.
 
“I absolutely love the process of directing,” said Schluetz. “I have a passion for character development, and it's been a pleasure watching these characters come alive. Christie had so much insight into people and their personalities, and that makes for such an interesting script.”
 
“I enjoy being able to share the passion for the stage with others, work hard with the director on portraying my character and getting a mandatory time to act and joke around with friends,” said Hope Arango, freshman theatre performance major from Buundo, Uganda, who plays Sarah King.
 
“Participating in theatre as an actor has challenged me in my faith by helping me fully understand who I am in Christ, know what my personal boundaries are and, especially during rehearsals, rely on him as my core source of strength when my soul and body are weary. To me, theatre is not only a way for an audience to be entertained but is a wonderful vehicle to visually present and share the Gospel.”
 
Tickets for the show go on sale on Tuesday, January 15, and can be bought at the door or online at www.cedarville.edu/ticketinfo.


Student-Run Business Supports Haitian Hospital
Mercy BraceletsOne Cedarville University student’s passion for Haiti, and recent love for jewelry, has inspired a self-run, charitable business.
 
Mercy Bracelets, founded this summer by junior business management student Hannah Lamarco of Victor, New York, has raised $4,800 for the construction of Mercy Hospital in Les Cayes, Haiti.
 
In May 2018, Lamarco served on a two-week missions trip to Haiti with a Cedarville University Global Outreach team. During this trip, Lamarco and the student team helped build Mercy Hospital.
 
After returning to the U.S. with a handful of bracelets she purchased in Haiti for her friends, Lamarco continued to express a passion for the people of Les Cayes. “I felt this personal call that God was not done with me there yet,” she said. Lamarco wanted to serve in Haiti, but she also wanted to complete her business degree at Cedarville. Her heart seemed to be pulling her in two different directions.
 
Lamarco prayed often, seeking God’s direction. She remembered the bracelets and formulated an idea to sell bracelets to friends, family and students on campus. She began researching the process of making the jewelry and starting a limited liability company (LLC). This was the beginning of Mercy Bracelets.
 
Mercy Bracelet prices range from $10-15. Lamarco’s motto is “Turning Bracelets into Bricks” because $5 of every bracelet helps fund the construction of Mercy Hospital. Each bracelet comes with the name of a child in Haiti who is waiting to receive medical care in the hospital. Lamarco encourages customers to pray for those children each time they wear their bracelet.
 
“The first three to four weeks of operating was just testing,” Lamarco said, “seeing what sizes would fit best, what beads would be the best, what string would be the best and what is the best way to tie them.”
 
Lamarco has made more than 600 bracelets by hand in just four months with the help of a few friends. She not only creates them, but she buys supplies, researches patterns and styles, markets her products through a website, mercybracelets.com, and ships them across the U.S.
 
Lamarco’s background in retail, paired with knowledge from her business classes, has contributed to the success of Mercy Bracelets. “I feel like I’ve always had a sense of how to pick styles and what customers like,” she said. “I start off with a color palette and then I go to the wholesalers where I get most of my supplies from and see what they have.”
 
Lamarco’s Cedarville business classes have helped her develop and manage her LLC. “The classes I’m taking now are teaching me conceptually how to delegate and how to operate things,” she said. “Even more than that are the business professors, David Ormsbee and Diedrich Prigge, who have been so helpful in their experience and expertise.”
 
Lamarco ships bracelets all over the U.S. and delivers them to Cedarville students, faculty and staff through campus mail. “Ever since the beginning of this, I did not know how many I was going to sell. I remember the night I thought of it, I counted nine people who I thought would buy a bracelet,” she said. Lamarco gives all credit for her success to God, saying, “It’s God’s business.”
 

Personal Library of One of America’s Foremost Bible Teachers Coming to Cedarville
Dr. Warren Wiersbe, one of the foremost Bible teachers, professors and authors of the 20th century, a man known as the pastor’s pastor, has gifted his vast personal library to Cedarville University. Cedarville President Dr. Thomas White made the announcement during chapel December 3.
 
Wiersbe, 89, began his ministry in 1951 at Central Baptist Church in East Chicago, Indiana, where he served till 1957. Next, he spent four years at Youth for Christ as director of the literature division. He then pastored Calvary Baptist Church of Covington, Kentucky, from 1961 to 1971, which grew from 800 to several thousand members and where his messages were broadcast on radio for the first time.

After this, he was called to pastor Moody Church, located in the heart of Chicago and named for 19th-century American evangelist Dwight L. Moody, until 1978. Wiersbe has ministered over the radio through his “Songs in the Night” program while at Moody, and with Back to the Bible radio network from 1980 to 1993. He had an active conference speaking ministry till 2004.

Wiersbe is a prolific author, having written more than 170 books, with his most recent title, “Delights & Disciplines of Bible Study: A Guidebook for Studying God's Word,” released earlier this year by David C. Cook. Wiersbe was a regular contributor to Christianity Today magazine from 1979 to 1982. He taught practical theology classes at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, from 1978 to 1982 and is a former distinguished professor of preaching at Grand Rapids (Michigan) Theological Seminary.

Cedarville University will become the repository for Wiersbe’s immense personal library of books, estimated somewhere between 13,000 and 14,000 titles. This impressive collection of commentaries, nonfiction publications and works of literature will be housed in the Warren and Betty Wiersbe Library and Reading Room, to be located in Cedarville’s Center for Biblical and Theological Studies.
 
“I’m a bookworm, and I used to live at the public library,” Wiersbe shared. “I got saved at a Youth for Christ rally where Billy Graham was preaching when I was just a few days short of my 16th birthday. I went down to the library to see if they had any books to help me grow and, lo and behold, I found a Scofield Bible on the shelf that had never been taken out, so I took it out. I was amazed at what there was to learn from the Bible and, ever since then, I’ve been a student of the Bible.”

The sizable and priceless contribution of Wiersbe’s personal library has been eight years in the making. Nancy Voorhies, Cedarville senior regional director of development, first saw the collection in 2010 during a visit to the Wiersbes’ home in Lincoln, Nebraska.
 
But, the Wiersbes had been connected with Cedarville long before Voorhies made her first visit. Wiersbe and his wife, Betty, became familiar with Cedarville shortly after its merger with the Baptist Bible Institute in 1953 and supported the school with their gifts and prayers.
 
“I owe a lot to Cedarville,” Wiersbe noted. “I used to preach in Cedarville chapel occasionally and when I was preaching away from Calvary Baptist, your president, Dr. Jeremiah, would graciously come and preach in my pulpit. Now I turn on the TV and see David (Jeremiah) preaching. I remember David when he was playing basketball.”   
 
Wiersbe also enjoyed a close relationship with former president Dr. Paul Dixon. To honor his long-term friendship with Cedarville and his commitment to the cause of Christ, Wiersbe was awarded an honorary doctor of letters degree on January 26, 1987 as part of the university’s Centennial Celebration.   
 
While the Wiersbes were reluctant to transfer ownership of the books to a university in 2010, Voorhies took time to understand their concerns and earlier this year, offered a solution, with the full support of the university. She first suggested the plan to the Wiersbes’ son Dave, a classmate of hers from Moody Bible Institute and now the power of attorney for his parents.
 
“I called Dave two days before I met with Warren and Betty,” Voorhies recalled. “I told him I’d like to have a serious conversation about the library, and here’s what we’d like to do. Dave heard me out and then said, ‘A lot of organizations would like to have dad’s library, but as far as I’m concerned, this is the best solution I’ve heard; you have my support.’”
 
With that word of encouragement, Voorhies set the proposal before Warren and Betty Wiersbe: Cedarville would house all of the books in one location, not to be commingled with the university’s existing collection. Students could come read through his books, see his notes in the margins, and follow his cross-referencing, but the books would remain in the space, like a reference library. However, people could sit and read them and return to use them as needed.
 
Voorhies suggested the plan while they all were together in Betty Wiersbe’s assisted living apartment. “I told them, ‘I present this opportunity for your prayerful consideration,’” she said. “Fifteen minutes later, Betty took my arm and said, ‘I like your idea for the library.’”
 
White and Dr. Jason Lee, dean of the school of biblical and theological studies, visited with the Wiersbes on September 11 to thank them for the gift and spend time with one of the most respected teachers and Bible scholars in the last 50 years.
 
“I’ve appreciated his teaching ministry for years,” noted Lee, “but to meet him and hear his character and his heart for the Scriptures and for the church, it was just so encouraging. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting him. He’s such a tender-hearted man and humble. He kept asking Dr. White and me about our ministry students – people preparing to preach the Word. He wanted to know how they were doing.”
 
Because of this gift, which may also include some of Wiersbe’s personal notebooks, including sermon outlines, his influence will now extend to future generations of preachers.
 
“Dr. Wiersbe loves the Word,” Lee said. “He takes a strong stand on the authority of Scripture. And now our students can be shaped by the same resources that shaped him. He has spent decades investing in the church through his teaching of the Word, and now he’ll be able to continue that through students picking up the same resources for the same purposes.
 
“When we were with him, he said to Dr. White and me, ‘Preaching is loving people through the Word.’ We hope our students catch that spirit.”
 
“Dr. Wiersbe’s life and ministry has been committed to the right handling of the Scriptures, and pouring into others who would do likewise,” White said. “Cedarville has been blessed to steward this considerable collection, which is more than books on shelves, but because of the marginal notes and observations, is the accumulated wisdom and insight of one of the great servants of the church in the 20th century. We thank God for this amazing privilege.”  
 
“When I thought about the students at Cedarville, and they perhaps would not be able to get some of these books, the Lord convinced me this was the thing to do,” Wiersbe said. “I pray God will continue to use Cedarville to turn out balanced, evangelical preachers and missionaries. Just keep up what you’re doing because you’re turning out some wonderful people.”


Among the Best in Ohio: Cedarville Gets High Marks
Cedarville University, according to bestcolleges.com, ranks sixth in Ohio among all universities. This ranking places the Greene County university as the highest-ranked evangelical Christian university in Ohio, and the highest-ranked college in southwest Ohio.
 
In the ranking, Cedarville placed sixth overall behind Kenyon College, Oberlin, Mercy College of Ohio, Ohio State University and Case Western University. Following Cedarville University were Miami University-Oxford, University of Cincinnati, Denison University and The College of Wooster.  
 
The ranking is based on data from both the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and College Navigator, both hosted by the National Center for Education Statistics.
 
“Prospective students and their families are looking for an institution that will provide students with that opportunity to grow in their faith while also being challenged academically,” noted Dr. Scott Van Loo, vice president for enrollment management. “Cedarville strives to be intentional in doing both, which prospective students can see. Even our current students are a testament to that, as our retention rate for first year freshmen is 87 percent.”
 
Cedarville was recognized for offering top programs in business, engineering, forensics, debate and political studies, as well as offering multiple accelerated tracks that may save students up to $15,000 in tuition.
 
“Cedarville University has maintained its excellence by consistently ensuring that its degrees are meeting the needs of an ever-changing world,” said Dr. Randall McKinion, assistant academic vice president and associate professor of Old Testament. “But more importantly, I believe that Cedarville's commitment to the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ continues to appeal strongly to prospective students and their families.”


Cedarville Freshman Starts Nonprofit Printing 3D Custom Prosthetics
Connor Hart, a Cedarville freshman mechanical  engineering major from Loveland, Ohio, founded The Hands of Hope Foundation, in August 2018. The Hands of Hope Foundation is a nonprofit that empowers children with a limb difference by providing them with free 3D-printed prosthetics.
 
Hands of Hope“Prosthetics do not solve the problem of missing a hand, but they do help to empower children to have a more confident view of themselves ,” said Hart.
 
Hands of Hope started in September 2015 when Hart and three classmates at Milford High School in Milford, Ohio, volunteered to create a 3D-printed prosthetic for Hope McGill, a 7-year-old girl from the community missing her left arm from the elbow down.
 
“Hope was adopted from China. She had been taught from an early age to hide her arm, making her self-conscious about it. Because of the prosthetic, Hope became more confident in her little arm," noted Catherine McGill, Hope’s older sister and a Cedarville sophomore professional writing and information design major.
 
Hands of Hope became a club at Milford High School and made prosthetics for three other children. However, in the spring of 2018, Milford High School decided to drop Hands of Hope as an extracurricular due to a lack of interest from the student body.  Not wanting to see the organization dissolved, Hart transformed Hands of Hope into an official nonprofit and invited Catherine McGill to serve as the Foundation’s media director.
 
Hart and Catherine McGill created The Hands of Hope Foundation’s chapter on Cedarville University’s campus. This was made possible by Cedarville’s school of engineering and computer science.
 
“Connor went the extra mile by sending me an email over the summer just prior to coming to campus for his freshman fall semester,” said Robert Chasnov, dean of the school of engineering and computer science and senior professor of engineering. “He needed a space for the 3D printers he uses to manufacture the hands his team would be designing. Since we had a project lab that was being used primarily to store mobile test equipment, I set him up in that space and gave his student team card-key access to that project lab.”
 
Hart’s team is currently working on raising funds and building a training program for Cedarville students to learn how to create custom prosthetics. Even though 3D-printing custom prosthetics is common in the biomedical community, there is no official training. Hart and McGill hope their pilot training will become an official program that can be replicated by others.
 
“What I love most about working for Hands of Hope is knowing I am positively impacting the lives of both our clients and volunteers,” expressed Hart. “Knowing I provided joy to someone else with no strings attached is what keeps me smiling and driven toward giving others the same opportunities I have been given.”

 

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