Northern Seminary is pleased to announce that David Neff has accepted the position of Director of the Robert E. Webber Center for an Ancient Evangelical Future. David will continue at Christianity Today as Editor-in-Chief of Christianity Today and the Christianity Today Media Group.

As many of you know, before his death last year Robert Webber collaborated with over 300 others to issue the Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future. Bob’s vision for the Call was for it to be an ongoing conversation with church leaders, theologians, students and laity. He envisioned the Call generating conferences, papers, discussions, classes, and a center that would be both a resource and a catalyst to moving the Call forward.  The AEF Center will honor the work and ministry of Bob Webber and ensure that his vision for the Call will continue.

The Mission of the Robert E. Webber Center for an Ancient Evangelical Future is: To inspire and equip evangelical church leaders to teach their people to interpret their world according to the biblical story.  The AEF Center will achieve its mission by helping pastors, theologians, students and lay leaders to:  

• become rooted in the church’s historic interpretation of the biblical story—especially its earliest interpreters and its major reform and renewal movements,
• recover a sense of worship as re-enactment of the biblical story and proclamation of God’s cosmic redemption,
• shape spiritual formation by God’s story rather than by individualistic or therapeutic narratives,
• embody God’s story in lives of sacrificial holiness and service in the context of community, and
• learn to use God’s story to address the contemporary master narratives that compete with the gospel.

We look forward to seeing how the Lord will use the Call and the AEF Center to strengthen the witness and mission of the Church.

The AEF Center will be sponsoring the Second Annual Call Conference November 30-December 1, 2007. For more information and to register www.aefcall.org.  The AEF Center is a ministry of Northern seminary and as such qualifies for tax deductible gifts at www.seminary.edu in the giving section.

We look forward to seeing you this year at the Conference and serving you through the ministry of the AEF Center.

John Kirn  

Interim President Northern Seminary