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New Students, Fall 2001 Wrestling with God
Karyn
Denise Bodenschatz | Perucy Butiku | Javier
Davila |
Gloria
W. Walker, a Baptist who is a seminarian in the Urban Theological
Institute, says she has spent a good amount of her adult life wrestling
with God. "For the most part I wrestled over life issues and outcomes
that I had absolutely nothing to do with, yet issues that affected me
in every aspect of my life. I was wrestling with many mixed messages
that I had received in Church and society." They included struggling
with what it means to be Black and Christian, being a female leader
in the Church, "just wrestling with God over what I had seen in the
Church and the world." A graduate of Geneva College with a bachelor's
degree in Bible and Ministry, she's both worked for and studied at the
Center for Urban Theological Studies in Philadelphia (CUTS). She describes
CUTS as a terrifically positive influence on her life. Her activities
with the program have included teaching a special course on women in
ministry. "As an African American female in ministry I needed a place
where I feel welcomed, nurtured and embraced," she said. "The Urban
Theological Institute at the Seminary is not just any program. The administration
and staff have overwhelmed me with kindness, and it is a privilege to
be educated by African American academicians in an academic, theological
and culturally appropriate context. Wow! I've learned the importance
of relying on the Lord, because everything I've tried to do on my own
has failed. Because of the Lord in my experiences, I believe I have
a lot to offer, and I am prepared now to let the Lord plan my life.
'Yet not I, but Christ, liveth in me!'"