Seminary Heritage Week to Feature Conn Writing Award Winners
Cleveland, TN–The Pentecostal Theological Seminary will feature winners of the Charles W. Conn Historical Writing Award during its annual Heritage Week on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 25 and 26. The theme for the week is “Discovering Pentecostal Voices.”
Bishop Wade H. Phillips, author of The Quest to Restore God’s House: A Theological History of the Church of God, will speak in the 11:00 a.m. chapel service on Tuesday, October 25. A panel discussion and luncheon at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, October 26, in the Knight Conference Center will highlight the article winner “‘Making Full Proof of Their Ministry’: Women in Church of God Missions.” Mrs. Wanda LeRoy and Dr. David Roebuck wrote the article, which was published in the International Journal of Pentecostal Missiology, Vol. 3, 2014, and is available online at https://agts.edu/IJPM/FallIJPM2014.html). Dr. Angie Waltrip and Dr. Cheryl Johns will also serve on the panel.
Phillips is presiding bishop of Zion Assembly Church of God, a Pentecostal denomination with international offices in Cleveland, Tennessee. He has researched the history of the Church of God movement for more than 30 years. His book intertwines the history of the Church of God and the influences that shaped its development and early theology. It also includes information previously unpublished about R. G. Spurling, A. J. Tomlinson, and other early leaders.
Wanda Thompson LeRoy is an avid researcher of the history of Church of God World Missions, with which she has been associated since 1982, serving both in the international offices and as a missionary abroad. Her missionary experience includes 15 years as the women’s ministries coordinator in the Western Europe, Mediterranean and Middle East region and four years as World Missions Coordinator for Women’s Ministries. She is the author of three Missionary Hero Series books focusing on missionary women in the Church of God.
Dr. David G. Roebuck is an ordained bishop in the Church of God and serves as Church of God historian and director of the Hal Bernard Dixon Jr. Pentecostal Research Center on the campus of Lee University. An Assistant Professor of the History of Christianity at Lee University and adjunct teacher at the Pentecostal Theological Seminary, Roebuck regularly contributes to books and periodicals about the Pentecostal movement. He currently edits the columns “Church of God Chronicles” and “Where Are They Now?” for the Church of God Evangel. His 1997 dissertation at Vanderbilt University was “Limiting Liberty: The Church of God and Women Ministers, 1886–1996.”
Dr. Angela Waltrip is an ordained minister in the Church of God. Her dissertation was, “Toward a Pentecostal Hermeneutic of Women in the Church’s Ministry.” She accepted the call to missions and moved with her husband, Dr. Blayne Waltrip, to Europe where she preached and taught in Montpellier, France. She later moved to Germany to teach and preach at the European Theological Seminary. Waltrip has also served in other ministry contexts including prison chaplaincy, women’s conferences and working with “at risk” teens. She currently works at Lee University in the LEAP program, serving first generation, low-income, and students with disabilities as well as teaching in the School of Religion.
Dr. Cheryl Bridges Johns will chair the panel. Johns is Professor of Discipleship and Christian Formation at the Pentecostal Theological Seminary. Her published works include Pentecostal Formation: A Pedagogy Among the Oppressed and Finding Eternal Treasures. She is a past-president of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, and has been actively involved in numerous ecumenical initiatives including the recent Church of God Mennonite Dialogue.
The Church of God Historical Commission presents the Conn Historical Writing Award to both a book and an article-length publication at each Church of God General Assembly. The award honors long-time author Dr. Charles W. Conn. Conn, who penned his history of the Church of God in 1955. When Like a Mighty Army was revised in 1977, the Church of God Executive Council designated Conn as Church Historian. Pathway Press released a tribute edition in 2008.
The public is invited to attend these events at the seminary, which is located at 900 Walker Street NE in Cleveland. Persons wishing to attend the Wednesday panel and luncheon should RSVP to [email protected] or 478-1131 no later than Monday, October 24.
