January Director's Letter

Dear Friends,

Below you will find good news about our capital campaign, the start of this semester, and information about exciting opportunities for students, alumni, and community members in coming weeks.

I'm excited to begin by announcing to you that we met the end-of-year match in 2020. Many of you made extraordinarily generous gifts and commitments, helping us receive a $200,000 match! Thanks to all the commitments and gifts received, we have now met our primary campaign goal of $3.5M. The campaign will remain open for additional gifts and commitments until March 31, 2021 to help us cover increased costs for building materials, landscaping, and to meet extended legal expenses from an unpredictable permitting process last year. Thankfully, we are now well-positioned to begin the renovation of the Study Center, with demolition scheduled to start during the week of Feb. 1, 2021. The construction process is expected to take approximately a year.

Since we began, I have often remembered Psalm 127:1 — "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain." This has certainly been true in every aspect of our work, from seminars to speakers to relationships and community building, only the Lord can have the impact that we pray for. And the same will certainly be true of this construction process. We hope that the Study Center will be a home for community, education, and spiritual growth in Chapel Hill, and only the Lord can accomplish this.

As construction is beginning soon, we are in the process of considering alternative sites for casual and responsible hospitality for the coming semester. Please pray that the Lord will help us provide for students this semester the way we were able to last semester.

Finally, our undergraduate and graduate student groups started meeting last week, and our seminars have mostly begun. Any student with questions should email andrew@ncstudycenter.org — it's not too late to join!

For all members of the community, we had a wonderful evening with Dr. Kavin Rowe on the lessons the early church has to teach us in our current moment (Jan. 13). We have two additional events coming up, one with The Common Rule's Justin Whitmel Earley (Feb. 1), and the other with political commentator David French on Christian leadership (Feb. 18).

May the Lord guide us all into the joyful work ahead this year,

Madison Perry
Executive Director

Welcoming Administrative Coordinator: Joy Purvis

We are so excited to share that we have a new member on our team!

Joy Purvis grew up in southern Italy in a missionary family, which probably explains her love of food, travel, and people. She received a bachelor’s degree from Lancaster Bible College, where she focused on early elementary education. She then served for eight years as the Assistant Director for Saints Bible Institute, a Christian study abroad program in San Lorenzo, Italy.

She lives in Chapel Hill with her husband, Jeremy, who is a faculty member at UNC, and their three rambunctious children: Jackson, Luke, and Caroline. She enjoys life’s simple pleasures: good food, the great outdoors, and spending time with friends.

Prior to her role as the Administrative Coordinator, which started Jan. 4, Joy served as a volunteer for the Study Center, helping to lead student move-in lunches; prepare for the Wilberforce conference; and mentor Study Center Fellows.

Email Joy: joy@ncstudycenter.org

Living a Tech-Wise Life with Andy and Amy Crouch

We are in the second full week of UNC's winter break, and our staff has been talking a lot about technology, screen time, and exploring questions together like the ones below...

• Is your weekly screen time at a reasonable number? Or is it higher than you’d like it to be?

• Is social media playing a healthy role in your life — keeping you connected to friends? Or is it playing an unhealthy role in your life — serving as a constant distraction, eating up valuable segments of your day, and leading you down the spiral of comparison and envy?

• Are you ‘in control’ of your devices? Or are your devices 'controlling’ your life, in a sense?

• Does the Bible, written ~2,000 years before the iPhone was invented, have substantive wisdom to help us navigate our tech-saturated world?

On Thursday, Dec. 10 our team was able to have a rich, honest conversation about technology, discernment, and living the good life with best-selling author Andy Crouch (author of The Tech-Wise Family) and his daughter Amy Crouch (current college student and author of My Tech-Wise Life: Growing Up and Making Choices in a World of Devices).

We can barely imagine our lives without technology. Tech gives us tools to connect with our friends, listen to our music, document our lives, share our opinions, and keep up with what's going on in the world. Yet it also tempts us to procrastinate, avoid deeper conversations, compare ourselves with others, and filter reality. Sometimes, it feels like our devices have a lot more control over us than we have over them. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Joined by student and young alumni co-moderators Kristina Chapple (‘22) and Peter Andringa (‘20), staff member Matt Hoehn guided discussion.

Our Fall Banquet: For Such a Time

Our virtual fall banquet on Thursday, Nov. 19 was a joyful occasion to celebrate the Lord’s work here at UNC through the Study Center this past year. Along with board members, community supporters, and UNC students we were able to tell the story of the North Carolina Study Center’s past, present, and look forward to its future.

We were thrilled to announce the public phase of our capital campaign that includes a thorough renovation of the cherished Battle House, growing the space for future generations of students and faculty at UNC.

Please watch and enjoy it with us!

Politics and the Common Life: A Conversation about Faithful Political Engagement

On Oct. 7, we partnered with other Study Centers and the AEI Initiative on Faith and Public Life to ask, "Is it possible to love one’s neighbors through political action and advocacy? Can we cultivate a common life across lines of partisan affiliation?"

In the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, we’re seeking to cultivate a fruitful dialogue about the nature and possibility of Christian faithfulness in public life and politics. A conversation like that begins with a basic understanding that people of faith need not — and, indeed should not — strive to separate Christian life from political engagement. But how we engage matters. Christians are called to love neighbors and enemies in all spheres of life. During this event, we explored a realistic but hopeful vision of Christian discipleship and witness in the midst of our fragmented and polarized political culture.

This event was sponsored by: Anselm House, AEI Initiative on Faith and Public Life, The Center for Christian Study at UVA, Upper House, and the North Carolina Study Center.

National Book Launch for 'Reading While Black' by New Testament Scholar Dr. Esau McCaulley

During this live webcast on Wednesday, Sept. 23, New Testament scholar Dr. Esau McCaulley shared about the inspiration for his newly released book Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope, the timeliness of its release, and his hopes for its impact on readers. In the book, Dr. McCaulley expresses that reading Scripture from the perspective of Black church tradition can help us connect with a rich faith history and address the urgent issues of our times. Demonstrating an ongoing conversation between the collective Black experience and the Bible, Dr. McCaulley shares a personal and scholarly testament to the power and hope of Black biblical interpretation.

Purchase a copy of Dr. McCaulley's book: www.ivpress.com/reading-while-black

Learn more about this event: www.ncstudycenter.org/rwblaunch