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By Chelsea Farnam
Johnson City Press
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MILLIGAN COLLEGE — As the new campus minister at Milligan College, Brad Wallace plans to prepare students to take on the responsibility of their own spiritual development.
Wallace comes to Milligan from Cincinnati, where he led worship at Parkside Christian Church for six years, and will be in charge of the college’s Spiritual Formation Program, including chapel and convocation services. Wallace also will oversee small group ministries among students as well as student groups and clubs that work in missions or worship services on campus.
Beyond facilitating spiritual formation events — 150 of which students must attend in order to graduate — Wallace emphasized that his role is also pastoral.
“Spiritual formation goes way beyond going to a program,” said Wallace. “I think for me it all falls under that category of getting students to sort of take ownership of their own spiritual development. … It’s really about what it means to be a follower of Jesus.”
Prior to working as a worship minister, Wallace was both campus minister and director of counseling services at Kentucky Christian College in Lexington, Ky. Wallace said he is excited to be working with college students again.
“I worked for the church for a little over eight years and had really good experiences, but I missed working with students,” he said. “I missed conversations about life and decisions. There’s an energy to where students are in life.”
Wallace moved with his wife, Chris, and their two young children to Johnson City early this month.
“My wife and I had been kind of dreaming about getting to this region of the country for a while,” said Wallace. “She has been as eager as I have to get back to working with college students.”
However, Wallace still plans to utilize his experience in worship ministry in his duties overseeing chapel services.
“One of the things that has been given to me as a charge is helping students engage more fully in chapel,” he said. “First and foremost I view chapel as giving students a chance to connect with God. It needs to look, sound, feel, smell right for students.”
Wallace remarked that college students are receiving information constantly, but the practical application is sometimes lost.
“Part of the challenge of being a student is that you’re bombarded with class 15-18 hours a week,” Wallace said. “But how do you live a life that integrates that stuff? There’s an information component to (spiritual formation), but I think it’s more about practice and experience and community.”
Wallace is replacing Nathan Flora, who served as campus minister for 11 years at Milligan before accepting the position as minister of Morrison’s Chapel United Methodist Church in Kingsport this spring.