Preaching professor has provided strong academic leadership for Brehm Center
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06/19/12
Clayton Schmit, professor of preaching at Fuller, has been appointed founding provost of the School of Theology at Lenoir-Ryne University—a newly formed entity that will include Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina.
On July 1, Lenoir-Rhyne University (LRU) and Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary (LTSS) will merge into a single university with a multi-campus School of Theology—for which Dr. Schmit will be the inaugural provost and chief administrative officer.
Schmit, who has served at Fuller as the Arthur DeKruyter/Christ Church Oak Brook Associate Professor of Preaching for 12 years, has also been the academic director of Fuller’s Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts since the center’s founding in 2001. A graduate of Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary, Schmit is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and served as an associate pastor for 13 years.
“We are deeply grateful for Clay’s faithful service to our seminary community,” says Fuller School of Theology Dean Howard Loewen. “He has served Fuller with energy and distinction.”
Under Schmit’s academic leadership, the Brehm Center, which recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, has become a leading voice in the integration of theology, culture, and the arts—gathering expert faculty and world-class artists to offer innovative programs and immersion courses unique to Fuller. The center has come to encompass five different initiatives: the Fred Bock Institute of Music, Lloyd John Ogilvie Institute of Preaching, Reel Spirituality, Visual Faith, and Church and Contemporary Culture.
“It has been a great gift to me to serve in a leadership role for the Brehm Center during its first decade of pioneering work,” says Schmit. “I look forward to sharing what I have learned at Fuller—the world’s largest seminary—with one of the schools in my own denomination.”
Schmit has taught homiletics and a variety of courses in liturgical arts at Fuller. Along with his pastoral experience in preaching and worship, he is an accomplished choral music director and published composer, having been commissioned to compose hymns and anthems for several churches as well as the U.S. Navy.
He has also published numerous articles and several books, including
Praying the Hours in Ordinary Life (with Lauralee Farrer),
Sent and Gathered: A Worship Manual for the Missional Church,
Too Deep for Words: A Theology of Liturgical Expression, and
Public Reading of Scripture. He received a Luce Foundation grant for a Global Preaching Initiative to create accessible resources for preachers around the world.
Dr. Schmit will be at Fuller through August 31.