Landon to preach opening chapel and present forum, October 8
Dennis Landon, President of Higher Education and Leadership Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), will preach the opening chapel service at the beginning of the 2012-13 academic year. He will also present the year's first forum, offering reflections entitled, More fun than you might expect: Confessions of a Denominational Bureaucrat.
After becoming its president in 1997, he led what had been the Division of Higher Education in clarifying its mission, focusing its energies on leader development, and hence adopting its present name. Mr. Landon continues to lead HELM's mission to nurture transforming leaders for the church and the larger society in partnership with Disciples-related colleges and universities, theological schools, and ministries to and with students.
A native of Canton, Pennsylvania, Dennis Landon is a graduate of Columbia University and of the Divinity School and the Disciples Divinity House of the University of Chicago. He was ordained in 1975 and served as pastor for congregations in Wisconsin and Indiana for 12 years. He then served as executive director of East Central Colleges, a consortium of independent colleges in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. He also served on the town council and as acting municipal judge for the Town of Bethany, West Virginia, and as a director for Wabash Valley Human Services as well as a variety of other community groups. Mr. Landon is a trivia expert and a contributor to a book of humorous essays on the work of Franz Bibfeldt, the world's most famous non-existent theologian. He is married to Lana Hartman Landon, a writer, teacher, and PhD alumna of DDH and the Divinity School; they live in St. Louis, Missouri.