Until the world is different
David struck Goliath down on his first try and was celebrated in victory. That’s a nice way for the story to end but it’s important to remember that he took five stones with him. He understood that sometimes your faith has to endure a failure. All his hope can’t go into one stone. He’s going to have to keep throwing them until the world is different.
Alexis Vaughan, 2024 Convocation Address
Meet you in Memphis? The General Assembly of the Christian Church will convene July 12-15 at the Memphis Convention Center. Friends, alums, and current students will gather for lunch on July 15, when the Alum Council will honor J. Marshall Dunn as the Distinguished Alumnus. Tickets and more details
Ubuntu. Delaney Beh is serving First Congregational Church Loveland, Colorado, UCC, as Interim Sabbatical Minister this summer while Senior Minister Thandiwe Dale-Ferguson, an alumna, has a sabbatical grant that allows Thandiwe and her extended family to spend time in South Africa, where she was raised when her parents served with Global Ministries. The Loveland congregation's theme this summer is Ubuntu, "we belong together."
Rhind recipient. Marissa Ilnitzki, a Disciples House Scholar and June graduate of the MDiv and MSW programs, was honored by the Divinity School with the 2025 Joseph Gray Rhind Award on June 6. Each year a recipient is selected from MDiv graduates for their excellence in training and promise for religious leadership. Marissa's care for persons and communities is matched and sustained by her lively intellectual curiosity, courage, and practice of improvisation. (Pictured at center with two MDiv cohortmates.)
Celebration. Sandhya Jha spoke at Convocation on June 6, which marked the close of DDH's 130th academic year and celebrates the graduates. An alumna, trustee, and founder of the Oakland Peace Center, Jha published their fifth book, Rebels, Despots, and Saints, in 2023.
How can a 1928 Gothic building be readied for a future that is beyond present imagining? How can this old House provide for forms of learning and ministry that we cannot yet glimpse? To catalyze student living and learning for the next one hundred years, the Board of Trustees has chartered a design and construction team that has expertise with historic buildings and an imagination of future possibilities. Construction is underway.
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Virginia Johnston White was ordained to the Christian Ministry in the Chapel of the Holy Grail on May 31. A 2018 MDiv graduate, she defended her PhD dissertation earlier that same week. Prof. William Schweiker, her PhD advisor, also preached at her ordination. Root and Branch Church in Chicago and University Christian Church in Austin, Texas, are her sponsoring and home congregations. Here she presides at communion with her father, Ted White.
