HILLSBORO, Kan. – Tabor College students, faculty and staff opened the year with the 2016 Academic Convocation at the Hillsboro Mennonite Brethren Church on August 30.
Dressed in their regalia, faculty entered the sanctuary while sophomore Melissa Cairns from Salina played “Trumpet Tune” by Jeremiah Clark. She was accompanied by Professor of Music Sheila Litke. Annaliese Wiens, junior from Half Moon Bay, Calif., and student body president, gave the invocation. Chair of the Music Department Brad Vogel directed the congregation in the hymn “Be Thou My Vision.”
Tabor College President Jules Glanzer welcomed the group. Using Isaiah 11:9 as his reference, Glanzer expressed the faculty’s commitment to students’ education and mission of the college.
“The Tabor faculty are working to cover the whole earth with the knowledge of the Lord. You are their hope for that to happen,” Glanzer said. “Students, you are why we are here. Our commitment is to Christ and to you. We want you to learn and succeed. We are honored by your presence.”
To set the tone for the convocation address sophomore and Multicultural Student Union president Naima Mexsen Murra from Gomez Placio, Mexico read Acts 13:36 about the end of the biblical figure David’s life.
Assistant Professor of Accounting Jesse Schumacher gave the address titled “God’s Purpose in Your Generation.” He named David as a person who was placed by God at a specific time for a specific purpose.
“It is our responsibility to seek after Him and fulfill that purpose,” Schumacher said. “You are now in college. For some of you this past week was your first week, for others you are wrapping up your college career and you will be starting your professional career in only a few months,”
He closed by encouraging students to find the purpose God has for each of them.
“Are you following His leading and fulfilling His purpose in your own generation?” Schumacher concluded. “This life is not about accomplishing our own purposes for our own self-interest. It is about serving a God who wants so much more for us than what we could ever imagine.”
Senior and Campus Ministries Council president Alisa Ediger of Aurora, Colo., closed the convocation with prayer.