The Henry Center desires to participate in the cultivation of pastors and scholars who have a passion for theological nourishment of the church. In a day when pastors are encouraged to focus less on theological engagement and more on the practice of ministry, and scholars are challenged to work less for the church and more with the academy in mind, the Center desires to see both pastors and scholars embrace a robustly theological view of ministry that centers in nourishment of the local church, the nucleus of God’s kingdom work.

Toward this end, the Center desires to participate in the formation of pastor-theologians who practice affectionately zealous, scripturally faithful, rigorously intellectual shepherding. The Center believes that such labor embodies both the scriptural portrait of the pastor and the dominant historical model. Pastors from Luther to Edwards to Ockenga have brought great blessing to local churches and the broader Christian movement through their preaching, thinking, and writing. It is hoped that Dr. Piper’s personally reflective theological lecture on the work of the pastor will inspire a movement of God’s Spirit resulting in the adoption of the model by hundreds and thousands of pastors.

The Center also desires to participate in the cultivation of ecclesiastical scholars, those who, like Dr. Carson, produce Christian scholarship that is academically excellent, spiritually nourishing, and ecclesiastically concerned. Far fewer opportunities and positions exist for such teachers, though the evangelical community has great need of scholars who work and write with the local church in mind. The Center seeks through Dr. Carson’s theological reflection on the scholar to challenge certain students of extraordinary intellectual and academic gifting to assume this role.

In the tradition of Carl F. H. Henry, a man who loved both church and academy, the Center seeks through the reflections of Drs. Piper and Carson to speak a personal word to the rising generation—and the current generation—of evangelical leaders that will set their hearts aflame and raise up pastors who are scholars, scholars who are pastors, all for the strengthening of the local church and the greater glory of God.