Written by Abbey Williams // Photo by Jeff Montgomery
Representatives of The Bible Project, a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon, recently visited campus and engaged with students. The Bible Project focuses on creating free educational resources to help people understand the Bible. They spoke in chapel Tuesday, Jan. 30, and participated in a Q&A later that day, which students attended.
Michael McDonald, chief strategic relationships officer of The Bible Project, said Harding struck him as an energetic place to be.
“I would say that Harding stood out,” McDonald said. “Even just walking on the ground, Harding was an energetic and exciting place to be. We thought all the students were amazing and engaged and asked great questions. It felt super hopeful for the next generation of leaders heading out into the workforce. We were inspired and impressed by all of the faculty and their love for the students. It was a wonderful campus.”
McDonald said he hoped students would get to have conversations about the Bible with people who aren’t like them.
“My heart for the chapel talk was that we can find safe places with anyone to have curious conversations about the Bible,” McDonald said. “That we would get beyond the idea of just memorizing and learning stuff for the sake of learning but learning the Bible for the sake of transformation. My hope was to share stories that would encourage people to get to know people who aren’t like them, to have non-defensive, curious conversations with them and really allow that to help grow our understanding of God’s word and not take away from it. The Q&A was just to be hopeful and answer questions.”
McDonald said if The Bible Project ever comes back to Harding, he hopes to focus more on students studying business.
“It was fun to get to meet some of the business people,” McDonald said. “I think the next time we come, if we do come again — which we’d love to come again — would be to meet more with the business students, the people getting their MBAs, marketing students and all of that, because there’s a lot of fun things we get to talk about besides just Bible stuff.”
Director of theological studies Mac Sandlin said he was impressed by The Bible Project’s dedication to their message.
“I thought they were really inspiring,” Sandlin said. “Steve, the CEO, was just so completely devoted to the work of telling the story of Jesus to the world and had so little care for himself or the company’s future.”
Sandlin led the Q&A with The Bible Project, and he said McDonald’s character was something to be admired.
“All of that was just a tool to be used by God for the sake of the Kingdom,” Sandlin said. “I admired his humility and his wisdom a great deal.”
Logan Light, assistant dean of Campus Life and chapel programs, said The Bible Project was unique in its connection to so many majors and interests.
“It is a really unique company that intersects with a large portion of our student body across various majors,” Light said. “I think that’s really valuable.”
