Bio

The 2026-2027 academic year is my twenty-first year as a university and/or seminary faculty member. It is also my first year at Saint Paul School of Theology in Leawood, Kansas (suburban Kansas City)! I grew up in a small town in Minnesota a seven hour drive north of Kansas City. It is good to be a bit closer to family in the Midwest! 

Prior to moving to Kansas City, I served at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis where I led the Contextual Education program for two years (2024-2026), Seattle Pacific University (2021-2024) where I taught both undergraduates and seminary students, George Fox University (2016-2020) where I was a Fellow in the William Penn Honors Program teaching “great books” classes in Medieval Studies and Twentieth Century Literature and Thought, and Palmer Theological Seminary (2005-2016) where I first learned to teach an array of courses in the history of world Christianity, Methodism, and mission.

My work at Saint Paul School of Theology most closely resembles the delightful eleven years (2005-2016) I spent teaching at Palmer Theological Seminary, The Seminary of Eastern University near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. So moving to Kansas City, in some ways, represents a “return” to where I started. (I am thinking of a beautiful line from T. S. Eliot. Returning to a place to know it for the first time.)

I am also a new clergy (deacon) member of the Missouri Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church and look forward to getting very involved in this Conference of around 500 local congregations. My association with Saint Paul School of Theology, a United Methodist seminary in this region will surely help facilitate that! I already teach in the Licensing School program here in Missouri and thoroughly enjoy doing so.

I continue to do research and writing for a new biography of John R. Mott, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate from 1946 and a famous organizer of the world Christian missionary movement in the early twentieth century. In the summer of 2026 I am working on the fifth and sixth chapters of that book, so it is well underway!

I’m grateful for a recent grant from the American Philosophical Society that will fund several more research trips to Yale, Columbia University, and elsewhere. I’m interested in writing a new biography of Mott for several reasons.  One of those reasons is that John Mott and I grew up in small farming communities along the Iowa / Minnesota border just 40 miles apart from one another (but separated by a century). In addition to the American Philosophical Society, I am grateful for the Project Grant for Researchers program at the Louisville Institute, the Rockefeller Archive Center, and the Elmer Andersen Research Scholars Program for their generous financial support of this project.

During the 2023-2024 academic year it was my honor to serve as President of the American Society of Missiology. The theme for our annual meeting at St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana was “Mission with Children, Youth, and Young Adults.” A video of my presidential address, “John R. Mott amidst the Students,” may be viewed below. My articles and book chapters can be read on this academia.edu website.