Bill Webber was a bigger-than-life mentor and one of the kindest persons I’ve known. He was president of New York Theological Seminary, 1969-1983, and he was the prophetic voice behind the master’s degree in professional studies at Sing Sing prison. He was also among the visionary founders of the East Harlem Protestant Parish. When Rebecca Thompson and I reported for work at parish headquarters as summer interns in 1966, Webber informed us that drug addicts had ripped our assigned apartment to shreds. So he brought us to New York Theological Seminary, where we spent our first night before moving to a railroad flat near the main East Harlem office. Fifty-three years later, in the spring of 2019, Rebecca and I returned to New York Theological, now located at 475 Riverside Drive, where I had the privilege of keynoting the annual Urban Pastors Conference on the subject of mentoring. The day before my keynote address, two NYTS adjunct professors transported me to Ossining, New York, … [Read more...]

Quality mentors are in short supply. In the Harvard Business Review, longtime Wall Street executive Rick Woolworth revealed that while more than 75% of professional men and women want to have a mentor, only 37% have been able find one. What’s more, the mentors they do manage to locate focus narrowly on career advancement, missing opportunities for deeper discussions around behavior, values, relationships, parenting, finances and spiritual life. Concerned about the shortage of mentors, Woolworth founded Telemachus, an organization committed to developing holistic mentoring through intergenerational relationships among emerging and experienced leaders. Here at the University of Virginia, we too are pursuing the power of holistic mentoring. Theological Horizons, centered at the Bonhoeffer House, is a campus ministry that supports Christians and seekers in academia by providing a welcoming community for engaging faith, thought and life. Through our Horizons Fellows and Perkins Fellows … [Read more...]