St. Paul Residential Faculty
Meet our team of residential faculty members who serve at Bethel Seminary in St. Paul.
Children's and Family Ministry
Denise Muir Kjesbo
Program Director, M.A. in Children's and Family Ministry
denise-kjesbo@bethel.edu
Education: B.A., Bethel College; M.Div., North American Baptist Seminary; Ph.D., Trinity International University
Experience: Kjesbo has served for 27 years in ministry at churches of various sizes and has 10 years of church-planting experience. She is involved in a consultant for ministry curriculum and has authored many articles and a book, Women in the Church. Kjesbo also serves as director at the Cory Center for Children’s Ministry at Bethel Seminary.
Church History
Chris Armstrong
Education: B.A., St. Mary’s University (Nova Scotia); M.A., Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary; Ph.D., Duke University
Experience: Armstrong’s training is in the field of American church history. Other areas of interest include the holiness, Pentecostal, and charismatic movements; a usable medieval past; the “Inkling” authors; religion and emotion; evangelical spirituality; and the “ancient-future” and “new monastic” movements within evangelicalism. His Patron Saints for Postmoderns was published in 2009, and he is working on his second book. He is former managing editor of Christian History & Biography magazine and continues to contribute to Christianity Today, Leadership Journal, Grateful to the Dead and Christianity Today’s Christian History Blog. He belongs to several professional associations related to church history and the Wesleyan and Pentecostal movements.
Global and Contextual Ministry
Wilbur P. Stone
Program Director, M.A. in Global and Contextual Studies
w-stone@bethel.edu
Education: B.A., Indiana University; M.Div., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Ph.D. in Intercultural Studies, Asbury Theological Seminary
Experience: Stone comes from a varied career as a businessman, youth pastor, senior pastor, and missionary in Hong Kong and Malaysia, spending 12 years overseas and 15 years in pastoral ministry. Besides teaching, Stone works to create partnerships with Converge Worldwide and other denominations and missions agencies to help build and expand the seminary’s missions program.
Marriage and Family Studies
Steven J. Sandage
Education: Ph.D., Virginia Commonwealth University
Experience: Sandage focuses his research in the areas of interpersonal forgiveness; virtue ethics; spiritual formation; cultural, religious, and spiritual dynamics in psychotherapy; and correctional psychology.
Ministry Leadership
John R. Cionca
Program Director, M.Div, SemPM
Program Director, M.A. (Theological Studies), SemPM
j-cionca@bethel.edu
Education: B.A., Elmhurst College; M.R.E., Denver Seminary; M.A., Ph.D., Arizona State University
Experience: Cionca has served as youth pastor, minister of education, and senior pastor. He has ministered in many churches as an interim pastor and seminar leader, and he serves the larger Christian community as a ministry advisor and transitions coach. Cionca has contributed to many publications and published multiple works, his most recent book being Before you Move: A Guide to Making Transitions in Ministry, 3rd edition.
Website: http://people.bethel.edu/~jcionca/
Justin Irving
Program Director, Doctor of Ministry
Lead Faculty, M.A. in Transformational Leadership
Lead Faculty, D.Min. in Servant Leadership for Team and Organizational Effectiveness
j-irving@bethel.edu
Education: B.A., Northwestern College; M.Div., Bethel Seminary; Ph.D., Regent University
Experience: Irving has served as a worship leader and a pastor of leadership development and outreach in the local church. Irving has focused his writing and research on servant leadership, team leadership in the global context, self-sacrificial leadership, and the relationship between servant leadership and the effectiveness of teams in diverse ethno-linguistic communities.
Website: www.irvingresources.com
Mark McCloskey
Program Director, M.A. in Transformational Leadership
m-mccloskey@bethel.edu
Education: B.A., Miami of Ohio; M.Div., Bethel Seminary; Ph.D., University of South Florida
Experience: McCloskey spent 24 years on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ in numerous roles and served for 11 years as Dean for the Center for Transformational Leadership. He is a consultant and workshop leader in the areas of strategic planning, leadership development, and team building. McCloskey is the author of Tell It Often, Tell It Well, a textbook on evangelism.
New Testament
Jeannine K. Brown
Education: B.A., University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire; M.Div., Bethel Theological Seminary; Ph.D., Luther Seminary
Experience: Brown teaches in local and regional church contexts on subjects of biblical interpretation and the New Testament. Her publications include Becoming Whole and Holy, Scripture as Communication, Disciples in Narrative Perspective, as well as a number of journal articles in New Testament Studies, Word and World, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, and Journal of Biblical Literature. In addition, Brown is also the Midwest regional coordinator for the Society of Biblical Literature and a member of the Committee on Bible Translation for the New International Version.
Website: www.jeanninekbrown.com
Dan Gurtner
Education: B.A. Grove City College; M.Div., Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary; Th.M., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; Ph.D., University of St. Andrews; Post-doctoral research, Tyndale House, Cambridge
Experience: Gurtner came to Bethel Seminary after a year of post-doctoral research at Tyndale House in Cambridge, England. He has authored books pertaining to the gospels and the language and literature of Second Temple Judaism. He has also contributed to many journals, in addition to background commentaries on seven New Testament books. After his seminary studies, Gurtner served as a pastor for 2 years near Pittsburgh before returning to academics. Currently he is actively involved in small group ministry and adult education at his church. He is an ordained minister in Converge Worldwide.
Website: www.danielmgurtner.com
Thorsten Moritz
Education: Ph.D., King's College London, UK; M.Th. in Hermeneutics, London School of Theology, UK; Master of Divinity, Freie Theologische Hochschule, Germany
Experience: In addition to teaching New Testament and hermeneutics at Bethel, Moritz has served in various teaching capacities at the London School of Theology, the University of Gloucestershire (UK), and the University of Leipzig (Germany).
Old Testament
Paul Ferris
Lead Faculty, M.Div., Traditional
Lead Faculty, M.A. (Theological Studies), Traditional
pferris@bethel.edu
Education: B.A., Pillsbury College; M.A., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; M.Div., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; Ph.D., Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning
Experience: Pastor, church-planter, hospital chaplain, seminary faculty, author, college and seminary president.
Website: http://people.bethel.edu/~pferris/
David Howard
Education: B.S., Geneva College; M.A., Wheaton Graduate School; A.M., Ph.D., The University of Michigan
Experience: Howard has taught at Bethel Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, in addition to other schools in the U.S. He has had an ongoing relationship with the Emanuel University of Oradea (Romania) since 1998. He is author or editor of 9 books and numerous articles and essays, and served as president of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2003.
Website: http://people.bethel.edu/~dhoward/Newindex.htm
Peter Vogt
Education: B.A., The American University; M.Div., Bethel Seminary; Ph.D., Old Testament, University of Gloucestershire
Experience: Vogt has served at Bethel Seminary since 2001. Prior to experiencing a call to ministry, he served as an officer in the U.S. Navy. His ministry experience includes teaching adult and children's Sunday school, leading a Bible study for inmates in a correctional facility, and serving as a volunteer chaplain. His research interests are in the areas of the hermeneutics and the Pentateuch, particularly the book of Deuteronomy. He is also passionate about teaching biblical Hebrew through a communicative approach, and has been involved in pioneering efforts to shape the way in which biblical Hebrew is taught.
Website: www.petertvogt.com
Theology
Joel Lawrence
Education: B.A., Texas A & M University; Th.M., Dallas Theological Seminary; M.Phil., Cambridge University; PhD., Cambridge University
Experience: Lawrence earned a doctorate in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology of sanctification, and his book, Bonhoeffer: A Guide for the Perplexed, was published in 2010. His previous studies were in church history, with an emphasis in medieval contemplative theology. Before seminary, he served on the staff of Grace Bible Church in College Station, Tex., and was the staff pastor at Camp of the Woods in upstate New York. His research interests include the connection between prayer and theological method, theological ethics, revelation and epistemology, and the connection between theology and the church. Lawrence also serves on the leadership and preaching teams at his local church.
David S. Nah
Education: B.A., Northwestern University; M.Div., Alliance Theological Seminary; Th.M., Princeton Theological Seminary; Ph.D., Claremont Graduate University.
Experience: Nah was born in Korea and moved to the United States at the age of 10. He has served in pastorates for more than 20 years, with a special love for second-generation Korean congregations. From that passion stems an interest in developing a second-generation Asian-American theology. His current research plans include books on John Hick’s theology of religious pluralism, Voices in Asian-American Theology, Systematic Theology in a Global Age and a book on a Christian theology of religions.
Kyle Roberts
Program Director, Master of Arts (Christian Thought)
kroberts@bethel.edu
Education: B.A., Wheaton College; M.Div. Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; Ph.D., Biblical and Systematic Theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Experience: In addition to teaching, Roberts has served as a youth minister. His main research interests include the function of the Bible in the religious philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard, the question of divine providence in the problem of evil and suffering, and the place of Christian eschatology in popular culture.