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The midpoint of an athletic team’s building season is a kind of like looking at half a glass of water—you have to decide how you want to look at it. Fortunately, PUC’s Pioneers women’s basketball is a team full of hard-working optimists. “We don’t have a winning record,” admits forward Vanessa Felder. “But we’re getting to the point where we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and we’re pushing forward.” Felder, a junior, is one of only two upperclassmen on this year’s squad. The rest are sophomores who have only been playing together since last season. It’s been the team’s biggest challenge this year as they face more experienced opponents in the California Pacific conference of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. “Everybody that we recruit knows that we’re very young; we’re building toward the future,” says assistant coach Doug Wilson. “But this year we’ve won as many games as they have in the past four years. So the morale really is good.” This goal of continual improvement is what keeps the women motivated on the court. But during this building year, the coaches and the players are also working on another critical value off the court: building a team...

This past summer, Pacific Union College student Robert Abdul-Karim collaborated with Pastor Marshal George of Alameda Seventh-day Adventist Church to take a unconventional approach to evangelism for Abdul-Karim’s theology degree. Together, the two decided that their ministry would be used as a way to connect with the community on a level deeper than simply distributing pamphlets or literature. While working on a small-group ministry on the Bay Area island of Alameda, the two witnessed young children skateboarding down the former naval base with no particular direction or purpose. So the two worked together to plan a ministry in the form of a skate clinic with an all-too appropriate name: Alameda Extreme. “We wanted to give the kids something to do,” says Abdul-Karim. “That’s where the idea of having a skate clinic came up – to help them out, to encourage them.” Taking this approach, the PUC students who volunteered to join Alameda Extreme went to the skate park simply to interact with the young skaters. One foggy morning in Angwin, Abdul-Karim loaded up a school van with six yawning underclassmen, all a little uncertain about what the day would bring. Once they arrived on base, the students left their nerves...

At the biennial Longo Lecture, Christianity Today Media Group editor in chief and vice president David Neff presented "Earth Day and the New Earth: Is creation care in competition with second-coming Christianity?" Neff proposed that, as Christians who look forward to Jesus' second coming, "we can love both the planet as we know it and the world as God will remake it." The Longo Lecture was presented on the evening of January 28, but in the morning professor and lecture coordinator Greg Schneider and environmental studies major Molly Reeves interviewed Neff for the colloquy program. At that time, he talked about the founding of Christianity Today magazine by Billy Graham in the '50s and also opened discussion about environmental stewardship and how Christians do and should address it. At the lecture in the evening, Neff presented a more formal and thorough look at how the Christians with a strong eschatology (theology regarding the end of the world and the Second Coming, etc.) have viewed the environment and environmental stewardship throughout history, recent trends and movements, and "how people with that kind of a faith focus can think best about caring for the environment." Neff first talked about Christianity's theology about...

The 2010 Winter Revival at Pacific Union College brought the annual series of morning and evening programs to inspire spiritual growth among students with a new twist: The speakers were all recent PUC grads who have gone into ministry. The revival took place during January and was themed "The Word from the Frontlines," with alums Beejay Wheeler ('09), Dustin Comm ('07), Brian Simmons ('06), Zach Reiber ('09), Godfrey Miranda ('05), and D'andre Campbell ('07) presenting. Each of the speakers brought PUC thoughts on where God is leading our church, especially through this generation's leadership. Comm, Pastor of Youth and Media for Calimesa (California) Adventist Church, talked about his basketball days at PUC, explaining that there's a "big difference between being a player and being a fan." In the three years since leaving PUC, he said, he's noticed that some people become "spiritual fans" who are supporters of the cause of Jesus, but fail "to engage him in the dynamic relationship that he calls us to." He posed a question to the PUC congregation: "Are you a fan, or are you a player?" Wheeler, a theology grad and youth pastor in Placerville, Calif., spoke on how Jesus condemmed religious leaders who,...

David Neff, editor in chief and vice president of editorial for the Christianity Today Media Group, will speak for the Longo Lecture at Pacific Union College on January 28. Neff will lecture on "Earth Day and the New Earth: Is creation care in competition with second-coming Christianity?" He will investigate questions about a Christian approach to environmental responsibility and activism that can affirm both care for the present earth and anticipation of the earth made new. Neff has worked at Christianity Today International for almost 25 years, where he has guided the editorial process for Christianity Today, Books & Culture, and Christian History magazines. During this editorial career, he has written articles on a wide variety of topics, including climate change, Middle East politics, the American presidency and the rule of law, and the church fathers' approach to the Bible. In addition to his publishing work, Mr. Neff has worked with Northern Baptist Seminary to establish the Robert E. Webber Center for an Ancient-Evangelical Future. Before coming to Christianity Today, Mr. Neff edited InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's magazine for university students and was a pastor and religion teacher at Walla Walla College. The Longo Lecture Series brings major figures to PUC...