Alumni Profiles
Coolidge Maintains e-mail ministry
Callen traces the history of higher education in the Church of God
Setting the story of Paul to music
Coolidge Maintains e-mail ministry
By Christy Scannell
As minister of worship and arts at Park Place Church of God for 40 years, David Coolidge BS ’57, DSM ’02 often could be seen directing choirs and leading worship in the church’s vast sanctuary. He retired in 1999, but he’s still conducting — although this work has a quite different tune. “I call it ‘an e-mail ministry of communication and pastoral care,’” he says.
Coolidge began the effort in 2000 when his pastoral staff colleague Anita Womack fell gravely ill. “I had only been on e-mail about a year at that point,” he says. “But I started sending out almost daily reports about Anita to everyone whose e-mail addresses I had. People passed them on and I received many responses asking to be added to the list.”
Sadly, Womack died a month later. But a grieving Coolidge decided to use the electronic prayer chain started for her to bring comfort to others.
“I felt led and urged to keep doing what I was doing,” he says. “I didn’t ever set out to do it, but after retiring, I was a little bit at loose ends and this gave me something to do.”
As more people heard about his e-mail ministry, Coolidge’s retirement hobby soon turned into a massive effort with 1,300 e-mail addresses spread over several group lists, including AU alums, missionaries, pastors, and Park Place parishioners. Each e-mail he sends — some days there are several and others none — requests prayer for a specific person or family, whether it be births or deaths, illnesses or weddings. Often he compiles the information based on a tip that he then researches.
“I’ve talked to newsroom reporters, funeral homes, and all kinds of places to get details,” he says. “I want to make sure people get as much as I can give them.”
The e-mail and postal addresses Coolidge includes for those requesting prayer have spurred numerous reconnections. Reba Casey says that’s exactly what happened when Coolidge asked his electronic congregation to pray for her husband, Dick Casey MRE ’69, who was having open-heart surgery.
“We heard from some of our dear friends, some with whom we hadn’t had contact for a number of years, and it was so exciting to be put in touch with them again,” says the Middletown, Ohio, resident. “Knowing that each of them was praying for us during this difficult time meant more than we could ever say.”
Coolidge’s endeavors have not been free of hiccups, however. Although he never adds an e-mail address without request, in January he was reported as a spammer to AOL, his ISP, who promptly shut down his screen name.
“I just about died,” he says about his panic over the lockout. Anderson University computer science Professor Emeritus Tom Harbron intervened by putting Coolidge in touch with an AOL public relations representative. The next day, Coolidge received a call from an AOL security executive.
“He apologized profusely and asked what they could do to get me back. I said just restore my screen name so I can get back on, which they did,” Coolidge says. “Then he gave me his private office number. I found out later that there is something on my account that says ‘hands off’ if there are any other spam reports.”
Coolidge’s wife, Shirley King Coolidge BS ’60, DSM ’02, who in 2001 retired from AU’s music faculty after 37 years, has a “hands off” directive of her own: no laptop allowed when the couple visit their grandchildren. “I have tried not to be tied to the computer, but I am on it more than I should be,” Coolidge admits. “But people want the word out right away. I’m motivated when I hear, ‘You’re the only way we find out about some things.’”
Despite 42 years in full-time music ministry, Coolidge’s role as e-mail shepherd could be his most vital yet. When Jack BA ’59 and Barbara ’58 Burford’s daughter, Tammy, died unexpectedly in April, they e-mailed Coolidge from their Cross Lanes, W.Va., home, knowing he could summon support quickly.
“In our estimation,” says Barbara, “Dave’s Internet prayer link is one of the most important connections within the Church of God worldwide.”
To join the prayer chain, e-mail Coolidge at DLeonCool@aol.com.
Callen traces the history of higher education in the Church of God
By Deborah Lilly
Dr. Barry L. Callen MDiv ’66 has written a book documenting the history of Church of God (Anderson) endeavors in higher education. Enriching Mind and Spirit tells of the struggles within the church to accept these institutions and the battles the colleges faced to survive.
Callen begins with the history of higher education in America during the 1600s. In the beginning, these institutions were initiated by Christian denominations to raise up moral leaders well-versed in the Bible. But in the late 1800s, not everyone in the new Church of God movement warmed-up to the idea of higher education. Some people believed ministers should prepare for their careers through personal Bible study and openness to the Holy Spirit. A true minister, they thought, was the result of faith and not necessarily formal training. As Callen explains in his book, during the early years of the Church of God movement, “formal learning and evangelistic believing tended to be seen more as competitors than companions” (page 23).
Churches of God eventually began integrating Sunday school into their programs, and later Church of God missionary homes, which offered Bible study, popped up around the country. Throughout the rest of the book, Callen traces the history of Anderson Univeristy, Arlington and Azusa colleges, Bay Ridge Christian College, Gardner College, the Caribbean colleges, Mid-America Christian University, the former Warner Memorial University and the former Midwest (Gordon) Bible School, Warner Pacific College, Warner Southern College, and Church of God schools in other parts of the world. Each story is interesting unto itself as each school faced unique challenges, such as the move of Bay Ridge to Texas due to strong prejudices against African-Americans in Mississippi and the struggle for Arlington College to stand on its own.
Enriching Mind and Spirit is published by Anderson University Press and is distributed through Warner Press. To order, call toll free (877) 346-3974 or e-mail wporders@warnerpress.org.
Setting the story of Paul to music
By Deborah Lilly
Charles Myricks BA ’82 is spreading the transforming love of Christ across the country through his musical Paul: A Musical Journey. A businessman by trade, Myricks is a musician at heart. His musical talent and storytelling ability shine in his production about Paul, but they don’t overshadow the real story of the unconditional love of Christ and how that love can change a person’s life.
Myricks came to AU in the late 1970s from Akron, Ohio. He studied marketing and management, but his passion was music. He was one of the first members of the university’s musical touring group Fruit of the Spirit. By the end of his senior year, he had been offered a job at IBM, but he had visions of a music career dancing in his head. And that’s what prompted President Robert Reardon to call Myricks into his office one day.
“I don’t want to see you on the side of the road someday,” Reardon told the young man. He explained the difference between vocation and avocation. “Keep up with the music,” he told Myricks, “but follow a business career.” As Myricks looks back on that conversation, he says, “It was an amazing truth that he spoke to me. My life has followed that model even to this day.”
Myricks accepted the job at IBM — his vocation — and in his spare time, he started the musical group Divine Hope — his avocation. When he wasn’t working at IBM, he traveled with Divine Hope around the world. The group even won a talent contest on The 700 Club.
Myricks’ business career turned into a music business career when a friend asked him to join Thomas Nelson’s newly acquired record labels under Word. “I was the first African-American vice president and general manager of a major gospel label,” says Myricks. He worked with musicians such as Shirley Caesar, Milton Brunson, the Thompson Community Singers, and Kirk Franklin. “It was a marvelous opportunity,” says Myricks. But Myricks eventually felt a call to serve the Lord in full-time ministry, so he enrolled in Ashland Theological Seminary, located just 45 minutes from his hometown of Akron.
It was in seminary that Myricks began to think about Paul’s life as a musical. He was on a mission trip in Paris, when he found himself trying to explain the idea of grace to a non-Christian. Later his host explained to Myricks that the people they had been witnessing to did not understand theological concepts or jargon. “If you really want to make it clear, put it in a story,” he told Myricks. “Then they’ll get what grace is.” That was the push Myricks needed to turn his idea into a reality.
After seminary, Myricks landed a job as the minister of finance and development at Arlington Church of God, where he continues to work today. But in his spare time, he was writing his musical of Paul’s life. Over the course of five years, he wrote 40 songs. He then pared the production down to 100 minutes and 26 songs. “We had to choose the elements that we thought told the story in the most compelling way,” he explains.
The show opened in January 2005. Because of the musical’s message, Myricks wanted to have as broad an audience as possible. “I didn’t want to do it at a church, because then people would say that it was just a church play,” he explains. “It’s not a church play. It’s something I’ve written for the unchurched to see. It is the gospel message on stage.” So, they rented a hall for three nights in the middle of January. They had no idea what to expect for the show’s debut, and they were pleasantly surprised. “Folks flocked to it,” says Myricks. “We were stunned and shocked. And then within three weeks, we got a call from an agent.” The agent set them up for a six-week run at the Hanna Theater in Cleveland, doing four shows a week. Since then, the cast has performed the musical in more than 20 different venues across the country.
The show includes a cast of 18 singers/actors plus seven band members. Five of the show’s performers are AU graduates, including Phil Myricks ’73, Dan Sojourner BA ’77, and Wilette Blakely ’82. Erick Townsend BA ’99 plays Paul. Charles Myricks is in the pit playing keyboards. The cast, like Myricks, have an avocation in music. When they are done performing on the weekend, they go back to work on Monday morning.
Myricks chose Paul’s life as the subject of his musical in part because of his own fascination with the early apostle. “Paul went through a transformation that’s probably as amazing as any that you could ever see in a man. He went from being a murderer to becoming a martyr for the same cause. That’s not a small distance,” explains Myricks. Over the years of his ministry, Myricks explains, Paul grew in his patience and love for others.
It is this transformation that is at the heart of Myricks’ musical, and it is the hope of transformation through God’s love that Myricks wants each member of the audience to take home with them.
In the upcoming months, Myricks’ musical will be performed in theatres in Baltimore, Detroit, and Bluffton, Ohio.
