Reformed college presidents from around the world gathered at Oxford, UK, for a “Global Summit” at the end of June to discuss the international status and future of Reformed higher education. Institutional representatives from Korea, Indonesia, Australia, Nigeria, Hungary, The Netherlands, Canada, and the United States attended. Several colleagues from South Africa, France, and North America had planned to join us, but were providentially prevented from doing so.

(Our friend, Annette Combrink, Rector of North-West University, South Africa, had perhaps the best reason for missing the Summit: her institution played host to Spain’s Football (soccer) team in the World Cup competition in South Africa. North-West has Dutch Reformed roots, so Spain beating The Netherlands yesterday in the World Cup final must have been bittersweet.)

The Summit meetings were both encouraging and fruitful.

Encouraging, because we were able to meet many of our sister Reformed college colleagues from around the globe for the first time and hear how the Lord is working to advance His Kingdom through Christian higher education. Some institutions have been around for a “rather long” time (Geneva College in Beaver Falls, PA, USA, for example, associated with the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America [Covenanters], started back in 1848); some are “quite new”—even younger than New Saint Andrews (University of Mkar, Nigeria, for example, began in 2005; Universitas Pelita Harapan in Indonesia started the same year as NSA). It was also encouraging to see how many of the Reformed institutions were on the same page regarding some of the key principles and expectations for our students and faculty. The historic Reformed confessions frame the theological shape of our fellowship, but they also inform our vision of the sovereignty of God over all things, especially the “formation” of students with a love for the kingdom of God more than a love for the kingdoms of this world (the mall, the empire, or the industrial-entertainment complex), as Jamie Smith might put it (Desiring the Kingdom, pp. 220-222).  I was encouraged by the kind comments several presidents made about what we’ve been doing at New Saint Andrews. And it was encouraging to see so many colleagues from around the world in different cultural contexts seeking to honor the Lord through various models and expressions of Christian higher education, yet all with a Reformed vision.

The Summit was also fruitful because we were able to lay groundwork for future discussions on how to better assist and serve one another, to improve cross-cultural cooperation, and to plan faculty and student exchanges. The institutions in the Global South challenged their North American and European colleagues to develop more doctoral-level graduate programs with a Reformed perspective to help fill the faculty vacancies in their growing programs. The Summit ended with the selection of representatives who would act as an executive committee to organize the next gathering in a year or two, and to explore ways of implementing the ideas generated at this first meeting.

Overall, the Global Summit was a great success and delightful time together. Many thanks to Carl and Gloria Zylstra, of Dordt College, Iowa, USA, who took the lead in organizing and hosting the Summit. We look forward to the future discussions and opportunities to encourage the advance of Reformed higher education to the ends of God’s world.