The Richmond Study Center has formally defined their mission to bring gospel transformation to individuals and communities within the greater Richmond area by fostering serious consideration and discussion of a biblical worldview and its bearing on every area of life and culture.

PCA Teaching Elder Chris Daniel was ordained by James River Presbytery to serve as the initial RUF Campus Minister at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. As he was building that work, he naturally came in contact with a small group of individuals and churches in the Richmond area that had been working together to bring various well known speakers to the Richmond area, or to promote such events when others sponsored them. This group had been formed in 2004 and had hoped to find someone to work full time to develop this effort. The effort was eventually put on hold, as those involved were working on a merely volunteer basis.

It wasn’t long before Chris was confronted with a unique opportunity and a difficult challenge. It was clear to him and to many involved with the Christian Study Center movement that he had the gifts and skills and desire to work in that ministry. As he worked through the challenge of this dilemma, and discussed it with a number of people, Chris decided to make the move to become the Richmond Study Center’s executive director.

With Chris on board as full-time staff the Center is now able to continue these efforts and expand them into a more fully developed Christian study center for the greater Richmond community.

During the first seven years a number of events had been held and these were the standard to which they had hoped for more in the future. A few of these included:

Event: “C. S. Lewis: The Reluctant Christian”, March 2004 at Third Presbyterian
Speaker: Dr. Peter Kreeft, Professor of Philosophy at Boston College and author of more than 40 books including Handbook of Christian Apologetics

Event: “God and Suffering”, October 2004, All Saints Reformed Presbyterian
Speaker: Dr. Michael S. Horton, Professor of Apologetics and Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in California, editor of Modern Reformation magazine
Event: “Mature Audiences Only: The Christian at the Cinema”, February 2005, West End Presbyterian
Speaker: Dr. Drew Trotter, President of the Center for Christian Studies in Charlottesville, VA

Event: “From Endor to Hogwarts: Fantasy Literature and Grace in Unlikely Places”, June 2005, West End Presbyterian
Speaker: Dr. Samuel P. Lamerson, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Knox Theological Seminary

The Richmond Study Center has formally defined their mission to bring gospel transformation to individuals and communities within the greater Richmond area by fostering serious consideration and discussion of a biblical worldview and its bearing on every area of life and culture. To do this, it is their intention to emphasize worldview, apologetics, culture, and theology, and in so doing to seek to foster serious consideration and discussion of both the content (theology) and veracity (apologetics) of a biblical worldview and how that worldview speaks to all of life and culture.

Their target audience will be primarily in the churches and college communities, with a special focus on interested students at the University of Richmond.

It is their goal that, within five years, they will have contacted every church in the Richmond area, and various communities within the Richmond universities, and will have pursued relationships with those that express interest. In that time they also hope to acquire a physical location next to the University of Richmond for interested UR students and the Greater Richmond community as a whole, and increase staff to two or three full-time workers.

The next event to be sponsored by the Center will be “Christianity and Its Cultural Competitors: How a Biblical Worldview Remains Solid While Other Worldviews Fail to Hold Together” with Dr. R.C. Sproul Jr. of Ligonier Ministries. The event will be hosted by Staples Mill Road Baptist Church on Friday, April 8. More info is available at www.richmondstudycenter.org