Presbyterian College’s signature church leadership program, Celtic Cross, took participants on a retreat to Charleston this spring and worship at the historic St. James Presbyterian Church.

Presbyterian College’s church leadership program undergoes significant renewal this academic year

Presbyterian College’s signature church leadership program has been reinvented, renewed, and reinvigorated this year.

Founded in the mid-1990s by former director of church relations, the Rev. Dr. Bob Smith, Celtic Cross was paused during the COVID-19 pandemic and lay dormant for more than three years. But new perspectives – including those emerging from the church – bring fresh ideas, renewed energy, and a sense of providence to a program that uniquely unites a church-related college with a college-related church. Support from First Presbyterian Church in Spartanburg enabled the Celtic Cross program to come into existence decades ago. This year’s programming was made possible through by a generous grant from the Bailey Foundation.

Last year, the Rev. Dr. Buz Wilcoxon ’05, PC’s Marianne and E.G. Lassiter Chaplain and Dean of Spiritual Life; Perrin Tribble Andersen ’11, the Cornelson Family Director of Church Relations; and the Rev. Dr. British Hyrams, PC’s Jack and Jane Presseau Associate Chaplain, met first to brainstorm, dream, and plan what a renewed Celtic Cross should look like and what it could become.

The group also enlisted input from several key church leaders in congregations connected to PC, including alumni who participated in Celtic Cross before graduating.

“Celtic Cross is not just a campus ministry group,“ said Wilcoxon. “It’s focused on church leadership development. So rather than inventing what we thought would be the important leadership skills in a vacuum, we wanted to gather that information from folks in the church ministry field.”

Essentially, current church leaders were asked to consider the formative experiences that best prepare future leaders – church staff, volunteers, or lay leaders – to serve in their congregations.   

“We heard a lot of great answers to that, but two main themes that emerged were a sense of the larger Reformed tradition in which these churches stand,“ Wilcoxon said, “and the other is that they would love for future church leaders to have some cross-cultural competencies – to have exposure to diverse experiences and what it means to be the church and doing the work of bridging boundaries around race, around ethnicity, and around nationality.”

Wilcoxon also noted that while Celtic Cross continues to honor its Presbyterian Church ties, the program is ecumenical and open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors from other Christian traditions.

As PC’s connection to the church, Andersen is grateful for Celtic Cross’s return to relevancy.

“Relaunching Celtic Cross was something that I knew I wanted to see happen when I came back to work in church relations,“ she said. “When Buz arrived on campus, I knew we were going to build a framework for a sustainable, long-lasting program as intended.

“Celtic Cross is extremely important to the church because we’re intentionally developing the leadership skills of students who feel a calling or a nudge towards vocational ministry, which tends to be people who serve on church staff. But it also involves lay leadership, which is important in the Presbyterian Church because those are people who, while they don’t work for the church, serve the church and make critical guiding decisions for congregations. Celtic Cross is intentionally developing the skill sets of lay leadership and vocational ministry.”

Hyrams said Celtic Cross also serves as an avenue for churches to re-discover what ministry looks like through the lens of college students.

“Most people feel that the church is dying, and our young people aren’t in church. They have all these things built up in their heads about where the church is going,“ Hyrams said. “But from my perspective, young people’s view on ministry may not look how you think it should because it’s changing. But God’s got it. Ministry in the future may not work in the traditional way it has in the past, but there are things that God is doing here at PC that speak volumes about how God works – mysteriously and wondrously – in the world.” 

Hyrams’ perspective echoes a famed statement from writer and philosopher Frederick Buechner, who wrote, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

“I was thinking about what students see for ministry, their expectations, and what they want out of it,“ Hyrams said. “Then you have the church and what it wants out of it, and, honestly, where those intersect is where God probably wants us to be.”

Eight students joined Celtic Cross this academic year and were paired with two mentoring churches – First Presbyterian Church of Spartanburg and Westminster Presbyterian in Greenville. They met clergy serving both congregations, attended worship services in each, and led programs there.

Throughout the program’s history, Celtic Cross has scheduled an annual retreat, which remains one of the more intriguing aspects of the experience. This year, instead of gathering at a retreat center and inviting guests to discuss different ideas or topics, the group embarked on what Wilcoxon called a “contextual exploration retreat.”

This year, in what will become a regular part of a three-year rotation, Celtic Cross traveled to Charleston to examine the intersection of church, leadership, and race.

“We really looked at how contemporary church leaders for today and tomorrow are informed by what church leadership looked like in the Antebellum era, the Civil War era, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights era, and even something as recent as the Mother Emmanuel tragedy,“ Wilcoxon said. 

He added that future retreats may take the group to thriving Korean-American Presbyterian churches in Atlanta or Charlotte to explore new models for congregational ministry or faith-based nonprofit ministries. But in Charleston, students learned directly from pastors and congregational leaders wrestling with the past and facing an often uncertain future. 

Wilcoxon said the resulting experience was profoundly meaningful. 

“When you are in the midst of an experience like this, you have no idea how powerful and deep it can get,“ he said. “I really would ascribe it to the work of the Holy Spirit – taking hold of what we thought we planned and saying, ‘Yes, and it’s going to be much more than that.'”

Hyrams recalled the night before the group met with Felicia Sanders, one of only three to survive the horrific 2015 shootings at Emmanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston that rocked the entire country.

“I was in charge of the devotion for that night and picked a text from Romans that reminded us of God’s love for us through all the mire,“ Hyrams said. “It was storming outside, which was almost a prelude to the storminess that we would go into. That night, we had some fun together, but God also prepared our hearts and minds for the heaviness that was going to be encountered. God tended the gardens of our hearts and minds for what was about to occur.“  

The group met Sanders at the Mission House of James Island Presbyterian Church. After her tragedy, Sanders founded a faith-based nonprofit organization in the Charleston community. Wilcoxon said he expected her to focus mainly on what she has accomplished since that terrifying day, but instead, she shared intimate details of how she lost her son and aunt and survived with her granddaughter.

Ella Casto-Waters, a rising senior from Augusta, Ga., remembered studying the passage from the Gospel of Matthew where Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive a neighbor who has wronged him. Jesus replies, “Seventy times seven.“  

“We had a productive discussion on the gift of forgiveness and the struggle that comes with that practice,“ Casto-Waters said. “We acknowledged that the church was just as much a place of hurting as it was a place of healing for some members of our community. We prayed for forgiveness and asked God to use us to help make the church a force of reconciliation.”

When Sanders arrived and began to speak, she started with the words, “Seventy-seven shots rang out in the sanctuary that day,“ said Casto-Waters.

“I was astounded at the fact that this horrific act of violence drew a parallel to the scripture we had just studied,“ she said. “I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in that moment and throughout the rest of the trip. I was amazed that God could use the tragedy that happened to Mrs. Sanders to teach others the transformative power of forgiveness. Her love and kindness embody the qualities of Jesus Christ that the members of Celtic Cross strive to emulate. I will forever be grateful for her and for Celtic Cross creating a way for me to meet her.”

Kennedy Elise Perry, a graduating senior from Columbia, was also touched profoundly by the trip to Charleston and a visit to St. James Presbyterian Church, the largest black Presbyterian Church in the United States and one steeped in black history.

“Stepping into the historic sanctuary, I was immersed in the roots of South Carolina’s church history, particularly the black Presbyterian Church,“ she said. “Learning about the roots of Charleston and its intertwining with the church’s story was enlightening, shedding light on the profound influence faith has had on the region.

“However, it was the stories of resilience that truly left an indelible mark on me, particularly those of the survivors of the Charleston 9 shooting. Their strength in the face of tragedy and their unwavering commitment to justice resonated deeply with me. Reflecting on these experiences, I believe that we can grow resilience and uplift the voices of justice for all people by amplifying the narratives of those who have faced adversity. By listening to and learning from their stories, we can cultivate empathy, foster understanding, and work towards creating a more just and equitable society for everyone.”

Celtic Cross also pulled at threads of PC history and influence in the area. They visited Second Presbyterian Church, the home church of PC founder William Plumer Jacobs, where lies the gravesite of Thomas Smythe, the namesake of the college’s Smythe Hall. It is also the congregation where Andersen served as youth director and is directly across the street from Emmanuel A.M.E.

Students also explored the value of building relationships. One night, they had dinner with several PC alumni living in the area, including the first generation of Celtic Cross students – the Rev. Daniel Smoak ’97 and Rev. Lissa Long ’98 – who serve as the senior pastor and associate pastor, respectively, at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Charleston. Wilcoxon said the impromptu gathering was a great and natural way for current PC students to discover the college’s legacy in the world.

“We had a student share with one of the alums that she, the alum, was actually the first woman that this PC student ever heard preach, and it opened up for her the realization that she could be a leader in the church,“ Wilcoxon said. “Growing up in a church where that wasn’t a possibility because of her gender, she got to see these powerful intersections. A Celtic Cross student considering the intersection of faith and justice and the legal system got to sit next to a Celtic Cross alum who was a Christian Education major and is now in law school, and they got to bounce ideas off each other.

“I mean, it was just incredible. It was a wonderful evening. At one point, one of the students sitting next to me said, ‘Buz, why are you smiling so much?‘ I’m so happy that parts of my world and the PC story came together.”

For Wilcoxon, Celtic Cross is equal parts professional growth and personal history. Student Volunteer Services and Celtic Cross made all the difference in his decision to come to PC – and it was at an ice cream social hosted by the organization that he met his future wife. His Celtic Cross mentor church, Fourth Presbyterian Church in Greenville, is also where he received his first call to serve after graduating from seminary.

“So, I tell people that, because of Celtic Cross, I got a PC education, the love of my life and my spouse, and my first call in ministry, my first actual real job,“ he said. “So, I’m eternally indebted to this program. When I accepted the call to come here now as the chaplain and dean of spiritual life, I was to be in a leadership position for Celtic Cross and charged with restarting it. Doing that has meant a great deal to me.”

As Celtic Cross veers into the future, it does so with the sincere blessings of those who helped relaunch it this year. Andersen said she was inspired and encouraged by what she witnessed during the retreat and maintains her faith in the program.

“Watching the reactions of our students and the growth that took place from Friday to Sunday was extremely affirming for me and Buz and British and the work that we’re doing,“ Andersen said. “There was some transformation in the way that they were starting to view the church and their role in the church, and just a little shift, enough to plant the seeds and to get them thinking through all of the ways that we can serve God and love our neighbors. That’s really exciting, and it makes me really joyful for the church. Seeing their college as an interesting place in the pipeline and the life of the church allowed them to gain a deeper understanding of what the church does in the world through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.“

As he exits his undergraduate career at PC, Landon Norizsan, a West Union, S.C. senior, also has high hopes for Celtic Cross.

“Going into my senior year at PC, I was looking for experiences that would challenge my thinking and provide growth-promoting experiences,“ he said. “Celtic Cross has delivered this and so much more. Getting to meet with seasoned church professionals has been  encouraging and inspiring. Meeting with Mrs. Felicia Sanders was one of the most impactful experiences of my life. Her testimony and survivorship have changed how I understand ministry and its branches. Her vulnerability changed my life forever. In the future, I hope to see Celtic Cross change the lives of students and take them places physically and spiritually that they were not anticipating.”

The new generation of Presbyterian College Celtic Cross participants met Celtic Cross alumni during an impromptu dinner in historic Charleston.