The Christian College Coalition Board of Directors has elected Myron S. Augsburger as the new president of the 77-member group of Christian colleges and universities. He will succeed John Dellenback, who has been at the coalition helm for more than a decade. Augsburger will be moving to the position from the Washington Community Fellowship Church in Washington, D.C., where he has been senior pastor since the church’s founding seven years ago.
Before serving in that pastorate, Augsburger spent 22 years at Eastern Mennonite College in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and was president and theology professor in both the college and in Eastern Mennonite Seminary from 1965 until 1980. In addition, Augsburger has traveled widely, conducting evangelistic crusades since the 1950s under the auspices of Inter-church, Inc.
Augsburger said he sees his new position at the Washington-based coalition as a “resourcing and coordinating role” to help member institutions work together on “things any one college could not do alone.” He said he wants to see the coalition help students learn to think “Christianly” and “globally” to avoid perpetuating “a parochial view of the issues facing us for the next century.”
Augsburger also wants to bridge the distances between racial and cultural communities “so we can achieve pluralism in terms of our ministry.”
Clyde Cook, president of Biola University in La Mirada, California, headed the coalition’s search committee and said Augsburger “fit the needs the coalition had beautifully.”
“He has been lured by many prestigious organizations, but the Lord gave him to us,” Cook said.
