Living in the Light 2024

a weekend of faith and fellowship

Living a life of faith, one inextricably bound to Jesus, requires the hope that only comes through the death and resurrection of Jesus and the fellowship of other believers who encourage us along the way.

Living in the Light is a two-day, in-person event full of fellowship, learning, food, and fun at 128 Chancellor Street and around the Charlottesville area. Living in the Light provides an opportunity for parents, alumni, and friends to experience the faith and fellowship offered through our ministry.

A man giving a presentation in a conference room with a large screen displaying a slide that reads "Chasing the Wrong Things?" A group of people seated at tables are listening to the speaker.

'Better Together': Five Pillars of a Strong and Stable Marriage

This year UVA Professor Brad Wilcox presented our keynote address, leading us in conversation about marriage. Brad’s latest book, Get Married,  discusses the findings of his sociological research on marriage as a predictor of happiness, tackling the myths propagated by anti-family messaging.

Listen to our recording of Wilcox’s address at the link below and follow along with his presentation slides.

SLIDES
LISTEN NOW
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'That's What It's All About': The Purposes of Marriage in This Age and the Age to Come

This year Study Center Executive Director Bill Wilder led our scripture study, discussing the theological significance of marriage . We learned that just as humans were created in the image of God, marriage was created in the image of God’s relationship with his people, so there is an inward and outward dimension in our human marriages and in our union with Christ.

Listen to our recording of Wilder’s study at the link below and follow along with his presentation slides.

SLIDES
LISTEN NOW
A man in a suit standing and speaking to a seated diverse group of people at a dining table in a bright room.
People gathered in a bright conference room for a meeting or workshop, sitting at tables with notebooks, glasses of water, coffee cups, and flower arrangements, engaged in conversation.
A man in a suit giving a presentation to a seated audience in a conference room. The screen displays an image of a woman running and the text 'Chasing the Wrong Things?'. There are two framed images of floor plans or architectural layouts on the wall
Panel of four speakers addressing an audience in a well-lit room with large windows, a black screen, and a blue tablecloth-covered table with attendees listening.
A presenter stands at a podium giving a presentation to an audience seated at tables in a well-lit conference room with white walls and windows.
A panel discussion in a library, with four panelists seated in front of a bookshelf and an audience in the foreground. The panelists include two men and two women, one of whom has a name tag that reads 'Caila'. The room has natural light coming throu

Other Events

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Friday Reception at Gallison Hall

We loved gathering with you at the beautiful Gallison Hall for our Living in the Light Reception! If you’d like to see more from this beautiful event, you can view our pictures here!

View from a mountain overlook with rocky ledge, green trees, and a distant landscape under a blue sky with scattered clouds.
Group of eleven people hiking outdoors on a mountain trail, surrounded by trees and rocks, with a distant view of the landscape and mountains in the background, under a clear blue sky.

Geology and Theology Hike

Thank you to those of you who joined us for our afternoon hike following Saturday’s session! We loved adventuring with you on the Rip Rap Trail!

Thank you to our wonderful speakers!

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  • KEYNOTE SPEAKER

    Brad Wilcox is Professor of Sociology and Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and the author of Get Married: Why Americans Should Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families and Save Civilization (Harper Collins, 2024), Wilcox studies marriage, fatherhood, and the impact of strong and stable families on men, women, and children.

    Professor Wilcox is the author and coauthor of six books and husband of our own Danielle Wilcox, with whom he has 9 children.

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  • STUDY CENTER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

    Bill Wilder has been the Executive Director at the Center for Christian Study since 2009. He completed his Ph.D in biblical studies at Union Theological Seminary. Bill and his family spent two years overseas as missionaries in Nigeria.

Faculty Speakers

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  • MODERATOR

    Angel Adams Parham’s research is in the historical and comparative-historical sociology of race. She is the author of American Routes: Racial Palimpsests and the Transformation of Race (Oxford, 2017) which examines changes in race and racialization in New Orleans under the French, Spanish and Anglo-American administrations. The book was co-winner of the Social Science History Association’s Allan Sharlin Memorial book award (2018); co-winner of the American Sociological Association’s Barrington Moore book award in comparative-historical sociology (2018); and recipient of an Honorable Mention from the Thomas & Znaniecki Best Book Award, International Migration Section, American Sociological Association (2018). She is currently at work on a book manuscript tentatively entitled "Reckoning and Reconciliation: On Race and Memory in Civic Life" which compares and contrasts the social histories of three key sites in New Orleans over a three-hundred-year period as a way of examining and publicly discussing transformations in race, gender and power.

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  • Lee Coppock has a Ph.D. from George Mason University and is Professor of Economics and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Economics at the University of Virginia. He has received several teaching awards, including the 2017 Distinguished Teaching Award from the Southern Economics Association and the 2018 UVA Alumni Distinguished Professor Award. He has co-written a highly-acclaimed and widely-used Principles of Economics textbook. Prior to teaching at UVA, Dr. Coppock earned his Ph.D. at George Mason University and then taught for nine years at Hillsdale College. Along with Krista, his wife of 30 years, he has four children: Bethany, Lee III, Kara, and Jackson.

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  • Andrus G. Ashoo is the Director of the Office of Citizen Scholar Development, home to fellowships & undergraduate research at the University of Virginia. He has lived in Charlottesville and worked at the university since August of 2014, living in Oxford, MS and working at the University of Mississippi prior to that. He is husband to Christina and father to Ruth Anne and Gareth. He and his family are members of Trinity Presbyterian Church. When he is not serving students at UVA, with his family, or at the church, you can probably find him coaching youth soccer.

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  • Wendy Ligon Smith is a lecturer in the Engagements at the University of Virginia and the Butler Engagement Fellow and Guest Curator at UVA's Fralin Museum of Art. Based on a decade of research in Venice, she published a monograph titled Fortuny: Time, Space, Light with Yale University Press in 2022, which was featured on the Daily Beast's "Just Booked" travel series. Wendy received her PhD in Art History and Visual Studies from the University of Manchester (England) and has lectured, taught, and published in the US, UK, Italy, and Germany. She has forthcoming chapters on the impact of electricity on early 20th-century stage design in opera, and on Mariano Fortuny's printed velvet fashions being influenced by the textile trade in the Ottoman Empire. Wendy's teaching has been focused on how objects hold personal and collective memory, and the ethics of how cultural property is acquired, displayed, and contextualized. She is the curator of an upcoming exhibition of Jewish Torah pointers opening at the Fralin in February 2025. Wendy lives in Charlottesville with her husband and two young daughters.

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Grounds Ministry Speakers

  • MODERATOR

    Rick Campanelli has an extensive career in public service and in the private sector, in senior leadership, policy and management positions and as legal counsel in the areas of healthcare, information privacy and security, civil and First Amendment rights. He teaches the core course, Integrating Ethics in Public Policy, at the University of Virginia Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, and he is the Center for Christian Study Director of Graduate Ministries for the Law and Darden Christian Fellowships.

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  • Reformed University Fellowship (RUF)

    Josiah is from Charlottesville and attended UVA (Wahoowa!) and Covenant Seminary in Saint Louis. There, he met his wife Kelley. They have been married for seven years and have two children. He is entering his ninth year with RUF, previously serving as Campus Minister at Tulane for seven years. He is so grateful to have received the grace of serving UVA RUF.

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  • Cru at UVA

    Caela is from the Baltimore area and studied psychology at the University of Maryland. While attending college, she felt the call to ministry. Teaching students how to walk by, communicate, and multiply their faith through evangelism and discipleship seemed like the best way to invest her life. After serving at UMD for a number of years, she came to Charlottesville to lead the staff team at UVA and PVCC in 2022. Charlottesville has been a good home so far for this avid reader and puzzler and casual hiker.

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  • Chi Alpha (XA)

    Pete graduated from Southern Illinois University where he and his future wife Amy were both involved with Chi Alpha. After graduation, Pete and Amy got married and went to St. Louis where Pete worked as a CPA for KPMG and Amy worked as a registered dietitian in a local Health Care Clinic. After a year in St. Louis, God called them into Chi Alpha, so they quit their jobs and moved across the nation to train for ministry. They spent a year working with Chi Alpha at Georgetown University and then in 2000, came to Charlottesville to start Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship at the University of Virginia! Pete and Amy are passionate about Jesus and helping students grow deeper in their walk with Christ! They have three wonderful children: Ian, Nevaeh, and Jeremiah!

Thank you for joining us!

View our full conference agenda and details at the link below!

AGENDA & DETAILS