Dickerson Award
Rev. Laura Jean Torgerson is a doctoral candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies in Biblical Interpretation and Culture at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. She has served in congregational ministry, chaplaincy, international mission, and theological education. Her dissertation project, Crossing Contexts: Nicaraguan Pentecostal Biblical Interpretation in Church and Seminary, was inspired by her time serving as a Global Ministries (DoC/UCC) mission coworker, and the biblical interpreters she met in classrooms and congregations, as well as by her experiences teaching and mentoring theology students in Northern California. She lives in Oakland, CA with her family, and is a member of Mills Grove Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
Jones’ Award
Kyungmok Lee is currently in his second academic year of the Ph. D. program at the Claremont School of Theology studying Comparative Theology and Philosophy. In his research, he is exploring how various cultures and philosophies relate to religious values and communities, especially in Christian communities. He is also researching the function and responsibility of Christianity and church communities in the situation of the ecological crisis. Kyungmok believes that our current is marked by complexity, conflicts of interest, and environmental degradation. As a pastor, he hopes his studies serve to help build up an alternative church community that is more inclusive of different cultures and values.
Kungmok is a member of the Downey Memorial Christian and recently has been participating in the ministry of Sallims Christian Church. He notes that both churches are located in the Pacific Southwest Region and are multi-ethnic, serving as good models for an inclusive church community.
Rev. Nick Green will continue his Ph.D.
in Biblical Interpretation at Brite Divinity School this fall. He is interested in the Bible’s authority for Christians today, especially taking into account how different people see the Bible in different ways. While he hopes his research, which focuses on the New Testament, will contribute to the academic community, he also hopes it will help everyday Christians better understand how to approach the Bible in a diverse, worldwide church. He first found inspiration in the Bible’s teachings at his home congregation, Central Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Pocatello, Idaho. Later experiences with diverse populations—including a Global Mission Internship in El Salvador, student ministry at a bilingual congregation in Indianapolis, and a seminary environment that encouraged intercultural dialogue—served to foster his interest in diversity and how it relates to the Bible. He received his Master of Divinity and Master of Theological Studies dual degree from Christian Theological Seminary in 2016. Since seminary, he has served as the Associate Minister of South Street Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Springfield, Missouri.
Christopher “Topher” Endress is a Ph.D. candidate in Theological Ethics at the University of Aberdeen, having left Austin, TX for Scotland in 2018. Despite the distance, he maintains his membership at University Christian Church in Austin, Texas, a congregation he served from 2015-2018. His academic work centers on disability, liturgy, and spatial logic, which he hopes will be useful for “widening the doors” of our congregations. Topher is working with a very diverse set of scholars (desert ascetics to Einstein, feminist geographers to indigenous theologians, and disability advocates to Augustine) in order to uncover how disability is constructed inside and out of church spaces. After he completes his degree, he hopes to teach students who are pursuing vocations in the church, offering them a much-needed account of disabilities within theological education.
Through the University of Aberdeen, Topher is also a Fellow in the Centre for Spirituality, Health, and Disability where he helps lead a community made up of people both with and without disabilities. He notes that this “work” helps to expose the true joy of living in a community when we can set aside our needs to be seen as the best and smartest and instead choose to accept one another “as is.” The Disciple’s ideal of church unity has been a helpful guide as he processes how to live in this beautiful (but sometimes challenging) community. He is also an avid runner, hiker, trivia lover, college basketball watcher, and a newly-minted father.