Academy Distinctives
The Trinity Forum Academy equips young leaders to discern and pursue their life’s callings from the perspective of faith and to engage strategically the culture of the 21st century.
The Academy is an intensive learning community that introduces college graduates to the habits of living in the context of shared fellowship.
The nine-month residency course develops the habits of "head, heart, and hands" required of tomorrow's cultural gatekeepers. Those young leaders who participate in the Academy, called "Fellows" because of their participation in a fellowship of learning, divide their time amongst a number of activities, marked by the four distinctives of cultural engagement, community, leadership, and learning.
- Participate in an ongoing community of like-minded young leaders living, working, and learning together.
- Engage in readings and small group discussions that explore the meaning of calling and cultural engagement while developing an integrated Christian worldview.
- Receive guidance and mentoring through periodic meetings with a distinguished leader in a discipline similar to their own.
- Work daily by helping to facilitate the operations of Osprey Point Retreat and Conference Center
Calling
Today, most graduates enter the “real world” without a clear vision of their life purpose, or “calling.” The Trinity Forum Academy assists promising young leaders in discerning their gifts, calling, and life task so that they will pursue that calling throughout their life’s work.
The Trinity Forum Academy recognizes that God calls persons in their entirety
(not just their "hearts" or "souls") to glorify him
in every aspect of life (not only in their occupations or their church-going).
Through readings, guided discussions, and interaction with faculty and guest
speakers who view their faith and work as an integral whole, Academy Fellows
are encouraged to identify and live out their callings in all of life. Moreover,
each young leader will spend time reflecting upon and studying his/her particular
giftedness and calling, while being linked with a mentor presently working
in his/her field of interest.
Community
At our core, men and women are social beings, made to exist in relationship with one another. Given that the God in whose image humans are made is Trinitarian in nature—a dynamic unity among a community of three—the context of the Trinity Forum Academy is an intentional community of young leaders who love and live all of life together.
Standing in the tradition of intentional communities of faith like William
Wilberforce and the Clapham Circle, Count Von Zinzendorf and the Moravians,
and John Wesley and Methodist cell groups, the Academy seeks to cultivate
an ongoing community of leaders working and learning together in pursuit
of cultural renewal and revitalization. The goal is to foster a transformation
in thinking and living in young leaders that will lead to the transformation
of the larger society. All twelve Academy Fellows live in a common house
with the Academy directors on the property of Osprey Point. Through the shared
reading of books, studying the same issues, enjoying common meals, working
together, uniting in worship, and participating in small group discussions,
the Fellows are initiated into a holistic worldview that sees all of life
as an integral whole.
Culture
All too often, expressions of contemporary Christian faith are far from the culture-shaping force that they were in the best of the past. Indeed, the modern church has been described as “privately engaging but publicly irrelevant.” As one recent thinker has noted in challenging this, the Church “does not belong to that little slot in Time magazine, between drama and sport, where religion is kept. It belongs to the opening section on world affairs.”
Young people of faith graduating from college need to be equipped with a
fully-orbed worldview that will enable them to successfully navigate between
two common hazards: total withdrawal from culture advocated by some, and
thoughtless capitulation to the larger culture by others. The public relevance
of faith involves more than following the rules and being nice to co-workers—we
need imaginative alternatives and fresh approaches to the fundamental categories
and institutions of modern social life. Called to be in the world but not
of it, today’s leaders require an informed, strategic vision for advancing
what is true, good, and beautiful in our neighborhoods, cities, and nations.
The Trinity Forum Academy encourages and equips today’s most promising
graduates with just such a dynamic and discerning vision—one that can
shape their lives from beginning to end and make them, in turn, shapers of
their world and times.
Leadership
Today, the experience of many college students tends to be fragmented and far removed from professors, which often fails to provide an integral understanding of work, worldview and way of life. Moreover, much of the education offered on university campuses today is impersonal and relativistic, which can stunt the development of character and disciplines (spiritual, mental, physical) necessary to good leadership.
The Trinity Forum Academy develops within young persons of faith disciplines
of leadership in the context of service. Fellows are encouraged and
equipped to utilize their intellectual resources and practical skills to
engage strategically with the world in a manner marked by the desire to serve
others. This is achieved through the cultivation of virtuous habits
of head, heart and hands that comes through interaction with mentors and
established leaders, a service internship at Osprey Point Leadership Center
and involvement in intentional relationships of accountability with other
like-minded leaders of faith.
Learning
Education is more than depositing data into minds. It is a process of training one to love the right things in the right way. The Trinity Forum Academy expands young leaders’ learning experience by helping them develop an understanding and appreciation of both form and content of what is true, good and beautiful. We not only encourage reading and thinking about “whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable,” but as Paul also urged the Church in Philippi, we aim to provide an environment in which to “put them into practice.”
To this end, the Academy curriculum consists of reading as well as listening
to beautiful music, lectures as well as movie viewings, sharing meals as
well as serving them to guests. An integral part of the curriculum includes
a service internship in which Academy Fellows work alongside Osprey Point
staff in the operations and maintenance of the Leadership Center. Through
hard work and humble service, Fellows embody learning through practice—they
participate in an active knowledge of God’s calling to labor, serve,
and cultivate creation (by cooking, cleaning, planting, weeding, and so forth
on the property of Osprey Point). The entire experience of life together
at Osprey Point is a classroom—with every conversation and interaction
a teacher.
