2010 Alumni Journal: Issue 3

GRTS Alumnus Spotlight:
Chad Wight (B.A. ’92; M.A. ’99)
Chad Wight (B.A. ’92; M.A. ’99), church planter and senior pastor
of The Journey, is a coach. Not only does he coach students on the
football and girls basketball teams at Cedar Springs High School in
Cedar Springs, Mich., but he also coaches church members.
“In all my experience, coaching is the
relationship best suited to helping
people follow Jesus,” said Wight, who
planted a church eight years ago.
“The church desperately needs a way
whereby disciples come alongside one
another as they step onto the ‘playing
field’ of daily life in community, living out
the life of Christ together. For example,
coaching helps the Body to better
practice the “one-another” commands
of the New Testament.”
At Grand Rapids Theological Seminary,
Wight found coaches in the form of
“educational mentors that live their lives
in a manner worthy to be modeled, just
as Paul in the Bible calls others to imitate
him,” he said.
And that is what he hopes to accomplish
as he builds into the lives of others,
modeling behavior and attitudes for his
students and church members even as
he is growing in his understanding of
what the church should be.
“While we have also coached others
to start new churches,” he says. “Our
understanding of the life of the Body
of Christ has grown dramatically, and
we have abandoned the conventional
methods of attractional-church growth.”
The church meets in restaurants, coffee
shops, homes and a community park.
“We are committed to freeing-up the
resources of Christ’s body for the needs
of people and the community, not
buildings and mortgages and rent and
capital expenditures,” he explained.
During Wights tenure at GRTS he came
across unexpected experiences that he
hopes to pass on.
“For me the great surprise about GRTS
was the active willingness on the part
of its faculty to think outside the lines,”
said the father of two, who also teaches
philosophy and ancient literature classes
for the Professional and Graduate Studies
program at Cornerstone University. “They
were masterful at framing unanswered
questions and pressing unquestioned
answers. As a result, learning became a
lifelong desire of mine.”
Wight recommends all disciples find a
“coach” or mentor.
“My recommendation to others would be
to find educational mentors that live their
lives in a manner worthy to be modeled,”
said Wight who received a masters in
New Testament from GRTS. “The best
teachers are blended as practitioners
and theorists. Under the direction of my
seminary professors at the time, some
of the best GRTS has ever known, I was
taught to enjoy God, to love the ‘art’ of
critical thinking, and to shepherd others
courageously in order that the church
may become the ‘fullness of Christ.’”
15 • Cornerstone University Alumni Journal • www.cornerstone.edu