ALUMNI CONNECT
Fall 2024
GREETINGS ALUMNI,
I hope you have had an enjoyable summer and beginning of fall. It was a privilege to meet with several of you during the summer. With the fall semester well underway, many returning and new students are deep into their studies.
There are a number of activities and events to tell you about which will be happening during the coming year. The Northwest Graduation Ceremony in on October 19, 2024, commencing at 1:30 pm, at South Delta Baptist Church. Prior to the ceremony, the Alumni Association will host a brunch for the grads and their families. If you are an alumnus and would like to take part or help with this event, please connect with me. Your assistance would be appreciated.
As we look ahead, we are excited to announce that on August 23, 2025, we will host an Alumni Reunion, focused on the alumni of the 1980’s and 1990’s (though all alumni are welcomed!). The program will include special memories from that time period, followed by a barbecue. Information on location and time for the event will be in future Alumni News.
We look forward to seeing you on October 19, 2024, at the graduation ceremony, followed by the reception. If you are interested in helping with the Brunch, the reception, or ushering at the ceremony please let me know.
Please complete the Alumni “Get Connected” to keep updated on Alumni activities.
With wishes for a great fall,
Gwen Reese, Alumni Director
Reunions, Transitions, and the Purposeful Narratives of our Lives
Alumni Connect
Brian M. Rapske, Ph.D. (Aberdeen)
Professor Emeritus of New Testament
Since 1997 and for 25 years, Brian taught at Northwest Baptist Theological College and Seminary, sharing in the task of delivering core curriculum and mentoring thesis students in the ACTS Seminaries consortium (hermeneutics and NT studies). His teaching and mentoring have been informed and enriched by nearly a decade of senior pastoral experience. Brian continues to do some committee work at ACTS, mentors in Northwest’s Immerse program, and is an active member of Village Vancouver. He has a broad range of research and writing interests, out of which have come a number of significant publications.
When I showed up at the third decadal high school reunion for our graduating class (I’d missed the first two), someone came up to me and enthused, “Rapske, great to see you; we thought you were dead!” Everyone around us laughed.
That’s so ‘high school!’ But it’s nice to feel ‘welcomed.’
Time had treated most of us kindly and it wasn’t hard to connect names with faces. For others, however, it would have taken miraculous feats of memory and intuition to make the connections. I was probably not the only one glad to have the lapel tags each of us wore sporting our name and grad picture. (But could you please make them bigger and not so grainy next time!)
I had a lot of fun. In fact, so much so, I’ve attended both subsequent decadal reunions. God willing, I’ll make the next one.
High school reunions are wonderful for “remembering back when.” But they’re also an opportunity to lay down longer relational tracks that allow us to catch up beyond the educational commonalities. The two biggest questions at the three reunions were, “What have you been up to since high school/our last reunion?” and “What’s next for you?” To answer them, you need to reflect on what has been the narrative of your life so far, assert your purposeful determinations for the chapter currently in progress, and exercise imagination regarding what is yet unwritten.
The most compelling personal narratives, I found, were disarmingly honest and uncompetitively told.
I would say, ahead of a reunion, it’s a great time for us as followers of Jesus to answer those questions with our faith in view and to nurture a prayerful, heightened sensitivity for God-given moments respectfully to enthuse about His Kingdom as we “tell all.”
Beyond high school and other kinds of reunions, answering those same questions would certainly be a rewarding preparation ahead of a Northwest Baptist Theological College and Seminary reunion! The resulting fellowship would be very deep indeed, and would probably lead to worship and mutual prayer, given that we’re God’s called ones and in His sovereign hands at every moment.
It would also seem to be a wise Christian discipline for individuals generally at any of life’s mileposts and change points to answer those questions.
Me? Well, it’s mileposts and change points pretty much everywhere I look just now.
I’m recently retired from NBTCS after 25 wonderful years of teaching. People have been asking, “What’s next?” I’ve got some ideas, but they’re a bit fuzzy just now. So, I’ve decided to sharpen my focus by doing a second readthrough of R. Paul Stevens’ Aging Matters: Finding your calling for the rest of your life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016). It’s a very helpful little book, by the way!
My wife, Rita, and I are almost at the first anniversary of moving out of our house of 30 years in a neighborhood where we knew everyone. We’ve scaled down and now live in a unit on the 39th floor of a high rise and have started from scratch with the new neighbors. The change from horizontal to vertical living is very big!
We’ve also become brand-new, first-time grandparents. We’re back on our knees: singing lullabies, giving cuddles, playing, and offering simple prayers to God after which baby says, “MayMen!”
It's high time again to think hard and answer the questions: What have we been up to so far? And what’s next?
Please God, help Rita and me with answers that will honor you.
Alumnus Interview with Loren Warkentin
Loren Warkentin has served at Northwest since 1996. Whether designing databases, learning management systems, or websites, he can speak a language not typically understood in the world of theology. Loren can also speak Bahasa Indonesia having grown up and then spent many years teaching and raising a family in Indonesia. He thoroughly enjoys his children and grandchildren, especially if they are sitting around a campfire at a provincial campground.
What did you appreciate about your studies at Northwest?
After teaching in the international Bible College scene for several years it was very refreshing and encouraging to sit under someone else’s instruction, as I completed my Master of Theological Studies at Northwest. I had done my undergraduate studies at Prairie Bible Institute and Winnipeg Bible College (now Providence) and then left Canada to serve in missions in Indonesia. My wife and I ministered there for 16 years amongst the Dayaks of the island of Borneo where I was involved first in pastoral care ministries and then in teaching at Berea Bible College, a small pastoral training institute located in the interior of the island. So, to be able to return to Canada and sit under the teaching of men like Dr. Larry Perkins, Dr. Ken Davis and several others was a great privilege.
How did your time studying at Northwest prepare you for the years ahead?
The role I have filled here at Northwest put me in direct contact with students, instructors, administrators, pastors, and churches. Having a thorough theological background has helped me clearly understand the mission of Northwest and how each person and role were critical to our fulfillment of that mission. As we launched into Competency-based Theological Education (CBTE), combining my theological training with my love for leveraging technology was a great asset for developing our first online, CBTE-focused Learning Management System (LMS) – the “Immerse Student Portfolio Platform”. We are just now phasing that out in favour of a commercial LMS.
Describe your ministries since graduation from Northwest.
Shortly after my graduation from Northwest Seminary (through ACTS Seminaries) I was hired to the Registrar & Director of Admissions position here at Northwest and have held that title for the past 27 years - until this past March when I turned that role over to Dr. Ryan Ball who is very ably succeeding me. I began this role in a small office on the second floor of what is now the TWU Devries building. Even though I had done some administrative work previously, the Canadian college was an entirely different scene, and I had a lot to learn. There have been many changes over the years – both in physical location as well as people. I have moved offices at least 4 times and have worked with many wonderful individuals over the years. Many students, administrators, faculty, and staff have come and gone during this time. I have served under 5 different presidents and several deans, and have developed many great friendships along the way.
With a history spanning almost 60 years (at the time of my hire) much of Northwest’s historical data was in various formats. When I started at Northwest it seemed that each department kept their information in a different data structure. Student records and donor records and financial aid records and church records were all kept in separate databases. Older records were stored in paper files. Northwest had an entire room dedicated to the fire-proof filing cabinets that housed those records. When Northwest closed the undergraduate division and downsized - that needed to change. So, over the ensuing years, with help from many individuals I have pulled much of that data into a single cohesive digital structure.
One challenge I faced when I started at Northwest was learning and managing the legacy software the school was using to track student admission and registration. Within a couple of years of struggle with that software, I, along with another staff member were sent on a mission to Florida to find replacement software. The cost of commercial software at that time proved to be prohibitive and the plan to purchase new software was scrapped. Our need for a new system, however, had not changed. I proposed to Northwest that I would undertake the development of an in-house software package and was given permission by our Financial Controller to make the attempt. I spent that entire summer developing the concept and the beginning stages of the software we have used as our contact management, student information management, donor relations management, and financial aid management system. With a bit of tongue-in-cheek I named the project “Scholastic Administrative Software System” or SASSy for short. With lots of help from my son, James, SASSy has continued to be developed to fill Northwest’s ongoing software needs.
For several years in the early 2000s, Northwest seconded me part time to ACTS Seminaries to manage their Distance Education programs.
Also, in the early 2000s Northwest needed a website overhaul and I somehow became the default webmaster. That provided me with a very steep learning curve as I had never done any web related development.
Describe how God has taken a seemingly bad situation in your life and turned it into good for His glory.
After our 16-year stint in Indonesia the Indonesian government declined to renew our “religious worker” visas and we were forced to reconsider what God had called us to do with our lives. Our family included young children who needed to be in school and so we made the wrenching decision to remain in Canada. But that meant we had to rethink everything. “How does one make a resume?” “What line of work might even be possible for me?” “Where would I start looking for a job opening?”
It was my connection with Northwest that led me back to the Northwest office and a discussion with Rodney Anderson who got me connected with the dean and president and within the week I was hired. I look back on that as distinct evidence of God’s hand at work.
Tell us a bit about your family.
I am married to Becky, my dear companion of 48 years. We have three wonderful children who married two great sons-in-law and one dear daughter-in-law, and we have four delightful grandchildren.