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About the Highlands Study Center· A Brief History A Brief HistoryI was six years old when my family arrived in the Ligonier valley in southwest Pennsylvania. My family moved from suburban Cincinnati where my father served at a large church so that he could start the Ligonier Valley Study Center. The idea at first was that the center would be a place of training for those involved in para-church ministries. It would be a sort of seminary for laymen, teaching them the things of God so that they in turn could instruct those under their care on high school and college campuses around the nation. Students stayed in the homes of the staff, and ate their meals with us. My theological education was forged through table talk, conversations set in the context of food and fellowship. In time the Ligonier Valley Study Center became Ligonier Ministries. Teaching moved from conversations around the table to outreach through the media, and Ligonier enjoyed explosive growth, awakening hundreds of thousands of Christians to the holiness of God in all its fullness. Through radio, conferencing, video and print, Ligonier became the leading Reformed ministry in the country. I began working at Ligonier in 1989. It was a delight to be a part of a burgeoning ministry. I was, and am grateful to God for how He has worked through Ligonier. For all His blessings, however, I knew we had lost something. The blessing of growth cost us the opportunity to teach in a more personal setting, face to face, through conversation. In 1996 I moved with my family to the mountains of southwest Virginia to begin the work of the Highlands Study Center and to plant Saint Peter Presbyterian Church. Our goal was to recover the work of discipleship through personal interaction. Finding the church awash in worldliness, we set about helping Christians live more simple, separate, and deliberate lives for the glory of God and the building of His kingdom. Since that time we have kept to our vision, teaching principally in small group settings. Our Couples Camps, held several times each year, are restricted to ten couples at a time as we spend three days together considering the nature and calling of the family, the sovereignty of God and the kingdom of God. Our Pastors Camps, wherein we spend three days considering together the nature and calling of the church, are likewise limited to ten church leaders at a time. In addition to these labors we have begun to prepare men for gospel ministry in our Highlands Hall program, and, through our Highlands Academy have taught older home schooled students classes on everything from the Westminster Shorter Catechism to Western Civilization to the writings of G.K. Chesterton. We likewise host a local Bible study each week, again with crowds of a manageable size. All these endeavors fit into our philosophy of teaching which is simply this—education is conversation. Even our popular Basement Tapes are education given in the context of conversation. For over a decade now we have labored in this vineyard. We have been blessed to witness a bounty of fruit. Lives have been changed, for generations to come. We are a small ministry, with low overhead, and rather simple goals. We want to continue to speak with the people of God about the things of God. Despite our small stature, we have been blessed with a hearty faith, one that believes we can make known the reign of Christ, one conversation at a time.
R.C. Sproul Jr. What is the Highlands Study Center?The Highlands Study Center exists to help Christians live more simple, separate, and deliberate lives to the glory of God and for the building of His kingdom.That's a big job, one done not simply, but deliberately. Born out of a ministry of Saint Peter Presbyterian Church, we stand with the Westminster Standards. Our hope is to help believers apply those principles to the way we live our lives. To that end we have a number of different ministries. Conferences and Seminars. In addition to all the teaching we do locally, (including a number of conferences we have sponsored locally) both Laurence Windham and R.C. Sproul Jr. do a significant amount of teaching at conferences and seminars around the country. We have addressed everything from the sovereignty of God to family relationships to education to the doctrine of justification, to a Christian view of the state, to how to live more simple, separate and deliberate lives. These conferences are often available on CD as well. Please call us at 877-878-2238 if you'd like to have Laurence or R.C. speak at your conference. Also, you can host a Highlands Study Center conference in your hometown. See our Host a Conference page for all the information. Couples Camp. Three times a year we speak with married couples, ten at a time, about the sovereignty of God, the biblical role of the family, and the kingdom of God. We gather for these conversations at the Sproul home over the course of two and a half days, enjoying not just a set of lectures, but enjoying meals and conversations together. Pastors Camp. Once a year, hoping to encourage local bodies of believers to grow in joyful gratitude and love among the brethren, we meet for three days with pastors and elders, again, ten at a time, to consider together the nature and calling of the church. We meet in a log lodge in a local state park, and feast not only on God's Word, but on Laurence's and R.C.'s favorite recipes. Highlands Hall. Believing that shepherds are best prepared among the sheep rather than in the academy, we have set about the task of preparing men for gospel ministry. Following a discipleship model, we read together some of the great works of our spiritual fathers, and consider them together in conversation, in light of every day pastoral circumstances. Our desire is not only to prepare pastors, but to raise up godly men. Basement Tapes. Believing education is conversation, we gather monthly to have a conversation on topics related to the good life. We send them out to folks who commit to supporting the ministry monthly. If you'd like to begin a conversation of supporting our work, give us a call toll-free at 877-878-2238. These are also available for sale on CD in our online catalog. Tuesday Night Bible Study. Every Tuesday night students of all ages, and from many different churches gather to study the Word of God from a Reformed perspective. We have studied through Joshua, Ecclesiastes, Hosea, the Epistles of Peter, the Epistles of John, as well as many topical studies on everything from the doctrine of God, to the nature of the family, to issues dividing the church. These studies are also available on CD as a part of our Sound Teaching series. The Highlands Academy. While we are deeply committed to homeschooling, we understand that we parents often are at a loss, given the educations we received. As an aid to homeschoolers we offer several classes to older homeschoolers and their parents. We have taught Logic, Rhetoric, Basic History of the United States, Modern American History, Contemporary American History, Western Civilization, Epistemology, Homer's Odyssey, Contemporary Culture, Art and Latin. Our Social Agenda. It's not what you think. While we have some definite ideas about the social outworking of the gospel, this is what we do for fun, how we rejoice in the Lord as a community. Every summer over a hundred of our closest friends gather for our annual ice cream social. And every fall we give thanks for God's grace in the Reformation with several days of feasting, dancing, singing and remembering. Quotes From Our Friends
"Not your ordinary emasculated Christian ministry!" Rhett W. Who Are These Guys?
Dr. R.C. Sproul Jr. is a graduate of Reformed Theological Seminary, and Grove City College. He received his Doctorate of Ministry in 2001. R.C. was the founding pastor of and is a teaching elder at Saint Peter Presbyterian Church, and Founder, Chairman and Teacher of the Highlands Study Center. He has written or edited ten books, and contributed to several others. He once wrote for World magazine, and for the Covenant Syndicate. The important thing is that he is the husband of Denise, and the father of Darby, Campbell, Shannon, Delaney, Erin Claire, Maili, and Reilly. At the Highlands Study Center, R.C. teaches the Tuesday Night Bible study, the Highlands Academy classes, the Highlands Hall students, and serves as executive editor of Every Thought Captive. When not busy teaching, or playing with the children, he is snow skiing, golfing, or trying to solve a Sudoku puzzle.
Laurence Windham has served as senior pastor at Saint Peter Presbyterian Church and the Director of Student Affairs at the Highlands Study Center. Before coming to work here he studied at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, worked at Ligonier Ministries, and served as a campus minister at the University of Central Florida for Reformed University Fellowship (the campus ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America). The important thing is that he is the husband of Angela, and the father of Lauren, Alayna, Ethan, Garrett, and Miles. At the Highlands Study Center Laurence hosts the Basement Tapes and contributes to each issue Every Thought Captive.
Eric Owens grew up in Jacksonville, Florida and Cincinnati, Ohio. He studied at Covenant College and is a graduate of Geneva College (Business) and the Reformed Theological Seminary (Theology) where he met Laurence and RC. After his formal schooling, he moved to Washington, D.C. where he worked for the Evangelical Studies Project of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a think tank established to clarify and reinforce the bond between the Judeo-Christian moral tradition and the public debate over domestic and foreign policy issues. He then spent ten years helping to build an elite graduate school, The Institute of World Politics, an independent school of statecraft and national security affairs. Twelve years in Washington being enough, Eric moved to Bristol, Virginia to get a piece of the simple life and joined the HSC team as its President in December of 2005. In August of 2006 he married Lindsay Williams of Atlanta, Georgia. They live in Bristol and attend the Bristol parish of Saint Peter Presbyterian Church where Laurence Windham is pastor.
Mark Dewey is our latest "permanent" host of The Basement Tapes. He recently moved back to the Bristol area after five years in Michigan where he planted Christ the King Church and served as her pastor. Mark is the husband of Monique and they have ten equally special children with one on the way. Mark's newest vocation is a ministry to baseball players where he can combine his two passions, teaching the gospel and playing children's games. He is best known in these circles as the first professional athlete that R.C. defeated in horseshoes (with some help from Eric).
Jonathan Daugherty is a regular contributor to the Basement Tapes and Every Thought Captive. Jonathan also arranged and performed—with his band, Maker's Mark—the great intro music for our Sound Teaching series, The Son of God Goes Forth to War, written by Greg Wilbur. Not one to settle into a single role, he has at various times and in various combinations worked as a funeral director, draftsman, cabinetmaker, carpenter, limousine driver, bellhop, luthier, and DJ. Jonathan and his wife Katie decided to move to Bristol in 2000 and become members of the Saint Peter community before they attended the second Summer Camp for Couples. Being steeped in aesthetics and agrarianism, Jonathan is responsible for deepening and enriching our community's understanding in those areas; being steeped in old-time and bluegrass music, and being accomplished on the guitar, banjo, and fiddle, he has made homemade music an increasingly vital part of the community's activities. Most important to him and to us is his being a godly husband to Katie, and a godly father to his five children. When not busy with the aforementioned roles, you're likely to find Jonathan loading his pickup truck full of very large stones. |
