New space, new speaker, new theme. Spiritual Renewal provided early encouragement to students settling into the semester.
Rather than the familiar Rediger Chapel, Odle Arena has served as the communal worship space on campus this fall. Despite this location change, students filed into the gymnasium to attend the four sessions comprising Spiritual Renewal: the first two on Aug. 9, the third on the evening of Aug. 10 and the final session during chapel Aug. 11.
Brian White, lead pastor of Harvest Church in Carmel, Indiana, was this year’s speaker. His messages leaned into Taylor’s fall chapel theme: “The Battle Belongs to the Lord.” Throughout the sessions, White used the theme to approach four battles: the first session covered the battle against uncertainty, the second was about the battle against sin, the third explored the battle against comparison, and the fourth and final session emphasized God’s victory over the ultimate battle against death and evil.
Senior Grady Stanley, a presidential fellow in the office of spiritual life and intercultural leadership, played a key role in White’s coming to Taylor. While Stanley did not have the final say in the chosen speaker for this year’s renewal, he did plant the initial seed campus pastor Greg Dyson’s mind, he said.
Stanley has attended Harvest since 2020, and over the past six years, thanks to White, Stanley said he has grown immensely in his faith.
“Brian has just a huge love for God’s word and he treats it with very much authority,” he said. “So sitting under his preaching for multiple years, I just grew in my love for the word, and it grew in its authority in my own life.”
Avery Rhamy, a junior communication major, has attended Harvest for 18 years under White’s pastorship. She said it has been a privilege to hear the way the Holy Spirit speaks through him, and for him to come to Taylor and share that with the student body was equally special.
Rhamy was encouraged to hear that other Taylor students also benefited from White’s teachings and his approach to Scripture.
“After his Wednesday message, it was really cool to then have conversations with people about the fact that he truly does start every single message with, like, ‘Open up your Bibles to this,’” she said. “I found myself almost bragging about how rooted in Scripture he is and how all of his messages do flow from a place of truth and conviction.”
Moving forward, Rhamy hopes Taylor students will know that no matter the situation, there is a passage of Scripture they can turn to for encouragement and wisdom.
Similarly, Stanley said he hopes students will be able to orient their hearts toward God as they move through a new semester.
“Not their education, not their grades or any of that, but make Him the most important thing as they move and do all of the things that they do because of the Lord,” he said. “I’m hoping that in those battles that students may be struggling with, they can know how to respond to those battles, not only now, but as they go through their semesters.”
