On Thursday, June 8, one day short of 41 years after he was ordained in the RCA, New Brunswick Theological Seminary (NBTS) president Gregg Mast was invited to address the General Synod in honor of his retirement.
His speech harkened back to his ordination day.
“The Classis of South Grand Rapids gathered, and I knelt in the chancel of the old Fair Haven building,” Mast recalled. “They surrounded me, and then piled hand upon hand upon hand on top of my head, and I began to worry that I was going to break my neck. Or the classis was going to do it, and I was going to have the shortest ordained ministry on record.
“Now there’s a second half to that memory, because after the words were spoken, all of those hands reached out to lift me up. The same hands that ordained me and were to hold me accountable were to give me hope and resurrection year after year in these 41 years.”
Mast spent those 41 years serving in a variety of roles around the RCA, including ministry positions at various RCA churches and two stints as a denominational staff member. Then in 2006, Mast returned to NBTS, his alma mater, as its president.
Mast has shepherded NBTS through significant changes over the last decade, from constructing and moving into a new building, to adding new Master of Divinity, Master of Arts, and Doctor of Ministry programs.
NBTS announced earlier this week that Mast will be succeeded by Micah McCreary, who will begin serving as president on July 15.
McCreary comes to NBTS after serving as president and CEO of McCreary and Madison Associates, Inc., a psychological and human resources consulting firm in Richmond, Virginia. McCreary has also been a tenured associate professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) for 21 years. During his time at VCU, McCreary has served as assistant vice provost for diversity, quality enhancement plan coordinator, and codirector of the counseling psychology program.
McCreary holds a B.S. in engineering from the University of Michigan, an M.Div. from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in counseling psychology from VCU. He and his wife have pastored Spring Creek Baptist Church in Moseley, Virginia, for 16 years. He will transfer his ordination to the RCA.
As president of NBTS, McCreary hopes “to work in collaboration with members of the NBTS community to nurture, strengthen, equip, and shepherd every facet of our beloved institution, in order to continue the mission to which God has called us.”
Read more coverage of General Synod 2017.
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