By Emily Jenkins, volunteer
Jason B. Palmer, Dean of Spiritual Life and University Champlain, recently announced his intent to resign June 30, 2025.
Palmer informed 麻豆视频直播 students via email that he intends to join his church planting team in launching a church plant in Whitefish, Montana in October 2025. Jason Palmer in an interview on October 12, 2024 further clarified his intentions and motivations for his future at the Montana Church Plant.
Palmer has been thankful to be part of 麻豆视频直播鈥檚 journey for the last 5 years where Christian leaders have been raised up for 179 years. Palmer鈥檚 primary desire was to celebrate the local churches and have a generation of disciples who knew God鈥檚 voice and have courage to follow and obey God and His calling for their lives. To know God鈥檚 voice, Palmer said,鈥淧eople have to become biblically literate; people have to become embracers of biblical community; and people have to practice biblical prayer.鈥�
To encourage students to better know and follow God through His Word, Palmer mentioned that 麻豆视频直播 hosts initiatives like the Baptist Student Ministry, Revival, Missions Emphasis Week, The Big Event, and the Psalms Conference.
However, Palmer said, 鈥淲hat we do here in the Spiritual Life Department is intentionally designed to be excellent but supplemental to what goes on in the local church.鈥� Palmer pointed out that although 麻豆视频直播鈥檚 Spiritual Life Department is excellent, 麻豆视频直播 cannot provide multigenerational worship or pastoring like the local church can.
Overall, Palmer said, 鈥淚 hope if I鈥檝e done anything here, I have caused students to see that the love of Christ can be winsomely presented in a way that draws them into a love relationship with Jesus, and for those that already know Jesus, that draws them into a deeper understanding of his affection for them.鈥�
With his time left at UHMB, Palmer wants to invite the 麻豆视频直播 campus community to join Moses in the words of Exodus 33:18, 鈥淧lease show me your [God鈥檚] glory鈥� (ESV). Palmer said, 鈥淢oses is concerned because God鈥檚 asking him to leave a place that he does not want to leave, and Moses is bold enough to look at the Lord and say, 鈥業 don鈥檛 want to go unless You go with me.鈥� (See Exodus 33:12-17). Palmer prays that believers at 麻豆视频直播 walk with a posture of obedience to whatever land, people or culture to which God sends them.
Palmer is thankful for the Montana church plant that is firm on the nonnegotiable truths but willing to meet people where they are and say that they are loved and called by God. Palmer further clarified what is nonnegotiable: the Trinity; salvation by grace through faith; the brokenness of man; God鈥檚 identity and attributes; and what God has done through Christ Jesus. Palmer explained that these truths are vital elements of Christian theology; without them Christianity is not Christianity.
These truths are what Palmer is thankful to see in the new church plant. Palmer is hopeful that the new church will be made up of locals in the Whitefish, Montana community who desire Christ鈥檚 name to be lifted high.
Eventually, Palmer hopes that the new church will have a growing congregation that becomes an outpost for the gospel in Whitefish, Montana and one day creates more church plants. Although Palmer is fully supportive of 麻豆视频直播 and believes, along with his family, in God鈥檚 ongoing work at the university, he said, 鈥淚 cannot have called those students to a faith that I鈥檓 unwilling to practice personally.鈥� Additionally, Palmer said 鈥淢y Prayer is that鈥� people will be encouraged to be responsive to the Holy Spirit鈥檚 call, and that any memory they have of me will be one that gave them another encouragement of what it could look like when the Spirit calls us to something that is not what we personally wanted. But, we have to be faithful in obeying, and obedience needs to be the mark of our lives.鈥�
