Kuyper College Inaugurates Dan Churchwell as Seventh President

Kuyper College inaugurated Dan Churchwell as its seventh president on October 7th, receiving its heritage with gratitude and holding it in trust for those still to come. 

In his inaugural address, Churchwell laid out a vision for the future rooted in the College’s rich history and nearly nine decades of God’s guidance.

“Folded into our very beginning was the belief that a calling to Christian service deserved serious preparation,” Churchwell told a packed Vos Chapel. “Everything we do here is to help that seed of potential grow into what God created it to be.”

Unlike a president’s actual first day on the job, a college inauguration serves as the public, formal celebration of its new leadership. The event borrows from medieval academic traditions, incorporating processions, regalia, and prayers. Churchwell stepped into the role of president at the end of July, following over two decades in the world of Christian education, most recently as Director of Programs and Education at the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids.

The Kuyper community, including students, staff, alumni and Board of Trustees members, celebrated his inauguration alongside presidents from Grace Christian University, Calvin University, Aquinas College, Calvin Theological Seminary, Western Theological Seminary, and senior leadership representatives from Cornerstone University and Indiana Wesleyan University, as well as other institutional and governmental representatives.

Churchwell titled his inaugural address “Potentiality, People, and Place,” centered around the classic illustration from Aristotle: the acorn, which is not only an acorn, but is also potentially an oak. Potential, he explained, is not wishful thinking about the future but a real feature of the present, ordered toward an end already written into a thing’s nature.

Churchwell first applied the idea of potentiality to the College itself, tracing its path from its founding as Reformed Bible Institute to Reformed Bible College in 1970 and Kuyper College in 2006. Graduates now serve in Michigan, across the country and in nearly 60 nations.

“The potential I see at Kuyper exists precisely because generations of trustees, faculty, staff, presidents, donors, and churches planted it, protected it, and kept faith with it, often at real personal cost,” he said. “This is a continued legacy that I receive in trust.”

Turning to the College’s people, Churchwell said potential does not become actual on its own, it is drawn out through practice and by the presence of others. Faculty and staff create the conditions in which learning can flourish, work that at Kuyper happens face to face. 

Speaking directly to the students, Churchwell encouraged them that they are “not here to be simply filled up and sent out. You are the acorn. Something has been planted in you by God that the world has not yet seen, and everything we do here is meant to help it grow toward the end for which God made you.”

On the subject of place, Churchwell pointed to Grand Rapids, a city whose churches, schools and ministries were shaped by the same Reformed tradition as Kuyper and is home to a remarkable number of Christian colleges. He thanked the peer institutions present, saying each has its own calling and that the Kingdom is richer for every one of them. Kuyper’s gift, he said, is being small on purpose and a Bible college by conviction, where every student studies Scripture and theology alongside preparation for a profession.

Churchwell also lifted up the College’s motto, “Ora et Labora,” pray and work. As a Work College, he said, Kuyper students do not simply study vocation; they practice it. “Ora et Labora is the very means by which potential becomes actual here.”

Other speakers also affirmed the Kuyperian vision.

Dr. Dan Kroeze, Professor of Biblical Studies at Kuyper, speaking on behalf of the faculty, said what encourages them most is that Churchwell’s vision is “deeply connected to who we already are.” 

Greg Elzinga, President of Calvin University, told the new president, “We believe that God has called you for such a time as this at Kuyper College.” 

In his prayer of dedication, Rev. Dr. Andrew Vander Maas, lead pastor of Christ Church Grand Rapids, asked God to grant Churchwell “wisdom and discernment to know how best to set the course for Kuyper in the days ahead.”

Anthony Bradley, Research Professor of Interdisciplinary and Theological Studies at Kuyper, charged the new president with God’s words to Joshua: “Be strong and courageous.” 

Bradley linked Kuyper College to its namesake Abraham Kuyper’s Free University of Amsterdam, founded so that Reformed convictions could guide scholarship free from control by church or state. 

Like that university, he said, Kuyper College answers to God’s Word and has been sustained by ordinary Christians who give faithfully to its mission. 

Drawing from Abraham Kuyper’s declaration that Christ cries “Mine!” over every square inch of human life, Bradley encouraged Churchwell to trust that God is with him, to stay close to Scripture and not to be discouraged when the work gets hard, because the college belongs to Christ.

Churchwell sounded a similar theme with the closing portion of his remarks, pointing beyond strategy to the One who holds the future. Behind all the potential in creation, he said, stands the living God, who brings all things toward their appointed end.

“Our hope for Kuyper College does not finally rest on our budgets, efforts or strategies, it rests on the faithfulness of God, who planted this seed in 1939 and never stopped tending it,” Churchwell said. “To God alone be the glory for what He has done and will continue to do here.”