Centenary's Christian Leadership Center welcomes Rev. Roderick Belin for annual fundraiser
SHREVEPORT, LA — Centenary College’s Christian Leadership Center (CLC) has scheduled a dynamic and inspirational speaker for its 13th annual fundraising dinner on Thursday, March 21. Rev. Roderick Dewayne Belin, a third-generation minister in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, will deliver the keynote address at the annual event celebrating and supporting the CLC.
Belin is a graduate of Morehouse College and Union Theological Seminary and has served congregations in New York, South Carolina, and his native Tennessee. In over 30 years of Christian ministry, he has traveled throughout the United States and around the world spreading a message of love, mutuality, and respect for all people while advocating for justice and liberation. His message has often focused on what he calls the five “flames of renewal:” “restoring the poor, reclaiming the lost, realizing the vision, releasing the captive, and revealing God’s favor.”
Belin has also been involved in efforts to promote interfaith dialogue and healing and has focused his ministry on long-term service to those who are underserved and marginalized, including youth and people struggling with mental health and other stigmatized issues.
The Tennessee Tribune recently named Belin as “Pastor of the Year,” and in 2014 he was inducted to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers at Morehouse College.
“It is hard to imagine the history of the AME Church without the name ‘Belin’ – Rev. Roderick Belin comes from a family whose own history is intertwined with service to the Church,” says Dr. Jenifer K. Ward, provost and dean of the college at Centenary. “He is both deeply passionate and profoundly intellectual – he stands authentically on the bridge between faith and reason, modeling for us all what it means to live a meaningful and thoughtful life in community with each other.”
The Christian Leadership Center, founded in 1974 as the Church Careers Program, is an ecumenical, faith-based, co-curricular program committed to creating opportunities for Christian leadership development through the intersection of faith and academy. Students in CLC commit to a class, small group, year-long internship program, and theological reflections. The program as a whole is dedicated to theological study, innovative leadership training, interreligious and interdenominational dialogue, issues of peace and justice, and spiritual formation and Christian discipleship.
The 2019 CLC Fundraising Dinner will begin at 6:00 p.m. in the Centenary College Fitness Center. Individual tickets are $45 and a table for eight is $350. For more information about sponsorships and to purchase tickets, visit centenary.edu/clcfundraiser.