Living the Gospel Outside the “Christian Bubble”

Lauralee Farrer, Fuller Focus Magazine

Filmmakers are prophetic voices in our culture, creating films that do more than simply entertain us,” says Will Stoller-Lee, director of Fuller’s Colorado campus, and partner in programming the Fuller immersion course at the Sundance Film Festival known as the Windrider Forum. Filmmakers help us see our world with a different set of eyes, he argues, allowing audiences to view the human condition from a myriad of perspectives with compassion and respect. The goal of the Windrider Forums, says cofounder John Priddy of Priddy Brothers Entertainment, is to create a space for conversation at the intersection of faith, art, and culture. “We approach all three of these categories with a humble sense of expectation and wonder,” says Stoller-Lee.

Colorado Springs Regional Campus Director Will Stoller-Lee and Windrider Founder and Fuller alumnus John Priddy

The Windrider Forum endeavors to allow people of faith to engage, and thereby enliven, the culture as it is affected by the medium of film. The forum was founded in 2003 as a collaborative effort among The Priddy Brothers, the Angelus Student Film Festival, and Fuller. Since the first Windrider Forum at Sundance in 2005, it has been “an immersive educational experiment to inspire conversation between filmmakers and film lovers” that investigates some of the implications of independent film upon theology and vice versa.

Fuller worked to structure the experience for its students as Sundance was meant to be experienced—the classroom is the festival itself, the courses are the films that are seen and discussed, and the teachers include filmmakers invited to engage in post-screening conversations. “The experience stretches the minds of our students—even on occasion offending them, breaking their hearts, and often inspiring them,” says Stoller-Lee. Pasadena-based student Michelle McCreary concurs that it was one of the highlights of her study at Fuller so far. “I was stirred in my deepest God-placed identity,” says McCreary. “In some ways, it refined my sense of calling and course for my future. I was provoked not only by the subject matter and artistry of the films but perhaps most in hearing directly from the filmmakers themselves.”

Professor of Theology and Culture Robert K. Johnston, author of several groundbreaking volumes investigating the integration of film and theology, says that the experience has been formative for his students at the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts, located at the Pasadena campus. “Our class at Sundance helps students understand film from the perspective of the filmmaker. It focuses on the creative process and puts that in conversation with God the Creator. Beauty may be the church’s primary access to millions of people in the coming decades, so it is incumbent on us to train future leaders to take seriously the intersections of faith and culture, and to engage in a robust, fearless way.”

Building on that success at Sundance, the Windrider Forum has expanded to international locations in Rome, Prague, and Milan. Local Windrider Forums have been offered in conjunction with Fuller regional campuses in Colorado Springs and Houston, and Windrider Bay Area was launched in Menlo Park this year. This expansion is part of a strategy of engaging students—particularly students in youth ministry—in the culture in which young people are steeped.

Stoller-Lee points out that the Colorado regional campus has always been forward-thinking in the areas of youth and culture, dating back to 1962 when Fuller and Young Life, a parachurch outreach ministry to adolescents, entered into an informal training partnership. In 1977, that partnership became the Institute of Youth Ministries, the first fully accredited partnership of its kind between a seminary and a parachurch organization. In 1995, Fuller Colorado expanded to become a “full service” regional campus offering several degree programs and year-round courses for a local student body as well. The immersion course at Sundance has become a vital part of the many courses which the Colorado Springs campus offers.