ENGAGE: Youth Theology Initiative

Friday, July 5, 2019 9:00 AM-Sunday, July 14, 2019 9:00 AM

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On July 5-14, 2019 Lipscomb University hosted their annual youth theology initiative, ENGAGE, a 10-day program for high school students. During ENGAGE, students will explore the contemporary call to racial justice and healing, conflict transformation, the histories of both the church and the U.S. Civil Rights movement, and what it means to live a life of Christian leadership and service. 

Funded by a generous grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., the ENGAGE initiative will bring together rising high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors from racially diverse backgrounds and churches of Christ.

Students will spend 7 days on Lipscomb’s campus and another 3 days traveling outside of Nashville during the “Bus Ride to Justice” travel course, a historical and interactive tour of various sites and memorials of the U.S. Civil Rights movement throughout Alabama, including:

  • The Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum
  • The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham
  • The Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma
  • A walking tour of Montgomery and the State Capitol
  • The Equal Justice Initiative's Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice 
  • Students will also meet legendary civil rights attorney, Dr. Fred D. Gray. Considered the "legal architect of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement," Gray fought for the desegregation of Alabama public schools and represented clients such as Rosa Parks in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, victims of the Tuskegee Syphillis Study, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 1965 Voting Rights March from Selma to Montgomery.

For more information, please email ENGAGE Program Director, Claire Frederick at claire.frederick [at] lipscomb.edu