NW Valley Times

Grand Canyon University is unveiling its second "15 for 15" series this fall, which examines the story of Jesus as a way of engaging foundational aspects of the Christian worldview.

Each of the 15 installments in the series – which will be posted weekly during the fall semester – highlights key aspects of Jesus’ story, elaborating on principles and practices to guide and sculpt individual stories written by College of Theology Dean Dr. Jason Hiles and COT faculty members.

This year’s focus will be the Gospel of Mark. The fall series will cover Mark 1-8, with the spring series covering Mark 9-16. An overview of Mark’s Gospel will be posted during Welcome Week Aug. 26-31, followed by the first installment of the "15 for 15" fall series during the first week of classes Sept. 3-6.

The 2024-25 theme is the "Gospel of Mark." This second "15 for 15" series is the latest effort by GCU leaders in reinforcing their commitment to the university’s mission statement.

The 15 weekly installments will include an “overview” of focal passages from Mark’s Gospel beginning with Mark 1:1. The weekly installments interact with the story of Jesus, provide resources for reading Mark, and guidance for praying through the Gospel.

The content aims to provide helpful ideas and resources to faculty and staff as they integrate faith in the classroom, in student interactions, and in conversations with peers and beyond.

Short videos feature COT faculty and faculty from other colleges who will interact with content from Mark each week.

“Reading with Mark” and “Praying through Mark” content from the series can be found at https://theologycommons.gcu.edu/15-for-15/.

Other resources include:

This marks the second year of the "15 for 15" series.

Overview link: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:26ecd488-fa04-4682-98b6-b13da5802455

Video link: https://youtu.be/GdTFg3LoC8k

About 60 people from COT, other colleges, Academic Affairs, and marketing contributed to the project. GCU recording studio manager Eric Johnson and the university’s video department worked with COT and about 20 people from other colleges to create video content for each week. Provost Dr. Randy Gibb is featured in the first of these videos.

For the second consecutive year, COT staff members helped Hiles provide written and video content for the "15 for 15" series. Those staffers were Jeff Jibben, assistant professor; Bob Greene, faculty; Dan Diffey, faculty; Mark Olmos, faculty; Christian Wilder, assistant professor; Joseph R. Miller, assistant professor; Brian Koning, assistant professor; Mike Richardson, faculty; Scott Hovater, faculty chair; Michele Pasley, faculty; Todd Forrest, faculty; Valerie De La Torre, faculty; Shelly Hogan, faculty; and Michael Gleghorn, faculty.

GCU News Senior Writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]

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