Third Millennium Fellows
J. Christian Stratton
J. Christian Stratton
Director of Spiritual Formation and Instructor of Greek
Wesley Biblical Seminary
J. (Chris)tian Stratton grew up in south central Kentucky, where he enjoyed an athletic lifestyle, and sought to bring together his love for sports and his life of faith. Much of his life was shaped by his participation and leadership in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes ("1990 FCA College Athlete of the Year") and Athletes in Action (A Sports Ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ). Following college, he pursued a ministry to youth and young adults, speaking, preaching, and later developing and providing oversight for a non-profit ecumenical ministry to youth in rural northeast Ohio.
Eventually, Chris completed a Masters of Divinity at Asbury Theological Seminary in 1997 with an emphasis in Biblical Studies. It was at ATS that he developed a love for working with the original languages of the Bible (e.g., Greek and Hebrew), and upon graduation, he joined the faculty ATS as a Teaching Fellow in Biblical languages, serving students both on campus and online. To this day, Chris continues to instruct online Greek students associated with ATS as an Affiliate Instructor.
Chris is committed to the idea that the seminary exists for the sake of the church, and has always sought to replicate the theological formation model for local church constituencies as Teaching Pastor, Sunday school teacher, etc. He took on a more intentional role in this regard when he accepted the invitation to shape clergy/laity leadership development with the Kentucky Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. As the Director of Leadership and Community Development for the 72 churches of the Lexington District, Chris committed to the task of helping the church grapple with what it means to be the Church, to helping churches rediscover and embody their missional calling in and for the sake of the world, and creating functional ecclesial structures that empower such missional activity.
It was in and through his work with multiple churches in the Lexington District that he began to develop community models, contexts, and experiences that engender holistic formation for the local church. This work came to fruition in Chris' work at First United Methodist Church in Tulsa, OK, as the Minister of Adult Learning, Chris used his insights and experiences in shaping a vision and strategy for the creation of authentic and holistic community through the engagement of relational, formational, and missional practices.
Since 2002, Chris has served as the Managing Editor of Catalyst, a publication (published quarterly) that has provided evangelical resources and perspectives for some 5,000 UM seminarians for the last 35 years (www.catalystresources.org). Most recently, Chris has joined the staff of Wesley Biblical Seminary, fulfilling the newly established role of Director of Spiritual Formation and Instructor of Greek, while completing a doctoral dissertation in New Testament studies. In these roles, Chris endeavors to pass on a love for reading the Bible in the original languages, and both engaging, as well as being engaged by its transformative message. In addition, Chris endeavors to oversee the seminary's current efforts to integrate spiritual formation practices into the new curriculum design. For Chris, the central task of the seminary is to engender a holistic formational environment for its students, one that "makes space" for God's transformative work to take root not simply in the heads, but indeed, in the hearts and hands of his people.
Chris met and married his beloved wife, Shelly (Schmul), in 1994, and they currently reside in Madison, MS, where Michelle works with autistic students at Madison Station Elementary School. In addition to raising their two fabulous children, Katelyn Lois and J.C. Grey, Chris and his family enjoys spending time together, and participating in the community life of Wesley Chapel.