John A. Conant Distinguished Lay Leadership Award

Frank Skinner, who served as a member of the Board of Trustees for 13 years, five of those as chairman, received the John A. Conant Distinguished Lay Leadership Award during the seminary’s annual Founders Dinner, on October 2. The award recognizes gifts of time, talents, and lay leadership within the seminary community as well as in the wider church. It was presented for the first time, in 1999, to John Conant by then President Douglas Oldenburg. Skinner is the second recipient.

Presenting the award, President Laura Mendenhall noted that any conversation with Frank Skinner always concludes with his asking, “What can I do for you?” She acknowledged that the seminary has learned from Frank to also ask that question of the church: “What can Columbia Seminary do for you?

“It is tempting for us to assume that we know the answer. Faculty, students, staff are in church each Sunday teaching or preaching, leading worship or a youth group, sharing in the mission of Christ’s church in a variety of ways. Still, few of us as full-time employees or students at Columbia are also full-time pastors and church leaders. We are not the ones who hear the whispered prayers, not the ones who mediate the most destructive pain, not the ones who must make the most difficult decisions.

“We thank Frank Skinner for all the ways he has led us at Columbia, for teaching us to ask what the church needs, or holding us accountable to what we hear and calling us to step up to the task of leadership.”