New Wine, New Wineskins

Paul Louis Metzger, Director

Dr. Paul Louis Metzger is the Founder and Director of The Institute for the Theology of Culture: New Wine, New Wineskins. He serves as New Wine’s catalyst for cultivating a community of people brought together around a shared vision of bearing witness to Christ in contemporary culture.

Integrating theology and spirituality with cultural sensitivity stands at the center of Dr. Metzger’s ministry vision. He and his wife, Mariko, a native of Japan, have been active in intercultural ministry in churches in the States, Japan, and England. Dr. Metzger is the author of The Word of Christ and the World of Culture: Sacred and Secular through the Theology of Karl Barth (Eerdmans, 2003); editor of Trinitarian Soundings in Systematic Theology (T&T Clark International, 2005); and editor of the journal, Cultural Encounters: A Journal for the Theology of Culture. His new book with Eerdmans, Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church, is now available. Dr. Metzger is also coauthoring The Bride: An Ecumenical and Evangelical Ecclesiology with Brad Harper (Brazos, forthcoming), and co-editing A World for All?—Global Civil Society in Political Theory and Trinitarian Theology with Peter J. Casarella and William F. Storrar (Eerdmans, forthcoming). Dr. Metzger is a member of the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, New Jersey. The Metzgers have two children. Dr. Metzger has a keen interest in the art of Hokusai and enjoys reading literature.

Beyth Hogue, Administrative Coordinator

As the Administrative Coordinator for New Wine, Beyth has the unique privilege of having found the “sweet spot” where her skills and passions meet. She bring a history of event planning, an educational background in both theology and sociology, a fascinated interest in culture, and a restless heart for community.

The privilege of being kingdom-bearers is perhaps the most humbling and transformative opportunity in our Christian lives. Beyth praises God for the divine reality he manifests through New Wine and she eagerly awaits what he will reveal in the midst of our usually-willing hearts.

Outside of talking theology, Beyth loves to travel and see the way life is lived outside of Portland’s trendy enclave. But her heart always brings her happily back to Portland, yearning for a good cup of coffee and the embrace of loving community.

Al Baylis

Dr. Baylis grew up on a farm in Michigan. While attending Dallas Theological Seminary for his doctoral work, he received the William M. Anderson Scholarship Award. He now enjoys challenging students to think through both biblical and systematic theology and to increase their interpretive skills in New Testament studies. While a faculty member at Multnomah Bible College, Dr. Baylis developed the M.A. in Biblical Studies program and chaired the theology department. He joined the seminary faculty in 1986, the same year his book, On the Way to Jesus: A Journey Through the Bible, was published. A revision and expansion of his book, retitled From Creation to the Cross, has been published by Zondervan.

In 1980 he co-founded Fellowship Bible Church in Sandy, Ore., and served as a pastor-teacher for 12 years. Theota, Dr. Baylis’ wife of 19 years, died in 1985. His second wife, Barbara, exchanged her plans of missionary work to help him finish raising his three children. More recently in 1998, God took home their eldest son, Al III, following a courageous five-year battle with bone cancer. Outside the classroom he enjoys classical and baroque music, golf, landscaping and roses.

Brad Harper

After thirteen years as a pastor and church planter, Dr. Brad Harper has been Associate Professor of Theology at Multnomah Bible College in Portland, Oregon since 1999. Dr. Harper also serves as Book Review Editor for Cultural Encounters — A Journal for the Theology of Culture and is a member of the Editorial Board. He earned the B.A. from Biola University, the M.Div. from Talbot School of Theology, and the Ph.D. from Saint Louis University.

Dr. Harper’s publications include “The Kingdom of God in George Eldon Ladd as a Theological Foundation for the Role of the Church in Society,” in God and Caesar (Camp Hill, 1994); “Evangelicals and Catholics Together: A Chance to Talk,” in The Ministerial Forum of the Evangelical Free Church, vol. 6 (1995); and “Larry Norman, Literature, and Listening for God in Pop Culture: A Response to Stanley Grenz: ‘(Pop) Culture: Playground of the Spirit or Diabolical Device?’” in Vol. 1, No. 1 of Cultural Encounters — A Journal for the Theology of Culture (2004). His current writing project is The Bride: An Ecumenical and Evangelical Ecclesiology (Brazos, forthcoming 2007), which he is co-authoring with Dr. Paul Louis Metzger.

Jon Robertson

Dr. Robertson served 13 years training pastors and lay leaders with the Evangelical Covenant Church in Quito, Ecuador. While there, he taught at the Ecuadorian Covenant seminary as well as other Christian graduate institutions. His passion has been to introduce insights of the past into the discussions of today. He earned a Ph.D. in Historical Theology form the University of Oxford, where he focused on the theology of the early Church Fathers. His dissertation, Christ as Mediator: A Study of the Theologies of Eusebius of Caesarea, Marcellus of Ancyra and Athanasius of Alexandria, has been published by Oxford University Press in their Theological Monograph Series. Dr. Robertson’s wife, Erin, is a Speech Therapist. The Robertsons have one daughter, Elizabeth, in college and two sons, Joshua and David, still at home. Dr. Robertson enjoys board games, turning wood on his lathe, and joining his family for long hikes in the countryside.

Robb Redman

Dr. Robb Redman is Dean and Associate Professor of Theology and Ministry at Multnomah University, a post he assumed in January 2009. Previously, he was the founding dean of A.W. Tozer Theological Seminary at Simpson University in Redding, CA. From 1991-1997 he was Director of the Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) program and Assistant Professor of Theology and Ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. He has also pastored churches in Oregon and Texas.
Dr. Redman was born in raised in Yakima, WA and spent most of his summers working on the family’s fruit ranch. He holds a B.A. from Willamette University (Salem, OR), a B.D. from New College, University of Edinburgh (Scotland), and the Dr. Theol. from the University of Erlangen (Germany).

Dr. Redman is the author of The Great Worship Awakening (Jossey-Bass, 2002), numerous articles and reviews in scholarly and popular publications, and is a contributing editor for Worship Leader Magazine. He is an ordained pastor in the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Robb is married to Pam; after 15 years of marriage, they adopted their daughter, Martha, in China in September 2005. Robb says, “We did our empty nest first.” The Redmans live in downtown Portland and enjoy movies, live theatre and music, and exploring the Pacific Northwest.

Bob Wall

Bob Wall served over 35 years in local government. During the span of 1981 until 2001 he was the Fire Chief, first in Palo Alto California and then in the City of Portland Oregon. After his retirement, he was called to serve as Interim Director of Ministries at Cedar Mill Bible Church. Whether directing fire fighters or pastors, there is a common thread connecting his personal life and public service, “How do we, as a society, tolerate unequal opportunity based upon race and gender?”

Bob was raised in a small lumber and agricultural town in Oregon, educated in the early sixties in California as our country struggled with the fundamental values of our civil rights. His career was as much about breaking the barriers to employment opportunities for minority Americans as it was about responding to smoke and fire.

His passion burns even more today, as he longs to see our churches reflect the diversity of our communities. New Wine’s purposes and Bob’s passions are matched when the gospel and the needs of our culture intersect.

Cooky Wall

Cooky Wall was first born into an extended Greek and French Canadian family in the San Francisco Bay Area of California; and 35 years later, she was reborn into the family of the Creator. In 1994, she and her husband received God’s call to Oregon, and so she retired as a small business owner and public official and left her family and friends. This transition has been huge for her, yet she says God has outwitted her at every turn. He has reignited her heart’s passion for racial healing and reconciliation, and continues to use the experiences He has given her, which include being immersed into the Lakota/Sioux culture on the Rosebud Reservation as well as traveling as the only White woman with a group of Black women to the antebellum South, to shape her perspectives and expand her theological categories. She says it’s pretty clear He has orchestrated this intersection with New Wine New Wineskins. She and her husband, Robert, enjoy every opportunity to “get on the road again” in their RV and spend time with their extended family in California.

David Sanford

David Sanford is an award-winning author, editor, and literary agent with Credo Communications, LLC. Among his many credits, David is the author of “If God Disappears: 9 Faith Wreckers and What to Do About Them” (SaltRiver), managing editor of the forthcoming Resonate series (InterVarsity), and executive editor of “Holy Bible: Mosaic” (Tyndale House). David has served in various leadership roles at Multnomah Bible College and Biblical Seminary over the years. Dr. Daniel Lockwood and David arrived at Multnomah the same semester back in 1979. Dr. Joe Aldrich mentored David and two other top student government leaders in 1980. David served as a teaching assistant for Dr. Pamela Reeve’s graduate level counseling courses in 1981 and 1982. From 1993 to 1998 David served on the Multnomah Alumni Board of Directors. From 2001 to 2004 and again in 2008 David has served as a seminary instructor for PM 646 Mass Media and Evangelism. Since 2004 David has assisted the seminary’s faculty with a number of book projects, including Dr. Donald L. Brake’s award-winning book “A Visual History of the English Bible” (Baker). In 2007 David joined the Advisory Council for New Wine, New Wineskins. David and his wife, Renée, and their two youngest children live “on the road to Damascus” and are active members of Spring Mountain Bible Church, where David serves as a lay teaching pastor.

Gloria Young

Gloria Young is a child of God, who was blessed to be born to an Africa American mother who is devoted to the Lord. She has two children and a grand-daughter. Gloria has always had a passion for service whether it was helping her mother to take care of her siblings or recognizing the need at an early age to work to support her family and volunteering at the educational institutions she attended. Professionally, working in government, non-profits, and business, Gloria has had an impact. Currently she is actively working in church communities and the wider world. Gloria knows she is blessed more than she ever deserved.

Lindsey Smith

Lindsey Smith has ten plus years of ministry leadership and pastoral experience. Married and a mom of three boys, she has a B.A. in Graphic Design and a Masters in Pastoral Studies from Multnomah Biblical Seminary with an emphasis in Intercultural Studies. Her first connection to New Wine was when she began attending Multnomah as a student and New Wine was just starting to form under Dr. Paul Metzger’s leadership. Her heart was deeply moved as she studied the scriptures and discovered the rich message of Jesus’ love and call to all believers to live a radical life, engaging culture for Christ. Her passion is to see the modern church become what Jesus intended…a loving and relational community who cares deeply for the things that break God’s heart and who pursue justice on behalf of the impoverished and marginalized.

Mark Nicklas

Mark Nicklas is a pastor at Beaverton Foursquare Church where he leads the Connecting Life Ministry and Global Missions departments. He is also an adjunct professor at Multnomah University. Following a 28-year career in Communications during which he operated in ministry in a “tent-making” capacity (including three years as senior pastor of Mountain Hope Fellowship), Mark entered full-time ministry in 2005. Active in missions and outreach, Mark leads missional teams to China for East-West cultural exchanges at Chinese Universities. As part of compassion and rehabilitation efforts following the January 2010 Haiti earthquake, he also leads teams to Port au Prince. He earned a Master of Science in Engineering from Clarkson University and a Master of Divinity from Multnomah Biblical Seminary of Multnomah University. Mark and his wife Sue live in Southwest Portland with their children.

Ronn Elzinga

Ronn Elzinga earned his Bachelor of Arts from Seattle Pacific University and his Juris Doctorate from Northwestern School of Law. Ronn also has a Master’s Degree and has taught at the high school and college level. Ronn is a member of the Oregon State Bar, the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He is a member of the Multnomah Bar Association and the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association. Ronn grew up in California, but now lives Portland, Oregon where he practices law, loves his family and his friends, and tries to be good.

Steve Baker

Steve Baker is a family physician who founded New Heights Clinic in 1996. New Heights Clinic is a church-based clinic for people with no health insurance that teaches physicians-, and nurses-in-training how to share Christ’s love through health care. Steve takes med students with him on regular trips to the remote areas of Papua, Indonesia, where since 1999 he has been working with Indonesian physician Dr Julius Surjadi and the tribal church to set up a community health program. Steve also works as a faculty with a UW-affiliated clinic in town teaching family medicine residents. Steve lives with his wife, son & daughter in a home community in Vancouver, WA.

Weston Ruter

Weston Ruter grew up in the Pacific Northwest and calls it his home, but he basically lives online. He serves on the Advisory Council as an advisor for Web-related things, and heads up development and maintenance of the New Wine website; he’s been heavily involved in web development for the past 10 years. He is interested in using Internet technologies to facilitate the interchange of scriptural data, and so I founded the Open Scriptures project for like-minded people to collaborate; he is excited for how linkages between scriptural data from different faith communities can result in bridges of mutual understanding and respect. Weston and his beautiful wife have been married since 2008 and now have a little boy. He loves public transit, urban cycling, and car-free living in general. Most significantly, he loves the Trinitarian God and is so attracted to Jesus for how he demonstrated God’s love for us.

Braxton Alsop

When Braxton graduated from Texas A&M and began looking at seminaries, his only stipulation was that it not be in Texas. After a short internet search and with a little blind luck, he ended up in the M.Div. Theological Studies program at Multnomah Biblical Seminary in the wonderful town of Portland, OR. It definitely could have been worse.

Braxton enjoys surfing the cold but beautiful waves that pummel the Oregon coast, reading and writing theology, and listening to good music. As a New Wine intern, he blogs on the New Wine website and arguably has the most lustrous beard in New Wine despite Dr. Metzger’s recent efforts.

Brian Wilson

Christopher Laird

Chris is married to a most amazing woman, Maylannee. They have raised three children together. Their youngest daughter, Lauren, is the last one in their home. Chris pastored a church in Southern California for about five years before moving to the Northwest and attending Multnomah. He is currently enrolled in the MABS program. Ultimately, he would like to teach theology in a college/seminary environment. The New Wine intern program has been a great place for building relationships and expanding his theological vision, specifically, a theology of cultural engagement.

Gretchen Cain

Gretchen grew up in the Napa Valley, living there with her sister, brother and parents until she graduated high school. After that she moved to Madrid, Spain where she attended St. Louis University, eventually getting her B.A. in Spanish with a minor in Religious Studies. Gretchen became a Christian in Spain and immediately felt called to seminary. She enrolled in Multnomah in the Fall of 2009 and is currently pursuing a Masters of Divinity degree with the intention to teach. She enjoys travel, hiking, running, tennis and foreign languages as well as reading and crafts. She is passionate about New Wine’s paradigm of cultural engagement and excited to see it strengthened, refined and spread as the Institute grows, God willing.

Jeremy Nakasone

My name is Jeremy, and by some strange design I have become who I am. Having recently completed a double bachelors in Biblical Studies and Youth Ministry at Multnomah Bible College I am currently pursuing a M.A. in Pastoral Studies with an emphasis in counseling. I originally hale from Hilo, Hawaii and have lived there my entire life. I enjoy writing and would love to someday be an author. I also love to play music and would love to be able to be in a band some day, but that is only a dream! Other hobbies also include writing poetry, going to concerts, good movies (some of the them “chick flicks”), and spending time with great friends!

My work with New Wine, New Wineskins is driven by a deep desire to offer hope to the world and invite others to embrace the Kingdom of God. I believe God is inviting all of us to be a part of His story of reconciliation and redemption of this broken world. Until the day of His return I will continue to live out my calling to LOVE the world, it’s culture, and it’s people.

Joe Enlet

Nate Borsheim

Paul Utzman

Paul started studying intercultural theology at Multnomah Biblical Seminary in January 2009. Despite being born at a gas station in Denver, raised in the coal-mining country of Wyoming and educated in pastoral ministry in Oklahoma, he has found my transition to Portland fairly normal. New Wine, New Wineskins has provided Paul a theological flesh on what was once the bare bones of my cultural engagement.

Philip Berlin

Philip Berlin, a native of Northeast Portland, is married to Shonna and has two daughters: 9-year-old Genesis and 4-year-old Micah. Phil is a member of Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in North Portland, where he serves as a young adult life group leader, as well as coordinator of the Juniors for Christ program in Children’s Ministry. Academically, he has completed his Bachelor of Arts degree at Multnomah Bible College, majoring in Pastoral Ministries with a minor in Hebrew. He is currently pursuing a Master of Divinity degree at Multnomah Biblical Seminary.

Ronaldo Sison

MABUHAY! Isang maalab na pagbati!

In Filipino, the former means “Live!”, and, the latter, “a very fiery/fervent greeting!”

I am Ronaldo A. Sison, and originally hailing from the Pearl of the Orient Seas, the Philippines, I come as a former Marxist-Maoist-Leninist hard core ideologue. Sort of a radical activist who have no qualms annihilating a generation of petty bourgoeisie to promote the proletariat and the working class. Transformed and still being transformed by the consuming love of the Triune God, I am pursuing Master of Divinity, not that i master the divine but that the Divine should master me. I am passionate about one-on-one personal, intentional and lifestyle discipleship and i love teaching, hopefully a theology that puts the church upside down, inside out but right side up. Having lived in multicultural Canada for the last 12 years with my family, I have been challenged and i am looking forward to being involved in teaching and mentoring young Southeast Asian men who will teach others also.

I love nature, poetry and literature, classical music and writing prose, but only as expressions and offerings of praise to the Lord of all who said, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul? And what must a man give in exchange for his soul?” SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI!

S. Brandon Smith

Brandon was born and raised in Ardmore, Oklahoma. His father, a firefighter, and mother, a political activist, taught him to stop, drop, and roll through life, as well as to question and agitate the man, the system, and most other authorities.

After High School, this philosophy lead him to take up living in Kansas City where he attempted to start a counter-consumer revolution. With only a few minor successes during his two year campaign, he declared that the revolution was a failure.

Disappointed, he moved to Portland, Oregon. He states that his sole reason was, “It’s a city full of twenty-somethings who have no idea what they’re doing. I’ll fit right in.”

Two years of moping around Portland, he decided to attend Multnomah University. Currently, he is a Junior.

Sam Titus

Wei-Chun (Ethan) Huang