Our Team
Senior Fellow
Alana Ackerson
D.Min., San Francisco Theological Seminary
M.A., Graduate Theological Union
B.A., Stanford University
Alana is a Senior Fellow for Newbigin House with a focus on spiritual formation. In this role she provides pastoral support for fellows and cohort leaders in the Newbigin Fellowship. An alumna of the Newbigin Fellows Program, she earned a Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction from San Francisco Theological Seminary, where she is currently a doctoral candidate.
Most recently, Alana served as CEO of The Thiel Foundation, where she led the organization’s efforts to support the next-generation of entrepreneurs and to promote radical scientific and technological innovations. She was responsible for setting strategic priorities; overseeing grant-making; operating internal programs focused on education and technological innovation; facilitating relationships with key partners; and developing more effective approaches to venture philanthropy.
Alana is currently Managing Partner and President of Signum Investments. Previously, she served as President and Partner of Cabezon Investment Group, VP of Social Engagement for SoFi, and Director of Clarium Capital. Alana is a member of the Board of Governors for Opportunity International, sits on the Board for the Association of Women in Alternative Investing and serves on the Leadership Council for the Classy Awards.
Director of Academic Programs
Peter Choi
Ph.D., University of Notre Dame
M.Div., Calvin Theological Seminary
B.A., Pomona College
Peter Choi is Director of Academic Programs at Newbigin House of Studies and a pastor at City Church San Francisco. He has taught history of Christianity courses at Calvin Theological Seminary and the University of Notre Dame. Prior to that, he served for seven years as a campus minister and church planter in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
A historian of eighteenth century North America, Peter’s areas of specialization include transatlantic revival religion, early evangelicalism, and world Christianity. His research has been funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Huntington Library, and the Library Company of Philadelphia.
Selected Publications
• George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2018).
• “The City’s Grace,” in Urban Ministry Reconsidered: Contexts and Considerations (Westminster John Knox Press, 2018).
• “Whitefield, Georgia, and the Quest for Bethesda College,” in George Whitefield: Life, Context, and Legacy (Oxford University Press, 2016).
• “Revival Preacher, Pop Idol, and Revolutionary, Too?” Books & Culture 21.1 (January/February 2014): 17.
Senior Fellow
Chuck DeGroat
Chuck is professor of pastoral care and counseling at Western Theological Seminary (Holland, MI). He is committed to spiritual and emotional formation for the sake of mission. His experience is represented in a fluid combination of pastoral ministry and seminary training for 20 years. He has served several church plants as a teaching pastor and has started two church-based clinical counseling centers.
His academic specialization is in the intersection of psychology and the Bible, represented best in his book Leaving Egypt: Finding God in the Wilderness Places (Square Inch) – a narrative biblical paradigm for understanding counseling, care, mission, and formation. His next book, The Toughest People to Love (Eerdmans), focuses on caring for the most difficult people leaders encounter. His third book, Wholeheartedness (Eerdmans), was released in February 2016. He is an ordained minister in the Reformed Church in America, a member of City Classis (the RCA’s urban, missional classis), and he holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology.
Director of Operations
Nic Hughes
Nic is director of operations at Newbigin House. He lives in Portland, OR.
Teaching Fellow
Mihee Kim-Kort
Mihee Kim-Kort is an ordained Presbyterian (PCUSA) minister with degrees in divinity and theology from Princeton Theological Seminary and English Literature and Religious Studies from the University of Colorado in beautiful Boulder. She is a PhD student in Religious Studies at Indiana University interested in American religious history, Asian American literature, Black feminism, queer theory and political theologies.
Currently, she juggles various jobs including being a wife to another Presbyterian minister, raising three children, itinerant preaching and speaking, writing, hanging out with young people, struggling with being an Enneagram 7, rabble-rousing in Bloomington, and liking too many posts on Facebook and admiring people on Twitter and Instagram. Born in Seoul, Korea, she and her parents immigrated here shortly after her birth. Settling in Colorado, she was baptized in a Methodist church before her family joined the local Korean Presbyterian (PCUSA) church. It was here that she learned the faith from an African American, who was a respected Elder and teacher in the church, and from a little old lady that was the wife of the former pastor of the white Presbyterian congregation that shared the building with the church.
She loves all things Church, and believes in what God is doing in and through it despite the huge failings and egos that plague the all-too-human institution. But, because it was born out of the margins where God’s spirit has always moved and been present she is doing everything she can to see it and help others to feel it, too.
Director, Newbigin Fellowship
Daniel Kirk
Ph.D., Duke University
Daniel is director of the Newbigin Fellows program. He is a New Testament scholar whose work takes place at the intersection of history, biblical interpretation, and real life.
Daniel’s most recent book, A Man Attested by God: The Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, was awarded “Best Book Related to the New Testament” in the 2017 Biblical Archaeology Society book awards.
His other works include Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? and before that, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God.
Senior Fellow
Liz Lin
Ph.D., Fuller Theological Seminary
B.A., University of Michigan
Liz is a Senior Fellow at Newbigin House of Studies and a writer and speaker on the topics of race and culture. She has a PhD in clinical psychology, as well as master’s degrees in psychology and theology, from Fuller Theological Seminary. Previously, she taught in Fuller’s Graduate School of Psychology and worked in high school ministry. She is also the co-founder of Progressive Asian American Christians, an online community of 5,000 people with local meetups in 17 cities, a podcast, an annual conference, and a 9-month fellowship program.
Teaching Fellow
Julie Rodgers
Julie is a Teaching Fellow at Newbigin House of Studies and a writer and speaker on faith and sexuality. She has a Masters in English from the University of Dallas and she’s written about topics related to LGBTQ Christians in The New York Times and Washington Post, among other publications. Previously, Julie served in the Chaplain’s Office at Wheaton College and worked in high school ministry in West Dallas. She loves long runs, heartbreaking books, and sharing life with her wife, Amanda, in Washington, DC.
Senior Fellow
Shirin Shafaie
Ph.D., SOAS, University of London
Dr Shirin Shafaie studied Philosophy (BA) and Philosophy of Art (MA) in Iran, and Middle East Politics (MSc), and Film and TV (MA) in the UK. She completed her doctoral research on ‘Contemporary Iranian War Narratives: A Dialectical Discourse Analysis’ at SOAS, University of London, where she has taught Middle East Politics to post-graduate students. She is a research fellow at the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies (CMCS) in Oxford where she has worked as a member of the research group on ‘Reading the Bible in the Context of Islam’ and is currently writing a monograph on ‘Reading Gen. 37- 50 in conversation with Shia Islam’ focusing on topics such as Genealogy, Nation-Building, Dream and Interpretation, Seduction, Imprisonment, Leadership, amongst others. Shirin is also the founder and director of Visual Academics Ltd., an independent film production and training organisation that helps academics to use video as part of their research to increase impact and improve public engagement.
Executive Director
Scot Sherman
Ph.D., University of Wales
Th.M., Princeton Theological Seminary
M.Div., Westminster Theological Seminary
Scot Sherman is the Executive Director of the Newbigin House of Studies, a center for graduate theological education and spiritual formation based in San Francisco. He oversees the Newbigin Fellowship, a nine-month intensive training program that seeks to provide a framework for wise integration of faith, work, and life, and hosts the speaker series Conversations For the Common Good.
Scot’s doctoral dissertation focused on the early ecumenical influence of the British missionary-theologian Lesslie Newbigin, a pioneer in thinking through the challenges facing churches in the contemporary West. He is currently working on his first book, an exploration of the ideas of the French philosopher and social theorist René Girard.
Scot lives with his wife, Catherine, and they have four sons. He loves opera, detective fiction, playing the piano, and goes wine tasting as often as possible.
Senior Fellow
Paul Weston
Ph.D., Kings College London
Paul teaches mission studies at Ridley Hall, Cambridge and in the Cambridge Federation, and is the Director of the Newbigin Centre for Gospel and Western Culture in Cambridge, England.
As a teacher he aims to excite students with the breath-taking wonder of God’s good news and to explore how this can be understood and communicated in today’s world. Along the way he looks to uncover the unexamined assumptions of our contemporary (increasingly secularised) culture in the West, exploring how they came to be, and how they might be addressed in the light of the good news. Over the years Paul has taught a number of courses in this area (both here and abroad), and he enjoys the way in which it brings together a number of disciplines, including theology, history, philosophy, sociology and cultural studies.
As Director of the Newbigin Centre for Gospel and Western Culture, Paul oversees research students working for Masters and Doctoral degrees in association with the Centre, and in partnership with the Newbigin House of Studies in San Francisco, hosts the annual ‘Lesslie Newbigin Summer Institute’ at Trinity Hall Cambridge, with attendees from the States, Europe, and Asia.
About Us
Newbigin House of Studies, named for missionary-theologian Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), seeks the good of the city by developing leaders through theological education.
1 Emerging from City Church San Francisco and partnering with churches and institutions across the U.S. and the U.K., our faculty of pastor-scholars have rich experience in church planting and revitalization, social justice ministry, vocational discipleship, counseling and pastoral care. We provide resources for spiritual growth through our Fellows program for lay people and through conferences and special events. We offer graduate level courses that apply toward advanced standing with credit in Master of Arts (M.A.) and Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree programs.
The great missionary, pastor and theologian Lesslie Newbigin taught that “the church is mission.” It “exists by mission as a flame exists by burning.” The contemporary church is in desperate need of leaders who are capable of planting new churches or revitalizing churches in decline. According to Newbigin, spiritual renewal will only happen when “local congregations renounce an introverted concern for their own life, and recognize that they exist for the sake of those who are not members, as sign, instrument and foretaste of God’s redeeming grace for the whole life of society.” Newbigin House seeks to redevelop a vision for mission within our churches by training and mentoring a new generation of missional leaders, in partnership with the church and the seminary.
[1] Jeremiah 29:7; Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth.
Who Was Lesslie Newbigin?
Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998) was a monumental figure in the twentieth century worldwide church, an internationally esteemed missionary, theologian, ecumenical leader, and pioneer in thinking through the missionary challenge facing churches in the contemporary West. Born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, he was educated at Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he was led to Christian faith through the work of the Student Christian Movement (SCM). He served for two years as SCM secretary in Glasgow, where he worked alongside the person who would become his wife, Helen Henderson. After completing his theological studies at Westminster College, Cambridge, he was ordained in 1936 by the Church of Scotland, and he and Helen were commissioned by the General Assembly for mission work in India. He served as an evangelist in Kanchipuram (1936-1946), as an architect and advocate for the newly united Church of South India (CSI), and as the first CSI Bishop of Madurai (1947-1959). Alongside luminaries such as Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebuhr and Michael Ramsey, he played a pioneering role in organizing the first assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 1948. He became General Secretary of the International Missionary Council in 1959, moving to London to guide its integration into the WCC in 1961. Relocating to Geneva, he served the WCC as Associate General Secretary with responsibility for the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism. In 1965 he returned to India to serve as bishop of Madras (Chennai) until 1974. Upon retirement, after nearly forty years in India, he and Helen returned to England with only two suitcases and a backpack, riding buses most of the way, hitchhiking when necessary. In “retirement” he taught missiology and ecumenism at the Selly Oak Colleges in Birmingham (1974-1979), was elected moderator of the United Reformed Church (1978-1979), and at age seventy-one became the pastor of the Winson Green United Reformed Church, an inner-city congregation in Birmingham (1980-1989). During the 1980s he became involved in efforts to help churches come to terms with the missionary challenges posed by secular culture, which led to some of his most influential writings. The Newbigins moved to London in 1992 to be near their children. Lesslie Newbigin died in 1998 following a brief illness. He was eighty-eight years old.
Newbigin published 17 books and over 50 articles before his retirement in 1974. He would go on to write another 15 books and scores of articles, book reviews and Bible studies. His most significant work on Christian unity was
The Household of God (1953). Some of his other notable books explore the challenges facing the churches in the West, such as
Honest Religion for Secular Man (1966),
The Open Secret (1978, revised in 1995),
The Other Side of 1984 (1983),
Foolishness to the Greeks (1986),
The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1989), and
Proper Confidence (1995). Many of his writings and sermons are available at
Newbigin Resources, a partnership between Newbigin House of Studies and the Newbigin Centre in Cambridge, UK. The site includes essays, articles, books, and audio recordings.
