Editor's Note: This address was given by Regent College Board of Governors member Jenna Fabiano as part of the College's Presidential Installation ceremony held in October 2025. The purpose of the address was to fully and formally convey the responsibilities of the role of President to Dr. Paul Spilsbury, which Jenna did with verve and spiritual clarity. Our many thanks to Jenna for allowing us to share the text of her address here.

Paul. Can I call you Paul?

Mr. President. Old Testament scholar Christopher Wright once wrote, “It is not so much the case that God has a mission for his church in the world, as that God has a church for his mission in the world.” In other words, God’s church doesn’t have a mission; God’s mission has a church.

It is our greatest temptation to get this wrong. To feel like we need to prove that we are doing great things, things that make us look relevant, significant, in control.

We are regularly bombarded by pressures to live into the merits of our own institutions. And God’s people need to be reminded, now more than ever, that it is not the church who has a mission. It is not we who do God’s work for Him.

Rather, we are the instrument by which he does his work. We as the church are the prism that his light shines through and disperses into a vast array of colour and diversity. We are the people through whom God needs to be the One who is most alive and active.

The challenging and yet elected task that Regent has today is to be a signpost of this reality. And you, as Regent’s President, have been uniquely called for such a time as this to steward this reality.

Yes, as President you have many other tasks—in administration, in relationship building, in fundraising, in sitting on likely far too many committees, and most importantly, listening to every opinion that can fit under the green roof about who Regent should be.

Yes, you will be challenged to make your role about what others want you to be. You will be challenged by voices wanting you to remain true to what Regent is, and others who want to see you bring change. You will be challenged to think that it’s up to you to be grounded yet innovative, humble yet successful, collaborative yet assertive.

You will be challenged to constantly speak of Regent in ways that highlight its strong legacy. Of being a place where arts and marketplace theology are embraced; of having strong relationship with partners all around the globe; of offering a diversity of degrees; of being an interdenominational school of theology rather than a traditional seminary; of sending out graduates who make a significant difference in their communities because of their time at Regent.

And yes, the Lord leads people to Regent because Regent indeed has something unique and essential to offer within the scope of God’s mission. Solid teaching, yes. Spiritual formation, yes. World class, faculty, obviously. An expensive Vancouver experience that will give you a chance to test God’s provision, yes.

But it is not your task to live in the uniqueness of who Regent is.

The apostle Paul wrote this in Colossians 2: “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”

Continue to live your life in him, says Paul. Not in the institution. Not in the school’s strong and historical identity. In him.

As an alumna of Regent, I can confidently say that Regent didn’t train me to be successful, make a name for myself, and change the world. Regent taught me to embody Christ—and that if Christ is Lord of everything, then my whole being must be captivated, secured, and inspired by that Lordship.

The world simply does not need more Christians who are trying to do better. What is needed are Christians who embody their baptismal identity and allow Jesus to live in them.

What is needed is for Regent to continue discipling its students in such a way that Christ’s Lordship isn’t just a theological concept but an embodied reality.

Dear President, you need to make sure this happens. Because the quintessential Regent student is someone who is searching. They come to Regent like the Greeks in John 12 who approach Philip and say, “Sir, we want to see Jesus.”

My four and a half years at Regent were arguably the most formative years of my life. Not because of any one particular class or faculty member, but because it was where I needed Jesus to show up.

And I was looking for him everywhere—in chapels, in lectures, in my readings, in conversations with faculty, staff, and other students. In the hazelnut of Julian of Norwich. In the wordplay of Hebrew syntax. In the solitude of a library cubicle. In the sacredness of sharing soup together.

Our students are coming to Regent with that same hope. To dig their roots deeper than they’ve ever been dug before. To encounter a sacred Bethel where every syllabus and prayer nook whispers his name.

To encounter God and like Jacob say, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”

Regent was the place where I found Jesus in ways that I’d never found him before, where the Word truly became flesh for me. That is the power that rests in a place like Regent College, which cannot be manufactured. It can only be stewarded.

You now have the very sacred task of keeping the main thing the main thing. And not for a moment can Regent ever afford to lose it.

Because the main thing—the Word made flesh, the Tree of Life, the Living Water, the Light of the new creation, the Lamb on the throne, the answer to the world’s despair—he, and only he, is the One in whom we must live.

It is from you that the community of Regent must regularly hear the words, “Yet not I but through Christ in me.”

And so, dear President, I finish this charge with a highly adapted version of the prayer of St. Francis:

Jesus, make Paul an instrument of your work.
When he is challenged, may his roots rest in you.
When he is weary, may his hope rise in you.
When he wants to create, may his brush paint in you.
When his soul is downcast, may his face lift in you.

Jesus, grant that Paul might not so much seek
to lead for you as to lead in you,
to speak for you as to speak in you,
to pray to you as to pray in you.

For it is in you that he will guide wisely,
it is in you that he will empower,
it is in you that he will see Regent truly come alive.

Amen.