November 9-11, 2026
At Asbury, we seek to cultivate a culturally-responsible Christian community that practices hospitality, mutuality, redemptive social action, and grace-filled reconciliation. Each year the Embrace conference emphasizes one of these four pillars. These pillars are central to our desire to be a community of students, faculty and staff that experience belonging, becoming and being set-apart as God’s Imago Dei.
Our theme this year will emphasize mutuality, Mutuality and the Kingdom of God, to be more precise, using scripture reference, Psalm 8:1-9. In this passage, we find an interesting glimpse of biblical mutuality in the Old Testament, the people of God practiced togetherness and mutuality in their daily practices. There is so much we can learn from God’s people in how we are to welcome, love each other with respect, humility, awareness and being attentive to the needs of others!
The framework for the Embrace Conference is found in Psalm 8:1-9, where God reminds us through David of his vision for humanity and the practices and attitudes he intended for his people. The first believers and those redeemed by Christ are called to the ministry of reconciliation. As Christ’s ambassadors, we are invited to embody God’s love and extend reconciliation to each other and to the world.
Rev. Juan Gonzalez, M.A.Coordinator for Intercultural Life859-858-3511 ext 2508 InterculturalLife@asbury.edu
Office of Intercultural LifeOffice of Student Life EC Student Intercultural Programs T.W. Lewis Speaker Series
We all yearn for a world that is different, but how do we get there? The North African theologian Augustine of Hippo once used a helpful description about humanity in his writings: we are citizens both in the “City of God” while also being in the “City of Man”. In other words, there is a “Kingdom of God” that we can live into which offers a radical and compelling contrast to the “kingdoms” of this world. This series of talks will delve into this reality, in hopes of offering a fresh look at the concept of mutuality, along with three mindful Biblical invitations relating to our public and private lives today.
The conference defines itself through hospitality, mutuality, redemptive social action and grace-filled reconciliation. We hope it continues to be an opportunity for students, faculty and staff to come together and learn from scholars and practitioners in the field." Rev. Dr. Esther Jadhav
This year’s Embrace Conference will welcome a featured speaker who brings rich insight and experience to our theme of Biblical Mutuality. Through his teaching and stories, he will invite us to consider how Christ calls us to welcome and relate to others with humility, grace, and love.
Dr. Delvin Pikes came to know Jesus in a transformative way as a sophomore student-athlete at Middle Tennessee State University and saw the power of the gospel transform his heart and many on his campus. He felt the calling from God to lay down his degree and step into full-time ministry work the summer before his senior season, when he also had the honor of being chosen by his coaches to serve as a co-chaplain for his team his final season. Since graduating he has now ministered on dozens of college campuses to thousands of students, even travelling to campuses outside the U.S. over the past two decades. After serving churches as a campus minister and fulfilling a variety of pastoral duties, he began his own nonprofit One Foot on Campus focused on coaching and consulting churches, organizations, and individuals to reach the strategic mission field of young people around them in a sustainable way.
Delvin is husband to his lovely Texan bride Ginessa and they reside in Nashville with their tribe of eight children. He has a Bachelor’s of Science in General Science from Middle Tennessee State University, a Master’s of Arts in Global Leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary, and a Doctorate of Ministry with an emphasis in Preaching and Leading from Asbury Theological Seminary. His researched doctoral dissertation titled Every Campus: Best Practices for Starting New Campus Ministries was published in 2020.
“Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory in the heavens. 2 Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. 3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
5 You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. 6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: 7 all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, 8 the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.
9 Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Psalm 8:1-9
“Mutuality can be defined as a way of thinking and living that benefits both individuals, parties, or a community. True biblical mutuality, from God’s perspective, is a way of thinking and living expected and required by God from the humanity he created in his image conformed to his likeness (Gen. 1:26, 27). It is founded in God’s nature and his redemptive love through Jesus Christ and shaped by the guidance of his Holy Spirit and it should be revealed and shared with the world through the practices and interactions of God’s people.”