Last July 2007 Summit Ministries was approached by the Oxford University Studies Abroad Program (OSAP) to send Summit-type students (Christian, Evangelical, and Conservative) to Oxford University in Oxford, England (one of the oldest universities in the world) for a semester or two.  Always looking for ways to help our Summit graduates become more effective leaders and witnesses for Christ, we are accepting this challenge.  Although the Summit-Oxford program doesn't officially begin until September 2008, we already have one student there leading the way for others to follow.  In fact, his father just wrote us a note and said, "I appreciate your vision of giving Summit students the opportunity to study at Oxford.  It certainly will make an impact in Brian's life as well as future students who are given the opportunity."  This father went on to say, "So far my wife Barb and I have sent the first four of our nine children through your summer two-week program. The impact your program has made in their lives has been significant in helping and influencing their decisions on how to use their college majors and their vocations to make a difference to a lost world searching for truth.   Your program helps to not only shape their understanding of worldviews, but to think strategically (long term) on how their lives can impact the world for Christ.  We have incorporated some of your educational materials into our home school curriculum and plan to send our remaining five other children through Summit when their time comes." 
 
We are asking those who are reading this special  bulletin via Brannon Howse's e-mailing to help us locate the right students for this adventure in higher education.  Prospective students will be asked to have two years of college credits although OSAP has agreed to seriously consider high school home schoolers who have taken at least two years of college courses while still in high school.  This is a first from what I have been told.  Obviously grades have to be good with at least a 3.4 GPA.  And students should have attended one of Summit Ministries' two-week programs (ck. Summit.org for details on these programs), and if possible Summit's 3-month program entitled Summit Semester (or even a full year course of study at Impact 360).
 
It is no secret that at the present time Oxford's voice to the world has been the atheist Richard Dawkins who has recently written The God Delusion.  What a privilege it will be to have some of our Christian evangelical students setting forth a different clarion call on his own campus,  including Theism, Creation, Intelligent Design, and Jesus Christ.  And to assist our Summit students we will have at Oxford a Summit prof (freshly minted with his PhD from Durham U. in the UK) to be scholar-in-residence.  
 
Parents who feel their sons or daughters or even grandsons and granddaughters might qualify for his opportunity should write Summit Ministries, P. O. Box 207, Manitou Springs, CO 80829 or call (719) 685-9103 and request an application.  At the present time we can only accept 10 to 12 students per semester.
 
If anyone reading this has access to any Foundation interested in Christian young people and higher education please let Summit Ministries know.  We will be raising scholarship help for those chosen to attend. 
 
David A. Noebel, President
Summit Ministries