Chris Webb

Chris Webb is a Benedictine Anglican priest, author, speaker and teacher dedicated to helping people experience a richer walk with God by growing in prayer and the spiritual life. 

Chris works as Deputy Warden of Launde Abbey and Diocesan Spirituality Adviser to the Diocese of Leicester. He has ministered in a wide variety of contexts: as a former president of Renovaré in the USA, as parish priest in Welsh farming communities and steel-working towns, and even in a church for the homeless.

While his more than twenty years of ministry have not yet not resulted in the founding of any globally significant megachurches, they have offered such memorable work as blessing a fleet of a hundred tractors, leading fourteen church services in a single day, and teaching a Baptist church to sing Latin Gregorian chant.

Chris has degrees in Planetary and Space Physics from the University of Wales, and in Theology from Trinity College, Bristol. He is the author of two books: The Fire of the Word (2011) and God-Soaked Life (2017).

Chris and his wife Sally live in the heart of rural Leicestershire; they have four children and, usually, a home full of more visitors than rooms. In his spare time he enjoys long-distance running, early music, ice cream, and reading Dante.

Chris Webb will be leading our 2017-2018 Renovaré Book Club through his brand new book, The God-Soaked Life.

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Marti Ensign

Marti Ensign is a long-time member of the Renovaré family—formerly serving on the board of directors, and currently serving on the Ministry Team. Over her long, full life in ministry, Marti has served in the past as Director of Women in Medicine and Dentistry for the Christian Medical/Dental Society, and is currently on the board of directors for Mission Aviation Fellowship, the board of governors for Friends in the West (sponsor of the African Children’s Choir), and a hostess for international visitors to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.

Few things are more delightful than hearing Marti share stories of her time as a medical missionary in Central Africa (Rwanda and Burundi). We invite you to enjoy her contribution to the oral tradition with An Evening with Madamo.

We’re grateful to be able to bring her stories to our 2017-18 Renovaré Book Club members this season as Marti leads us through Corrie ten Boom’s masterwork, The Hiding Place. Marti and Corrie were close friends in the last decades of Corrie’s life. Marti shares a bit of how their friendship developed: 

I first met Corrie TenBoom during our first term in Rwanda at a missionary conference for all denominations
and nationalities. She was the speaker, and since we had the largest and most comfortable cabin, she came
each day for tea. Everyone wanted to be around her all the time, sit next to her at meals get her anything she wanted.

Later the doctor told her that she must stop traveling all the time into different time zones and having strange food or she would die and not have a long ministry. She established a Missionary Guest house near Kampala and we were often there with her as well as in ministry to prisons and to schools in Burundi. We were at home in Seattle in the late 1970’s when she came to retire and stay in the USA. 

I was her link to that time in Africa that she loved so much. I was often with her in her home in Southern California and in meetings with her around the west. After she had a stroke and had aphasia it was my joy to go take care of her on different occasions when her regular caretakers needed a break.

Marti’s mission statement is simple, but profound: To share Christ and his message with humor and humanity in order to bring persons into a vital and growing faith in Jesus Christ as Savior. 

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Robert Moore-Jumonville

Robert Moore-Jumonville serves Spring Arbor University as Professor of Christian Spirituality in the Department of Theology.

He received his Bachelor of Arts in Religion and History from Seattle Pacific University, his Masters of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, and earned his Ph.D. in the History of Christianity from The University of Iowa. An elder in the United Methodist Church, he has served for twenty years as senior pastor for three churches (in Illinois, Indiana, and now Michigan).  A member of West Michigan Conference since 2008, he currently pastors Pope United Methodist Church.

He has taught C.S. Lewis & Friends at the undergraduate and graduate levels and frequently delivers papers on Lewis at national conferences.

His publications include, Hermeneutics of Historical Distance: Mapping the Terrain of American Biblical Criticism, 1880-1914 (Rowan & Littlefield 2003), Advent & Christmas Wisdom from G. K. Chesterton, and Lent and Easter Wisdom from G. K. Chesterton, both with Thom Satterlee (Liguori 2007), and Jogging with G. K. Chesterton (Winged-Lion Press 2014).  

Dr. Moore-Jumonville is leading the 2017-18 Renovaré Book Club through C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters.

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Chris Hall

Christopher A. Hall (PhD, Drew University) is the director of Renovaré Institute of Christian Spiritual Formation. He is associate editor of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, and his books include Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers, Learning Theology with the Church Fathers, and Worshiping with the Church Fathers. His latest book, Living Wisely with the Church Fathers will be released in October 2017.

Hall previously served at Eastern University for over twenty years in several roles, including chancellor, provost, dean of Palmer Seminary, dean of the Templeton Honors College, distinguished professor of theology, and director of academic spiritual formation. He and his wife, Debbie, live in Pennsylvania and have three grown children.

Chris Hall will be leading the 2017-18 Renovaré Book Club through his latest book, Living Wisely with the Church Fathers.

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