Meet GU's new chaplain Keli Pennington
Published: October 11, 2022
Greenville University is pleased to name GU alum Keli (Totton ’16) Pennington as its new chaplain. This summer, she answered a few questions to help the GU community get to know her and her new role.
What’s your GU story?
Keli: I was introduced to Greenville University because we had Greenville grads at church, (in Peoria, Illinois). Our worship leaders and youth pastors all had fabulous Greenville experiences. GU ended up being the last place I visited, and it just clicked and felt like home immediately.
As a student, I was in the choir and part of residence life, so those were the two biggest pieces of my time here as a student. I graduated in 2016, double majoring in theology and communication. After graduating, I worked in the admissions office for about two and a half years.
After my time in admissions, my husband (Willem ’17) and I moved to Durham, North Carolina, so I could work on my master of divinity at Duke Divinity School. I worked at a United Methodist Church and I started teaching online for GU. I was super excited about both jobs, my husband had a great job, and we loved it in Durham. [One day], my husband said, “Hey, I got a call from Greenville about a job. I think I’m going to apply, and we’ll see.” Two and a half weeks from that day, I was moving back into Burritt Hall! Looking back now, it was totally God’s hand at work to unexpectedly bring us back to GU last summer with Willem working in assessment and me working in Burritt.
What was your path to becoming GU’s chaplain?
Keli: As we started into our roles here at the University, God was starting to plant seeds for me to be able to step into this role as chaplain. I started the ordination process to become an elder in the Free Methodist Church in 2016. (Keli was ordained in March 2022). I always saw myself working within a more traditional church setting, but this year, it did become much clearer that the people group the Lord has called me to serve in this next season is college students. I loved every second of the work I was doing in Burritt, especially those times when I was able to do more ministry-related things. Throughout my time in Burritt, everything had the opportunity to be a pastoral encounter, but to be able to think more broadly and intentionally about spiritual formation was exciting. I could always sense that excitement welling up within me, so this role becomes a great fit where I’m able to do a lot of the more relational elements I was able to do in residence life while also being able to think more broadly about spiritual development here on campus.
Last fall, Ross Baker (dean of students) and I began discussing what spiritual formation at GU might look like. There were a lot of conversations between October and April of what the needs are on campus—especially in the wake of former chaplain Lori Gaffner’s death—discussing how we can continue her work. I also think students really fed into this process throughout the course of the year too, in terms of voicing their needs to Ross and administration about how they would like to see spiritual development addressed on campus.
Over 50% of GU students do not identify as “Christian.” How does that factor into spiritual formation?
Keli: Even 10 years ago when I showed up at GU, the tacit assumption would have been that all students are at least familiar with Christianity, and most would identify as Christians. I think the task of spiritual formation is the opportunity to reintroduce Christianity in a compelling way because I think a lot of people, especially within Gen Z—it’s not that they’ve never heard anything about Christianity—but what they have heard is not appealing. So, we’ll be looking at how we can reintroduce or recast what God has called Christians to be, what God has called the church to be in a way that resonates with Gen Z.
What are some things already in place or started that you’re looking forward to building on?
Keli: One of the things Lori had been working on, especially these last couple years, was small groups. I think everybody post-pandemic is looking to reconnect with folks, and one of the things I noticed working in the residence hall was that students were looking for smaller group connections. They felt they had opportunities to do fun things with others, but that more meaningful small group connection seemed to be something students were really looking for. I think being able to offer that and specifically have conversations about faith and spirituality is a great way to be able to do that. Thinking through how we can do small group more intentionally is something that we’ll be picking up where Lori has left off because I think that can be an incredibly impactful part of the student experience.
Could you share some memories of Lori Gaffner?
Keli: I really didn’t know Lori much as a student. Of course, I knew who she was, but because I was a theology student and not a ministry student, I didn’t have any classes with her. This last year though, I feel like she really has been a teacher for me. She taught THEO 310, which is the transfer section of Christian Thought and Life. I taught that last fall and I was given all her old materials to look through, so it was really cool to go back through and watch some of the videos she had recorded in her lectures. It was just so obvious—her love for the Lord and for students—and how she integrated those together to be able to share this compelling story of Jesus with students. So, it’s funny how Lori wasn’t my teacher as a Greenville student, but really has been this last year, which has been a gift.
What do you see as your priorities for your chaplaincy?
Keli: This year, we’ll be thinking through how we can incorporate the Free Methodist Way—What does it mean to be a college student? What does it mean to be a Christian college student? What does it mean to be a student at GU, a Free Methodist institution? Unpacking those various layers will be a good element for students to understand what we’re trying to do more broadly here.
How do you see your role as chaplain as part of GU’s commitment to interconnection?
Keli: I think my work naturally lends itself to being interconnected. Because I worked in Residence Life last year, I am really excited about the possibilities to be able to work with the whole Community Life team. It makes sense, at a Christian university that, of course, spiritual formation is going to be in everything that we do, so I’m excited to be able to work with and to support all the things that people on campus are already doing to care for our students, spiritually.
How will students and the Greenville community benefit from the connections you already have with local churches and your time spent as a resident director last year?
Keli: I want more church leaders on our campus, and I hope to have more students on church campuses as well. I am hoping to connect more with pastors over the course of this next year, but I also want to recognize that we have awesome people in our alumni office who are doing church relations already so that might look more like supporting and tagging onto what they’re already doing. Even within the theology department, there are lots of connections there just from the places we send our ministry students to do internships so I think it’s a lot about tapping into the resources that people already have at the University and the work that they’re already doing that will be key.
Students who were seniors last year would have been the last class I helped with in admissions. There were a couple students I knew on campus last year, but by and large the student population was vastly different than what I would have known last time I was an employee at GU. This last year was great to not only get to know who is on campus but also what their needs are and how the University itself has changed in the last three years. It was a great opportunity to get up close and personal, and you can’t get much more personal than 1 am phone calls and being on campus 24/7 to reintroduce yourself to the community and really get to know the community again. Being able to get that close with students was key in order to have that kind of passion to serve ignited within my heart.
Do you have mental health connection and resources from your time as a residence director?
Keli: As a chaplain, I’m not a trained counselor, but I am able to offer a listening ear, prayer, encouragement, and connections to resources. Working in Community Life—as part of getting to know the University again—included getting to know what resources are available to students and being able to connect them to mental health services was super important as part of that.
The Community Life Department received mental health first-aid training the first week of August to help support students hands-on. Our residence life team are the ones who get the calls in the middle of the night when you might not be able to connect too many other people, so to have more of that training on hand [is helpful]. As a pastor, I can act as a confidential resource for people, so it’s my hope to have that resource available to students, especially students dealing with sexual assault who may not be ready to report that yet—that will be another resource that I hope will be helpful for students as well.
How can our alumni and friends be praying for you?
Keli: Everything needs a lot of prayer, but at the end of the day, my prayer for students is that they encounter Jesus in a meaningful way here. The reason I ultimately came back to GU and wanted to stay at Greenville is that I truly believe in the mission. I truly believe in a Christ-centered education for character and service, and I know how transformative it can be because it’s transformed my life. I think being ordained, of course, I’m always thinking about the church in the back of my head so—how can this generation recognize that they are the church even as they might be experiencing some of this disenchantment with all institutions, including the church, how can I help them see they are the church and are already doing meaningful work of the church.
