It is with great sadness, and yet, unwavering hope rooted in the resurrection of Jesus, that I share the news that our friend and colleague, Doug Jackson, passed away suddenly on Thursday, September 10, 2020.
Doug joined the staff of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA in 2009, after a career that included pastoral ministry, and teaching Old Testament Studies at Uppsala Bible Theological College in Sweden and at Roberts Wesleyan College in New York state. Doug’s first brushes with InterVarsity came as an undergraduate Physics student at Union College. He participated in Leadership Training at Cedar Campus, and though he was recruited for InterVarsity staff, Doug went to seminary instead.
While serving on InterVarsity staff, he worked as the coordinator of faculty ministry in the GFM Northeast Region and served on the regional leadership team as well. Outside of InterVarsity, Doug also participated in numerous short-term visits for leadership training and mentoring for pastors in Senegal, and co-taught a college Sunday School class with his wife Lin, and Janet and Ernie Balajthy.
Doug led the team of GFM NE staff who founded the Northeast Faculty Conference with our initial Faculty Conference and Consultation, held in July of 2014. Doug helped to chart the course of the Northeast Faculty Conference as an event where deep engagement with Scripture was front and center, and as an event where a diverse collection of university and college faculty members and their families from throughout the GFM Northeast Region and beyond gathered for worship, fellowship, Bible study, networking, and rest.
Doug impacted many staff in the region by his encouraging and enthusiastic posture toward them and their efforts to reach out to faculty members. And he gave his time and expertise to other initiatives that were part of the broader mission of GFM, including BSAP events and our GFM NE regional staff conferences. Doug served us all out of the abundance of his knowledge of the scriptures, his experiences at home and abroad, his openness, availability, energy, sense of humor and infectiously friendly demeanor.
Doug was a great example of faculty engagement to all of us in GFM. He was able to engage faculty, “toe to toe” (i.e., with a high level of comprehension of the ideas that were important to many academic disciplines) as a way of welcoming them into further involvement with InterVarsity’s ministries, and, as a way of modeling, to field staff, the art of engaging established members of the academy.
We thank God for Doug’s life, ministry and testimony; he was our friend, colleague, mentor, teacher and brother in Christ, and we mourn his loss. And we pray for his wife Linda (“Lin,” whom some of you met at our conferences, and who has also served within InterVarsity, in our Human Resources department), and his family as they adjust to the new normal of Doug’s absence. We share Lin's sense of blessing in knowing that Doug is now in Jesus’ arms, and that we will see him again.
A memorial service for Doug is planned for Saturday, September 26, 2020, at 1:00 PM, at Browncroft Community Church, Rochester, NY (https://www.browncroft.org/). This service will be livestreamed. In lieu of flowers, gifts can be made to InterVarsity's Faculty Ministry or the Browncroft Community Church Missions Fund.
Dwight Schwartz
on behalf of the Northeast Faculty Conference teams, past and present
