Justin Barrett is 'Daring to Thrive' in New Position

Thrive Center's Justin Barrett offically installed at special service :: 10/26/12

“I am truly grateful to be at Fuller and to be the inaugural Thrive professor,” Justin Barrett said at his installation service on Thursday, October 25, where he was officially installed as the chair of the School of Psychology’s new Thrive Center for Human Development.

“But I’ve got to confess that in my one year at Fuller, I’ve found my title to be a curse in some ways,” Barrett joked in his installation address entitled “Dare to Thrive.” “Countless times I’ve been asked what Thrive stands for. This is an academic institution, so surely it’s some kind of painfully strained acronym. And I’ve also been asked repeatedly, ‘So, Thrive professor, are you thriving?’" 

Yet, despite what he humorously described is the pressure of having people expect him to be “perpetually thriving,” Barrett said he considers himself lucky to be doing the important work of developing resources and conducting research that will encourage thriving in young people.

“I believe God has called me to be at Fuller and so my service here is part of my thriving,” Barrett said. “By serving his kingdom at Fuller, I’m conforming closer to who God would have me be.”

In the service’s opening remarks, President Richard Mouw told the students, staff and faculty members, who had gathered in Travis Auditorium to celebrate Barrett and the launch of the Thrive Center, that it was God’s providential working that brought Barrett and his family to Fuller Theological Seminary “to help us launch this new initiative in the study of human thriving.”

Barrett came to Fuller in 2011 from the University of Oxford, U.K., where he taught and served as Senior Researcher for Oxford’s Center for Anthropology and Mind. He is regarded as one of the founders of the Cognitive Science of Religion field.

After a scripture reading of Psalm 8, Provost C. Douglas McConnell praised Barrett for distinguishing himself as a scholar and leader committed to understanding the challenges of our times.

McConnell charged Barrett with maintaining regular time to nurture his own relationship with God, to build a center that draws on all the resources at Fuller, and to remember the school’s mission by working to empower and inform the “vast network of churches around the world with new ways to assist their young people” to the glory of God.

A number of Barrett’s colleagues were invited to lay hands on the new Thrive chair as School of Psychology Dean Winston Gooden offered a prayer of dedication that asked God to crown Barrett’s efforts with success.

In his address, Barrett offered an invitation and a challenge. He invited the attendees to join the Thrive Center in exploring what it means to thrive and urged them to dare to thrive in their own lives.

“It seems to me that we live in a world in which we can too often be consumed with being healthy or being happy or being content, but relatively unconcerned about whether or not we are thriving,” Barrett said. “Be someone who does not settle for being okay or good, but dare to thrive. Consider who it is that God has created you to be and chase after it.”

The service concluded with the singing of “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” which includes the verse, “My gracious Master and my God, assist me to proclaim, to spread through all the earth abroad the honors of thy name.”

Celebration of the Thrive Center’s launch continued into the afternoon with a special lecture by actor and film producer John Shepherd of Mpower Pictures.

The lecture, which also honored Fuller friends Robert and Dorothy King, was titled “The Media, Film, and Human Thriving.” In an engaging presentation that included film clips and anecdotes, Shepherd explained how he strives to promote thriving by injecting popular culture with value-affirming stories and inspirational characters.