Mark Hopkins
Current Ministry Position:
Director of Distance Learning for Systems and Services
Assistant Professor of Leadership, Master of Arts in Global Leadership (www.fuller.edu/magl)
My duties as a director of distance learning include the development of new courses and degree program curricula, particularly in relation to the Master of Arts in Global Leadership. I also teach several online courses and promote and maintain positive student relations.
Life in Ministry:
After working in sales and in the auto-electric industry, I moved into pastoral ministry. I worked with local congregations for 17 years, ministering in New York, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, and California and participating in three church-planting campaigns (serving as director of one) in Irkutsk, St. Petersburg, and Samara, Russia, during the mid-1990s. Ann and I moved to Pasadena after 12 years with the church in New Hampshire, and I began doctoral work in postmodern mission, birthed out of a strong desire to see the Church more effectively engage contemporary western culture.
While completing my PhD, I taught as an adjunct professor at Fuller and Pepperdine, where I taught courses in “Christianity and Culture.” Then, in 2005, I was appointed to the faculty at Fuller’s School of Intercultural Studies. I still have my hand in the local church, preaching and teaching. I stepped out for about 18 months, but came to more fully realize the great value of combining theory with praxis.
Family: Ann is my covenant partner and friend of over 30 years. Ann and I met when she was 12 and I was 14 years old. We lived across the street from one another for a year. My brother and I were looking out the window one day, and saw three girls walking by. I said with all the maturity of a 14 year-old “I want the one in the blue shorts.” We were married 7 years later. =-)
We have two married children, a son and a daughter who live in Florida and Texas. And then, of course, there are the two grandsons, Luke and Caleb, and our granddaughter, Hannah!
