Donald & Lillian Nunnelly Professor of Pastoral Leadership

B.A., Transylvania University, 1969
M.Div., Vanderbilt University, 1972
D.Min., Vanderbilt University, 1973
Graduate Studies, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1979-1980
M.Phil., Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, 1987

Joined faculty 2003

Steven A. Monhollen was born in Northern Kentucky and was reared as part of the Erlanger Christian Church, the church where he was ordained in 1973. He has served rural, suburban and urban congregations of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and UCC in Kentucky and Illinois. He was a college chaplain at Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, IL and Culver-Stockton College, Canton, MO, where he developed service-learning and intercultural programs and taught in the pre-ministry curriculum. He is a founder of the Holocaust Education Program at Elmhurst College and was on the formation committee for the March of Remembrance and Hope, an international, interdisciplinary, interfaith university Holocaust course to Poland. He has served as a consultant for the commissioned ministry process and for college ministries. He is a member of the Association for Theological Field Education and on the board of the Hispanic Summer Program.

In both congregations and colleges, he worked to evaluate the context in order to deepen the individual and institutional expression of purpose. This process of personal and institutional discernment led to the formation of such expressions as a rural social service organization and an urban health care organization, multicultural retreats, Holocaust education programs, symposia, a lay school of theology, guestships, and intercultural travel and courses.

Monhollen’s interests include the contextual nature of ministry, the nature and contributions of pilgrimage, insights for ministry from the Nazi-era persecution and rescue of Jews, and issues involved in immigration. He is deeply committed to interfaith and intercultural encounter and learning, with an ongoing involvement in how those encounters strengthen one’s ability to be a theologically informed caregiver who expresses care through Christian ministry.

He and his wife, Sandy, are members of Central Christian Church in Lexington. They are the parents of two adult daughters. He enjoys gardening, particularly finding ways to enlarge their flower gardens so that he has less and less lawn to mow; taking long drives with Sandy to savor the architecture and setting of small towns, colleges and churches; and friendships.