Tom is periodically in the US and available to speak at congregations or organizations as his schedule permits. Email him to extend an invitation to speak at your congregation or organization.
About Tom Harvey’s ministry
The Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS) has been training global church leaders, scholars, and missionaries working in complex and diverse contexts around the globe since 1983. OCMS has a major influence with global Christian ministries and leaders throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America. As academic dean Tom Harvey oversees the academic program and works with the executive director Wonsuk Ma to build global relationships. OCMS nurtures relevant and engaged research for leaders on the cutting edge of Christian ministry and mission globally. It offers master’s and doctoral degrees in tandem with Middlesex University. Because of the research at OCMS those in need around the world receive better advocacy, more impactful development work, targeted practical support, and more insightful preaching from their churches, and the lives of people from some of the most challenging contexts in the world are changed.
In his role at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, Tom Harvey leads a research program whose impact reaches far beyond the halls of academia. “My work is to ensure that OCMS advances innovative and transformative research to empower the ongoing practice of mission globally,” he says. “This is to help equip the global church with well-trained, creative, reflective, biblically informed and theologically capable leaders who will serve in congregations, mission agencies, theological training institutions, faith-based NGOs and the wider professional community.”
OCMS students are addressing some of the most pressing problems in the world. “We have key scholars grappling with HIV/AIDS in Zambia, poverty and microfinance in Zimbabwe, interfaith relationships in Pakistan, good government in Kenya, Bible and theology in Bethlehem, Palestine, etc. It is a joy and an honor to come to work given the quality, character, and uniqueness of our scholars.”
Tom facilitates an academic environment that encourages scholars to be change agents. “As dean it is my job to enable students to develop the rigorous academic expertise and theological confidence required to respond to and lead to change in their organizations, churches and communities.”
The contributions of OCMS were recently recognized in an article written by the former vice chancellor of the University of Wales-Lampeter. He said that OCMS had not only contributed to scholarship in the UK but has made a contribution to scholarship in mission globally that is unmatched.
OCMS also has strengthened the mission vitality of the PC(USA) through its connections with Presbyterian congregations and pastors. “Several PC(USA) pastors have chosen to complete doctoral degrees with OCMS,” Tom says. “Through these connections, PC(USA) congregations are being connected with key global mission leaders and mission work around the world.”
Country context
OCMS conducts its mission in the same city as one of the leading universities of the world. Oxford University is made up of and surrounded by leading colleges, universities and research centers with renowned scholars whose academic diversity embraces OCMS’s global reality. OCMS is also shaped by the Christian leaders who study there and their insights gleaned from ministry in countries throughout the world.
About Tom Harvey
Prior to their appointment to serve at OCMS, Tom served for 11 years as mission co-workers in Singapore at Trinity Theological College. Tom holds a B.A. in Christian Education from Wheaton College, an M.Div. from Asbury Theological Seminary, an M.A. in theology from the University of Notre Dame, and a Ph.D. in theology and ethics from Duke University.
Tom is a teaching elder and a member of New Hope Presbytery. Tom and Judy are the parents of three adult children, Joseph, Paul and Emma.
Birthdays:
Tom – June 27
Joseph – November 3
Paul – August 13
Emma – February 1