Portrait by Joe McKendry

When the Rev. Craig Dykstra, Ph.D., died on June 1 at the age of 78, he left behind a legacy that was both wide and deep. Dykstra served as vice president of religion for Lilly Endowment Inc. from 1989 to 2012 and was a board member emeritus. His work in grant-making and helping congregations and theological schools across America continues to have an impact in the field.

The Rev. G. Douglass Lewis, Ph.D., who served as board chair and acting president of the In Trust Center, was leading the organization at a critical time when it had a magazine and some programs. The board was considering the future of the orgranization when Lewis, a former long-serving president of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., received a call from Dykstra. Lewis said Dykstra called, “asking whether I might suggest to the In Trust board that a new direction could be in the making (for the organization) and that the Lilly Endowment would encourage and support it.”

The result is that the Lilly Endowment funded what has become the In Trust Center, which offers a full range of services to theological schools and their leaders.

Dykstra “deeply influenced” many lives in his personal interactions and through his work, Lewis said. That included Lewis’ own life, particularly as he considered retirement from two decades of work at Wesley.

“People like Craig are part of the Lord’s gift to the transformation of the world,” Lewis said. “Let us give much thanks for him and his ministry and the deep influence he had on us and many, many others.”

Dykstra’s work at the endowment helped theological schools, congregations, and ministers. When Dykstra retired, L. Gregory Jones, Ph.D., now the president of Belmont University and a former dean of Duke Divinity School, said that Dykstra had changed “the tone of how Christians in America think about the future.”

In a piece for the Christian Century after Dykstra’s passing, Jones wrote that Dykstra’s words “were deeply pastoral,” adding that Dykstra’s life and work helped people “see afresh the grace, love, joy and wonder that shine through the resurrected Christ.”