OBU Plans Holy Week Events

March 22, 2002

Oklahoma Baptist University will observe Holy Week with two significant chapel services, March 27 and 29. Both services will be at 10 a.m. in the university's Raley Chapel.

Wednesday's chapel program will feature OBU's Warren M. Angell College of Fine Arts. The music and scripture passages included in the service will focus on the idea of Jesus as a suffering servant.

The University Chorale, under the direction of Dr. Nancy Lippens, OBU professor of music, will perform three selections from Handel's "Messiah."

The Bison Glee Club, under the direction of Dr. John Simons, associate professor of church music, and the Bisonette Glee Club, under the direction of Jack Pearson, associate professor of music, also will perform during the program.

Various OBU faculty and staff members will read passages from the book of Isaiah.

The Good Friday chapel service will feature Dr. Mack Roark, Ruth Dickinson professor of religion at OBU.

Roark is a noted Greek and New Testament scholar and frequent speaker across Oklahoma. Roark joined the OBU faculty full-time in 1994, after serving as the university's vice president for religious life for 10 years.

Before coming to Bison Hill, Roark served as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Ponca City. Prior to that, he was pastor of churches in Oklahoma, Texas and California.

A 1958 OBU graduate, Roark earned master's and doctoral degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also holds a master of theology degree from Phillips University Graduate Seminary. He has done further graduate study at Princeton Theological Seminary and Claremont Graduate School.

A native of Blackwell, Roark and his wife, Sandy, have three adult children.

OBU's chapel services are open to the public.