Vultee Student Missions Endowment: Building on Our History | Part 2

May 3, 2023

Lipscomb University and Vultee Church of Christ are continuing their ministry partnership through the Vultee Student Missions Endowment Fund, created in honor of the men who represented God well in both places.

Men like Carl McKelvey, who graduated from Lipscomb in 1953 and began preaching at Vultee Church of Christ in 1958. He stayed with the congregation for the next 64 years in a variety of roles, including preacher, teacher, education minister, elder and song leader. “He was everything to Vultee,” said longtime church member David England. 

McKelvey was equally dedicated to Lipscomb University as a Bible professor, dean of students, vice president and, after retiring in 2002, director of Lipscomb’s Spiritual Renewal Center. “I retired from one job at Lipscomb on a Friday night and started my new job at Lipscomb Monday morning,” he recalled. “The people at Vultee bought tables and chairs so we could have seminars at the Spiritual Renewal Center, and they made donations for years to support that work because they believed in it,” he said. Through the center, McKelvey conducts Bible studies with groups of Lipscomb faculty and staff as well as local church leaders. He also provides spiritual mentorship to many others. 

Scott McDowell, who has been in a weekly Bible study with McKelvey for years, said, “Psalm 92 talks about staying fresh and green and bearing fruit in old age. That’s Carl. He’s still doing weekly virtual groups, pouring into people. He was just as fresh this past Tuesday morning as he was when I first sat down with him 30 years ago. That’s what a walk with the Lord will do for you.”

Steve Flatt is another of Vultee’s preachers who had a lasting impact on Lipscomb and the greater Nashville community. “They said that when Steve was the preacher,” said Robert King, “the church had to use every nook and cranny in the building to have enough space for Sunday school. There was even a class set up in the baptistry dressing room!”

Flatt began his professional career at Lipscomb in 1977 as the assistant to the vice president and returned in 1997 as its 16th president. During his eight year tenure, Flatt divided the academic program into five colleges, established new master’s programs, added three study abroad programs, constructed Allen Arena and moved Lipscomb into the NCAA. He also led the charge for all private and independent colleges to be included in the HOPE scholarship program. When he was inducted into the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association’s Hall of Fame in 2022, Lipscomb president Dr. Candice McQueen said, “Steve Flatt has embodied the values of Lipscomb University throughout his career, and has had a tremendous impact on the lives of countless individuals through his work in Christian education, in ministry, and in health care. His commitment to developing pathways to a Christian education for as many students as possible continues to impact students today.”

Scott McDowell began preaching at Vultee in 1991. “Carl brought me,” he said. “I spoke in chapel one day at Lipscomb where I was working as a residence hall director. Carl connected with me afterwards, and within a couple of weeks I was preaching at Vultee.”

“The secret sauce of [Vultee] was relationships,” he said. “The church was committed to unity. Carl was the stalwart who came and stayed for over 60 years, and he ministered in ways that helped people grow in their discipleship. When I went into ministry there I knew all about God, but I didn’t know God. That’s where my relationship with him was really strengthened, and one of the most significant things I learned there was the strong spiritual influence of small groups. We would meet weekly to read the word, react to it and pray. I have never been the same because of that.” He took that love of small groups with him to every place he has ministered. Today, there are small groups in west Tennessee and Texas who gather each week to read scripture who can trace their origins back 30 years to Vultee. 

While at Vultee, McDowell continued working at Lipscomb. As dean of campus life, he introduced a mentoring network, established a veteran services program and launched a service day as an outreach to the Nashville community. As a team leader for Lipscomb Missions, he led students to places like England, New Jersey and the Gulf Coast. 

“My real passion is helping students discover their created purpose and to embrace their place in the kingdom. That happens most naturally in relationships,” he said.

McDowell now serves as the president of Lubbock Christian University. “He is truly a man of the word,” said his friend, Steve Davidson. “It is memorized and stored up in his heart. He loves people and listens well.”

McKelvey knew Robert King from Lipscomb’s annual lectureships where King often led singing. King is the fine arts director at the academy and director of the high school choirs. “One day Carl called me to talk about coming to Vultee as their education minister,” King recalls. “I told him I didn’t have any training in church education ministry. Carl said, ‘I understand; just come talk to us.’” After his first meeting with the elders, they asked him how soon he could be full-time at Vultee. “Carl stepped in, then, and told them I already had a job, and that this would be a part time position. It was part of a long tradition here at Lipscomb for faculty and staff to work part time at local churches.”

For the next six years, King was the song leader and education minister at Vultee. “I learned a lot on the job. For example, the ladies of the church educated me on how to marshal the forces of adult volunteers. Don’t ask for open-ended commitments. Ask in person and ask for specific things. I also learned a lot just from being around people like Carl: how to encourage, how to deal with people, how to open up, how to do more listening. It changed my management style at both Vultee and Lipscomb. Carl would back you up no matter what as long as you were honest with him. He showed me that the team approach is critical.”

McDowell remembers being on a ministry team with King as a special time. “What a talent! He has a powerful presence as a choir director. He’s also a fun loving, light-hearted person. We had fun on Sunday mornings. There was always friendly banter, an inside joke, humor and joy. There was a sense of camaraderie. We were having fun while we did ministry.

When telling the story of how he came to be at Vultee, Steve Davidson, unsurprisingly, said, “it all went back to a conversation with Carl McKelvey.” In the early 1990s, Davidson was the director of admissions at Lipscomb. His boss, McKelvey, told him about a part-time youth ministry position at Vultee. “He said that I might be a good fit. Even though I had no desire to do youth ministry, I met with the leadership. This was [McKelvey’s]  leadership style; he was always mentoring people. He looked at his position at Lipscomb as walking through life with others.” For the next 15 years, Davidson served as a youth minister, then an elder at Vultee. 

During this time, Davidson created IMPACT – a summer camp that brings thousands of teenagers to Lipscomb’s campus. He also began organizing spaces of renewal and luncheons for local youth ministers. “Then Carl came up with the idea of an office of Spiritual Outreach at the university and asked me to be the director. I said ‘sure!’ It was all relational, primarily with those in youth ministry. I did that for the next number of years and then stepped into the Office of Spiritual Formation, which is where I finished up.”

McDowell saw first-hand how Davidson invested in others as a co-worker both at Vultee and Lipscomb. “Steve is the most earnest and guileless man you’re going to find. He epitomized a person trying to find ways God can use him. When he reported to me at the university, I always thought about Philippians 2, ‘I have no one else like him who will share genuine concern for your welfare.’ He fulfilled the mission of the institution and did kingdom work.”

Davidson said, “I learned so much from Carl at Lipscomb and at Vultee. I learned the importance of keeping things simple. That really helped me in my roles as director of Spiritual Outreach and of IMPACT. A lot of what I learned wasn’t taught. It was me watching him deal with both the hard stuff and the good stuff. I received encouragement from him to try new things. He would make suggestions and ask, ‘what if you did this?’ It was talking through and exploring things together.”

Things, for example, like missions. “One day Carl said, 'Hey, you need to go to Honduras with us.’ So I did, and it did something in me. I feel like that’s where I truly met Jesus. I came back and told my wife that all of us – the whole family – were going back next year. Now we’ve made over 100 trips there. We started a thing called TORCH Missions and began taking other groups of teens down there with us, not just the Vultee youth group. Out of that we started TORCH Families to bring down whole families to serve together. Then we thought, ‘what about the street kids?’ We had a desire to build a place for them and called it Jovenes en Camino. That was 20 years ago this year. All of these things happened because Carl McKelvey invested time in me. What should my response to that investment be? I invest time in others. How can God use me in the world?

Davidson recalled that all the people at Vultee shared that response. “They were the salt of the earth. I just remember a number of folks would be there no matter what. If there was a need, they showed up. They taught me to love well.”

“Now [the official entity of] Vultee Church of Christ has come to an end. Part of that is sad, but part of it is delightful. We are all here for a season and nothing lasts forever. We are here for a purpose. Vultee was a place where you truly felt accepted, welcomed and loved. Those of us who still remain here can take what we’ve learned from that place and bring it to others. Even if they never hear the name Vultee, there will always be that continued influence. One day our fond memories of that place will fade. But when we’re in eternity, we’ll know. Oh, for that small window of time, Vultee lived out its purpose!

With the Vultee Student Missions Endowment, that purpose continues. All money donated to the endowment will help give students the opportunity to explore what it means to live out the mission of God together with other students, alumni, faculty, staff and host partners, like Jovenes en Camino. 

You can be a part of this purpose by adding your contribution to the Vultee Student Missions Endowment in recognition of the passion and dedication these men had for equipping young people for ministry and service

Make a gift in honor of Vultee Church of Christ

Vultee Student Missions Endowment

Read Building on Our History Part 1

Read Announcing the Vultee Student Missions Endowment Fund

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Category: Student Life

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