VALLEY FORGE, PA (ABNS 3/18/15)—The Rev. Dr. Glenn H. Asquith Jr., an ordained American Baptist pastor and former chair of the American Baptist Endorsement Committee for chaplaincy and pastoral counseling, received the 14th Helen Flanders Dunbar Award for Significant Contributions to Clinical Pastoral Training on Sunday in Chicago during the 2015 conference of the College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy (CPSP).
“Dr. Asquith, past chairperson of the American Baptist Endorsement Committee, is a distinguished pastoral counselor and a gifted minister of the Gospel,” says Dr. Aidsand F. Wright-Riggins III, executive director of American Baptist Home Mission Societies and ecclesiastical endorser for the denomination. “His passion for pastoral and spiritual care was evident in the care he provided to his clients, colleagues, students and American Baptist endorsees. We can think of no better recipient for this year’s Helen Flanders Dunbar Award. We thank CPSP for recognizing and celebrating Dr. Asquith’s years of dedicated service and ministry. We are grateful to God for his gifts of care and compassion.”
Asquith is director of Congregational Care at Asbury United Methodist Church, Allentown, Pa., and will retire from a pastoral counseling practice in Bethlehem, Pa., on March 31. He is emeritus professor of Pastoral Theology and director of the Master of Arts in Pastoral Counseling program at Moravian Theological Seminary, Bethlehem, where he taught for 31 years.
Before joining Moravian, he was a parish pastor and chaplain at various hospitals, a nursing home and a juvenile correction facility. While at Moravian, he served as part-time interim pastor at two local churches, as minister of pastoral counseling at First Baptist Church of Bethlehem and as group support facilitator for Lehigh Valley Hospital’s Dr. Dean Ornish heart health program. He also led a number of student mission trips to and academic courses in Central America and the Caribbean.
He is a member of Calvary Baptist Church, Allentown. A fellow of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, Asquith is certified by the National Board of Certified Counselors. He is a member of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education and the Society for Pastoral Theology.
He has written or edited a number of pastoral care and counseling-related books, chapters and journal articles. He is author of “Family Passages: The Bible and Personal Crisis” (Broadman Press, 1990) and most recently edited “The Concise Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling” (Abingdon Press, 2010).
Asquith earned a Ph.D. and Master of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky.; a Master of Divinity at what is now known as Colgate Rochester (N.Y.) Crozer Divinity School; and a bachelor’s in Psychology at what is now known as Eastern University, St. Davids, Pa.
He and his wife, Connie, a retired United Methodist pastor, have four adult children and seven grandchildren.
Additional information about Chaplaincy & Pastoral Counseling Ministries and endorsement is available on American Baptist Home Mission Societies’ website.
American Baptist Home Mission Societies—the domestic mission arm of American Baptist Churches USA—ministers as the caring heart and serving hands of Jesus Christ across the United States and Puerto Rico through a multitude of initiatives that focus on discipleship, community and justice.
American Baptist Churches is one of the most diverse Christian denominations today, with over 5,200 local congregations comprised of 1.3 million members, across the United States and Puerto Rico, all engaged in God’s mission around the world.