The Cheerful Giver

Charles “Chip” Hardwick MDiv ‘99, PhD ‘07 made a major life decision this year: The Princeton Theological Seminary alumnus announced he’ll dedicate half his estate to the Seminary.

But this seven-figure planned gift raised a challenging question. “I never imagined I would be able to make such a substantial gift,” said Hardwick PhD ’07, MDiv ’99. “So then the question became, ‘how can this gift make the most impact?’”

Hardwick brings a rich experience as a pastor, denominational leader, and synod executive in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Moreover, he offers thoughtful insight into church life through articles in Presbyterian publications. Additionally, he creates Synod of the Covenant videos that address a wide range of contemporary faith issues.

He thinks a lot about the future of the church and wants to help the Seminary safeguard that future.

I don’t want this endowment to be irrelevant as time passes,” said Hardwick, who is also on the Seminary’s Board of Trustees. “I’m hopeful it will be useful for generations to come.

He also notes that the endowment goes into effect after his death, which the 59-year-old said with a smile may not happen for decades.

“To set specific plans now in 2025 felt narrow,” he added. Ultimately, Hardwick decided on a gift that looks to the future while reflecting his own past, which includes experience in both management and ministry.

Before seminary, Hardwick earned an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and launched a career at Bain and Co., the global consulting firm.

Though he very consciously left that career for a calling in the church, Hardwick has long believed that an understanding of organizational management is
critical for church leaders. That’s especially true today, he said, when many congregations are struggling with aging membership, dwindling resources, and a younger generation less likely to affiliate.

“Churches are going through so many changes and there’s this whole body of knowledge on organizational change that pastors are not very familiar with,” he said. “I am all in favor of a classical theological education and I would not want people leading the church without it. But it is not
enough these days.”

Accordingly, the Charles B. Hardwick Fund will augment the Seminary’s theology curriculum through instruction in such areas as change management, conflict resolution, and negotiation.

Seminary President Jonathan Lee Walton applauded the idea.

“This fund will support courses, seminars, and workshops on practical areas of ministry that are too often left unspoken,” Walton said during an event at the Seminary in May in which he announced the endowment and expressed deep gratitude to Hardwick.

In Chip’s vision, our students will leave with theology in their heads, scripture in their hearts, as well as the wisdom to navigate the real-life complexities of leading God’s beautiful, yet complicated people.

Hardwick’s vision reflects a fervent faith life, an intellectual curiosity that fostered a broad array of experiences, and a ministry career that showed him church life from many angles.

He grew up in Beavercreek, Ohio, where one of his first mentors was his church pastor, the Rev. Greg Anderson, a Princeton Seminary alumnus.

“He changed the direction of my life, and I continue to be grateful for him,” Hardwick said. He attended Alma College in Michigan, where in his
senior year he visited Princeton Seminary and considered enrolling in the MDiv program. After concurring with his parents, he decided business school might be the more practical path.

By the mid-1990s, it looked like he made the right decision: Hardwick was thriving at Bain where he earned a coveted early promotion to the company’s Madrid office. But he found the demanding job increasingly dull and shallow. There was the time he stayed up all night preparing a presentation for beer company executives.

“I was helping Guiness get cheaper beer bottles,” he said. “It was very mundane. I had no emotional pull towards it at all.”

Sarah Sarchet Butters, a fellow alum from Alma College and a 1992 MDiv graduate from Princeton Seminary, suggested to Hardwick that he reconsider seminary.

“It took about six to nine months of really heavy wrestling with it to feel like God was calling me to seminary, and that I wanted to say yes to that call,” he said. “It required changing everything about my life.”

It was a decision he never regretted. At Princeton Seminary, he found strong mentors among the faculty like James F. Kay, retired Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs, Joe R. Engle, former Professor of Homiletics and Liturgics, and Cleo LaRue, retired Francis Landey Patton Professor of Homiletics, as well as a demanding curriculum that launched him into his second career.

But what he recalls most vividly is the humanity of the Seminary community. During his MDiv years, Hardwick’s stepmother—the woman who had raised him—took her own life. The memory of how faculty, students, and staff rallied around him is still fresh in his mind.

A year after the suicide, he crossed paths with Elsie McKee, retired Archibald Alexander Professor of Reformation Studies and the History of Worship. “We said hello to each other, and five steps later, she turned around and said, ‘How’s your dad? It has been about a year, hasn’t it?’’’ Hardwick recalled.

“I’m getting chills right now thinking about it,” he said.

Hardwick went on to serve churches in Atlanta and in Bloomington, Illinois. In 2015 he moved to PCUSA headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, to become Director of Theology, Formation, and Evangelism. He later returned to pulpit ministry at a church in Lake Forest, Illinois. And since 2020, he has served as Executive of the Synod of the Covenant, a denominational council that supports a network of 11 presbyteries and 650 churches in Ohio and Michigan.

He sees every experience as another step forward, with each one contributing to his faith, knowledge of the world, and understanding of the contemporary church.

“I see God at work through all these things, and I am so grateful,” he said. “It gives me such joy to think I can now help church leaders for generations to come.”