Chaplain, Director of Religious Activities, Division of Student Success
- Mary Dod Brown Memorial Chapel First Floor
Creatively inspiring excellence is a family affair spanning over 100 years. “It is a holy and humbling heritage which I am a benefactor,” Rev. Faison explains. His great grandparents, James and Nina Burnett Harris were traveling inspiration in the early twentieth century with their children singing to other sharecroppers facing the grim realities of poverty. They encouraged souls in need. Rev. Faison was reared in that faith and family devotion. Church crowds marveled his tenacity with other growing family youth when he lifting his voice. “Yet inwardly everything seemed so uncertain” but Rev. Faison celebrates, “But by the grace of God, I am what I am today” (I Corinthians 15:10).
At Friendship Chapel Baptist Church in Wake Forest, North Carolina, he matured in ministry under the auspices of Dr. Enoch Holloway while serving as music minister from 1987-2000. Educationally, he learned to excell graduating in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts degree from St. Augustine’s University in Raleigh, North Carolina. He became the "the family’s first” college graduate. He was selected to study abroad as the 1997 Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar in the Sunderland, England. In 1999, Reverend Faison achieved a Master of Education degree from Sunderland University. While abroad, he also authored his first book, Celebrations of Life, Faith and Songs: A Chronicle of 100 Years in African American Poetry, Prose and Music book and audio companion. It was after his 2001 home return to the United States, he accepted his call to ministry and then he married his college sweetheart, Mrs. Natasha Hewlett Faison who is a loving and a supportive wife.
2003 launched Rev. Faison into a unique journey in higher education serving as University Chaplain and Campus Pastor on two of America’s oldest Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Rev. Faison started working at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina as a First Year Program Professor. He then was promoted to be the First Year Program Assistant Director. While serving, he pursued a Master of Divinity degree at Shaw Divinity School and graduated in 2005. He then was selected to serve in a newly created position as the Associate Dean of Shaw University’s Thomas J. Boyd Chapel.
Since February 201o, Reverend Faison ministers as a servant-leader at Lincoln University’s Mary Dod Brown Memorial Chapel in Pennsylvania. Reverend Faison preaches weekly in worship services, teaches Bible study and plans campus and community outreach programs. Reverend Faison was one of fifty selected to participate in Princeton University’s 2014 Black Theology and Leadership Institute. Currently, he is pursuing a Doctorate of Education in Higher Education at Union Institute and University in Cincinnati, Ohio.
“My quest is to creatively inspire excellence preaching prophetically, encouraging people to re-think the possibility of the future, bringing hope and healing, peace and justice and leading in motivating others to transform this present world into the Kingdom of God.” Reverend Faison further resolves, “My whole life is a miracle. I want to spend the rest of my life serving and thanking God for all he has done.