New York Times best-selling author Eric Metaxas will be on ACU’s campus April 13. Metaxas will speak in Friday’s Chapel. Students and the Abilene community are welcome.

ACU’s Center for Building Community will also host a luncheon for Metaxas in the Hunter Welcome Center after Chapel on Friday.

“What we tried to do is make him available to everybody, so anybody can go hear him in Chapel and it’s free,” said Dr. Gary McCaleb, vice president of ACU. “So it’s not like anybody is going to be denied the opportunity to hear him because of the tickets, but then the luncheon will be a longer time to talk.”

The Center for Building Community makes an effort to bring in guest speakers throughout the year, but getting a hold of Metaxas was no easy feat.

“Since it’s the Center for the Building Community, we like it to be open to the community. Not only at ACU, but Abilene,” McCaleb said.

The process of getting the nationally recognized author to campus was an long process.

“We’ve been working on this for close to a year,” McCaleb said. “He made headlines when his book “Bonhoeffer” came out and went into the New York Times bestseller list, so that really carried him into a higher level of awareness. On the wings of that, he was invited to speak at the president’s prayer breakfast and right after that, we contacted his office saying we were interested in seeing him come to ACU.”

Metaxas’ newfound success only made the situation tougher.

“We didn’t want him to come in the summer time because students wouldn’t be here, and that also takes December and January off the table, which leaves pretty much half a year,” McCaleb said.

The Center for Building Community was eventually able to get a spot amid Metaxas’ worldwide travel schedule.

Students can expect to hear about Metaxas’ book, “Seven Men: And the Secret of Their Greatness”, which provides a glimpse into seven of the world’s most well-known men such as George Washington and Jackie Robinson and how they found greatness.

“We have found out in some cases ‘Seven Men’ is more popular with college students, so our understanding is he’s going to discuss something about that book,” McCaleb said.

Hannah Knight, sophomore psychology major from Midlothian said, “I’ve read ‘Seven Men’ and I was definitely impacted by it, not only seeing those people’s accomplishments, but what they did beyond themselves.”

The luncheon after Chapel will provide an in-depth speech from Metaxas on his New York Times bestseller, “Bonhoeffer”.

“‘Bonhoeffer’ is an amazing book of not only the writings of a man who was totally committed to honoring God in his life, but what Metaxas has done in this one book is used the life of Bonhoeffer and has weaved within it the story of the war, what was going on in Germany, the story of Hitler,” McCaleb said, “and so it’s like taking one person’s life and telling it in a way that takes a slice out of a very critical, important time in history.”

Tickets can be purchased directly from The Center for Building Community office at 325-674-2156 or online at acu.edu/metaxas.

The price for the luncheon is $30 per person or $200 for a table. Space and tickets are limited.