Bryce Coefield: Faithfulness and Freedom
Reported by: Ana Imes
Photographed by: Danny Walker
Bryce Coefield is not one to over-spiritualize things, but his experience visiting campus for the first time felt spiritually significant. “There’s no other way to describe the experience except for like I felt God’s presence here, in Oregon and on campus . . . Both Kari and I feel like there was this sense of God saying ‘come,’” Coefield said.
Coefield is the associate director of multicultural student development at George Fox University (GFU). He and his wife Kari moved from Los Angeles to Newberg in July 2017. The Coefields’ decision to move to Newberg and GFU was not clear-cut. In fact, dean of student success and equity Jenny Elsey asked Coefield to apply for the assistant director of intercultural life position three times before he seriously considered applying. “It was a brand-new position, it was one that hadn’t existed before,” Coefield said. “I was born and raised in LA, my family, friends, and church were in LA.”
Bryce Coefield photographed by Danny Walker
The third time Elsey asked Coefield to apply, “My wife and I prayed about it and honestly it wasn’t this sense of ‘yes, this is God’s position for me.’ It was not that all. It was more like a calling to be faithful in that moment,” Coefield said. Eventually, he was offered an on-campus interview. “Kari and I prayed again, and we were like, okay. Let’s go. So we came, and it didn’t hurt that ... the weather was really nice, and I had never really been to Oregon before,” he said.
The Coefields planned on staying here for two years. Now they are on year four.
Coefield enjoys his job at the Intercultural Resource Center (IRC). “I love what I do, I love who I work with. I am appreciative of the strategic decisions that the institution is making to express the value of the work that I do,” he said.
On September 9, Coefield was appointed to the position of city councilor for district four in the city of Newberg. Coefield said, “I’ve never been involved in politics. I saw that there was a vacancy, and then I had two different people from my community, unrelated, reach out to me and say ‘Hey, I think you should consider applying for this position.’”
At first Coefield did not consider applying as he is busy with his job at GFU, finishing his dissertation, and spending time with his one-year old son, Kyrie. But more people kept asking him to consider the position. Eventually, he applied, “with great trepidation, especially because the only other person of color - her name is Jules - who’s been on city council got a lot of hate mail and really violent messages towards her.” Coefield did not want to put his family in harm’s way. “There was a lot of prayer and deep, thoughtful consideration around this decision,” he said.
“A theme throughout my life is this idea of being faithful,” Coefield said regarding his family’s decision to come to Newberg as well as his decision to apply for the city councilor position.
Coefield has taken on many roles in his community. He is motivated to serve by the possibility of freedom for those around him. He said he wants people to “be able to live out the freedom that I would say Jesus offers us and has already granted us . . . A good example would be the Be Known promise here at Fox.”
To allow for this level of freedom, Coefield hopes to address and change larger systems in our culture that would seek to restrict freedom. “Culture in some ways can be defined as explicit and implicit rules that dictate how we live,” he explained, “Some of these rules can be helpful, and some can be incredibly oppressive.”
“When I think about broader systems of oppression, all of these things are, to me, systems that keep people from living free,” Coefield said, expressing his desire to fight back against those systems. He continued, “I have to believe it grieves God’s heart to see us create systems that would keep us from actually living free. So part of what motivates my life is being able to both personally and publicly work towards liberation of people.”
Coefield routinely encourages his students to push back against oppressive cultural messages and experience liberation by living in the unique ways that God has created them to live. He said, “‘Feel free to live your life.’ That’s one of my favorite phrases. Be who you are, and trust the spirit that lives in you and through you.”