As an SBC seminary president, I often feel like a cork bobbing in a Southern Baptist ocean.  I am so much in and a part of this convention that it can be difficult to extract myself to observe and assess the denomination I serve. Yet, in recent days I have found myself doing just that.

For me, October marks one year as president of Midwestern Seminary. This anniversary has prompted me to reflect on the convention I am privileged to serve. In so doing, I have been reminded why Southern Baptists are a great people and why I feel so privileged to serve their churches.

The Right Convictions

First, Southern Baptists own the right convictions, and these convictions are deep and biblical. Southern Baptists believe in the total truthfulness of God’s Word and have adopted a confessional statement—the Baptist Faith & Message 2000—predicated on that conviction. The BF&M 2000 elucidates historic Christian orthodoxy as well as Baptist distinctives. While many Protestant denominations negotiate away their traditionally held beliefs, Southern Baptists have proven stubbornly committed to biblical fidelity.

Moreover, Southern Baptists stand strong on the great social issues of the day—even in the face of stiff cultural headwinds. This includes a vigorous defense of the unborn, traditional marriage, the nuclear family, and religious liberty. To advocate these principles in a Southern Baptist setting is like calling for lower taxation at a GOP rally. Your message will be well-received, not because of any political calculation, but because Southern Baptists’ convictions are settled in Scripture and resonate accordingly.

Not only are these convictions strongly held, they are also widely held. Recently, I exchanged friendly correspondence with a critic who operates from a more theologically moderate framework. To my interlocutor I wrote, “I mean no offense, but to paraphrase William F. Buckley, I’d rather entrust the spiritual formation of my children to 10 randomly-selected, church-attending Southern Baptists than 10 randomly-selected, pre-Mohler era Ph.D. graduates from Southern Seminary.”

To be sure, there are sound pre-Mohler era graduates from Southern Seminary, and one can certainly find unsound congregants in our churches. But, as a principle, I meant no hyperbole. I trust Southern Baptists because, in the main, we are a people of deep, biblical conviction.

The Right Mission

Second, Southern Baptists are a people committed to the right mission. Again, to paraphrase William F. Buckley, convictional Southern Baptists do not merely stand athwart history “yelling stop.” Rather, our convictions prompt us to look to the future and “yell go.” Our beliefs shape and invigorate a Great Commission mission—one that has marked our denomination since its founding in 1845.

The Great Commission work being done by Southern Baptists is truly remarkable. At the local, state, national, and international levels, the total number of Great Commission initiatives Southern Baptists have undertaken is beyond full quantification. This is good, right, and promising, but it is not new.

For nearly 170 years our common, Great Commission efforts have been Southern Baptists’ primary unifying force. Denominational sages did not make missions front and center as a pragmatic calculation in order to build and strengthen the convention. Rather, like a magnetic force, our collective Great Commission ambition has pulled us forward and pulled us together.

From a practical standpoint, the Cooperative Program has been—and is—our denomination’s secret sauce. The Cooperative Program is the envy of the Protestant world, and if we undermine it—whether by neglect or alternative initiative—we do so to our own peril and to the detriment of the Great Commission.

Over the past year, I have had hundreds of conversations with other SBC agency heads, state convention leaders, pastors, and laymen about how best to further the Great Commission. Thankfully, all of these conversations have been about how to best fulfill the Great Commission, not whether we should fulfill the Great Commission.

Conclusion

The SBC is not a perfect denomination, but it is a great one. Our greatness rests neither in our programs nor in our denominational machinery. Rather, it rests in our churches and with the congregants who comprise them because they hold the right convictions and are given to the right mission.

These firm convictions and the unyielding commitment to the Great Commission are the reasons why I am happily, wholeheartedly, and proudly Southern Baptist, and why I am grateful to lead a Southern Baptist seminary that exists for the Church—for these, Southern Baptist churches.

Recently, I was privileged to spend the better portion of a day speaking at Plant Ozarks, a church planting network affiliated with the larger Plant Midwest. Though I was only with the group a few hours, I have had difficulty getting the Plant Ozarks conference off my mind. From start to finish, the people, spirit, and substance of the event made a deep impression on me.

The entire day felt suspiciously like New Testament Christianity, with times of prayer, confession, worship, and fellowship punctuated by the Scriptures being preached. I showed up seeking to encourage a room full of church planters. I left deeply encouraged myself. Let me share with you why.

Great Commission Advance

First, I was reminded of church planting’s Great Commission potential. A generation ago, door-to-door witnessing, church visitation, personal evangelism, revival meetings, area-wide crusades, and servant evangelism were the most common forms of outreach. When people referenced church planting, it often was a more polite referent to a church split. Thankfully, so much has changed very quickly in this regard.

In this generation, church planting seems especially used of God for the spreading of the Gospel. What crusade evangelism was in decades past, church planting now seems to be—one of God’s primary means to reach the lost.

In fact, the entire day was explicitly Great Commission focused. Throughout the event, the Gospel, evangelism, reaching the lost, changing the city, and impacting the culture marked the conversation. This is what we are to be about, and these men exuded such gospel hopefulness, especially through their church planting efforts.

Realism, Not Romanticism

Occasionally, when talking to potential church planters, I have detected an element of naïve romanticism. Admittedly, a congregational tabula rasa, or blank slate, with which to design a church can be alluring. Having no draconian church bylaws with which to contend and no sclerotic committee structures to navigate can be appealing. Moreover, latitude in selecting musical style and preaching patterns without any inherited expectations can be especially attractive. However, the appropriate excitement a new work generates can drift into romanticism, especially when compared with the challenges an established church may bring.

Yet every church, including ones newly planted, has its own challenges. The appeal of a church plant can quickly wear off, especially when one encounters the many difficulties associated with the new work. Logistical nightmares, like coordinating set-up crews, limited financial resources, and cobbling together a viable mass of people, all present significant obstacles.

At the Plant Ozarks conference, I encountered a sober optimism and an informed joy about church planting. Naïve romanticism was displaced by a winsome realism, knowing the work would not be easy, but if God is at work, it shall not fail.

Happy Warriors

Given the daunting challenges associated with planting a church in any generation, most especially ours, the evident joy in the room seemed almost out of place. In fact, at first read one might think these men were in denial about the cultural milieu in which they will plant.

As I preached on the cultural challenges that accompany modern ministry, it was like throwing red meat to hungry lions. They were not glib, and certainly not Pollyannaish. Instead, they exuded a happy, buoyed confidence knowing that Christ will build his church.

What is more, I did not get the feeling they were fleeing the established church. In fact, they spoke with great respect about the traditional church, the denomination, and the elder statesmen in the SBC. Condescension was distant from their lips; their words were seasoned with charity and appreciation for their mother denomination. It was clear they had not so much rejected the traditional but were following God’s call to build the new.

Passion with Purpose

Finally, I left encouraged by the balance I sensed in the room. Jesus calls us to worship in spirit and truth, but most err in one direction or the other. The worship I experienced with these church planters was impassioned and heart-felt, but also Christ-centered and richly biblical. If the worship I experienced is indicative of these men, their hearts for Christ, and the churches they plant, may their like multiply by the thousands.

Conclusion

In hindsight, my experience at Plant Ozarks reminded me anew of one reason why I am thrilled to be at Midwestern Seminary. Situated in Kansas City, a North American Mission Board-designated Send City, we are strategically located to impact the region and the world for Christ. This is precisely why we recently announced a partnership with NAMB and the Missouri and Kansas-Nebraska state conventions in launching a church-planting center.

After all, that is why the SBC founded Midwestern Seminary in 1957—to reach the region for Christ and to furnish pastors and ministers for the underserved churches of the region. May God raise up a generation of church planters—like I fellowshipped with at Plant Ozarks—who will join with the pastors, teachers, and missionaries we are training in order to multiply and strengthen Christ’s church. That is what the Plant Ozarks men were about; that is what Midwestern Seminary is about; and, I pray, that is what all of us will increasingly be about.

Full Transcript:

Today it is an honor to bring my first report to the messengers of the Southern Baptist Convention, and it is an even greater honor to serve as president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the six Southern Baptist seminaries.

To this convention I say that the Midwestern Seminary Board of Trustees has elected a president who loves the churches of this convention and resolves to serve, in both letter and in spirit, in good faith with the churches of this convention.

Season of Institutional Accomplishment

This past year has been an incredible season of institutional accomplishment. In recent months we have completed and are now enjoying our new seminary chapel. Included within the chapel complex is a welcome center, banquet hall that seats 300, a half-dozen classrooms, and our new 1,000-seat chapel. I am grateful to the many hundreds of Southern Baptists who have given their time and financial resources to bring this ambitious project to completion. We will host our formal chapel dedication this coming spring, and you are cordially invited to attend. The entire completed chapel complex is a source of institutional—and I trust—denominational pride.

This past semester marked the highest spring enrollment in the seminary’s history, and with over 1,500 students Midwestern Seminary ranks as one of the largest seminaries in North America. In recent months we have also hosted our two accreditors—the Association of Theological Schools and the Higher Learning Commission for our decennial accreditation reviews. I am pleased to report that we passed these reviews with flying colors. Yet, our enthusiasm is not merely in what has been accomplished, but in what we are seeking to accomplish as a seminary in the season ahead.

Missiological Refocus

Over the past many months we have been comprehensively evaluating and strategically repositioning our institutional efforts so that we might most faithfully serve the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention. Indeed, our vision is full, yet simple: Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary exists For the Church.

My call as president is to lead Midwestern Seminary to serve the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention. We train students intentionally and especially for the churches of this denomination. We bear a moral stewardship to our Southern Baptist forebears and a contemporary stewardship of the same to focus our instructional efforts and academic programs to train pastors, ministers, and missionaries especially for Southern Baptist churches.

Our mission to exist For the Church is an urgent one. This is an urgent mission because the Southern Baptist Convention consists of some 45,000 local churches that need pastors and ministers to shepherd their congregations and to equip the members gathered therein, and because we are a Great Commission people deploying pastors, ministers, and missionaries globally to reach the world for Christ. We especially feel the urgency of our mission in light of LifeWay’s recent report indicating a decrease in baptisms and church attendance within our denomination.

In light of this, Midwestern Seminary makes strengthening the preaching and teaching capabilities of the ministers it trains priority one. So goes the pulpit, so goes the church; and so goes these offices, so goes the equipping of the saints for the service of the church, the progress of the gospel, and the fulfilling of the Great Commission.

Looking at current denominational demographics further accentuates the need to train pastors and missionaries For the Church. A dearth of pastors looms on the horizon and, in a sense, is already here. If churches do not call out pastors and seminaries do not train them, from whence will they come? After all, we minister under a Pauline injunction: “‘Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ How will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things.’” Our love for the lost, for the nations, for the gospel, and for the spreading thereof in order to fulfill the Great Commission heightens our urgency to train pastors, teachers, and evangelists.

Sweeping Academic Expansion

To best serve the churches of this convention we have recently announced a sweeping academic expansion. Included within this expansion is offering dual major degrees at the undergraduate level in order to better prepare bi-vocational ministers and missionaries who will serve overseas on a business platform.

We are bringing renewed focus to the Master of Divinity degree with emphases on pastoral ministry and preaching, biblical and theological studies, and Christian ministry. We have developed a new doctorate in counseling as well. We are in conversations with our accreditors about further expansions to our Ph.D. program, which I look forward to sharing in due course. All of this, and so much more, is being undertaken so that Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary can best serve the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention.

For the Church—this is the vision that called me to Kansas City. It is the vision that is being renewed and is reverberating across our campus. It is the vision that we, with appropriate institutional self-confidence, are projecting across this denomination and beyond. We are confident because Christ is building his church, and in as much as we are faithful to his church, he will be faithful to us.

To the messengers of this convention, I say first and foremost, thank you. Thank you especially for your prayers and for your support through the Cooperative Program. I also say join with us, hope the best for us, believe the best about us, and expect the best from us. Pray for us, partner with us, support us, send us your men and women to train for ministry, stand with us in solidarity of spirit, shared conviction, and gospel aspiration; and I say, hold us accountable. Hold us accountable to our denominational, confessional, and missiological commitments so that we might rightly exist For the Church.

Full Transcript:

It is an honor to bring a word of charge and commendation to the graduates who sit before me this morning and to the parents and friends and family who have gathered here in this room. My words will not be long today. This is not a full sermon, but rather, a word of encouragement and exhortation from Matthew 28.

Matthew 28:16–20 is a passage with which most of us in the room are familiar, at least to some degree. You do not have to have grown up in church, for being a Westerner has probably brought you into contact with this passage sometime during your life. This passage is paradigmatic for Christians, paradigmatic for churches, and paradigmatic for this institution. We exist For the Church, and to exist For the Church means that we exist unto the same end as the church exists: for the gathering in of the nations for the glory of Christ through the proclamation of the gospel to all people. I want to read from Matthew chapter 28:16–20.

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

{Prayer}

Since my childhood I have had a certain interest in politics and enjoyed, even as a young boy, watching different political debates, following the evening news, reading newspapers, and observing political dynamics. One of the most interesting presidential elections of this generation has to be in my estimation the presidential election of 1992. Most of us in the room are old enough to remember it and recall what was taking place then. President George H. W. Bush was running for re-election after his first term with Dan Quayle as his vice president. Though President Bush had a dramatically successful Iraqi War and approval ratings soaring towards the 90s, economic recession and slumping national morale caused the nation to second guess whether or not he should have a second term. To complicate matters more, a bright, young charismatic governor from Arkansas named Bill Clinton was running against him as the Democratic nominee. Mr. Clinton chose another Southerner, Al Gore, a senator from Tennessee, as his running mate. Then to really spice things up, a Texas billionaire by the name of H. Ross Perot entered the race as an Independent candidate and proved to be the most plausible Independent candidate of the 20th century, other than Teddy Roosevelt.

All eyes were turned to the presidential debates, but attention also turned to the vice presidential debate when Senator Gore, Vice President Quayle, and H. Ross Perot’s running mate, Admiral [James] Stockdale, would take the stage. Everyone knew who Dan Quayle was—the seated vice president of the United States. Many people knew who Al Gore was—a United States Senator. But no one knew who Stockdale was. He took the platform, and introduced himself by saying, in an attempt at a joke, “Who am I and why am I here?” His joke proved ruinous for his debate and in some ways, ruinous for the campaign. Now, those words fell flat that day, but I suspect they are actually timely for us this morning, especially as our graduates contemplate who they are, why they are here, and unto what God has called them.

These are big picture questions about life, ministry, what is before us, and what should be before us. I say to you, who are you? If you are in Christ, you are indeed in Christ. You have been adopted into his family. You have been called out of the world to serve him and you have a double calling upon your life to serve as a pastor, a teacher, a minister, and an evangelist in his church. You identity, if authentically represented by your presence and sense of call today, that your identity is fixed in him. And it is not just an identity he has given you as a formal title, but it is an identity he has given you unto an end, and it is the end that called you to this institution, I trust. It is a sense of calling to do something for the gospel, a calling to give your life to serve the cause of Christ, a calling that intersects with the Great Commission. That is why we are here today. As each graduate will pass across this stage, there is joy in seeing them graduate. But there is also joy in seeing them go, because we are not in the business of accumulating people and to keep them here. We are in the business of graduating people and seeing them go to serve the cause of Christ wherever that call may lead. Jesus said as much in Matthew 28, where he gave this Great Commission that was repeated five times in the Gospels and Acts. This is a call to take the gospel beyond ourselves, beyond own localities, our own churches, our own regions, and to take it to the uttermost parts of the earth. In this generation, as none prior, we have the unique capability to do just that through travel, through the Internet, and through technological advancements. In a very real sense this generation can see the eradication of what is known as an “unreached people group.” Currently there are over 3,000 different people groups around the world who have no exposure to the gospel. But all of that is changing, can change, and it must change. I say to graduates sitting before me, be a part of that change.

When Jesus speaks these words in verse 18, he begins in a peculiar way. Before launching into the Great Commission in verse 19, in verse 18—as something of a prologue—he reminds his disciples, “All Authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Why a declaration of our King’s authority before he gives this Great Commission? What does this mean? What does it mean to us? What does it mean to you? Jesus is unmistakably declaring that he has authority over the cosmos, over his church, and over you today. Philippians 2 tells us that though Jesus came and died as a servant, on a cross, humbling himself to the ultimate point of humiliation, the Father has highly exalted him and given him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

To our graduates this morning, I want to remind you what these words say: that all authority has been given to Christ. In that phrase comes an expression of your own subjection to him. Ultimately, you do not report, you will not report, and you must to not report to any human group. Your ultimate responsibility is not to a personnel committee, a deacon board, or an elder board, though God uses those things in his tiering of structure and authority. Your ultimate accountability is to the Word of God and the Spirit of God, by which Christ mediates his rule and authority over his servants. You go forth to serve as one under charge. Your ministry is not your own, your message is not your own, and that which you seek to undertake is not something you craft on paper that looks to be the easiest or most likely successful ministry course. Rather, you have a pre-committed end to your life, the end to which Christ is calling you. For parents and family members listening to this, these may be upsetting words, but I remind us this morning that this is an upsetting gospel. The Great Commission is an upsetting task and the very enunciation of it should dislodge complacency in our hearts. I pray that you have a faithful ministry, I pray you have a bold ministry, I pray you have a courageous ministry, and I pray you have a fruitful ministry, but I will never pray that you have an easy one. May you have joy untold, yes. May you have blessings uncountable, yes. Do not pray for ease, but pray for fruitfulness in your gospel labor.

Jesus says, “All authority has been given unto me.” That phrase comes to us this morning calling for our submission, but also it comes to us this morning instilling us with confidence. The same Jesus who declared in Matthew 16, “I will build my church,” is the Jesus who here is commissioning servants to go and do it. I remind us this morning that God plus one still equals a majority. Jesus is saying, “As you go, fear not, for I rule and reign over this universe and I will use you, I will work through you,” as you are faithful to him. Men and women before me this morning, I remind you that you are men and women under commission. You are a part of a conscripted force. You are under charge. Do not take that lightly; do not turn from that easily.

Notice what Jesus says here. After this statement of authority, he then directly speaks to his disciples—and to us—about what they are to do. Recall the context here. Jesus has ministered with his disciples some three years. They have seen him, they have heard him, and they have learned from him. They saw him heal, restore sight to the blind, restore health to the lame, multiply food, walk on water, and raise the dead. Unto what end have they seen all this? Now Jesus is about to go. Their confidence, their hope, everything they have longed for, their expectations have been in him, and now he is going. He gives them this instruction as to what they are now to do in light of his departure: “You go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” I love these two verses because they are packed with action. They are packed with words of industry, words of movement. It is not as though this is a pile up of words with little meaning. Every word has meaning. Hear the words of action in here, “You go.” You go. I remind us this morning that our calling at Midwestern Seminary is not to train a generation of church theorists, church critics, hypothetical church servants, or ostensible Great Commission servants. There is something old fashioned and perennial and timeless about this word. “You go.” You do something, you depart. “You go therefore and you make disciples.” Now we understand, ultimately the Lord is the one who converts, but any reading of this Great Commission that does not see us going and doing something is a false reading. You go, you make disciples, you preach the gospel, you teach the gospel, you instruct in the gospel, and you make disciples.

What is a disciple? A disciple is a learner, a follower of Christ. You are here today as an ultimate expression of discipleship. You have come to an institution that is committed to the Bible as the Word of God. You have been taught in these things so that you may be a more equipped disciple. So that, in Paul’s words to Timothy, “You, having been taught, may be able to teach others faithfully also.” You are a disciple and your being here is a sign of the seriousness with which you take discipleship. Now he is saying, “you go,” and the mission you fulfill is not merely making generic gospel touches, but rather actual conversions. Let me say that again: actual conversions. We are not just spreading religious platitudes. We are not just complaining about a culture drifting further and further into decadence. We are not just preaching sermons, even if they be faithful. We are seeking converts to Christ.

Notice the scope of this call: “you go, you make, of all nations.” I alluded to this earlier; there still are more than 3,000 unreached people groups, many of which are an identifiable group of people with a particular language—a particular tongue—and the gospel is yet to get to them and they are yet to gain access to it. If you have watched the progress of the church throughout 2,000 years, you see it attaining to lesser or greater degrees of faithfulness, lesser or greater degrees of success in fulfilling the Great Commission. What started in the Mediterranean region spread further throughout Asia Minor and beyond until finally spreading to where it is today. I recently read an interesting article about this. The author stated that if you look at the history of the church in the past 2,000 years, it tends to be like a rain shower where it goes. It is like a rain shower that moves to a region, goes to a people group, wets it as a rain shower would, then it will move on to another region. So today you see places like North Africa which once were thoroughly Christianized, but now they are insufficiently Christian. Look in a region like Europe, which is going by the year into unbelief. Ten years from now there will be more Muslims living in England than Anglicans, the established church of England. The author said that Islam, on the contrary, becomes like a lake where it goes. It floods the place and tends to stay there. So it is with that particular geo-political context in mind that we hear the words of Christ saying “you go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”

Now the next word here I find to be deeply important, not merely because I am president of a Baptist institution, but because I am a Biblicist. He says “you baptize them.” This is an expression, a sign, of one’s conversion to Christ, we believe taking place after conversion by immersion. I say to graduates sitting before me this morning, this is not the most urgent thing in your Bible, but it is not far from it. Do not take baptism lightly. Take it seriously. We understand and believe it to be one of the two ordinances of the church remaining for us to practice. We see prescribed and described in the New Testament a mode and method of baptism that occurs by immersion after conversion. Hold to that. Own that. Do not be embarrassed by that. That is a biblical concept we believe in. Notice what he says here, “you baptize them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” This great Trinitarian formula which in itself is a confession of what we believe: we believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and we make disciples and we baptize them into that formula.

Notice that Jesus says we “teach them to observe all that I have commanded you.” We have a predetermined message. It is the message of Christ. It is the message of the New Testament and Old delivered to us. We are to be preachers and teachers of the Word, not merely peddling modern opinions. We have a predetermined message: you be faithful to the Word. You be faithful to teach disciples that which Christ and the apostles have taught us. You be faithful to these things as people who have backbones of steel and knees that do not knock because we cannot help—if we look to our culture and the world before us, and if we have much realism in our hearts—to see storm clouds ahead for those who hold to biblical truth, biblical truth about human sexuality, biblical truth about life, biblical truth about the exclusivity of the gospel, which is an unpopular message that will become fiercely unpopular—I regret but predict—in the years ahead. That middle terrain between what is acceptable socially, and what is expected and demanded biblically, that middle terrain of ambiguity is already evaporating before our eyes and will all the more do so. If you have not settled in your heart that this is God’s Word, if you have not settled in your heart that these things you must teach and preach and prescribe, if you have not settled in your heart that you are a man or a woman under authority to these things, I fear for your ministry. I fear for you. But if you have settled in your heart that this is God’s Word and that it is true, and that you are a man or woman under authority, that what can someone do? They can do a lot, but ultimately they can do nothing to you of eternal consequence.

I love the reading of verse 19 and the first half of verse 20: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” There is a personalization to this, meaning that people—men and women—are to go and make converts of men and women and boys and girls. Let me tell you that ultimately, humanly speaking, this is what will bring you the most joy and the most satisfaction in ministry: seeing not just the gospel work to a crowd, but seeing people who are saved. You see people whom you know and to whom you were able to speak the gospel embrace and believe it and you see Christ change their lives. I am not an old man, but I have been serving in ministry in one form or another for about 15 years. Throughout those years, the relationships that, in my memory, are the most precious, and those relationships that I impulsively want to keep up with—and those relationships and people who impulsively want to keep up with me—are not the biggest givers in my churches over the years. They are not even necessarily the most faithful attenders. But they are the people who have very clear conversion stories where they knew they once were lost but now are saved and I saw God work in their lives, they saw God work in their lives, and it forged a personal tie between us that stands the test of time.

I grew up in a church. No pastor is perfect. My pastor was not perfect, but he preached the gospel to me and I was saved under his ministry. His feet may be clay, but to me they will always be beautiful. For to hear someone else criticize the pastor under whom I came to Christ makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I say to you who are going to serve the gospel, you will see people love you, embrace you, support you, and stay with you throughout the course of your ministry as you are faithful to get the gospel to them.

Notice what Jesus says here at the end of verse 20, “And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the earth.” This last phrase brings a promise for us to cling to. Jesus is not tossing you out today as we toss you out. He is not sending you forth alone as we, in a sense, are sending you forth alone today. Not entirely, for we are here for you, but as you go you will be distant from us. Jesus is saying to his church, and he is saying to those who are seeking to undertake his Great Commission, “I am with you always,” always throughout the duration of your ministry, but get this, always, even to the end of the age. I want Christ with me throughout my ministry, as do you. That encourages me. But the reminder that he is with me when I pass from this life to the next—throughout the end of the age—brings ultimate assurance. Graduating class of Spring 2013, why are you here? You are here because Christ has saved you and Christ has called you. You are here because the church affirmed that. You are here because you believe he is calling you to the next stage of gospel ministry. But why you are here is now why you must go. Christ has called you to go and he is sending you forth to advance his gospel as you personally undertake to fulfill his Great Commission. As you go, I say be faithful, be courageous, be winsome, be cheerful, and know that the one who has called you forth by his authority will be with you throughout the end of the age. Amen.

Full Transcript:

Never in one room have so many been gathered to which one man owed so much. I am honored by your presence; I have been humbled by kind words said to me and of me in recent days and on this day.

I am deeply honored by the participants in the inaugural events. Most especially, Drs. Tom Elliff and David Dockery, thank you. I am especially grateful for the keynote speaker, Dr. Al Mohler. One I have known as a friend, mentor, colleague, president, and who apart from my family, is more responsible than any other person on earth for me being here today.

I am gratified by the presence of my family: parents who have lovingly supported me my whole life, and two brothers who in adulthood remain among my closest friends. Beyond family, there are too many friends to name, but know Karen and I love you, appreciate you, and thank God for you.

To the Midwestern Seminary community, thank you for so warmly receiving us, honoring us, serving with us, and believing in me and in our future together in service of the church. I am daily honored to serve as your president.

Most of all, my dear wife, Karen, who lovingly—and tirelessly—supports me daily; and five children—Anne-Marie, Caroline, William, Alden and Elizabeth—who bring me more joy than one heart can hold. Thank you. God has blessed me beyond measure. I am an unworthy recipient of a relentlessly kind providence, and, as the psalmist said, “the lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places, and my cup overfloweth.”

Though my heart is full, today my words shall be concise. I want to focus our attention, briefly, this morning on the topic to which I have been focusing Midwestern Seminary’s attention since the day of my election, and to which I shall increasingly focus it every day going forward—the church of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Indeed, our vision is full, yet simple: we exist For the Church. Our stewardship is rooted in the biblical convictions that Christ died for his church, is the head of his church, promised to build his church, gifts followers to serve his church, is calling out pastors, teachers and evangelists to minister to his church, issued his Great Commission to expand his church, and shall one day return for his church.

Moreover, the urgency of Midwestern Seminary’s vision to exist For the Church is amplified by the fact that the Southern Baptist Convention consists of some 45,000 local churches that need pastors and ministers to shepherd congregations and to equip the members gathered therein, and because we are a Great Commission people deploying pastors, ministers, and missionaries globally to reach the world for Christ.

To our watching denomination I say, this day a man has been installed that loves the churches of this convention. He resolves to serve, in both letter and in spirit, in good faith with the churches of this convention and welcomes the oversight and accountability the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention exercise over this seminary; this seminary they own.

My vision, and the vision for Midwestern Seminary, is to serve the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention. We happily welcome students from beyond this convention, and we will happily deploy graduates beyond it as well. We do not train students only for the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention, but we unashamedly train students intentionally and especially for the churches of this denomination. We bear a moral stewardship to our Southern Baptist forebears and a contemporary stewardship of the same to focus and calibrate our instructional efforts and academic programs to train pastors, ministers, and missionaries especially for Southern Baptist churches. “Southern Baptist” is a label we wear proudly, colors we fly boldly, and a constituency we shall serve humbly.

In a very real sense, Midwestern Seminary’s identity and vision to exist For the Church was established in Matthew 16, underscored with urgency in Romans 10, mandated and expounded upon in Ephesians 4, denominationally conceptualized in the 1850s, institutionally realized in 1957 and, today, in our midst, is being renewed again and declared once more. We exist For the Church.

In leading this seminary, I am not holding emergency strategy sessions to determine who we should be. We are not enduring sleepless nights attempting to find our identity. Donors are not being polled, trustee whip-counts are not being taken, student focus groups are not being conducted, nor are marketing agencies being consulted to help us determine our market niche, our identity.

On the contrary, to be a seminary is to be a pre-committed entity. We look to the Scriptures for our purpose and as we do, we realize we must exist For the Church. Christ has promised to build his church, not his seminary, and Christ’s jurisdiction and headship over his church shall define this seminary’s rationale and will drive its mission.

Midwestern Seminary’s resolve to serve the church is formal, structural, and systemic, but it also is attitudinal. Our posture toward the churches we serve will be one of deference. We do not portend to know the needs of the churches we serve better than the churches know their own needs. Furthermore, our role is neither to prod nor drag churches, but to serve them. This seminary does not sit in judgment of the church; rather, the church sits in judgment of this seminary.

At the very heart of Midwestern Seminary’s call to serve the church is to abide under an Ephesians 4 mandate, wherein the apostle reminded the church at Ephesus, “He [Christ] gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” In a sense, the specified and enduring offices of Ephesians 4—evangelists, pastors, and teachers—are tangible and perennial indicators of Christ’s promise in Matthew 16, to build his church.

Therefore, this seminary will make priority one to be strengthening the preaching and teaching capabilities of the ministers it trains. So goes the pulpit, so goes the church; and so goes these offices, so goes the equipping of the saints for the service of the church, the progress of the gospel, and the fulfilling of the Great Commission. Therefore, we unapologetically bend our resources and energies to train pastors, ministers, teachers, and evangelists, and we purpose to conceptualize and re-conceptualize how other, more auxiliary ministerial roles and responsibilities might be configured within an Ephesians 4 template.

Moreover, I understand the Southern Baptist Convention’s central and irreducible expectation for us is to train pastors and missionaries for the church. After all, in its most distilled form, this is precisely what our convention is—a confederation of churches, with pastors (and often no other vocational ministers), partnering to win the world for Christ by collectively funding and sending missionaries abroad. These are the two irreducible components of our denomination and the two irreducible positions for which the seminary must equip. We can do more; we shall do no less.

Looking to denominational demographics accentuates the need to train pastors and missionaries for the church. A dearth of pastors looms on the horizon and, in a sense, is already here. If churches do not call out pastors and seminaries do not train them, from whence will they come? After all, we minister under a Pauline injunction. “‘Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ How will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things.’” Our love for the lost, for the nations, for the gospel, and the spreading thereof through the fulfilling of the Great Commission heightens our urgency to train pastors, teachers, and evangelists.

Let us be clear—to be for the church does not mean we exist to train church theorists, church critics, or hypothetical church servants. The call to be for the church is not a call to graduate men and women who spend their lives assessing, evaluating, scrutinizing, and drafting stodgy position papers about the health—or lack of health—of the church. For a credentialed ecclesiastical critic doth not a servant of the church make.

No, we aspire for something different, something more, and something altogether better, and we have a model of virtue to which we shall look. Indeed, it is altogether fitting, right, and even poetic that we reassert our commitment to exist For the Church in this time and place. In the long and storied history of Christ’s church, never has this ambition to serve the church been more embodied than in the “Prince of Preachers” himself—Charles Haddon Spurgeon, of whom Midwestern Seminary is an heir and steward. Midwestern Seminary owns Spurgeon’s library. We possess his desk. We possess much of Spurgeon’s sermon notes, correspondence, copious notations, Spurgeon’s figurine and figurines of Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s paintings and paintings of Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s pictures and pictures of Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s ornamentations, accouterments, and replicated communion table, as well as Spurgeon’s pulpit replicated and a replica of Spurgeon’s replicated pulpit.

Most importantly of all, though, we possess not merely Spurgeon’s library and artifacts, but we declare today we also possess his convictions. We possess not only Spurgeon’s legacy, but his spirit as well, and we intend to demonstrate his determination to give our lives, as he gave his, For the Church. Therefore, as sons and daughters of Spurgeon, Midwestern Seminary is uniquely positioned, and has been granted by God a singular opportunity, to own and demonstrate Spurgeon’s legacy of ministering for the church.

In service For the Church, we aim to graduate students who stand for truth in the midst of our own downgrade controversies, who preach the Word amidst our own generation of those aspiring the tickling of their ears, who have an evangelical and evangelistic fervor, as Spurgeon, in our own malaise of gospel and Great Commission apathy, and who will tend the flock of God with relentless self-sacrifice, as did Spurgeon.

What if God saw fit—to not only entrust us with the Spurgeon library and legacy, as he has, but to raise up through Midwestern Seminary a generation of Spurgeonesque pastors, teachers, and evangelists who give their lives for the church. Would to God it be so.

For the Church—this is the vision that called me to this place. It is the vision that is being renewed and is reverberating across this campus. It is the vision that we, with appropriate institutional self-confidence, are projecting across this denomination and beyond. We are confident because Christ is building his church, and in as much as we are faithful to his church, he will be faithful to us.

Under the auspices of this vision, we intend to bear any burden, pay any price, endure any hardship, seize any opportunity, launch any initiative, and embark on any effort to strengthen our claim and fulfill our mission to be the seminary For the Church.

Therefore, I invite every member of this seminary community, accomplished faculty, devoted staff, and ministers-in-training to renew ourselves once again, to pledge, as it were, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor—For the Church.

To this denomination, and to brothers and sisters of like-faith beyond this denomination, I say join us, hope the best for us, believe the best about us, and expect the best from us. Pray for us, partner with us, support us, send us your men and women to train for ministry, stand with us in solidarity of spirit, shared conviction and gospel aspiration; and, without guile, I say, hold us accountable. Hold us accountable to our denominational, confessional, and missiological commitments so that we might rightly exist For the Church.

Therefore, to those within the sound of my voice, as we depart to minister For the Church, let us resolve with the one to whom this institution looks, Charles Spurgeon, who reflected, “As long as there is breath in our bodies, let us serve Christ; as long as we can think, as long as we can speak, as long as we can work, let us even serve him with our last gasp; and, if it be possible, let us try to set some work going that will glorify him when we are dead and gone. Let us scatter some seed that may spring up when we are sleeping beneath the hillock in the cemetery.”

As with Spurgeon, let us live and minister for Christ, for the gospel, and for the Great Commission. Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, let us now go forth to live and minister For the Church.