VISION FOR THE FUTURE

By Paige Patterson

What on earth is happening at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary? To answer that, I need to take you on a little journey. We are with Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer on the Mississippi River. We are late for supper, and we know what Mama is going to say. So we take our little boat and come to the shore. Leaping off on the little platform, we tie the boat too quickly and head for the dinner table. As soon as dinner is over, we make our way back to the pier, only to discover that the wind has loosened our knot and the boat has been set adrift. Where on earth will we find it? Shall we go downriver or upriver?

Well, of course, everybody in the world knows the answer to that: If the boat is adrift, it will never drift upriver. It will only drift downriver. Now it may drift down the left side of the bank in liberalism. It may drift down the center of the river in neo-orthodoxy. Or it may drift down the right side of the river in what is confessing conservatism but with an ecumenical flair. But make no mistake about it; the boat will drift down the river.

On the other hand, if you want to go upriver—and we want to do that—then you have to empower the boat. You either have to row it, or you must have a motor. We at Southwestern Seminary are delighted to be part of the seminary armada of the Southern Baptist Convention: six boats moving upriver against the tide of culture. The future success of Southwestern Seminary depends upon our successful movement upriver and our success in at least five goals for every student who comes through the doors.

First and foremost Southwestern Seminary plans for every student to grow spiritually. We encourage spiritual growth through our chapel services where the campus gathers three times a week to worship together. The best preachers from all over the nation speak to the students, rightly dividing the Word of truth. An orchestra and gifted musicians complement the worship. Weekly chapel is the heartbeat of Southwestern Seminary, and with the building of a new chapel, all students will worship and graduate in the same location where they have had spiritually transforming experiences. Southwestern also has a required course in “Spiritual Formation.” This class focuses on the disciplines of the Christian life encouraging students to progress in their spiritual walk with Christ. We also encourage professors to pour their lives into the students inside and outside of the classroom. Each professor on this campus serves as a spiritual mentor or pastor to the students, helping them grow closer to Jesus Christ. Additionally, we want every student and professor to be active and contributing to a local church.

Second, Southwestern Seminary makes evangelism a priority for every student. Whether it is door-to-door evangelism, on a plane, or waiting in line, Southwestern expects its student body to witness for Christ. Our prayer is that every student will be a personal soul winner or else be absolutely miserable. In order to be fruitful servants, we must be faithfully sharing the Gospel. This emphasis will be seen as well in the new building for the Roy Fish School of Evangelism and Missions, which will allow students to learn evangelism techniques and communicate with missionaries on the field.

Third, Southwestern Seminary wants every student to participate in an overseas missions experience. No matter the calling, each student should come to grasp with the fact that this world has approximately seven billion people who will spend eternity in heaven or hell. It is our job to make sure that as many people as possible hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In order to do this, we must be on mission for Christ. Every college student must go on a mission trip before graduation, and every seminary student is encouraged to go on one. Each faculty member must go on a mission trip every three to four years. We probably will not send you prayer walking on a surf board in Hawaii. Our goal is to get you outside your comfort zone and participating in sharing the Gospel in places like Iraq and China.

Fourth, Southwestern Seminary puts an emphasis on the family. We want to restore biblical roles for men and women in the home and the church. At Southwestern, we consider children to be a blessing from the Lord. If a student comes to Southwestern and forsakes his family, he has lost his ministry. For that reason, we emphasize the family through classes like “The Christian Home” and through family activities. We believe in godly child rearing, in a complementarian view of gender roles, and in the ontological equality of men and women.

Fifth and finally, we believe in solid, sound theological education for the special forces of Christian ministry. A student at Southwestern can expect to read at least one-third more material than most other schools. We want the student to read the liberal writers and the conservative writers, and then we expect the teachers to explain why that liberal dog just won’t hunt. We desire to fill the minister’s toolbox with as many tools as possible so that when he is involved in ministry, he will understand the cause of the problem and not just the symptoms.

If Southwestern does its job right, then on the day you graduate, you will walk to the stage, symbolically wipe the sweat from your brow representing all the hard work put into the degree, walk across the stage, and receive your degree. As you walk, you will think to yourself, “Boy am I glad I made it, this was really tough.” You’ll take the diploma, begin to descend the steps and then pause . . . at that moment, you think, “But I really don’t want to leave this place where I have grown closer to Christ in my personal walk and grown close to so many lifelong friends.”

Our goal at Southwestern Seminary is to have a great seminary in the Southwest that provides our churches with better preachers and teachers. We want to supply evangelists eager to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth; and while we do not take ourselves very seriously, we take the task of global evangelization very serious.

Suppose you were to go to the doctor and need surgery. You would want the best doctor in the world who knew everything he possibly could. You would not want an untrained, inexperienced doctor. Yet even the best doctor in the world cannot save you forever. One day that doctor will also die and meet his Maker. Our task does not deal in temporal affairs; our task has eternal implications. Because of that, we must take our assignment seriously; the future of mankind literally depends upon it.

If heaven is real and hell is real and if every one of the seven billion people on the face of the globe is going to spend eternity in one place or the other and the only way for him to avoid hell and gain heaven is through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then nothing else on earth matters more than doing whatever it takes to get that message to every single human being in one’s lifetime. This is the essence and purpose of theological education.

The pages of this book trace the history of a temporal institution committed to an eternal vision. Every student, every building, every professor, every class, and every chapel indicate separate facets of the one vision to reach all seven billion people on this earth with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This has been the vision of Southwestern Seminary for the past 100 years, and with God’s help, it will remain the vision for the next 100.