The Vision

Precious Memories

by President Paige Patterson

Article by Paige Patterson in the current issue of Southwestern News

While tempted to be a “sentimentalist,” I will not do it. As troubling as it is to me, I know the day is coming, perhaps even within my own lifetime, when the First Baptist Church of Beaumont, Texas, will tear down the old sanctuary where they have met for nearly 80 years and replace it with a facility to meet the needs of the future. Having too often watched obstructionists stand in the way of the future for purely sentimental reasons, I will not yield to that temptation. Nevertheless, when the old building goes, I will hurt.

Why, you may ask, would you be so attached to that building? First, there I found Christ as my Savior. I can take you to the very place where I was standing, in a hallowed space one foot square , on the night when I finally repented of my sin and received Christ as my Savior, in what was a cataclysmic experience even for a nine-year old boy. Second, in the baptistry of that church I followed Christ in believer’s baptism. Third, in that church auditorium I made my commitment to the ministry. Fourth, there I preached my second sermon. Fifth, in that holy place I sat through many revival services and felt and saw the magnificent impact of the movement of the Holy Spirit of God upon my own heart and others as well. So now you understand why I will be sad when the building is destroyed.

Then you will also understand why Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, as a part of its 100th year celebration coming in 2008, is building a chapel worthy of the seminary after all these years. Our sister seminaries at Southeastern, Southern and New Orleans enjoy beautiful chapel buildings which have become the focal points of their campuses. Recent articles document other theological institutions that have realized the absolute necessity of the chapel experience as part of seminary training. James F. White of the Department of Theology at Notre Dame University recently wrote, “The Seminary chapel building plays an important role in the spiritual formation and education for ministry of seminary students. Not only does it help form an image of our relationship to God but it also shapes our concepts of the nature of the worshiping community. The chapel can reinforce images that we would disown if stated in words, but the building’s silent witness is often more powerful than we admit.”

The Truett Auditorium at Southwestern has certainly served well, but reaches its capacity at 1,000 people. There is no way for us to have all of our student body together in a single chapel session. We cannot open our doors to all the people in the community who want to come for the performance of great musical events such as the annual presentation of The Messiah. The number of tickets must be limited because there is no space. Neither can we hold graduation exercises on our own campus.

But while those are spatial problems, the real issue revolves around student and faculty experiencing the worship of God together on campus. Long ago our seminaries made a decision that they would not be a substitute for the local church. We ask our professors and students to place their lives in membership in local churches across the city and state. Nevertheless, any community that seeks to honor Christ must learn to worship together.

Furthermore, the chapel is for teaching just as important, and perhaps even more so, than any other single class meeting on campus. In the chapel we will model “how to do church.” We will teach students how to “lift an offering.” We will model for students how the Word of God is effectively expounded and applied. In the chapel, we will demonstrate how public prayer and Bible reading is done properly, and we will participate together in music honoring God and exalting the Savior. There our musicians will have the unique opportunity to use their talents for God.

To the chapel come missionaries from around the world, bearing news of the phenomenal movement of God on mission fields and inviting students to adopt a vision of the world. There every year lost students (yes, even in Seminary there are some who arrive without having had an experience with Christ) will come to find the Lord as Savior. A thousand things happen in the chapel experience, and any school wanting to make the appropriate spiritual and educational impact upon its students must utilize chapel in a skillful way.

Unfortunately, we live in a day of very expensive steel. It is no longer a small financial matter to build a chapel to seat 3,500 people, but then the truth is that 50 years ago, while the actual numbers would have been far smaller, the difficulty involved in securing that amount would have been quite similar.

Thanks to very generous donors, Dottie and Harold Riley, a lead gift of $16 million has been pledged for the building of the chapel. This gift was intended to defray approximately half of the cost of the chapel, although it does not include additional parking that must be made available and some major street closures and adjustments that must be made on campus. We are extraordinarily grateful for such a generous gift. Now the rest of us have to match that gift.

Planned for the chapel building is an assembly hall that will not only provide for the seminary but for the entire city of Fort Worth and surrounding communities. Fort Worth has a beautiful performance hall in the Bass Hall, but it, too, is much smaller than the city needs; and we believe that major help for building this facility is going to be provided from people in the Fort Worth area.

The fan-shaped assembly hall design will have the finest acoustics available and will keep the Word of God as the central focus. The choir and orchestra areas are large enough to facilitate future growth and, at the same time, no chair in the chapel will be very far from the pulpit itself.

Part of the effort to build the new chapel will focus on making it possible for every Southwestern alumnus and friend of the institution to have a part in it, regardless of whether they are  blessed with enormous personal resources. To do this, we are suggesting that our alumni purchase one of the comfortable chairs for the chapel. There are at least two ways this can be done. One way is by making a gift of $2,400 to the chapel fund; this will enable the donor to designate a name to be placed on a chair. Mrs. Patterson and I will be giving the money for two chairs on the lower floor. All we ask is that you make a pledge and give $200 a month for 12 months or $100 a month for 24 months.

Another option is available in a tier of seats in the balcony for those who want to participate but feel that they just cannot provide $2,400. A full tier of seats in the balcony will be available for $1,200 a piece or $100 a month for 12 months. In the Old Testament, all the people gave some in order to achieve a task that was beyond any one individual or small group. This plan allows everyone to have a permanent participation in tomorrow.

Why should students, faculty, administration and alums have a part in this effort? Sitting out there in the chapel one day under the preaching of the gospel, someone in a chair you have purchased is going to realize that he or she has never been saved. In that moment, Christ will become a reality and an eternity in heaven will be sealed. In another chair someone has funded, there will be a student who came planning for ministry in this country but as God speaks through an earnest and ardent missionary, that student will realize that his call of God is to go to the one billion people of China and give his life, perhaps in obscurity, for the cause of the gospel. This will be repeated, of course, literally hundreds of times. Sitting in one of those chairs will be a student who will be at the verge of walking away from the ministry. Financial obligations that he doesn’t know how to meet, coupled with discouragement and many other cares, will leave him despondent. But that day in chapel, he will hear extolled once again the faithfulness of God and, instead of walking away, he will actually recommit himself to what matters for time and eternity.

Graduation is always a high hour in the life of every seminarian,  but there are probably more lost people at the average graduation ceremony than at any other time except perhaps at funerals and weddings. Here the chapel becomes the focal point intersecting the lives of many lost souls with the gospel of Christ. Investing in the chapel is therefore the finest kind of investment that anyone can make in the life of the institution and in the lives of thousands of students who will eventually make their way through the seminary. Added to a new building to house the Roy Fish School for Evangelism and Missions and The College at Southwestern, the seminary will be wonderfully positioned for ministry for years to come. Thank you for seriously considering how you might assist us in this 100th anniversary celebration and the building of the chapel to the honor and glory of our Lord.