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| DOCTORAL GRADS Five students with Florida ties received doctorates from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary May 16. Pictured from left to right are: Greg Boyd, pastor of spiritual development at Palm Coast Community Church in Palm Coast; Howie Hooper, associate pastor at First Baptist Church in Mount Dora; Jim Waters Jr., associate pastor of First Baptist Church in Milton; NOBTS President Chuck Kelley; E. Allen Foxworth, Jr., associate pastor at Deltona Lakes Baptist Church in Deltona; and Doug Watkins, associate in the Sunday School department at the Florida Baptist Convention, who received the Doctor of Educational Ministry degree. NOBTS photo |
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)—The work of the six seminaries of the Southern Baptist Convention is showcased with each spring’s commencement. Reports on all of the seminaries’ services follow:
NEW ORLEANS
The life of a Baptist minister is no Hollywood movie, Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, told 295 graduates at the school’s commencement May 16. Ministry packs challenges that no screenwriter could imagine.
But God’s Word and its stories of heroes of the Christian faith provide a soundtrack for those in ministry that offers greater encouragement than any majestic movie theme or classic costume, Kelley said.
Using film clips featuring some of Hollywood’s great epics and heroes—the fedora-sporting archaeologist Indiana Jones, the secretive swordsman Zorro and the Jedi knights of Star Wars—Kelley told graduates that motivation for ministry would be easier if backed by a dramatic soundtrack. To illustrate, Kelley donned a Jones-style fedora and whip as the movie’s theme played in the background. But that’s not real life.
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“There’s no scriptwriter who could possibly make up what happens in a Baptist church,” Kelley said. “And every one of you who are graduating will find yourself saying as you go through your life in ministry, ‘They never told us about this at seminary.’”
But Scripture provides an exhilarating soundtrack for those times when people in ministry need it most, Kelley said. He cited Hebrews 11 and 12, which lists those in the hall of fame of the Christian faith who through God’s strength won victories in war, stood fast in the flames and persevered through persecution.
God’s reward for such men and women is outlined in Hebrews 11:39-40: “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”
“This is the thing that every one of you knows about your life in ministry that lies ahead,” Kelley said. “Wherever you go and whatever you face, somebody serving Jesus has been there before you. Someone has faced the same kind of problems. Somebody has faced the same kind of crisis. Somebody has been at something that seemed hopeless and that insurmountable, and God has made a way.
“That is the great testimony of all who have gone before,” Kelley said. “That is the keynote in our ministerial soundtrack: That we know that wherever we are, whatever we face, God will make a way. We of all people here at NOBTS should know that.”
While they could not attend the commencement, 40 students from Mississippi’s Parchman Prison and 103 Haitian students were recognized during the service.
Twenty-seven inmates at Parchman received bachelor of arts in Christian ministry degrees, and 13 prisoners received associate degrees in the Christian ministry. The Haiti graduates each earned the certificate in pastoral ministry through the seminary’s Center for the Americas in Miami.
MIDWESTERN
The instruction of the Apostle Paul in the first seven verses of the Book of Romans provides graduates of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo., with answers to vital questions for life, the seminary’s president said.
R. Philip Roberts preached from Romans 1:1-7 at Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in Liberty, Mo., May 16. He said Paul showed a strong grasp of the answers to questions graduates should ask themselves: Who am I? What is my purpose? Where am I going?
The majority of the 96 graduates at the school’s 49th commencement earned master of divinity degrees while 28 received master of arts degrees and 20 received bachelor’s degrees.
Eight students received doctor of ministry degrees, and three received the doctor of educational ministry. Two students received the associate of arts degree, and one received a diploma for the ministering wife. Three of the graduates received two degrees, and four members of the same family earned master of divinity degrees, according to registrar Dave Richards.
SOUTHEASTERN
In a Binkley Chapel ceremony, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and The College at Southeastern celebrated spring commencement by conferring degrees on 210 graduates May 22.
Daniel Akin, Southeastern’s president, gave the charge to the graduates from Philippians 1:21, which Akin called “the heartbeat of my life and the joy of my existence, on my best days.”
The verse, which the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Philippi while he was imprisoned, says, “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
“Regardless of the future, in life or in death, it is all about Jesus,” Akin said.
Calling this the ultimate win-win scenario, Akin said his prayer for the graduates and their family and friends was that it would be the win-win situation of their own lives and deaths.
“My prayer is that you will live for Christ the way God intended, and when you die, it will not be to an enemy that you go, but to a friend.
“‘Death is not my enemy,’ Paul was saying. ‘It’s my friend, my escort into the very presence of Jesus,’” Akin said.
SOUTHERN
Faithful ministers proclaim the Gospel as incompetents—“frail children of dust”—so that the power of God can shine brightly as He works through them, R. Albert Mohler Jr. told graduates during the 203rd commencement May 15 at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
Preaching from 2 Corinthians 4:7-11 and the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13, Mohler, Southern’s ninth president, reminded the class of 244 graduates that they are not up to the task of Gospel ministry but God will work through their efforts to save sinners and to bring glory to Himself.
“Jesus Christ calls His ministers from the ranks of the incompetent so that He will show his singular competence through them,” Mohler said. “He uses earthen vessels to demonstrate His own life in us. He confounds the wisdom of the wise by using the unworthy to demonstrate His worth.
“These graduates have followed the admonition of the Apostle Paul to Timothy. They have invested years of study so that they can present themselves to God as workers who ‘need not be ashamed, who rightly handle the word of truth.’ [2 Timothy 2:15] They are scholars of the Word of God, trained theologians and teachers, gifted servants of the church. But the sole competency is that of God Himself.”
SOUTHWESTERN
Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, challenged graduates to recognize the peculiarity of their graduation during the school’s 217th commencement May 8.
“What is peculiar about your graduation is it necessarily falls into one of two categories,” Patterson said. “Either you have chosen, in a way, what is only pitiable, and your graduation is sound and fury with no meaning at all; or else, you of all men and women on the face of the globe are most to be envied. There is no in- between.”
Patterson preached from 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul tells the Corinthian church that unless Christ had truly risen from the dead, then their faith and preaching was in vain.
“The truth of the matter is that you made your decision to come to seminary, hinging on that salient truth,” Patterson said. “You have made a bad decision.... But not if the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, where the body of Christ was laid, is empty.”
Compared to those who obtain secular degrees and great wealth, seminary graduates have chosen the most enviable of all professions because of the resurrection of Christ, Patterson said.
The seminary conferred degrees on 232 students, including 13 undergraduate, 198 master’s level and 21 doctoral degrees.
GOLDEN GATE
Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary conferred 226 degrees during five commencement ceremonies in May, including three married couples jointly receiving degrees or diplomas, two sisters receiving diplomas and two directors graduating with their students.
Coinciding with commencement, the 65-year-old seminary celebrated a special two-day homecoming event on the Northern California Campus in Mill Valley to recognize 50 years on Strawberry Point.
The highlight of the festivities was honoring the seminary’s “Golden Graduates” during commencement May 29. Twenty-eight of those who graduated from the Berkeley and Oakland campuses from 1949-59 donned golden robes and walked with the class of 2009.
Jeff Iorg, the seminary’s president, asked the graduates in his commencement address at each campus to consider the words of Jesus in John 14:12.
“Jesus said something so audacious as to intimidate us, almost frighten us and certainly sober us,” Iorg said. “It demands our allegiance and fulfillment. Jesus said, ‘The one who believes in Me will also do the works that I do, and he will do even greater works than these.’”
Also at the Northern California Campus, Sang Hyun Boo, a master of divinity graduate with a concentration in biblical studies, was recognized as the seminary’s 7,000th graduate.
By campus, the breakdown of graduates included: Northern California Campus, 128 graduates; Southern California Campus, 32 graduates; Pacific Northwest Campus, 21 graduates; Rocky Mountain Campus (Denver), 29 graduates; and Arizona Campus (Phoenix), 16 graduates.