Students Are Amazing
This week we wrap up the spring semester at Southeastern with finals beginning on Thursday. As I reflect on the past semester I am reminded why I remain optimistic about the future of the SBC. I recognize our students comprise only a percentage of the future leaders in the convention. I also recognize that not all our students have the focus, the passion, and in some cases the call to be bold leaders in the days to come. But I perceive in many, I would say most, possess a great hunger for God and a desire to be more than place holders in the amazing drama of redemption in our time in history.Every week two simple signs remind me of the hope I have. First, not a week goes by but that a student, either in my office or online via email or Facebook, tells me of the work of God and the call of God on his or her life. Last week it was a student who gave up years as an attorney, attempting to make a difference temporally, to surrender to ministry and touch lives for eternity. Or the young man who came to Christ from a life of cocaine addiction, now with a beautiful wife expecting their first child and a passion for sharing Christ that brings conviction to his professor.The second sign of encouragement comes from students I taught in the past. Weekly I receive emails from all over the nation and the globe, hearing stories of salvation and sacrifice. I hear of the great impact Southeastern grads make on the international field. I speak in state conventions at evangelism conferences only to hear state leaders say how much our grads help in the work of the gospel in their state.Increasing numbers of students opt for life outside the southeastern US. More and more long to live for Jesus in other lands abroad or urban centers stateside. I realize we have many challenges facing the church, both in the evangelical church in general and the SBC in particular. These are serious times. Only note the change in population from 1950 in the US (about 152 million) to today (about 302 million) while recognizing SBC baptisms have remained flat for the same time. One can hardly be optimistic about that. It certainly could be worse, as my president Danny Akin noted in a recent interview in the Biblical Recorder. But I have never been one who cared much for people who simply indicate the problem and complain. Solutions matter, although solutions only come when we honestly admit the problem, whether it is a cocaine addict named Brian who came to the end of himself (my student mentioned above) and sought help through a counselor at Bellevue Baptist Church and in that search met Jesus, or a convention coming to grips with its institutionalism, inflated numbers, and disobedience to the Great Commission. My students want to be a part of the solution. They seek not recognition in the denomination nor fame in the community. They long to advance a movement of the gospel where lives are changed, society is transformed, and God is pleased.Thus, when I look at our convention as a whole it is easy to become discouraged. I think of times in Scripture and history when the people of God forsook His ways, from the Israelites in the time of the kings, to the established church in England prior to the Evangelical Awakening. But when I look in the eyes of my students, I see less the statistics and the malaise, and more a potential John Wesley, or George Whitefield, or Charles Spurgeon. E.M. Bounds was right when he wrote that men are God’s method. So I will continue to teach with the conviction and hope that while in my lifetime the American church has lost the homefield advantage for Christ, those I teach can lead a comeback that will see more than a shift in family values or an increase in the market share of American Christendom; we will in fact see a movement of God that touches eternity. I believe we can see a Great Commission Resurgence in the SBC, and my great hope for that comes from my hope in a great God, and some mighty fine students.