“How you answer these questions determines everything about the faculty you seek to build, the curriculum you seek to structure, the graduates you hope to produce, the pastors you hope to equip, the ministers you intend to send, and the missionaries you intend to launch,” he said.

Jason Allen, in his first chapel message as president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, shared his vision about the role of the seminary in theological education, within the Southern Baptist Convention and in serving its constituencies, particularly the local church.

With the new president’s election the previous day (Oct. 15), the mood of the packed chapel audience was celebratory as Allen, his wife Karen and their children were formally welcomed into the seminary family by Bill Bowyer, chairman of the trustees’ presidential search team.

Allen said he and his family had felt the moving of the Holy Spirit throughout the search process.

“If ever I’ve been convinced of the certainty of God’s will in my life, it has been unto this,” Allen said. “Karen and I have prayed for months … and as we’ve sensed every step of the way the Lord’s leading us down this road, it has brought with it such a sweet assurance. God has already developed in our hearts a love for a people we are really yet to know and a desire for community we are yet to even fully be in. We’re so overjoyed to be here!”

Turning to his sermon, titled, “What hath the Seminary to do with the Church?” from 1 Timothy 3:14-16, Allen said his initial chapel message wasn’t intended to be a manifesto for the seminary. Rather, he intended to share from God’s Word about theological education, what the seminary is and how it relates to the local church.

Southern Baptists have often had an uneasy relationship with the seminaries, Allen said, pointing to such questions as: “What is a seminary to be?” “Is it to be a divinity school or built and pointed at serving the local church?” “Does it serve a convention or is it built to change and prod a convention?”

Answering these questions, Allen said, “We are committed to serve the local church and not to point our attention or affections toward approval from the secular academy. We are called to serve a denomination, not to prod or push it. We are called to minister and teach in a context of confessional integrity.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on bpnews.net—however, the original URL is no longer available.]