Speaker: Darryl Hart

Title: Author and historian

Americans worry about labels and identity. They fear the labels ‘fundamentalist’ and ‘liberal’ because both are seen as extreme positions. During the era of the modernist-fundamentalist controversy in the 1920s, many tried to position themselves in the middle of these two theological extremes. Machen and Mullins both fell into this pattern, attempting to chart a middle course between the feared extremes.

To force the categories, ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ on all figures in this era, is an oversimplification. There were more categories than that.

Mullins became an important figure in the SBC during the era of the Scopes Trial. Mullins pursued a course unacceptable to both evolutionists and fundamentalists. He wanted scientific inquiry as long as it did not challenge traditional morality. Mullins prompted SBC leaders to support less restrictive legislation than they intended to support originally.

After 1924, conservatives in the SBC opposed Mullins. In contrast with Mullins’ position, conservatives passed a statement at the 1926 SBC annual meeting rejecting evolution. Mullins was vulnerable to attacks from conservatives because he appeared to waffle on the subject of evolution.

Machen faced similar circumstances among Northern Presbyterians. He declined to oppose evolution and opposed theological modernists without taking political stands in American culture.

In 1925 a denominational committee concluded that Machen was to blame for the denominational controversy among Northern Presbyterians. The denomination turned against Machen increasingly, resulting in him leaving Princeton Seminary in 1929 and starting the new Westminster Theological Seminary.

Both Mullins and Machen attempted to forge a middle course in the modernist-fundamentalist controversy and failed because of political realities.

Mullins and Machen had similar outlooks. Both believed Unitarianism was the logically consistent outworking of Protestant liberalism. Both thought modernistic thought gutted the church of theological particulars.

The two men, however, went in different directions despite these similar starting points. Mullins argued that religion, rightly understood, did not contrast with natural processes and social reforms. Instead Christ brings together every part of life, he said, adding that liberalism does not explain how a brute man can achieve moral or social good. Mullins argued that humans need the redemption offered in Christ to be saved from sin.

Machen believed churches didn’t understand what was at stake in the battle with modern thought. Believers accommodated modern thought and compromised orthodox theology, he said. He battled modernism by explaining and defending Christian doctrine. According to Machen, the way forward was for Christians to confront error and worship God in strong churches.

Conclusion

Scholars confine Machen’s influence largely to conservative Presbyterian circles and Mullins’ influence largely to SBC circles. In the SBC, moderates and conservatives regard Mullins differently. He is a heroic figure for moderates and a villain for conservatives. But none of these conceptions are accurate.

The two men had some negative assessments of each other. Machen thought Mullins was soft on doctrine. Mullins thought Machen’s appeal to doctrine to authoritarian and rationalistic. Mullins looked down on Machen’s high regard for creeds.

Despite their differences, Mullins and Machen both believed that creeds and liberty went together. Both men affirmed both affirmed that liberty and religious authority could coexist. They thought churches should write doctrinal creeds but that Americans should be free to join any church they wanted.

Speaker: R. Albert Mohler Jr.

Title: President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky.

Mullins makes sense in his time and context, but interpreting Mullins is difficult.

Born in 1860, he was shaped by the Civil War and Reconstruction. After graduating from Texas A&M, Mullins became a telegraph operator. Soon, however, he experienced a call to ministry and enrolled at Southern Seminary in Louisville in 1881. Southern Seminary stood for orthodox Reformed theology in Mullins’ student days and experienced great growth.

Mullins became a pastor in Harrodsburg, Ky., upon graduation from seminary. In 1888 he was called to the Lee Street Baptist Church in Baltimore and a more cosmopolitan culture. During the Baltimore days, Mullins developed a growing social consciousness. After seven years in Baltimore, he became associate secretary of the Foreign Mission Board. That position lasted only a short time before Mullins went to pastor a church in Boston.

Only four years into Mullins’ ministry in Boston, William Whitsitt resigned as SBTS president amid controversy. Trustees unanimously elected Mullins president of the seminary and he accepted the call.

Mullins quickly became a leader and influential theologian in the Southern Baptist Convention. He established a writing and speaking ministry in the convention and beyond it.

At Southern Seminary, Mullins reformed administrative and academic practices. He understood Southern’s importance both in the SBC and northern circles. Mullins related to northern liberals, such as Shailer Mathews, in addition to serving as SBC president in the 1920s and helping establish the Baptist World Alliance. Mullins died in 1928.

As chairman of the faculty at Southern, Mullins set his own teaching responsibilities. Controversy erupted over his decision to teach theology when he changed the textbook from Boyce’s Abstract of Systematic Theology to his own theology text. The new text charted a course away from Boyce’s evangelical Calvinism and toward evangelical liberalism. William James’ Pragmatism and Borden Parker Bowne’s Personalism also influenced Mullins’ theology. These influences led Mullins to emphasize experience along with revealed truth.

Bowne’s Personalism was particularly important for Mullins’ shift away from Boyce’s Calvinism. Bowne, and in turn Mullins, shifted the source of authority from revelation to experience. Mullins did not compromise orthodoxy as much as he sought a new method for defending evangelical convictions.

Mullins’ system shared a common starting point with the modernists. Both systems accepted a division between scientific and religious knowledge. Mullins thought religion and science were both empirical. This understanding was similar to that of latter twentieth-century naturalist Stephen J. Gould. Machen was correct that Mullins surrendered the high ground for theological defense of the faith.

Allowing science and religion to operate simultaneously, Mullins may have hoped that conflict between the two areas would eventually disappear. He never took a position on evolution but did oppose anti-evolution efforts. He affirmed theistic evolution to the extent he could do so without appearing to oppose the Bible or favor Darwinism.

Mullins thought was highly ambiguous. For example, both sides in the Scopes Trial asked him to help them. He refused both. We should not categorize Mullins as a liberal though. He was shocked by the doctrinal aberrations of his friends such as Shailer Mathews.

Mullins argued revelation produced the facts out of which experience was born. Religious facts were separate from doctrines, for Mullins. This is similar to James’ Pragmatism. James believed we know facts but have to create truth about the facts-truth is a belief that supplies meaning and is intellectually satisfying. Mullins believed religious facts existed but that experience had to explain whether doctrines worked. Mullins was likely more influenced by Pragmatism than he thought.

Mullins was not a pragmatist in Pragmatism’s anti-supernatural sense. However, he was wrong to assert Christ as the fundamental religious fact, separable from doctrines. Pragmatism also detracted from Mullins’ ecclesiology. He didn’t understand the church as a people created by God for Himself. For Mullins, the church is not central in the purposes of God. Such a conception is like James in that James believed meaning was individual and could not be explained in corporate terms.

Conclusions

Mullins is an example of the failure of mediating systems. He saw himself as a moderating figure between opposing forces.

Though not a liberal, Mullins wanted to be seen as open to various forms of thought. Naively he wanted to take the best of various forms of thought and incorporate them into Christian theology. He thought modern persons could remain both Christian and modern.

Such an effort is not possible, but it is attractive. That’s why SBC moderates like Mullins so much. We must learn lessons from his life and thought.

Two students at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary are helping local churches share the Gospel with people of more than 100 different nationalities.

But these students are not involved in foreign missions. They are working in conjunction with the North American Mission Board, Kentucky Baptist Convention and Long Run Baptist Association to identify and reach the thousands of international immigrants in Louisville.

The students, who wish to remain anonymous so that internationals are not offended to learn about their goals, have identified more than 70 languages spoken in the city among 101 nationalities. They say no one knows how many separate ethnic groups are represented.

“The nature of this assignment is identifying who are the nations that are represented in Louisville, then raising awareness among local churches that they’re here and they’re unreached, and then really equipping Christians in the city to serve cross culturally effectively,” said one of the students who is working on his doctor of missiology degree in Southern’s Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth.

The students’ vision is to see Christ worshiped in every language spoken in the city. That goal will be fulfilled only when many churches take steps to infiltrate specific populations with the Gospel, they said.

“Louisville is becoming what they call a tier-one refugee relocation center. Where previously perhaps we would bring in 700 to 800 refugees (per year), that number is going to be growing to perhaps even 1,000 refugees.

These are all fleeing their country because of fear of
persecution, and they are unable to return to their home country,” the doctoral student said.

“They come with very meager belongings. Most of them do not speak English. The economic downturn is hitting them very hard.”

In the past, more than 80 percent of Louisville’s refugees were placed in jobs. Now the number has dwindled to less than 40 percent—which provides churches an opportunity to minister to refugees, he said.

In addition to financial assistance, refugees need help filling out basic government paperwork and developing life skills, the student said, adding that Sunday School classes should consider adopting refugee families.

“Most refugees are never invited into an American home,” he said. “When that happens and Americans reach out and become their friends, the opportunity for Gospel ministry is amazing. Even those that come from Hindu or Muslim backgrounds are so receptive to building relationships with Christians.”

Among the nations represented in Louisville are Iraq, Burundi, India and Bosnia. Iraqis are showing particular receptivity to the Gospel and at least seven are waiting to be baptized.

The doctoral student and his wife have invested their lives in ministry to Bosnians. Like many of the city’s ethnic populations, Bosnians have resisted the Gospel message. Yet there are signs that God is breaking down the resistance, he said.

“Several of our friends have asked us what the difference is between us and Catholics,” he said. “It’s very confusing to them, and that’s given us the opportunity to share Christ. But every time we think that we’re making headway the next conversation is all about how much they love being Muslims. So it’s almost like a yoyo.”

Ultimately the two students say they will have succeeded when churches are planted and international refugees commit their lives to Christ.

“Our heart is to see churches planted and people baptized as they become Christians,” the doctoral student said.

For more information on reaching internationals in Louisville, contact the Long Run Baptist Association at 502-635-2601.

What do English Puritan John Owen, pastor John Piper and theologian Wayne Grudem have in common with rap music?
This trio of theological heavyweights inspired Marcus Williams Gray to write and record a Grammy-nominated album that communicates profound Gospel truths through hip-hop tunes.
Gray, also known as Christian rapper FLAME, is a student at Boyce College who has broken into the world of big-time rap music with a hammer that is as potent as it is unusual within the musical genre: sound biblical doctrine.
On the surface, the two seem a discordant mix—the violence and sex-saturated ethos of hip-hop music and the otherworldly ethos of biblical Christianity—but FLAME has wed the two in a way that is proclaiming the Gospel on a bold new frontier.
“A lot of people say, ‘That music is of the devil,’” Gray said of rap. “Well, I agree. The message can definitely be demonic or anti-Christ. But the power in rap music in and of itself is massive. So when you take the Gospel message and you marry it to rap music, it’s a dynamic that can’t be duplicated.”
Gray’s latest album, “Our World Redeemed,” takes the Reformed theology of Owen, Piper and Grudem and translates it into a musical study of redemption. The album has been nominated for a Grammy in the Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album category and has many people listening to the Gospel who would not otherwise be interested. The nationally-televised Grammy Awards program will air on Feb. 8 live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
“When people, especially those who love rap music, when they hear Christian rap, it’s just an automatic respect if the quality is good,” Gray, a biblical counseling major said. “... People stop in their tracks, and they lend you an ear. It’s almost like Mars Hill, the Areopagus. It’s just this marketplace where people want to hear your ideas.”
Though he is careful not to equate rap with preaching, Gray said the Holy Spirit has used rap to convert sinners to faith in Christ.
“When they hear relevant metaphors and similes that are from the culture but are affiliated with God’s Word and the Bible, its just a wonderful tool in the hands of God,” he said. “And I’ve seen so many people, I’ve just seen their jaws drop and I’ve seen the Holy Spirit dig inside of their heart and start to remove that stony heart. And they hear the Gospel through rap music.”
Gray believes rap music may be a more effective tool for communicating the Gospel than pop music. A rap song has three verses of sixteen bars each, he said; thus, the tempo and non-repetitive nature of a rap song allows those verses to be packed with biblical content.
“You can’t do that normally in just a regular pop song or singing-style song,” he said. “But in this form and in this medium, you can pack so much information in one song. And people just become liberated because they heard God’s heart and His Word articulated in such a way where it makes sense and it’s relevant.”
Growing up in the inner city of St. Louis, Gray was influenced by hip-hop culture from a young age. He started rapping in fifth grade, addressing positive and benign topics. But as he aged, Gray turned darker both in his music and his lifestyle. Gangs, drugs and a party atmosphere—the more standard elements commonly associated with the ‘hip-hop lifestyle’— became fixtures of his life.
At age 16 God got his attention: an 18-wheeler hit Gray. When Gray asked his grandmother why God let the incident happen, she told him God was trying to catch his attention. A week and a half later his grandmother died, and Gray felt broken.
When a friend invited him to church, the Gospel captivated him.
“When I heard the Gospel, I just wept because [I realized] the purpose for which God created me, to worship Him. Hearing the Gospel and His love for sinners and the call to repent—all of that just kind of gripped my heart,” he said.
“It was through that experience I remember just shedding tears, man, and asking the Lord to forgive me for all the things I had done in my past and at that point in my present. And He saved me.”
Immediately God began removing vices from Gray’s life. He recognized that “the Lord was changing me and cleaning me up.”
As part of his devotional life, Gray wrote raps to God and sang to Him during quiet times. Though he had no plans to become a recording artist, Gray began to listen to other Christian rappers and realized the potential power of the medium for ministry. So through a series of providential encounters, he began producing albums.
Among the topics his music has addressed are the Trinity, the false teaching of the prosperity gospel, hermeneutics and Fall of man.
Though he gained the name Flame before becoming a Christian, Gray says it now describes the “fire in his bones” to spread God’s Word.
“People can get a full and a broad perspective of the whole counsel of God in one album,” he said. “You take 74 minutes, and you can flesh out the whole counsel of God and people can get a short synopsis of the entire Bible in 74 minutes. So it’s a powerful platform.”
--30--

Troy Bush, an experienced urban ministry specialist, will now regularly share his expertise with students at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary as adjunct professor of Christian missions and urban ministry in the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth.

Bush began teaching courses at Southern as a visiting professor last summer and began his new position on Jan. 1. He will continue teaching J-term classes focusing on missions and urban ministry. Bush earned his doctor of philosophy from Southern in 1999.

Currently Bush serves as director of church starting for the North American Mission Board’s Embrace Baltimore emphasis. Previously he served as a strategy coordinator for Moscow with the International Mission Board. In both roles he focused on making disciples in large cities.

“If we want to see genuine transformation in our cities, it can’t happen ... solely from good government and nongovernmental organizations,” Bush said. “It will take place as the people of God engage their cities both on an individual basis and as the church to make disciples and address systems, structures and centers of power in the city.”

Chuck Lawless, dean of the Graham School, said Bush’s ministry experience will serve students well.

“Dr. Bush brings both IMB and NAMB experience to the Billy Graham School, with a strong emphasis on urban evangelism,” Lawless said. “He is a gifted scholar and a seasoned practitioner who is uniquely gifted in missions strategy.”

Bush will work in conjunction with the recently launched Wayne and Lealice Dehoney Center for Urban Ministry Training. He hopes to be a part of both instructing students in the classroom and guiding them through practical urban ministry experiences.

“I am thrilled that Southern Seminary and the Dehoneys have launched the center,” Bush said. “When we look at missions around the world, a people group focus remains a great need and a strategic avenue for engaging the world. At the same time, one of the areas I think has been under developed is how we engage our cities.

“And to be part of the Wayne and Lealice Dehoney Center for Urban Ministry Training at Southern is an honor and frankly very exciting. I hope that in days ahead I will be able to continue to be part of this ministry.”

Urban ministry must address social issues, Bush said, but successful urban ministry must center on God’s Word.

“It’s not sufficient, for example, to see a drug addict become liberated from narcotics. The focus must be that he would become a disciple of Jesus Christ free from his addiction to drugs,” he said.

“Transformation in urban contexts must extend beyond the goal of social redemption. Urban ministry must be based upon the proclamation of the Word of God, seeking first the kingdom of God in the city so that we are making vibrant, reproducing disciples.”

Bush said he looks forward to sharing with students his passion for urban ministry.

“I’m excited to be involved at this level and to be able to encourage and support what’s being done,” he said.

The recent downturn in America’s economy has prompted budget reductions at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, R. Albert Mohler Jr. said Dec. 15 in a letter to the seminary community.

The seminary’s Executive Strategy Group, consisting of President Mohler and the three senior vice presidents, has reduced the current seminary budget by $1.7 million. Mohler projected between $800,000 and $1.5 million in additional reductions over the next several months.

The reductions include a hiring freeze on non-critical positions, decreases in travel expenses and reducing the number of seminary employees, Mohler said.

“Given the personnel-intensive nature of our budget, the only way we can act responsibly in this situation is to anticipate a reduction in force in terms of total employees and total personnel expenditures,” he said.

The seminary is halting campus improvement projects that are yet to be contracted and funded. However, a new pavilion and other projects already under contract will proceed as planned.

Despite the financial crunch, Mohler said there is good news at Southern.

“The good news is that, given investment changes made before the immediate market downturn, we did not experience the catastrophic losses that were experienced by so many other institutions,” he said. “Nevertheless, we are looking at a real loss of a significant portion of our invested funds over the last twelve months. The weeks since September 1 have brought the worse news regarding these investments, but in reality, the market downturn must be dated far earlier in 2008.”

Other causes of the economic difficulty include projected decreases in donor support and gifts through the Cooperative Program, the Southern Baptist Convention’s unified program for funding missions and ministry, Mohler said. But he stressed that the decreases do not reflect a decrease in desire to give by either individuals or churches.

“This does not indicate a decreased commitment to the seminary or to the Southern Baptist Convention on the part of individuals or churches,” he said. “The issue here is not donative intent but the ability of individuals and churches to give what they would want to give during a time of reduced income.”

Mohler assured students that the seminary will charge no more tuition than is absolutely necessary to balance the budget.

“We are going to do our very best to limit tuition increases because our goal is to make quality theological education accessible to as many God-called ministers and missionaries as possible,” he said. “Our commitment to our students and to the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention is to do our very best to make and keep theological education as affordable as possible.”

Southern faces no danger of being unable to carry out its ministry in the future, Mohler said.

“As you read headlines and see institutions facing dire and dramatic crises, we should be thankful that what Southern Seminary now faces is not the question of our future vitality as much as the question of our present stewardship,” he said. “For this we should be very thankful.

“We are warned to anticipate that this time of economic challenge will not be measured in future months but, in all likelihood, over the next two to five years. With that in mind, we must take the responsible actions now that will maintain proper stewardship and planning to ensure even greater opportunities in the future.”

God-honoring preachers must proclaim the Bible with confidence rather than qualifying and relativizing God’s Word, R. Albert Mohler Jr. said Dec. 12 during commencement at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The seminary awarded 209 master’s and doctoral degrees, a record for December graduation.

‘Congregations are starving for the astonishment of hearing the preacher teach and preach on the authority of the Word of God,’ Mohler, Southern’s president, said. ‘If there is a crisis in preaching, it is a crisis in confidence in the Word. If there is a road to recovery, it will be mapped by a return to biblical preaching.’

Preaching from Matthew 7:28-29, Mohler said Jesus refused to speculate or vacillate when He addressed the crowds. Instead He presented absolute commandments and expounded God’s righteous demands, Mohler said.

In response, the crowds were amazed because they were starved for authoritative preaching, he said.

‘The radical nature of Jesus’ ministry and teaching is on full display here, and it is all established upon His own authority,’ Mohler said. ‘When Jesus teaches, He does not cite human authorities, enter into irrelevant debates or cushion His words. He speaks on His own authority.’

The scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day taught differently than Jesus, Mohler said. They spoke only approximately and hedged their moral pronouncements, he said.

The teaching of the scribes and Pharisees was similar to the trend in contemporary preaching which raises questions and shies away from absolute answers, he said. Such preaching, known as inductive preaching, ‘leaves the big questions unanswered’ and ‘lets the congregation come to its own conclusion,’ he said.

‘This is not the method of Jesus,’ he said of inductive preaching. ‘Jesus uses induction in His teaching, but He never leaves the big questions unanswered, nor can we. Jesus speaks as God. We speak as His preachers.’

The preacher’s authority is a delegated authority, but it is still a real authority, he said.

‘We are assigned the task of feeding the flock of God, of teaching the church, of preaching the Word,’ he said. ‘We do not speak as one who possesses authority, but as one who is called to serve the church by proclaiming, expounding, applying and declaring the Word of God. We are those who have been called to a task and set apart for mission, as vessels who hold a saving message even as earthen vessels hold water.’

Preaching with authority requires trusting the truthfulness of the Bible, Mohler said.

‘There are no certainties without the authority of Scripture,’ he said. ‘We have nothing but commas and question marks to offer if we lose confidence in the inerrant and infallible Word of God.’

Churches desperately want authoritative preaching that will astonish them, he said, and Southern Seminary graduates are the perfect men to deliver such preaching.

‘Our hope and prayer is that you will go forth from here to fulfill a ministry of astonishment,’ Mohler said, ‘to preach and teach and minister so that commas are turned back into periods and question marks are turned back into exclamation marks. Congregations long to have the thunderbolts brought down from the attic and loosed in their midst. They are starving for a Word from God.

‘Go and astonish a church. Go and astonish the nations. Go and astonish saints and sinners alike. Go and astonish your generation. Go and astonish those who no longer even believe that they can be astonished.’

Pastors have long benefited from the doctor of ministry program at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth.

But an increasing number of state Baptist convention employees are finding that a Graham School D.Min. is tailor made to equip them as well.

Two December graduates, Tim Smith of the Georgia Baptist Convention and Keith Henry of the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention, are among the state convention leaders lauding the Graham School D.Min.

“The academic work from the reading to the cohort group and the interactions with the group really helped me,” Smith, team coordinator for Sunday School and open group ministries at the Georgia Baptist Convention, said. “The reading exposed me to new ideas and new approaches. Learning from the cohort group was a very positive experience.”

Smith’s project, the culminating assignment of the degree, studied how to help Baptist associations declining in Sunday School attendance but located in areas increasing in population.

For the project Smith mentored leaders in several churches and found that many of the congregations experienced Sunday School growth as a result of the mentoring process.

“Most definitely to me the project has been the highlight,” he said.

But the benefit of Smith’s studies extended far beyond fulfilling his degree requirements.

“We have taken that process and tweaked it and have made it a yearlong process now,” he said. “And we have done it in several associations. What we’ve found is that seven out of every 10 churches that participate in the mentoring process show growth in the area of Sunday School enrollment, Sunday School attendance and baptisms. Two out of 10 do not show growth but they’re saying they are better off than they were.”

Smith said his studies at Southern provided “a tool that I can use in my ministry to Georgia Baptist Churches.”

Henry, leadership facilitator for the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention, said his D.Min. experience also provided valuable resources for his work with Arizona pastors and church staff members.

Working on a doctor of ministry degree “will help you coordinate your ministry for that period of time you’re in the program,” Henry said. “So instead of a shotgun approach, it’s going to be more like a rifle approach.

You’re going to be focused in on an area. That’s a good discipline for most of us because so many things pull us in different directions.”

Henry’s project studied how ministers can reflect Christ in their leadership philosophy and overcome isolation. He gathered a group of 12 Arizona pastors and taught them about servant leadership in a group that met face-to-face and via the Internet over a three-month period.

The participating ministers each had personal coaching appointments with Henry, connected with an accountability partner within the group and contributed to an Internet blog. The 12 ministers also met together twice for two days each time during the project.

The project was so helpful to the participants that they were sad to see it end, Henry said.

“I had one pastor say how much he enjoyed the time and he really hoped the type of relationship we built could be maintained post-the project,” he said. “And in the case of that particular pastor, I have continued to meet with him at his request and will enter into a formal coaching relationship with him for the next six months.”

Henry recommended the Graham School D.Min. to other state convention employees, saying he did his job most effectively during his degree work.

“When I was facilitating the actual project the spring of this year, in many ways I felt like I was doing my job the most effectively that I’ve ever done my job in seven years,” he said.

For one doctoral student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, classroom learning has translated into practical ministry efforts at more than a dozen college campuses around Ohio.

Brian Frye, a doctor of philosophy candidate in the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth, serves as state collegiate evangelism strategist for the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio. In that role he oversees campus ministry at 14 schools where campus ministers are at work.

Frye, who graduated in 2002 with a master of divinity from Southern, said a day rarely passes when he does not draw on his training from the seminary.

“Almost every time I hit a college campus, what I have learned at Southern allows me to address worldview issues,” he said. “Spending time with professors helped me most particularly in Ph.D. seminars.”

Frye’s ministry focuses first on evangelism and then on making disciples out of college students, he said. His goal is for students at the state’s Baptist campus ministries to become fruitful church members after they graduate.

“The primary goals of Baptist Collegiate Ministry are twofold: first and foremost we must evangelize the collegiate community. Second, we must make disciples. Once collegiates graduate out of our programs, we must see them assimilated back into local churches where they are not just participants, but leaders,” Frye said.

The campus works that Frye oversees are not all the same, he said. They span a broad spectrum ranging from traditional campus ministries to college church plants. Still other campus ministries are extensions of college ministries at local Southern Baptist churches.

Moving students from youth group involvement in high school to campus ministry involvement in college is also a high priority for Frye.

“We have not capitalized on bringing students up out of our churches onto the college campus. Last year, LifeWay Research in ‘Facts and Trends’ demonstrated that evangelical churches in the United States are losing those who are actively involved in youth groups. At present, we are losing seven out of every 10 students entering the college years,” he said.

“One of my primary goals is to connect youth ministry to collegiate ministry in our state so that as students come up on the college scene, they seamlessly transition into collegiate ministry. Every student should know, ‘The moment I graduate from high school I‘ve got to be involved in collegiate ministry.’”

One reason Frye has such a passion for college ministry is the role it played in his own life. After developing personal spiritual disciplines in high school, his mother gave him three instructions to follow at college: be in church, study hard and get involved in Baptist campus ministry.

He followed all three pieces of advice. Though Frye became disenchanted with the Baptist campus ministry initially, he eventually returned to lead a ministry for freshmen. Out of that experience, God called him to devote his life to working with students.

“At some point along the way, the Lord made it clear to me and cultivated in my heart a desire to work with students,” he said.

In the long term, Frye hopes the campus ministry experience of students in Ohio will be as transformative as his own college experience. He hopes each student will spend one summer working with the North American Mission Board and one summer working with the International Mission Board.

He also wants each student in Ohio campus ministries to understand their faith well enough to share it with a non-Christian.

All those goals can be accomplished by loving the students and leaders he oversees, Frye said.

“You love people toward Christ,” he said. “Ministry must always be done in the context of love.”

Troy Bush, an experienced urban ministry specialist, will now regularly share his expertise with students at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary as adjunct professor of Christian missions and urban ministry in the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth.

Bush began teaching courses at Southern as a visiting professor last summer and will be appointed to his new position on January 1, 2009. He will continue teaching J-term classes focusing on missions and urban ministry. Bush earned his doctor of philosophy from Southern in 1999.

Currently Bush serves as director of church starting for the North American Mission Board’s Embrace Baltimore emphasis. Previously he served as a strategy coordinator for Moscow with the International Mission Board. In both roles he focused on making disciples in large cities.

“If we want to see genuine transformation in our cities, it can’t happen solely from good government and nongovernmental organizations,” Bush said. “It will take place as the people of God engage their cities both on an individual basis and as the church to make disciples and address systems, structures and centers of power in the city.”

Chuck Lawless, dean of the Graham School, said Bush’s ministry experience will serve students well.

“Dr. Bush brings both IMB and NAMB experience to the Billy Graham School, with a strong emphasis on urban evangelism,” Lawless said. “He is a gifted scholar and a seasoned practitioner who is uniquely gifted in missions strategy.”

Bush will work in conjunction with the recently launched Wayne and Lealice Dehoney Center for Urban Ministry Training. He hopes to be a part of both instructing students in the classroom and guiding them through practical urban ministry experiences.

“I am thrilled that Southern Seminary and the Dehoneys have launched the center,” Bush said. “When we look at missions around the world, a people group focus remains a great need and a strategic avenue for engaging the world. At the same time, one of the areas I think has been under developed is how we engage our cities.

“And to be part of the Wayne and Lealice Dehoney Center for Urban Ministry Training at Southern is an honor and frankly very exciting. I hope that in days ahead I will be able to continue to be part of this ministry.”

Urban ministry must address social issues, Bush said, but successful urban ministry must center on God’s Word.

“It’s not sufficient, for example, to see a drug addict become liberated from narcotics. The focus must be that he would become a disciple of Jesus Christ free from his addiction to drugs,” he said.

“Transformation in urban contexts must extend beyond the goal of social redemption. Urban ministry must be based upon the proclamation of the Word of God, seeking first the kingdom of God in the city so that we are making vibrant, reproducing disciples.”

Bush said he looks forward to sharing with students his passion for urban ministry.

“I’m excited to be involved at this level and to be able to encourage and support what’s being done,” he said.