Month: August 2019

Southwestern Seminary announces new leadership, faculty for Terry School of Educational Ministries

Two new faculty members have been appointed to the Terry School of Educational Ministries at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, President Adam W. Greenway announced Monday, July 29. Michael S. Wilder and Chris Shirley will serve as professors of educational ministries. In addition, Wilder will serve as interim dean of the school, effective Aug. 1.

“I am excited and thankful that Michael Wilder and Chris Shirley are joining our faculty at Southwestern Seminary as part of our Terry School of Educational Ministries,” said Greenway. “I have previously served for many years with Dr. Wilder, and I know firsthand his deep love for training leaders for the diverse callings of local church ministry. I have the greatest confidence that under his leadership, our Terry School is going to experience significant growth and expand its Kingdom impact. In addition, welcoming Dr. Shirley ‘home to the Dome’ is the right move with the right man at the right time. I know that he will bring fresh perspectives to a familiar place as he serves the Terry School in both teaching and administrative responsibilities.”

Wilder comes to Southwestern Seminary with many years of vocational, administrative, and leadership experience. He most recently served as the J.M. Frost Professor of Leadership and Discipleship, and associate vice president for doctoral studies at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Under Wilder’s leadership, the Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) and Doctor of Educational Ministry (D.Ed.Min.) programs have grown by a combined 42 percent. In particular, the D.Ed.Min. program has grown over that time from 78 graduates to an estimated 191, a 145 percent increase. Wilder has also served as the senior pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Floyds Knobs, Ind.

“I am excited about partnering with fellow faculty members and local churches as we seek to fulfill the vision of L.R. Scarborough and J.M. Price in the Terry School of Educational Ministries. We will equip Great Commission ministers who counsel, disciple, lead, and teach with excellence,” Wilder says. “After 30 years of serving the local church, I find myself ever more convinced that ministries marked by healthy discipleship experience greater Kingdom fruitfulness. For this reason, I am committed to equipping the next generation of men and women who will serve in the churches’ discipleship and teaching ministries.”

Prior to his role at Southern Seminary, Wilder served as a youth minister in Georgia for 12 years, pastored a Kentucky church for three years, and taught at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary as an adjunct faculty member for three years.

A Georgia native, Wilder obtained his Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Clayton State College and his Master of Divinity degree from New Orleans Seminary. He later earned a Ph.D. from Southern Seminary.

“I have worked with Michael Wilder for well over a decade,” says Randy L. Stinson, provost and vice president for academic administration. “He is a great leader and scholar. He understands the future of Christian education and how we can reach the nations with the Gospel through the associate roles in the local church.”

Wilder will succeed Jack Terry, who has served as interim dean since August 2018 and will continue to serve as special assistant to the president. Terry, for whom the Terry School of Educational Ministries is named, joined the Southwestern Seminary faculty in 1969 and served as dean of the School of Religious Education from 1973-1995 and then as vice president for Institutional Advancement from 1995-2005.

“I am looking forward to the coming of Dr. Michael Wilder as the dean of the Terry School of Educational Ministries,” Terry says. “Dr. Wilder brings vast experience in training and developing leadership for educational ministry in local churches. He is committed to the education of men and women who will be training to lead the plethora of multifaceted educational ministries in the local church, area associations, and state conventions.”

“His experience in the local church as an educational minister will serve him well as he takes on the challenge of leading the students in the Terry School of Educational Ministries to become local church educational leaders for the future,” Terry continues. “His local church leadership skills will be an encouragement to the faculty and the students studying for educational ministry.”

“After spending time with Dr. Wilder, you hear his passion and heart for the educational ministry of the local church,” says Kenneth Priest, director of convention relations for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. “As a Master of Arts in Christian Education graduate of Southwestern Seminary, I am excited to learn of his vision for addressing the discipleship ministries of the church by equipping future ministry leaders for Great Commission fulfillment. Dr. Greenway’s hiring of Michael Wilder positions Southwestern to reclaim its position as the leader of SBC institutions in educational ministry. I could not be more pleased with where our seminary is heading.”

For Chris Shirley, who most recently served as associate professor of discipleship at Dallas Baptist University, this appointment is a return to the seminary family, having previously served as an assistant professor here in the areas of discipleship and family ministry.

“Chris Shirley is a man of integrity, deeply committed to the local church, and a Southwesterner who is administratively gifted in ways that will help the Terry School of Educational Ministries make significant advances,” says Stinson.

Shirley earned both his Master of Arts in Christian Education (1994) and Ph.D. (2002) from Southwestern Seminary. Aside from his teaching roles in higher education, Shirley also has extensive experience in the local church in the areas of education and discipleship, and he served for a time as associate director of camps at Ridgecrest in North Carolina.

“Christian Education is a 2 Timothy 2:2 ministry of the church (‘teaching others to teach others’) with a Great Commission focus (‘teaching them to obey’),” said Shirley. “The disciple-making ministry of the church depends on training disciples who know why they believe what they believe and are trained to teach that knowledge to others. This ministry must survive and thrive, and the Terry School is designed to help make that happen for the sake of Christ and the church.”

On the El Paso shootings

We grieve the tragic killings that took place in El Paso on Saturday, and we also grieve the pervasive evil that motivates such actions.

Racism, however it is expressed, is a blasphemy against the one true God whose image all women and men bear. The idea that one race is inherently superior to another, whether it is called white supremacy or some other label, is unbiblical. The Apostle Peter discovered at the house of Cornelius, as described in Acts 10, that God is no respecter of persons.

 Pastors of Southern Baptists of Texas Convention affiliated churches in the El Paso area are reaching out to their neighbors in the aftermath of this tragedy. The SBTC staff is mobilized to help those churches share the love and comfort of Christ. 

SBTC focuses prayer and aid to El Paso

Monday evening, August 5, JC Rico, pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in El Paso, prayed with about 300 people for his grief-stricken hometown. The church, just a two-minute walk from the Walmart store where a gunman shot and killed 22 people and injured 24 others two days earlier, hosted one of many prayer vigils across El Paso that night. As local churches work to console their community, the Southern Baptist of Texas Convention is providing resources for the long-term assistance those churches will require.

“Pray that God would provide the necessary resources to meet these needs,” Doug Hixson, SBTC director for missions and church planting, told the TEXAN.

For the third time in less than two years the SBTC has deployed a different kind of disaster relief team – not to towns reeling from the ravages of a natural disaster but from tragedy wrought by evil personified. Ted Elmore served as the convention’s representative to Sutherland Springs, Texas, in the wake of the 2017 shooting that claimed 26 lives.  He will duplicate that role for 31 SBTC churches in El Paso as prayer mobilization and incident preparation and recovery specialist.

Disaster relief chaplains will arrive August 7 and station themselves near the site of the shooting “to pray with folks and let them tell their story,” said SBTC chaplain director Gordon Knight.

But, adding to the pain and frustration of city and church leaders, some politicians used the tragedy to score political points. Bart Barber, pastor of First Baptist Church Farmersville, pleaded for humility. In a Facebook post he called the gunman’s manifesto a “strange blend of angst and polarization” that had fodder for each side of the political divide.

“While every pundit and candidate and campaign manager and lobbyist put the finishing touches tonight on their remarks that will make it clear why this is those other people’s fault, maybe it’s time for us all to consider whether it’s all our fault,” Barber wrote on an Aug. 3 Facebook post. “Maybe instead of this being the time to turn up the heat, we could all consider responding by treating one another like human beings.”

Pastors and El Paso Mayor Dee Margo, a member of a Southern Baptist Church, renounced the actions and rhetoric of accused shooter Patrick Crusius, 21, who drove from Dallas to El Paso to act out his deadly intentions. Before the shooting, he allegedly posted online an ideologically disjointed and racist rant shortly before entering the Walmart.

“Racism, however it is expressed, is a blasphemy against the one true God whose image all women and men bear,” said Jim Richards, SBTC Executive Director, in a prepared statement Monday. “The idea that one race is inherently superior to another, whether it is called white supremacy or some other label, is unbiblical.”

Rico agreed.

“Hatred, evil–that does not belong to any one group,” he said. “It crosses all ethnicities, cultures, and nations. It’s every place. And that’s what we’ll be praying about.”

The damage inflicted by a gunman leaves survivors scarred and in need of resources that can restore their shattered lives. While state leaders and law enforcement agencies will supply some material support, local churches remain long after the investigation ends and the story no longer makes headlines.

“Those who are most deeply affected are numb right now. They haven’t even buried their dead yet,” Elmore told the TEXAN. “What we’ll see is the best counseling will come down the road. Once that cycle is over and things begin to settle down folks are going to start having some bad dreams. They’re going to have anxiety. That’s when our churches and our convention can come around them.”

He noted several SBTC churches with well-established counseling ministries have already begun offering assistance. In addition to establishing a pool of qualified counselors, Elmore is in El Paso to assessing the needs – immediate and long-term – of churches trying to care for their community.

Initial reports indicate no SBTC church members were killed or wounded in the massacre. But one church has four members, two who are Walmart employees, who witnessed the shooting.

The shooting has compounded an already tense atmosphere in the town that shares its southern border with Juarez, Mexico – a point of entry into the U.S. for thousands of Central American immigrants.

“This tragedy has been poured out on a community already overwhelmed by the national spotlight from the immigration crisis,” Hixson said. “Several of our SBTC churches and church plants that have been ministering in El Paso regularly but have stepped up to help meet this new need resulting from the shooting.”

Residents of Juarez held a prayer vigil for their northern neighbors Rico said.

One consoling element of the tragedy is that the killer was not “one of their own” he said. No one in El Paso sought to hurt their neighbor. It was an “outsider.” There are 640 miles between Dallas, where the shooter is from, to El Paso.

“That’s a long drive. But he knew what the purpose was,” Rico said.

There were plenty of opportunities in the 9-10-hour drive for the young man to change his mind, turn around, and go home. But there is no turning from the harm inflicted by the gunman on the people he did not know, yet hated.

“Despite evil, despite hatred,” Rico said, “we have to look up.”

He acknowledged God’s healing is near to the believers but others are left floundering. That should compel the local church to create relationships with those people.

“This gives me the opportunity to say that there is hope and grace in Christ,” Rico said.

REVIEW: “Hobbs & Shaw” is all about family ¦ and punching people in the face

Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw are two muscular men who never have gotten along.

They argue. They bicker. Most of all, they mock and dare one another to take the first punch.

In other words, they’re the last two men you’d want teaming up to save the world from a deadly virus.

Yet that’s exactly what the CIA has in mind. After all, Hobbs and Shaw are verygood at what they do: beating up bad guys and fighting crime.

At first, Hobbs and Shaw refuse the proposal. But then Shaw discovers his sister’s life is in danger. And then the two men learn the virus has a 100 percent mortality rate. And then they realize a brilliant mastermind wants the virus so he can wipe out Earth’s population and repopulate the planet with a human-robotic hybrid race.

Perhaps these two men aren’t the ideal duo, but with the world in peril, they’ll have to do.

The film Hobbs & Shaw(PG-13) opens this weekend, giving us a spinoff of the Fast & Furiousseries with all the things those popular movies delivered: high-speed car chases, more fisticuffs than you can count, and over-the-top action that could happen only in a Hollywood film. (My personal favorites: the car driving through the skyscraper and the tow truck battling a helicopter.)

Like the Fast and Furiousmovies, Hobbs & Shaw also gives us a family-centric plot with a great message. But that doesn’t mean it’s family-friendly. It has a ton of language and violence. And it has more jokes about the male anatomy than I’ve ever heard in a film.

It stars Dwayne Johnson as Hobbs, Jason Statham as Shaw, Vanessa Kirby as Hattie (Shaw’s sister) and Idris Elba as Brixton, a human-robot hybrid who wants to spread the virus.

Warning: minor/moderate spoilers!

(Scale key: none, minimal, moderate, extreme)

Violence/Disturbing

Extreme. The film is wall-to-wall punches to the face, punches to the stomach, and kicks to the groin. People get thrown out windows and beaten up with metal chairs. Gunshots are prominent, and we see people fall down, presumably dead. Cars explode. We see three torture scenes: two mild ones and a third that includes men being shocked with jumper cables and a car battery. The film doesn’t have excessive bloodshed, but it more than makes up for it in other areas.

Sexuality/Sensuality/Nudity

Moderate. The film includes no nudity or bedroom scenes, but we briefly see scantily clad women at a party (some in underwear-type apparel). We see a man and a woman kiss twice. Shaw tells Hobbs not to mess with his sister in the romance realm. Hobbs replies with an implicit reference to sex. The film is full of innuendo about the male anatomy.  We see Hobbs and other men shirtless.

Coarse Language

Moderate/extreme. S–t (11), h-ll (8), a– (6), SOB (4), GD (3), d–n (2), misuse of “Jesus” (2) and f-word (1 or 2)

Other Positive Elements

For all its testosterone, Hobbs & Shawis a movie about family, regret and redemption. Hobbs would do anything for his nine-year-old daughter, although he is estranged from his mother and brothers. Likewise, Shaw doesn’t have a good relationship with his sister. I won’t spoil the plot for you, but the film has a redemptive ending. 

Other Stuff You Might Want To Know

We see people drink alcohol.

Life Lessons

Family is essential. It’s fun watching a tough guy like Hobbs spend quality time with his daughter. It reminded me of the old saying, “Anyone can be a father but it takes someone special to be a dad. “

It’s never too late to go home and make amends. Hobbs proves that’s the case.

Optimism is always needed. Shaw, despite his faults, is a positive person. This trait comes in handy when his sister nearly dies.

Mothers should be honored.One major character gives us a good example of this.

Worldview/Application

The Fast and Furiousseries always has delivered conflicting messages about women. On the one hand, the series objectifies women. On the other hand, it holds up marriage and the family unit as a priceless ideal.

“I spent my whole life running away,” Hobbs says. “… My own daughter doesn’t even know her own family.”

“You can change that,” Hattie responds.

No, Hobbs & Shaw isn’t a pro-family movie in the realm of the faith-based move Courageous. But it’s nice to see a family-affirming message in a PG-13 action flick.  

What Works

The pro-family, redemptive message. The action. I’m a sucker for car chase scenes. Hobbs & Shawdelivers.

What Doesn’t

Could we cut down on the male anatomy jokes if there is a sequel?

Discussion Questions

1. Why is it sometimes difficult to make amends with family members? What is the solution?

2. Both Hobbs and Shaw had major regrets about their past. Do you? Is it possible to begin anew?

3. What, if anything, can Hobbs and Shaw teach us about “loving your enemy”?

4. What was the key to Hobbs and Shaw learning how to get along?

Entertainment rating:3 out of 5 stars. Family-friendly rating:2 out of 5 stars.

Rated PG-13 for prolonged sequences of action and violence, suggestive material and some strong language.

“Who’s Your One?” tour stopping in Dallas Sept. 8-9

Dallas is one of the first stops on the nationwide “Who’s Your One?” tour that is designed to equip and encourage churches in their evangelistic efforts.

The Sept. 8-9 event, sponsored by the North American Mission Board, will take place at Prestonwood Baptist Church. The Christian group NewSong also will sing.

The 20-stop tour is designed to underscore the importance of the Who’s Your One evangelism initiative, which encourages every Southern Baptist to intentionally build a relationship with one person and pray for them, share the Gospel with them and invite them to place their faith in Christ.

The Who’s Your One tour begins in Fayetteville, N.C., in August and concludes in Broken Arrow, Okla., in May.

The Dallas stop will open Sunday, Sept. 8, at 6 p.m. with a Who’s Your One Rally featuring keynote speaker Johnny Hunt, senior vice president of evangelism and leadership for the North American Mission Board.

The Dallas event will continue on Monday, Sept. 9, at 8 a.m. with a Who’s Your One Evangelism Workshop designed to inspire, equip and mobilize church members in evangelism. Scheduled workshop speakers include Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood; Ted Traylor, pastor of Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola, Fla.; Allan Taylor of LifeWay Christian Resources; and Catherine Renfro of the North American Mission Board.

The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention is promoting a five-step evangelism strategy for believers throughout the state as part of its Who’s Your One emphasis. The SBTC is encouraging church members to:

1. Identify: Pray first; ask God who your one ought to be.

2. Intercede: Pray: Don’t just pray about them, but really pray for your ONE.

3. Invest: Create connection points for relationship building with your ONE.

4. Be Intentional: Look for opportunities to have spiritual conversations with your ONE.

5. Invite: Make an effort to share the gospel with your ONE.

“Imagine with me if every member of every Southern Baptists of Texas church would identify someone they know who does not know Jesus — to intentionally begin to intercede for that person, to invest in relationship building with that person, and have intentional conversations and share the gospel with that person,” said Richard Taylor, the SBTC’s associate director of personal evangelism and fellowships, in a promotional video.

“Could you imagine if each one would actually reach one?” he asked. “We could begin to see a radical reduction in the lostness here in Texas and touch the world. My question is simple: Who’s your one?”

Click here to register for the Dallas stop. Click here for SBTC Who’s Your One resources.