When I was elected president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1993, I that I faced some incredible challenges. Southern Seminary faced huge questions as we were about to undergo years of struggle to right the ship and return the seminary to its founding vision. We had to recover convictions and confession and theological bearings. Given the complexity of the institution and the size of this school, by God’s providence it represented a very significant structural challenge. At the very time we were facing these challenges, Dr. Billy Graham came alongside me and this school with full support, and with a remarkable understanding of the challenges we faced.
Soon after I was elected, Dr. Graham sent a delegation of his senior staff to meet with me. They brought incredible encouragement and precise and invaluable practical advice. They also assured me Dr. Graham understood the situation and wanted to be as helpful as possible. I was eager to discuss these things with Dr. Graham, which became possible in several conversations. When Dr. Graham invited me to tell him how he could be helpful to us, I had two big asks in mind. In retrospect, both were audacious, and I was asking more of Dr. Graham than I even understood at the time. First, I asked him specifically if he would come and speak at my inauguration. An academic inauguration is a major event. It’s a part of the formality of an institution of this stature. I was so young and had been given so much responsibility, and the issues were incredibly public. I came to an understanding that what was needed was an affirmation—from someone of the stature of Billy Graham—of what we were seeking to do here. The challenge was there was only one Billy Graham on planet Earth. But in God’s providence, I had the opportunity to tell him how he could help. So, the very first thing I asked was that he’d come and speak at my inauguration. This request was far more than a formality because it would allow Dr. Graham to speak inspirationally to the entire Southern Seminary family and beyond the seminary community, to the entire Southern Baptist Convention and the watching evangelical world. Dr. Graham could share what was taking place here and why it was so important. Dr. Graham accepted that invitation and delivered on that promise in October of 1993. Thanks in no small part to Dr. Graham, that day was a glorious turning point in the history of this school.
I will be forever indebted to Dr. Graham for the fact that he gave so generously of his time to come to Louisville, and to give his enthusiastic support to what we were seeking to do right here on this campus. Dr. Graham had been a Southern Baptist for decades and knew the issues in the Southern Baptist Convention, as history would record. He demonstrated courage to put his reputation on the line to assist this effort, but as I said, I had a second ask, which was even more monumental.
Second, I asked that Dr. Graham allow us to announce during his visit that we were establishing the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism, and Church Growth—now The School of Missions, Evangelism, and Ministry— as a tangible sign of the reorientation of Southern Seminary. Now, there was more to it than just establishing a new school that would bear Dr. Graham’s name. The fact is that I faced enormous challenges in reforming the School of Theology, and the current structure prevented me from making some of the immediate hires I wanted to make in order to send the very clear signal of the conservative evangelical scholarship to which Southern Seminary was now committed. To put the matter honestly, I had to create faculty. We had to have faculty vacancies before we could make strategic hires in the School of Theology. That would take some time, but by creating this new school emphasizing missions, evangelism, and church growth, we could immediately do what would’ve taken many years otherwise. Dr. Graham understood this, as did his senior team, and even though he had not allowed his name to be put on any such school at any time in the past, he made an exception to his practice and allowed us to announce the establishment of the Billy Graham School, while he was present with us here for the inauguration, on Southern Seminary’s campus. History will record the monumental importance of Dr. Graham in these two interconnected acts of generous investment in Southern Seminary. The world’s most famous evangelist, known throughout the world for his commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ, threw in his lot with me, the trustees, with the Southern Baptist Convention, and with the cause of recovering this institution without reservation, for the authority of scripture and the power of the gospel.
Others were also instrumental, including Mrs. A.P. Stone of Missouri. Mrs. Stone (Faye) was the widow of Judge A.P. Stone, and as a couple, they had made strategic investments and demonstrated their generosity to Baptist causes. I went to see her with the hope that I could communicate to her the strategic importance of this school and the importance of the fact that it would be named for Billy Graham. When I met with her, it was clear that she understood exactly what we were seeking to do, and she generously responded to my request for a $2 million lead gift to establish the school. That was so important because it would immediately give us some funding by which we could hire a dean, start hiring faculty, and begin filling out the school so that it would be ready for students in the fall of 1994. By the time the gift was given, it was even more significant than Mrs. Stone had committed, which is just another sign of God’s blessing upon the school even before it began.
Over the last three years, the school has been served by a remarkable series of deans. Dr. Thom Rainer came as the founding dean and established the school in its original lines in 1994.
He gave his heart and mind to the school and was instrumental in recruiting its original faculty. He was followed by Chuck Lawless, and in successive years, Zane Pratt and Adam Greenway served as deans. More recently, Paul Akin came as Dean of the Billy Graham School, leaving a senior role on the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Now, Dr. Akin serves as provost of the institution, and Dr. Jeremy Pierre, who is bringing energetic, excellent leadership for the fourth decade of the Billy Graham School’s life and mission, serves as its dean.
I have to look with sheer gratitude at the number of faculty members who have come to teach at this school over the last three decades. Two in particular are on the faculty right now and represent a lifetime of commitment to Southern Seminary and to the Great Commission. Both Dr. Tim Beougher, who came to join this faculty as Professor of Evangelism, and Dr. George Martin, who came to serve as Professor of Missions are here with the school three decades later. Both already represent a lifetime legacy of teaching that is now channeled into the churches and mission fields around the world. I am just incredibly thankful for these two faculty members and for many others I could not possibly name within this telling of the story.
Over the last several decades, there have been thousands of students and graduates, and we can already see how they serve so strategically and faithfully worldwide. Primarily, they are pastoring churches and leading the people of God in Great Commission ministry. They’re serving on the mission fields, and in strategic places of ministry. They serve throughout the fields of ministry and mission. Some are teaching on the faculties of other schools where they are multiplying the work of the Billy Graham School on another campus. All of this is to the glory of God.
I can only look back with sheer gratitude and thankfulness at what God has done through the Billy Graham School over the course of the last three decades. Very quickly, the Graham School became a great engine for accelerating the reformation that needed to take place throughout the institution, including the School
of Theology. For the last two decades and more, these two schools have worked in absolute tandem to prepare ministers of the gospel based upon undiluted conviction, confessional accountability, and an eager commitment to the Bible as the inerrant, infallible word of God and to the gospel as the good news that salvation has come, and that Jesus Christ is Lord. History will record that the establishment of the Billy Graham School was one of the most important moments in the history of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and, by extension, in the history of the Southern Baptist Convention and the larger evangelical world. I am so thankful to have witnessed this history firsthand and to know how the Lord worked to bring the story of the Billy Graham school together.
Even more than the gratitude I feel when I look to the leadership, the faculty, the students, and the alumni of the school, I am grateful to the Lord for his blessings in the present and his promise to this school in the future. I look at the students and faculty on this campus right now and can only imagine the impact of their preaching, evangelism, and gospel ministries for generations to come.
I am also gratified to know that this would make Dr. Billy Graham, now in glory, very happy. If I had the opportunity, I would want to tell him about this school and its reach across the globe at this very moment. Yet we must humbly acknowledge that we will never actually know the impact of this school in this life. Thus far, we have only a hint, but this hint propels us forward with great eagerness as the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism, and Ministry looks to the future.