Yesterday, President Mohler had a “Presidential Briefing” with all the seminary students at Southern, and I was able to find some notes about the meeting from fellow Southern Seminary bloggers who are currently students. Here’s what was noted in the briefing:

• 1 out of every 4 seminary students in the SBC are studying through Southern.
• In 2006, Southern received $8 million dollars from the Cooperative Program.
• The tuition at other theological institutions (Fuller, RTS, Trinity, etc) is at least 3x more than Southern’s. (See below for the breakdown)
• While tuition here is increasing, it is not because the giving is decreasing. The growth in cost is rising faster than the increase in giving.
• On campus, Southern has about a 1:30, faculty:student ratio.
• The enrollment in church music is way down. When asked why, one of his answers was that in today’s churches, people are not looking toward the seminaries for music ministers. I thought this was interesting. Dr. Mohler went on to say that the trustees had this same question. He responded by asking them this question, “Which of you at your churches when you last needed to hire a music minister searched the seminaries?” He said no one raised their hand.

Here’s a few photos from my trip down to Southern Seminary last week:

As my sister already mentioned, I just got back from Southern Seminary’s Preview Conference. I’ve got a few comments and photos I’ll share soon in reflection of the weekend in Louisville, but for now, here’s an recent article about Southern Seminary from their news service:

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has reached an all-time high in enrollment and is continuing to draw scores of ministers desiring to prepare for ministry in the local church, President R. Albert Mohler Jr. told trustees at the annual spring meeting Tuesday.

Seminary enrollment this semester grew to more than 4,200 students, Mohler said, the vast majority of whom are preparing to serve as pastors of local Southern Baptist churches. Enrollment has doubled since 1995.

Mohler said the increased enrollment has come by God’s grace because the school has sought to attract students during a time when theological institutions in America are turning out “professional ministers” and not pastor-theologians. Many seminaries are going away from training pastors in the classical theological disciplines and, instead, are preparing them to meet the felt needs of a therapeutic culture, he said.

“When you look where the bulk of the enrollment is right now in the theological seminaries of North America, much of it is in what you might call the ‘helping’ professions rather than in the pulpit ministry,” he said.

“We are watching before our eyes in the course of one or two generations the redefinition of theological education away from theology, away from the pulpit and away from the church.”

Mohler called Southern a “contrarian institution” whose primary focus is raising up God-centered pastors who are faithful expositors of Scripture.

Continue reading article.

I am about to visit Southern Seminary Thursday night through Saturday afternoon with my family for the seminary’s Preview Conference. This is a long time coming, and even as it is only a day away, I feel more unprepared than ever. For I feel weak and inadequate, not ready for seminary and not capable to do His work effectively–a sinner whose disobedience has left a crimson stain on his hands. And yet at the same time, I feel strong and ready to face the seminary & ministry challenges ahead because of Christ’s Spirit that is at work in me, the Holy Ghost empowering me to do His work–a servant of God whose sinful heart Christ has washed white as snow.

I was graciously reminded by a friend during a recent conversation that the most important quality of a pastor/preacher (or any Christian for that matter) should be integrity of character. What’s interesting to note is that I am hearing this at a time when I’ve been listening to a lot of sermons from many Reformed pastors (most of whom are my theological heroes)–men of God who have a great skill of making me feel guilty (almost to the point of tears) for the sin in my life and un-impassioned disciple I seem to be. Their skill at expounding the power of God in His Word draws me to grow in my own ministry skills, increasing a desire to convict my listeners of sin and to convince them of grace.

I was pretty shaken up while stuck in traffic yesterday, as I listened to Pasotr John Piper’s recent address to the seminarians at Southern. The first clip below includes excerpts of some of the most Christ-exalting language I’ve heard Piper use. And the second has audio from 1999, where Piper reminded us then as he did just recently, of the danger that Southern is for being “posh” place to be a Christian.

Audio of Piper’s 2 recent messages at Southern Seminary are available here (March 27 & 29).