Why I Went

I’ve just come home from a two-day trustee meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina. You may be wondering why I went.

The timing wasn’t perfect: our deacons were having a special called meeting on Tuesday night where they were discussing the church’s relationship to the Southern Baptist Convention. Someone made a motion at that meeting to sever any remaining ties with the SBC and the motion carried without opposition. That sounds like an important meeting. Seems like I should have been there.

And yet.

And then on Wednesday night there was a quarterly business meeting at which we heard reports from our church clerk and our treasurer and then celebrated the new members who have joined us in the past three months, people who need to know just how special they are. That sounds like an important meeting. Seems like I should have been there.

And yet.

I was at a meeting of the Board of Trustees of Union Presbyterian Seminary, on their Charlotte campus, for the better part of two days. It took five hours to drive down there and five hours to drive back. Part of the meeting took place today, on Thursday, my usual day off. Why would I do it? Why would I make that meeting a priority over all those other meetings and over my day off?

Because it matters.

One of these days I will retire as Pastor of Richmond’s First Baptist Church, and when I do the church will start looking for its next pastor. They will want someone who is winsome, warm, and capable, or, as I often joke “a gifted preacher, a skilled administrator, a Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” But even if they can’t find that person they will want someone who is seminary-trained, and in order to do that you need a seminary.

We used to have a seminary. We had the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond and it was a great school. It had an outstanding faculty and produced some incredibly competent graduates. I was on the Board of Trustees and there is at least one person who thinks I helped the seminary survive as long as it did. I don’t know about that, but I do know BTSR eventually had to close its doors and when it did Virginia Baptists had precious few options: they could go to Liberty University in Lynchburg or online (not a good choice), they could go to the John Leland Center in Northern Virginia (good school but 2-6 hours away from Richmond), or they could go to the Baptist House of Studies at Duke Divinity School (a very good school, but in North Carolina).

That’s when I began talking with Brian Blount, President of Union Presbyterian Seminary, about starting a Baptist House of Studies here, in Richmond, at a well-endowed school that has been around since 1812. Brian grew up Baptist and became Presbyterian. I grew up Presbyterian and became Baptist. There was a lot of mutual understanding and respect on both sides of the conversation and with the enthusiastic support of Terry Maples and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Virginia it happened: we started the Baptist House of Studies at Union Presbyterian Seminary. FBC member Susan Blanchard (wife of Steve Blanchard) has become our Director. Currently 34 students are enrolled in the Baptist House. In many ways it has become the successor institution to BTSR.

So, why did I go to a trustee meeting in Charlotte when there were so many important things happening here? Because it was important. Because some day First Baptist will be looking for a new pastor, and they will want someone who is seminary-trained. But between now and then there will be dozens of other churches in Virginia looking for pastors, educators, youth ministers, and children’s workers; there will be hospitals looking for chaplains; faith-based non-profits looking for directors; major corporations looking for chief ethicists; and I want Virginia Baptists to train for those roles and get those jobs.

If you don’t know much about Union Presbyterian Seminary, click on the link and take a look. I think you’ll be impressed. I may be biased: my grandfather, Walter Gray Somerville, graduated from Union in 1920.