 February 17, 1999
EDITORIAL: Eight campuses touch eternity
___Do you want to touch eternity today?
___Support Texas Baptists' eight universities.
___In classrooms, dining halls, dormitories, theaters, studios, recital halls, playing fields, libraries and laboratories, Baptist General Convention of Texas schools are shaping a generation who will shape Texas for decades--and God's kingdom forever.
___Last fall, the eight universities and academy related to the BGCT Christian Education Coordinating Board enrolled 32,349 students. When you consider how Jesus turned the world upside down with just 12 students, you realize the potential of these young men and women is enormous.
___Like the students who have gone before them, they will permeate our state with godly leadership. They will be school teachers and bankers, farmers and computer technicians, politicians and artists, social workers and police officers, soldiers and citizens. They will be ministers and laypeople, Sunday school teachers, camp sponsors, missions committee leaders, missionaries and counselors. Without the training they are receiving today, our churches and convention would be diminished gravely.
___On top of outstanding classroom teaching, here are some lessons they are learning:
___ Jesus Christ is Lord. They learn this truth, of course, from the Bible. Every student in every university is required to take Bible courses. More importantly, however, they learn this truth from the lives of faculty, staff and fellow students. They see Jesus in the professor who comes in early and stays late to provide personal guidance and counsel. They witness Christ's love in administrators who help the needy, staff churches and reach out to the ungodly in their "spare" time. They hear God in the prayers of a roommate.
___ All Christian believers are priests before God. Like students on campuses around the world, they're learning the hard lessons of responsibility and accountability. They're seeing the need for discipline and hard work and perseverance. But our Baptist campuses set these lessons in a unique Christian context. Campus ministers, professors, staff members and older students teach the next generation they are created in God's image, bequeathed the fearful joy of approaching God in Christ, with the blessings of individual autonomy and the responsibility of divine accountability.
___ Christian life at its fullest is lived in community. No social situation quite defines "community" like a residential university campus. It's a tight-knit anthill of a place, where everything--from colds to ideas to new-found faith to school pride--is infectious. On our campuses, students see the consequences of individual actions on group dynamics, both positively and negatively. Most come to understand sadness is not as cold when it's shared and joy is only boundless when it's extended to others.
___ Missions begins at the tip of your nose. Our universities are not sterile, isolated enclaves. Christian students realize the first person they may lead to Christ sleeps in the bunk across the room. Many also experience for the first time a world vastly different from their own, as they participate in mission trips, revival teams and evangelistic tours. They graduate understanding the challenges and opportunities of living life on mission for Christ. And they are stronger for the experience.
___Pray for Baylor University and its Truett Theological Seminary, Dallas Baptist University, East Texas Baptist University, Hardin-Simmons University and its Logsdon School of Theology, Houston Baptist University, Howard Payne University, the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and Wayland Baptist University. Support these schools with your resources. Each of them will multiply your investment many times over. And send them your children. Our universities will be great stewards as they shape eternity.
___
--Marv Knox
E-mail the Editor at marvknox@flash.net
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