March 4, 2002
Texas Baptists celebrate dedication
of Baylor's Truett Seminary
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___WACO--Framed by the urgency that "the night cometh," friends of Truett Theological Seminary dedicated the seminary's new home in a blaze of sunlight Feb. 22.
___Nearly 1,000 people participated in the celebration on the Baylor University campus, where the seminary recently occupied its new $17 million building.
___For its first seven-and-a-half years, Baylor's seminary held classes at First Baptist Church of Waco.
___Inscribed on the new building's clock tower are the words "The Night Cometh," taken from John 9:4, where Jesus said: "As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work."
ABOUT 1,000 people participated in dedication ceremonies for the new $17 million home of Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University Feb. 22. The seminary chapel was standing-room only, with the crowd overflowing into two other rooms.
___Dean Paul Powell picked up on that motif for the dedicatory message, noting, "Jesus lived his life with an awareness of time without being obsessed by time."
___In this Scripture, Jesus transfers his mission to his followers, Powell said, explaining the correct translation says "we" must do the works of "him who sent me."
___These works of God--which are the urgent mission of training students at Truett Seminary, Powell said--are to seek the lost, serve the needy and "surrender our lives to him."
___Seeking the lost means training students that Jesus is the only way to God, Powell declared. "Unless Jesus died in vain, all roads do not lead to God, all religions are not the same. ... Jesus said: 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'"
___This also requires teaching evangelism, he added. "If people are going to be won, we must go after them. ... We have to do the seeking."
___Serving the needy includes teaching students that pastors are to be servants rather than rulers, Powell continued.
___"The symbol of the Christian ministry is a towel, not a whip," he said. "God's people are not cattle to be driven but sheep to be led."
___And this servant ministry must have both a global and localfocus, Powell said. "The call of Jesus Christ is to begin at the end of our noses and our toes."
THE NEW FACILITY is visible from I-35 and is located on the northwestern corner of Baylor's campus. Dedication speakers included Dean Paul Powell and BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade.
___Surrendering one's life to God requires dying to self and dying to ambition, Powell said.
___Christian ministers must be taught to plant themselves among those who need to know of God's love and care, he emphasized, holding up a packet of seeds for emphasis. "It is the planted life, not the packaged life, that glorifies God."
___The best place to be planted, he added, is "in the grit and grime of human suffering."
___As they left the dedication ceremony, participants were given small clocks inscribed with the phrase "The Night Cometh" to reinforce the message of the day.
___Charles Wade, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, brought the charge to the seminary faculty, staff and students.
___He described the "wonderful partnership" the BGCT has experienced with Baylor and seven other universities. "We will not turn back, and we will not falter," he pledged.
___For the charge to the seminary, Wade read from Matthew 23 with little additional commentary. In that passage, Jesus preaches seven woes to the Jewish Pharisees of that day, noting "everything they do is done for men to see" and that those they convert may become "twice as much a son of hell" as the Pharisees themselves.
BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade (left) visits with Truett Dean Paul Powell after the dedication service.
___Do not be like the Pharisees, Wade urged. "Remember that just because they call you teacher or rabbi doesn't necessarily mean you've got the gospel. ... You can easily convert people to yourselves" rather than to Jesus.
___The service, held in the seminary's chapel with overflow in two rooms via closed-circuit television, began with words of thanks from a grandson of George W. Truett.
___Tom Gilliam of Charlottesville, Va., said he and other members of the Truett family were "pleased" to be present for the dedication.
___"I know what you believe and stand for, ... to teach and preach the inspired, inerrant word of God," he said.
___Baylor University President Robert Sloan noted the Truett name "was not chosen casually." Truett was the legendary pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas in the first half of the 20th century.
___"It is a name that stands for integrity, the preaching of the gospel, the authority of Scripture and freedom," Sloan said.
___Sloan also recognized those he called the "founders" of the seminary, with special credit to Herbert and Joy Reynolds. In 1990, while he was Baylor president, Reynolds reserved the name for the seminary and led the university's board to lay plans for opening the seminary.
___Founding Truett Seminary was "perhaps the greatest single act of vision" of Reynolds' tenure as Baylor president, Sloan said.
___Reynolds recognized two families who were major donors to the building, John and Eula Mae Baugh of Houston and Paul and Katy Piper of Waco.
___Sloan said 525 people donated to the Truett building.
___At a banquet after the dedication, the university conferred honorary alumni status on 160 ministers and denominational leaders--part of an effort to create an ongoing base of financial support for the young seminary.
___First envisioned in 1990, Truett Seminary was founded in 1991 and began classes in August 1994. The original student body of 51 has grown to 300 in eight years.
___
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