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Seven-Habits-of-Highly-Effective-Seminar_Media · INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living

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Speaker 1: Chucks Windall has devoted his life to the accurate, practical
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Speaker 1: teaching and application of God's word and his grace. A
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Speaker 1: pastor at heart, by the way, you don't have to
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Speaker 1: go very far to notice that. When you're in line
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Speaker 1: to speak to him and he's dealing with one person,
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Speaker 1: you'll be amazed at his focus. It's as if you're
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Speaker 1: the only person in the world. And I've experienced that.
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Speaker 1: It's a tremendous thing. It's a gift. But he works
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Speaker 1: at it as well. He has a pastor's heart, You'll
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Speaker 1: see it. Chuck has served a senior pastor to congregations
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Speaker 1: in Texas, Massachusetts, and California, and since nineteen ninety eight
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Speaker 1: he has served as the founder and senior pastor teacher
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Speaker 1: of Stonebrier Community Church in Frisco, Texas. His leadership at
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Speaker 1: Dallas Theological Seminary as fourth President and now as Chancellor
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Speaker 1: and soon to be Chancellor Emeritus is that it so
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Speaker 1: that's gotta be it if he doesn't know it, and
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Speaker 1: has helped prepare and equip a new generation for ministry.
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Speaker 1: He does love the Seminary, and I love that about him.
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Speaker 1: Chuck and Cynthia, his partner in life and ministry, have
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Speaker 1: four grown children, ten grandchildren, seven great grandchildren. Amen, would
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Speaker 1: you please help me in welcoming doctor Chuck swind Off?
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Speaker 2: All right, I wasn't trying to be smart when I
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Speaker 2: said I didn't know it. Just h I can't keep
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Speaker 2: up with all the stuff. My favorite line is when
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Speaker 2: I told my grandson that I was chancellor here. I
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Speaker 2: thought that sounded great. He said to me with a frown,
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Speaker 2: wasn't Hitler or Chancellor. So I'm kind of careful what
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Speaker 2: I tell people nowadays. You know, we recognize you who
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Speaker 2: are visiting today, and we're so pleased to have you. Really,
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Speaker 2: a seminary is a faculty, a great library, a philosophy,
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Speaker 2: or a statement of its faith, and then from then
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Speaker 2: on it's the blessing of God that is at work
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Speaker 2: in and through the lives of those who teach and
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Speaker 2: those who learn. I kind of want to talk to
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Speaker 2: you today rather than preach. I've got a little different
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Speaker 2: style of message I want to bring, so I will
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Speaker 2: begin with a different approach than I normally begin with.
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Speaker 2: Back in nineteen ninety nine, I bought a nineteen twenty
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Speaker 2: eight model A. Okay, I'd always looked at those little
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Speaker 2: classic cars that different friends of mine had, and I
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Speaker 2: sort of wondered what it would be like to have one.
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Speaker 2: And as I recall, I didn't say much to Cynthia
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Speaker 2: about getting it. That that was the first mistake that
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Speaker 2: I had, but she was fine with it. But it
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Speaker 2: was a cute little thing. It was not it was black.
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Speaker 2: Four used to say, you didn't have any color you want,
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Speaker 2: just so it's black. So that was a nice shiny
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Speaker 2: black with bright yellow wheels and wide white walls on
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Speaker 2: these little thin tires. Had a massive engine in it
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Speaker 2: of twenty four horse power. You who don't know much
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Speaker 2: about cars wouldn't know what the significance of that is,
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Speaker 2: but that that's a little over what's on a nice
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Speaker 2: size Lungmore so, it's a it's tiny little engine and
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Speaker 2: it just rough as a cob on the back roads
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Speaker 2: of the Dallas area. But it was a little convertible.
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Speaker 2: Had a rumble seat, which is a pop open seat
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Speaker 2: in the back behind the two seats on the front,
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Speaker 2: and it was really a dandy of a car, and
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Speaker 2: just it was a real eye catcher, and it was
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Speaker 2: totally inefficient, it really was. It didn't have a place
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Speaker 2: to plug in a cell phone. It it ran hot
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Speaker 2: all the time. Even though I tried my best to
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Speaker 2: wash out that radiator over and over, it just decided
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Speaker 2: it would always run hot. Had poor gas mileage. Uh.
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Speaker 2: It had no power steering, no power brakes, no power windows. Uh.
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Speaker 2: And it was uh no navigation system of course, no GPS,
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Speaker 2: and no automatic transmission. It just was a cute little
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Speaker 2: jeloppy you would call it. And uh. I drove it
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Speaker 2: to the school on a few occasions, but mainly I
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Speaker 2: got it for the grandkids. We we together named it Gramps.
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Speaker 2: In fact of all things was I was surprised but
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Speaker 2: that that personalized license plate had not been taken. So
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Speaker 2: I got Gramps for the license plate. It was terrific. Uh.
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Speaker 2: In a day of efficiency and and all that goes
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Speaker 2: with it, and I made a list of what's going
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Speaker 2: on now, uh O world of commercial jets and space
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Speaker 2: age stuff where people are even talking about traveling to Mars,
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Speaker 2: which I could never quite figure out why that would
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Speaker 2: be fun. And a day of teleconferencing and voice activated
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Speaker 2: computers and word processing and podcasting and Skype and all
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Speaker 2: of that. Here is this old model. It's just it's
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Speaker 2: sort of a touch of nostalgia in a world that's trying,
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Speaker 2: almost tripping over itself, to stay ahead of our times.
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Speaker 2: And here is this little car scooting around on the road,
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Speaker 2: attracting attention from various people as I would pass them,
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Speaker 2: or more often than not, as they would pass me.
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Speaker 2: Had no heater in it. In the winter, you'd freed
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Speaker 2: your buns off and the thing as a cold winner
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Speaker 2: of Dallas would come. And it occurred to me that
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Speaker 2: it would have made a fabulous graduation gift for our
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Speaker 2: first graduating class. Now, seminary began in nineteen twenty four,
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Speaker 2: so that model Model A would have been about four
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Speaker 2: hundred something dollars maybe if you got a few extras,
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Speaker 2: five hundred bucks to buy it new right off the
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Speaker 2: assembly line, and that would have been a big deal.
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Speaker 2: Back then. We celebrate our ninety fifth anniversary as a
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Speaker 2: school this year, if my math is correct. And it
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Speaker 2: occurred to me while I was thinking about my little car,
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Speaker 2: that it is easy for a school to cling to
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Speaker 2: its past. There's nothing in the world wrong with honoring
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Speaker 2: our heritage. There's everything right about that Bible is filled
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Speaker 2: with places and even stones of remembrance, and the value
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Speaker 2: of giving honor to whom honor is due. If you
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Speaker 2: happen to choose to come to this school, you won't
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Speaker 2: be long before you'll hear the stories related to former
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Speaker 2: presidents and former faculty members and historical events that took
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Speaker 2: place as we got underway. It was always a thrill
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Speaker 2: for me when I came beginning in my first year
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Speaker 2: was nineteen fifty nine, and so doctor Chaeffer had been
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Speaker 2: dead seven years. I never knew the founding and first
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Speaker 2: president of the school. My era was under doctor John Wolverard,
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Speaker 2: whose time here was a very significant period of time.
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Speaker 2: But it occurred to me that we can be so
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Speaker 2: preoccupied as we cling to our past that we like
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Speaker 2: that old model. A can become quaint a study in nostalgia.
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Speaker 2: But when schools do that, they become without meaning to
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Speaker 2: a dusty monuments and sort of like quaint museums, inefficient reflections.
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Speaker 2: I think maybe the worst title would be institutional relics.
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Speaker 2: I've never felt that Dallas Seminary, as much as we
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Speaker 2: respect our past, ever wanted to be that. So you
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Speaker 2: have no fear if you're thinking about our school thinking
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Speaker 2: that it's going to always be looking back, we will
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Speaker 2: look back and we should look back. In fact, the
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Speaker 2: book we revere, we certainly don't worship it, but we
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Speaker 2: study it seriously, pore over it. In virtually every class,
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Speaker 2: we will it or we will spend time during the
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Speaker 2: entire class digging into it. Ancient book. In fact, it's
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Speaker 2: criticized by the cynics of our day for being ancient,
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Speaker 2: as if ancient means out of touch. But you and
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Speaker 2: I know that God's word is alive and active and
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Speaker 2: sharper than a double edged sword, and it's changed your life.
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Speaker 2: It has certainly changed mind, still changing it. I can
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Speaker 2: go to certain scriptures and I can say, because of
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Speaker 2: what is written there, my life took another direction from
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Speaker 2: this ancient book called the Bible, whether Old or New Testament.
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Speaker 2: So we love God's word here and we never apologize
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Speaker 2: for that. However, we desire to have a balance. I
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Speaker 2: came across a quote from John R. W. Staut that's
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Speaker 2: worth reading. It's very easy to be faithful if you
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Speaker 2: do not care about being contemporary, and it's also easy
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Speaker 2: to be contemporary if you don't bother to be faithful.
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Speaker 2: The challenge, obviously, is to be both. The late doctor
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Speaker 2: Howard Hendrix when his shadow crossed our paths as students
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Speaker 2: years ago and marked our lives. Sort of reshape that
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Speaker 2: statement by Stott and put it in these words. I
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Speaker 2: like his words even better. It is no challenge to
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Speaker 2: be biblical if you don't care about being relevant, And
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Speaker 2: it's no challenge being relevant if you don't care about
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Speaker 2: being biblical. But to be both biblical and relevant addressing
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Speaker 2: the issues of today's world and culture, that's our challenge.
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Speaker 2: Is a theological institution, very well stated to quote the
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Speaker 2: words of Jesus out of Matthew nine. I've got my
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Speaker 2: Bible open to verses sixteen and seventeen, that familiar word picture.
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Speaker 2: You'll recall. No one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth
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Speaker 2: on an old garment, for the patch pulls away from
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Speaker 2: the garment, and a worse tear results than the next
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Speaker 2: verse reads. Nor do we put new wine in old
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Speaker 2: wine skins, which was in those days the wine bottle,
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Speaker 2: but it was in the skins. Otherwise the wine skins
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Speaker 2: burst and the wine pours out, and the wine skins
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Speaker 2: are ruined. But they put new wine into fresh wine skins,
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Speaker 2: and both are preserved. Hopefully we are engaged in doing that.
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Speaker 2: And you know. I mean that in the broader sense.
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Speaker 2: Every year, every year, hopefully this faculty, we'll take a
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Speaker 2: fresh look at your notes, your course that you're teaching,
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Speaker 2: realizing that another year is past, and perhaps there is
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Speaker 2: the need to adjust or adapt the way you're going
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Speaker 2: to say that or teach that so that this generation
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Speaker 2: can get it for our times. That's constantly the challenge
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Speaker 2: of every pastor on the planet. I am not ministering
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Speaker 2: to nineteen fifty nine people, though some of the people
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Speaker 2: I minister to are that old. I am ministering to millennials,
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Speaker 2: to teenagers, to people who are just now learning who
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Speaker 2: Jesus is, to those who are just discovering what church
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Speaker 2: is about, who have no clue what the songs are
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Speaker 2: that we've sung for centuries, or even the new ones
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Speaker 2: that are being composed to them. The life of faith
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Speaker 2: is a little weird, and it is the task of
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Speaker 2: the one who delivers the message to make sure it
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Speaker 2: is solidly biblical and at the same time ever relevant,
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Speaker 2: so you don't have to decode what's being said. I
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Speaker 2: love the honest statement that one of my profs said,
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Speaker 2: if people are bored when you preach, it's not their fault.
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Speaker 2: I think that's a very good way to put it.
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Speaker 2: It is your problem, especially if they're regularly bored. Everybody's
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Speaker 2: a little bored sometime because you're preoccupied, or you're sleepy
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Speaker 2: or whatever. But if you are regularly bored and thinking
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Speaker 2: about why in the world do we still coming to
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Speaker 2: this church, there's something wrong with the one at the
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Speaker 2: pulpit or the one at the microphone. It is the
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Speaker 2: task of the one communicating to make sure that what
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Speaker 2: is being said is right on the sharp edge of
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Speaker 2: where the listener is living. And I'm going to tell
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Speaker 2: you something that is a challenge. You cannot stay up
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Speaker 2: in today's world and keep driving them onde l A.
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Speaker 2: You got to see that that's sort of a fun
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Speaker 2: little hobby that you do for a while and you
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Speaker 2: sell it and you have the memory of it. But
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Speaker 2: that's not You can't keep up. And so in light
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Speaker 2: of all of that, I have a very different Like
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Speaker 2: I said earlier, I have a very different message I
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Speaker 2: want to leave with you, and I rarely ask you
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Speaker 2: to do this, but today I'm going to do it.
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Speaker 2: If you've got a place where you can write something down,
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Speaker 2: I want you to be ready to write down seven statements.
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Speaker 2: I'm going to call my talk seven Habits of very
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Speaker 2: Effective Seminaries, with all new apologies to Stephen Covey, who
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Speaker 2: has written about seven habits of highly effective people and
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Speaker 2: highly effective families. I want to talk about seven habits
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Speaker 2: of highly effective seminaries, and I want to give them
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Speaker 2: to you in no particular order of importance. Remember I
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Speaker 2: said that, and I could give you seventeen, but I can't.
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Speaker 2: And I could give you three or four, but there
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Speaker 2: needs to be more. So I'm going to go with
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Speaker 2: seven to stay with the idea of the way Covey's
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Speaker 2: written his book. So here they are one, two, three, four, five,
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Speaker 2: sixty seven. I'd like you to write them down, and
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Speaker 2: i'd like you if you come to the school to
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Speaker 2: check it out to see if we are on target
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Speaker 2: in these areas as best you can tell, and you
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Speaker 2: could tell some of them a lot easier than others
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Speaker 2: unless you're involved in the warp and woof of the
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Speaker 2: administration and all but much of it you'll be able
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Speaker 2: to tell as a student. Okay, here we go. Number one,
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Speaker 2: Highly effective seminaries are focused on what is essential. Highly
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Speaker 2: effective seminaries, let's even use the word stay, stay focused
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Speaker 2: on what is essential effective seminary. Under that, I'm just
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Speaker 2: going to ramble a little and just kind of fill
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Speaker 2: in the blanks here. We don't try to be all
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Speaker 2: things to everyone. We can't be. We don't try to
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Speaker 2: compete with some other school and outdo that school so
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Speaker 2: people will come here to this school. That's not an essential.
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Speaker 2: Competition is not an essential part of our commitment. I
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Speaker 2: find that when you do that, you become five miles
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Speaker 2: wide and about six inches deep, and you miss it.
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Speaker 2: We should be able to state our mission in one sense.
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Speaker 2: By the way, I got a copy of the catalog
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Speaker 2: and I turned to the mission statement. There it is okay.
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Speaker 2: Here it is. The mission of Dallas Theological Seminary as
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Speaker 2: a professional graduate level school, is to glorify God by
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Speaker 2: equipping godly servant leaders for the proclamation of His word
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Speaker 2: and the building up of the body of Christ worldwide.
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Speaker 2: Ought to be able to state that, ought to be
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Speaker 2: able to prove that, ought to be able to model that.
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Speaker 2: That's essential. That's what we're about. Ought to be doing
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Speaker 2: that every day we're in existence, every course. Ought to
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Speaker 2: keep that in mind. That's it essential. I could even
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Speaker 2: reduce it to the motto that is on our emblem,
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Speaker 2: preach the world word. Our goal isn't to study the word,
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Speaker 2: is to preach the word. It takes study to preach
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Speaker 2: it well. But the goal is to deliver the goods,
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Speaker 2: not to sit around in groups for the rest of
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Speaker 2: our lives and study deeper, deeper and deeper. You certainly
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Speaker 2: will want to study, and you want your study to
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Speaker 2: be deep enough so that you do dig into the treasures.
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Speaker 2: And I'm going to tell you from years of experienced
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Speaker 2: congregations will love you for your hard work and the study,
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Speaker 2: but they'll appreciate the fact that you give attention to
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Speaker 2: the delivery of the message and delivering it well, saying
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Speaker 2: it carefully, articulating it with right words. Preaching the word
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Speaker 2: was drilled into us as a student. We should be
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Speaker 2: clear about what we believe and stand there regardless of
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Speaker 2: whether it's politically correct or culturally acceptable. Often when I
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Speaker 2: see something as politically incorrect, I like it even more.
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Speaker 2: And I find that much of the message is politically incorrect,
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Speaker 2: and I do not care, and I'm cultivating the life
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Speaker 2: of a church that doesn't care either. We have an
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Speaker 2: essential set of responsibilities and pleasing our culture is not
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Speaker 2: one of them. Ignoring the culture is not the answer either.
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Speaker 2: So here again is the need for a balance. So
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Speaker 2: you got the first one. Highly effective seminaries stay focused
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Speaker 2: on what is essential. Number two. Highly effective seminaries exist
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Speaker 2: for the students, not the other way around. I'll say
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Speaker 2: it again, highly effective seminaries exist for the students, not
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Speaker 2: the other way. Today's seminary must continue to look for
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Speaker 2: ways to remain student friendly. That has not always been
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Speaker 2: true at Dallas Seminary. We have not always had faculty
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Speaker 2: who saw that as valuable. Thankfully, we have more now
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Speaker 2: than ever, to my knowledge, and I love that. I
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Speaker 2: don't care how brilliant any of you folks are, and
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Speaker 2: I know all of you are that, or you wouldn't
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Speaker 2: have the job you got. Are the calling you, I'm
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Speaker 2: gonna quit calling it jobs. It's a calling. Your kindness
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Speaker 2: is equally important as your scholarship. If you cannot be
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Speaker 2: kind to us who are students, we're not going to
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Speaker 2: get it. You exist for the sake of the students.
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Speaker 2: You wouldn't have a place here if it weren't for students,
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Speaker 2: and we have to keep that in mind. Highly effective seminaries,
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Speaker 2: as they think about this modeled grace and mercy and
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Speaker 2: patience and understanding and tolerance towards the students, and I
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Speaker 2: don't believe I can overemphasize that we need not a
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Speaker 2: thicker policy handbook or more rules and regulations. We need
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Speaker 2: greater modeling of grace and mercy from those who are
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Speaker 2: in administration and those who are our teachers. Seminaries that
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Speaker 2: get the job done and are highly efficient exist for
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Speaker 2: the students, not the other way around. Number three, highly
25:50
Speaker 2: effective seminaries have great hearted board members. Here's why you
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Speaker 2: wouldn't know, because you're not with board members that much,
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Speaker 2: and maybe you couldn't even name one of them. But
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Speaker 2: when you get involved in the ministry of the seminary,
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Speaker 2: you get to know some of the board members, and
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Speaker 2: when you are closer to the president's office, you really
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Speaker 2: get to know a number of them, and so you
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Speaker 2: realize the importance of this. Great hearted board members keep
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Speaker 2: the big picture in mind. They are selected because they
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Speaker 2: are visionary, they are in touch and unafraid of change.
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Speaker 2: They make hard decisions, and they are people of prayer.
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Speaker 2: These great hearted board members hold the leadership accountable in
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Speaker 2: important areas, and they have great latitude and non essential areas.
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Speaker 2: They don't panic when hard times come. They just pray
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Speaker 2: harder and they often give in greater measure. Great hearted
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Speaker 2: board members one of the secrets, by the way, they
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Speaker 2: are great hearted because they have a great God and
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Speaker 2: they serve the Lord God. All board members of Dollars
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Speaker 2: Seminary are voluntary. They are not paid to be in
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Speaker 2: that position, and it is a pleasure to know them
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Speaker 2: and to have worked alongside them. Number four, highly effective
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Speaker 2: seminaries prefer quality to quantity. I'll spell that out. Highly
27:41
Speaker 2: effective seminaries prefer quality to quantity. Being the largest is
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Speaker 2: never our goal. You will never hear me refer to
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Speaker 2: Dallas Seminary as to its size. As I said earlier,
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Speaker 2: we're not in competition with some of the school. However,
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Speaker 2: being the best we can be is all important. The
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Speaker 2: financial resources we have given, the faculty members, we have
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Speaker 2: given our facilities, and what we're able to provide. Our
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Speaker 2: goal is to be the best we can be. Having
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Speaker 2: the most number of extensions is not a goal. Is
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Speaker 2: not something we brag about. Having extensions in the best
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Speaker 2: location is important. Offering the most degrees is not a goal.
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Speaker 2: Offering degrees that are the most helpful for the students.
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Speaker 2: That is a goal. Offering courses that best equip you
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Speaker 2: for ministry. That is a goal. Highly effective seminaries prefer
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Speaker 2: quality to quantity. Number five, highly effective seminaries select and
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Speaker 2: retain and outstanding enviable faculty. We select and we retain
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Speaker 2: those important words. An outstanding inviable faculty men and women
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Speaker 2: of great personal character, true scholarship, moral purity, ethical credibility,
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Speaker 2: yet at the same time compassionate, true scholars who are
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Speaker 2: both competent, skilled in their disciplines, yet still learning, still reading,
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Speaker 2: still listening, still teachable. I love it when teachers say
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Speaker 2: I learned the most this year from our students whom
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Speaker 2: I taught. It's a great characteristic of humility when I
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Speaker 2: hear that. By the way, schools in the twenty first
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Speaker 2: century must have faculty who were willing to be also mentors.
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Speaker 2: It's a good time for me to mention a book.
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Speaker 2: Some of you've heard of it, others of you have not.
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Speaker 2: Many of you have read it, I would imagine, but whatever.
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Speaker 2: It's titled Tuesdays with Maury by Mitch Album. Mitch is
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Speaker 2: a sports editor at the time he wrote the book
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Speaker 2: in Detroit I don't know what he's doing now. But
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Speaker 2: he was a graduate of Brandeis University. And while he
30:45
Speaker 2: went to Brandeis in Waltham, Massachusetts, he and Maury Schwartz,
30:51
Speaker 2: doctor Maury Schwartz, became fast friends, and Maury, not surprisedly,
31:00
Speaker 2: became Mitch's not only his prof but his mentor. Maury
31:09
Speaker 2: got lou Garrig's disease, and when Mitch found that out,
31:15
Speaker 2: read about it. Actually he decided he would spend every
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Speaker 2: Tuesday with his beloved proth and would be there till
31:27
Speaker 2: he died, every Tuesday, and he wrote the book Tuesdays
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Speaker 2: with Maury. Just a few words from the book, and
31:36
Speaker 2: I'll return to it as I close today. But listen
31:39
Speaker 2: to this, Mitch writes, I'll look back some time at
31:44
Speaker 2: the person I was before I rediscovered my old professor.
31:52
Speaker 2: So he's looking back on hisself. I want to talk
31:57
Speaker 2: to that person. I want to tell him what to
32:03
Speaker 2: look out for, what mistakes to avoid. I want to
32:09
Speaker 2: tell him to be more open, to ignore the lure
32:13
Speaker 2: of advertised values, like those words to pay attention when
32:19
Speaker 2: your loved ones are speaking as if it were the
32:23
Speaker 2: last time you might hear them. By the way if
32:26
Speaker 2: I may add to something, and I added only because
32:29
Speaker 2: it's been a new thing for me. I've learned to
32:31
Speaker 2: listen to my wife like that. I used to not
32:34
Speaker 2: do that for ten years. I didn't know that we'd
32:38
Speaker 2: make it. I was so careful with my words here.
32:42
Speaker 2: I was so blamed selfish and self serving. Thank the Lord,
32:48
Speaker 2: I pull out of that nosedive. But he said, I
32:51
Speaker 2: want to pay more attention to the loved ones when
32:54
Speaker 2: they're speaking, as if it were the last time you
32:56
Speaker 2: might be hearing them. A few more comments. Mostly, I
32:59
Speaker 2: want to tell that person still talking to himself to
33:03
Speaker 2: get on an airplane and visit a gentle old man
33:06
Speaker 2: in West Newton, Massachusetts, sooner rather than later, before that
33:13
Speaker 2: old man gets sick and loses his ability to dance.
33:18
Speaker 2: I know I cannot do this. None of us can
33:21
Speaker 2: undo what we've done or relive a life already recorded.
33:27
Speaker 2: But if Professor Morris Schwartz taught me anything at all,
33:33
Speaker 2: it was this, there's no such thing as too late.
33:38
Speaker 2: By the way, that's not in a course these people teach.
33:42
Speaker 2: That's in their life. That gets rubbed off from a
33:46
Speaker 2: mentor something wrong. If you leave the school and can
33:50
Speaker 2: only refer to profts and not name one mentor One
33:55
Speaker 2: of your goals in being here is to ask the
34:00
Speaker 2: God to link you with one of those lives, because
34:03
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, those are lives worth linking to, or
34:08
Speaker 2: they wouldn't be there. He taught me. If he taught
34:12
Speaker 2: me anything at all, it was that there's no such
34:14
Speaker 2: thing as too late in life. He was changing until
34:18
Speaker 2: the day he said goodbye. Love those words. Now let
34:25
Speaker 2: me finish my list. Number six. Highly effective seminaries attract
34:33
Speaker 2: and cultivate students who remain enthusiastic about and devoted to
34:41
Speaker 2: God's truth. I'll say it again. Highly effective seminaries attract
34:46
Speaker 2: and cultivate students who remain enthusiastic about and devoted to
34:52
Speaker 2: God's truth. When all at the school, I was three
34:57
Speaker 2: feet off the ground and motivated beyond words, and I
35:04
Speaker 2: still am. Every morning I get up, I cannot wait
35:10
Speaker 2: to do what's involved in ministry. I cannot wait to
35:13
Speaker 2: go up nineteen steps to get into my study, or
35:17
Speaker 2: to get into my car and to scoot over to
35:20
Speaker 2: that place I love, or to go to a spot
35:23
Speaker 2: called insight for living and be involved. As that was
35:27
Speaker 2: yesterday and recording audio and video stuff in the lives
35:32
Speaker 2: of people. Knowing I have a chance to touch the world.
35:36
Speaker 2: What a privilege that is. It's just a privilege to
35:41
Speaker 2: do it. It's the matter with me starting to believe my
35:47
Speaker 2: own stuff. Here. You will discover here the joy of learning.
35:53
Speaker 2: Don't ever lose it. Don't ever lose it. You will
35:58
Speaker 2: have just a beginning of a world open up to you.
36:02
Speaker 2: And you've got your lifetime to keep opening it. Let's
36:06
Speaker 2: keep opening. And education is going from an unconscious to
36:12
Speaker 2: conscious awareness of your ignorance. So when you're here, you'll
36:17
Speaker 2: realize the bad amount of ignorance that's been going on,
36:22
Speaker 2: and it will it will humble you, and it should
36:26
Speaker 2: keep you humble so that you don't minister an arrogance.
36:30
Speaker 2: Youe minister on your knees, grateful to God that he
36:35
Speaker 2: gives you a voice and gives you a place to minister.
36:39
Speaker 2: And people that were patient enough to listen to you
36:43
Speaker 2: and love you and forgive you and respect you and
36:46
Speaker 2: all that goes with it. We want students like that.
36:51
Speaker 2: You won't get it all here, You'll just get the
36:54
Speaker 2: seed plot. You just get the little root rootlets starting,
37:00
Speaker 2: and you'll be you'll become aware of the books to read,
37:03
Speaker 2: and you will become discerning and how to spend your time,
37:08
Speaker 2: and you'll make bad mistakes and you'll learn I can't
37:10
Speaker 2: keep doing that. You've got to stop that. And you'll
37:14
Speaker 2: learn how to stop the leaks and your time dyke,
37:17
Speaker 2: and you'll learn how to how to make the most
37:19
Speaker 2: of the time you have, and you'll learn to stop complaining.
37:25
Speaker 2: Nobody wants to be around somebody complaining all the time,
37:28
Speaker 2: and ministry will give you stuff to be thrilled about
37:32
Speaker 2: or complain about. And congregations don't deserve that. Your counselate
37:38
Speaker 2: doesn't deserve that, your fellow elder doesn't deserve that. They
37:42
Speaker 2: need to know how thrilled you are with Jesus. And
37:47
Speaker 2: you got it all started while you were right here.
37:50
Speaker 2: And if anyone ever stops to ask you, where do
37:52
Speaker 2: you pick up that kind of excitement, come right back here.
37:56
Speaker 2: Hopefully I got it to start with right here. I
38:02
Speaker 2: saw it in a prof or I was around it
38:04
Speaker 2: in chapel, or a witnessed it and a fellow student,
38:08
Speaker 2: or we had a cluster of people in our group
38:11
Speaker 2: and it was just the fabulous, just fabulous. We got
38:17
Speaker 2: friends that we went to school with here that are
38:20
Speaker 2: still friends. They'll be friends for ever. I'm just about
38:25
Speaker 2: live forever, so they'll be friends of the rest of
38:28
Speaker 2: our time, and I'm grateful for each one. Highly effective
38:33
Speaker 2: seminaries attract and cultivate these kind of students become that.
38:38
Speaker 2: Don't just get a degree. You do that anywhere, that's
38:42
Speaker 2: your plan. Don't come here now. You want to come
38:45
Speaker 2: here to get your life changed and deepened and on
38:49
Speaker 2: a course toward a lifetime of ministry that you can
38:52
Speaker 2: be grateful for. And I mean this in the right sense,
38:55
Speaker 2: proud of you know what I mean by that. This
39:00
Speaker 2: is the spot, this is the place to do it.
39:03
Speaker 2: Our track record's pretty good about that, and you could
39:06
Speaker 2: be a part of that, and love to have you
39:08
Speaker 2: do that with us. Number seven. Highly effective seminaries have
39:12
Speaker 2: dreams that are greater than their memories. They aren't stuck
39:17
Speaker 2: in some particular era. The school isn't great because it
39:21
Speaker 2: was great in nineteen sixty to sixty three. It was
39:25
Speaker 2: great then, but it's not great now because of that.
39:28
Speaker 2: It's great because it's great now. Schools like this have
39:32
Speaker 2: not stopped risking and reaching. Our dreams are greater than
39:37
Speaker 2: our memories. They pray that their vision will never be
39:42
Speaker 2: hindered by the hurdles and the obstacles. We respect what was,
39:49
Speaker 2: but we do not let that blind us to what
39:52
Speaker 2: might be and a new way of doing it. I
39:55
Speaker 2: would challenge our faculty to think of creative ways to
39:59
Speaker 2: teach that same course, and just do it in such
40:03
Speaker 2: a way that it surprises you. And it's a creative approach.
40:10
Speaker 2: Final words back from Tuesdays with Maury. These are touching words.
40:17
Speaker 2: This book was largely Maury's idea. He called it our
40:23
Speaker 2: final thesis. Like the best of work projects, it brought
40:28
Speaker 2: us closer together, and Maury was delighted when several publishers
40:32
Speaker 2: expressed interest, even though he died before meeting any of them.
40:40
Speaker 2: The advanced money helped pay Maury's enormous medical bills, and
40:46
Speaker 2: for that we were both grateful. The title, by the way,
40:50
Speaker 2: we came up with one day in Maury's office. He
40:54
Speaker 2: liked naming things. He had several ideas, but when I
40:59
Speaker 2: said yeah, but Tuesdays with Maury, he smiled in an
41:04
Speaker 2: almost blushing way, and I knew that was it. After
41:09
Speaker 2: Maury died, I went through boxes of old college material,
41:14
Speaker 2: and I discovered a final paper I had written for
41:18
Speaker 2: one of his classes. He was twenty years old now,
41:22
Speaker 2: and on the front page were my penciled comments scribbled
41:27
Speaker 2: to Maury, and beneath them were his comments scribbled back.
41:32
Speaker 2: Mine began dear coach, his began dear player. For some reason,
41:41
Speaker 2: each time I read that, I miss it more. Have
41:47
Speaker 2: you ever really had a teacher one who saw you
41:52
Speaker 2: as a raw but precious thing, a jewel that, with
41:59
Speaker 2: wisdom could be polished to a proud shine. If you're
42:06
Speaker 2: lucky enough to find your way to such teachers, you
42:08
Speaker 2: will always find your way back. Sometime it's only in
42:13
Speaker 2: your head. Sometime it's right alongside their beds. The last
42:22
Speaker 2: class of my old Proph's life took place once a
42:26
Speaker 2: week in his home by a window in his study
42:32
Speaker 2: where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its
42:36
Speaker 2: pink flowers. Class met on Tuesdays. No books were required.
42:45
Speaker 2: The subject was the meaning of life. It was taught
42:50
Speaker 2: from experience. The teaching goes on. It's the greatest honor
42:58
Speaker 2: of my life to be linked to Dallas Seminary, and
43:06
Speaker 2: the fact that I would keep being invited back and
43:11
Speaker 2: to meet friends that I've known for years, to stand
43:16
Speaker 2: and look at his skyline I looked at when I
43:20
Speaker 2: was in my twenties, and to remember the years that
43:27
Speaker 2: had passed and the heartaches and the heart throbbing ecstasies
43:35
Speaker 2: of ministry. Tell you it's great. I want that for you.
43:45
Speaker 2: I want you to come to the place where you
43:47
Speaker 2: are in the words of Charles Wesley, lost and wonder
43:51
Speaker 2: and love and praise. It was here I learned the
43:56
Speaker 2: great hymns thanks to Urchepen, Richard Souni and others. It
44:05
Speaker 2: was here I learned how to pronounce big words that
44:08
Speaker 2: were good theological words that I would teach our congregation.
44:14
Speaker 2: Was here I learned the languages that treasure. I'm in
44:20
Speaker 2: the languages every week, and I love it. I'm not
44:26
Speaker 2: nearly as competent as these faculty members are, but they've
44:30
Speaker 2: taught me just enough that I can use them to
44:33
Speaker 2: add color to what I'm presenting. And when I come
44:39
Speaker 2: back on campus, say great to be greeted. They'll say
44:44
Speaker 2: great to see you, good to have you, And I'll
44:48
Speaker 2: usually say it's great to be anywhere, especially here. It
44:58
Speaker 2: God leads you to come on bord to stay don't
45:02
Speaker 2: come for a year and bail out. Finish what you start.
45:09
Speaker 2: Get her done with your whole heart. Get it done.
45:17
Speaker 2: You'll look back and never regret the price it took.
45:23
Speaker 2: But you had to pay to make it happen, because
45:26
Speaker 2: I'll tell you there is a price connected to it.
45:30
Speaker 2: It's hard because ministry is hard, but it's wondrous because
45:35
Speaker 2: ministry is wonderful. It's wonderful. Lord. Our heart's pant for you,
45:44
Speaker 2: like a deer in the forest pants for water. We
45:49
Speaker 2: love you dearly, and we want you to know that
45:54
Speaker 2: some are just learning how to do that. Others know
45:57
Speaker 2: exactly what that means. For some it's a foreign thought,
46:03
Speaker 2: but it won't be for long. I pray that you
46:07
Speaker 2: will use these words as memory catch points when our
46:15
Speaker 2: heads sink into the pillow tonight in the days ahead,
46:20
Speaker 2: and we work through the decision of what we should do.
46:24
Speaker 2: Have your way in each person's life who is seeking
46:29
Speaker 2: your mind for his or her future, and then be
46:33
Speaker 2: glorified Father with that decision, whatever it may be. In
46:38
Speaker 2: the name of Jesus, we pray Amen.
46:43
Speaker 3: The preceding message, seven habits of highly effective seminaries and
46:47
Speaker 3: the sound recording were copyrighted in twenty nineteen by Charles
46:51
Speaker 3: arslingdall Ink. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted
46:56
Speaker 3: material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.
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Speaker 2: Two