Ft. Worth was the first place besides Houston in which I ever remember living. I love Houston. I wore my Astros hat all through the playoffs last year, even when the White Sox roughed ‘em up. I didn’t know how much I would love Ft. Worth, though.

Houston is the fourth largest city in America, behind New York, LA and Chicago. It’s big. I learned to drive a “stick shift” in Houston traffic. I don’t know who’s prayer life increased more: mine or my parents. When I got to Ft. Worth, it was a big city, but it had a small town feel. I thought it was great. There was a bumper sticker I used to see and it said, “Foat Wuth, Ah Luv Yah!” Amen to that.

I walked into the Rotunda at Southwestern and stood on a map of the world. I looked around the room at the huge paintings of the presidents of Southwestern. BH Carroll, the founder, all the way through the rest like Truett, Naylor and Dilday surrounded the map of the world embedded in the floor. Just thinking about it gives me shivers. I have stood on that map and looked at countries and far off lands, praying for them. I wondered if God would send me to any of them. I never felt the specific call to serve as a lifetime missionary, but my wife and I both have a heart for taking the Gospel to other places.

When I got to Southwestern, I was on my own and without a job. I had served on staff at two churches while in college. The first was a good, but stretching experience. The second was a hammer and anvil year and a half. I felt the Lord telling me not to seek a staff position, but to be a “tentmaker.” I needed to learn that doing ministry had nothing to do with a paycheck. You did it because He called you. I needed to learn that.

I took a job working at K-Mart. I lived in the dorm and didn’t need much to live on, so it wasn’t bad. I went to work as a volunteer youth worker at a local church. I taught Sunday School, chaperoned trips and led Wednesday night Youth Worship. (I play the guitar and sing – if you can call it that.)

Sometimes I would get calls to speak at events, retreats, revivals and Disciple Now weekends. K-Mart was flexible enough to let me do those things. I always tried to be back to teach Sunday School to the 6th grade boys. I am still recovering from those guys.

Basically, I took it easy. I took a semester off to work a little more and earn some money. Career growth was not my priority. That’s not to say nothing was happening in my life, though. I began to grow richly in ways that I never imagined. I realized that I had been doing ministry in my own power, and not letting God guide and meet the needs.

I started to go down to Waco to this student thing on Monday nights. It was called “Choice” and was led by this guy named Louie Giglio. Maybe you have heard of him. He now runs the Passion conferences, music and other stuff. I grew a lot there. Learned about my relationship with God and just how intimate God wanted it to be.

I had grown up with the idea God was disappointed in me all the time. I never quite felt good enough. During this time in my life, I came to know God deeply and learned to be obedient. I learned to hear His voice through His Word. I read the Bible voraciously. Things began to fall into place in my mind and I understood God so much better than I had before.

My faith was becoming my own in ways I never understood. I already thought it was my own. I was much more active in my relationship with God than my parents raised me to be. Now I was growing beyond even the influence of Pastors and Youth Ministers. I was growing into the influence of the Word.

Early in the year of 1992, I was invited to preach a revival in the panhandle of Texas. While there, I met a young lady and was amazed by her. I had recently sworn off of women, so, of course, God chose that time to introduce me to my wife. We dated long distance and ran up phone bills for a while. During the summer, I worked on her father’s farm and the day after Christmas I married her. That day just happened to also be Mama and Papa Rogers’ anniversary, so it was special to me for several reasons.

After I got married, I started to work a little harder on my classes, but not that hard. Just over a year after we married, and my wife halfway through a pregnancy with Jimmy, there was some stirring on campus. The March Trustee meeting was going on and apparently several students who were attuned to the political actions of the SBC seemed to think that Dr. Dilday’s job was in danger. It turns out that Dr. Dilday had been quoted in saying that some of the actions of the conservative resurgence were “Satanic,” a few years earlier.

Well, that will get the attention of certain people. It turns out that Dr. Dilday was always outspoken about the resurgence. He preached a sermon at one of the conventions in 1983 that strongly criticized the takeover motives and actions.

In 1983, Dr. Dilday was as secure as anyone could be within Southern Baptist life. He was highly educated with multiple PhD’s and was leading Southwestern to become the largest Seminary in the world. Even the other 5 Southern Baptist Seminaries lagged far behind in faculty, money donated and student population.

Eleven years later, Dr. Dilday’s time had come. There were a lot of accusations about whether Dr. Dilday was a “liberal” or a “moderate” or a “conservative.” I never heard the fourth word, “fundamentalist,” used about him. I heard varying views about what he said and didn’t say. Frankly, it all became white noise. The following is what is important to my story.

Dr. Dilday was loved and trusted by students and faculty alike. He was amiable and fearless when it came to defending SWBTS, faculty, staff, students and the SBC as he saw it. Agree with him or not, you have to respect that. I liked him. My professors and fellow students talked highly of him. I never personally heard him say anything that would lead me to believe that he was a “liberal.” “Moderate,” maybe.

On the other side of the issue, the Trustees are the governors of the school. It is they who get to decide who gets tenure, who is hired or not hired and who gets fired. They have the right and the responsibility. Only, if you are a Trustee, don’t lie about what you are doing. That alone should disqualify you from serving at any level of leadership.

You see, the night before Dr. Dilday was fired, some Trustees met with concerned students in the student center and assured them that Dr. Dilday was in no danger of losing his job. The next day, during the meeting, there was a motion to move to executive session.

We all know what that means: Everybody out.

Word of this spread through campus like wildfire. People were interrupting classes and informing professors who would inform the students. I had gone to chapel that morning and one of the Trustees, an alumni, had spoken. It seemed “forced,” but I blew it off. After we got word of what was happening, our class was dismissed. I went to the foyer between the rotunda and the chapel. As you face the chapel, on the right is a door to the Board Room. We gathered and waited and talked and prayed and sang and stared at the door.

When it came time for my Greek class with Dr. Vaughn, I went down to the room. Some of us showed up, and some didn’t. Dr. Vaughn sat behind the desk and we talked about it. He kept shaking his head and I remember him saying it would be different now, for all of us.

They changed the locks on the President’s office, asked the President’s assistants to leave and issued a June 7 eviction notice for the President’s residence. Students and even faculty began to challenge the Trustees as they emerged from the Board Room. It got ugly. There was a particularly nasty meeting in the chapel the next day where Trustee Ralph Pulley was booed and jeered.

The school was put on probation by the Association of Theological Schools for the US and Canada – our accrediting agency. This put all of our degrees in jeopardy of not being accredited, if things weren’t righted quickly. Fortunately, Dr. Hemphill worked ceaselessly to pull the staff and the student body together and get us off of probation way ahead of schedule. The other damage, however, was done.

I put my nose in the books, took more hours and summer classes. I just wanted out of there. What started so well for me was finishing very badly. In May of 1995, I finally finished and was glad for it. I never wanted so badly to get to a local church and deal with those matters. I was hired to be the Associate Pastor at FBC Russellville, KY, glad to be away from the national politics.

My pastor felt the same way. He told me that while he thought some of the stuff in the convention had needed to be addressed, he wanted to spend his time ministering to the church where he served. I adopted that policy as my own. I put my books on the shelves and went to work.

=========================

As I did yesterday concerning HBU, I want to say that Southwestern is a fine institution. I now remember it very fondly, but to say that the actions of the Trustees has not left a mark, would be false. I understand that Dr. Patterson has assembled a world class faculty now, and is continuing to build it. I am praying for God’s richest blessings on SWBTS.

A little while ago, I posted about the decline in FTE numbers at Southwestern. FTE is short for full time, master’s level students. For the first time since they began taking records on this, the numbers there have dipped below 2,000. I am not sure of all the reasons why, but I think I know at least one. The generation of students that were present when Dr. Dilday was fired are now pastoring churches all over Texas and neighboring states. Since they have alternatives for higher education in Baptist life in Texas, I believe many of them are encouraging students to seek out those alternatives. To lay the numerical decline in FTE students solely on the back of Dr. Patterson’s presidency would be unfair.

Tomorrow: Silence and Memphis. Maybe this should be titled: From Silence to Memphis. It is quite a journey.

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