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Deferred maintenance: Southern Seminary innovates

By Aaron Cline Hanbury

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Around the country, institutions of higher education face the persistent problem of deferred maintenance. Basically, an institution will defer addressing campus maintenance issues in an effort to reduce spending in general or to reallocate funds to more immediate needs. A recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education painted a bleak picture of the deferred maintenance needs at institutions across the country.

The Chronicle reports that "deferred maintenance on college campuses amounts to about $36 billion across the country, with $7 billion of that considered urgent."

Citing Sightlines, a higher education consulting company with more than 300 clients, The Chronicle reports, "the data indicates that the need for repairs and modernization has risen since the start of the 2008 recession, particularly at public institutions. At some institutions the backlog, which is not recorded on balance sheets, would rival or far exceed their net assets or liabilities."

Moody's Investors Service, a company that provides credit ratings, research, tools and analysis for corporations, produced a report revealing that for the 287 private colleges it rates, debt for capital projects had more than tripled, from $27 billion in 2000 to $90 billion in 2010. This makes the need to address deferred maintenance all the more urgent.

At Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, deferred maintenance is no less an issue. In an effort to assess the situation, the seminary hired one of the nation's top consulting firms to evaluate the campus. The result was the quantification of the seminary's $52 million deferred maintenance bill.

The Chronicle suggests that campus buildings require "major renovations" every 25 years, and "further major renovations, or replacement, at 50 years." Southern Seminary built many of its buildings when the seminary moved to its current location in 1926, almost 90 years ago. Many areas of those buildings, the plumbing in the Mullins Complex for instance, have not seen an update since then.

"One of our chief responsibilities in this generation is to ensure Southern Seminary is propelled into the future unconstrained by limitations that we have the responsibility to address now," said R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Seminary. "The campus of Southern Seminary is merely a tool, but it's a very important tool for our ability to fulfill the mission that has been entrusted to us. For that reason, we need to take responsibility in this generation to make certain that the campus continues as a great asset to our mission and does not become a liability."

The consensus of those interviewed in The Chronicle seems to be that colleges will need to adopt new strategies to get more out of their buildings. David A. Kadamus, president of Sightlines, said that "colleges are embracing all sorts of strategies to deal with deferred maintenance. The savviest have devised comprehensive plans that deal with maintenance issues while pursuing strategic goals."

Southern Seminary's need for a comprehensive strategy provided the impetus for its new master plan. According to Mohler, Southern's responsibility and the growing needs of its campus "explain the significant effort to address long-term issues and take advantage of opportunities for the campus."

Mohler said that addressing the seminary's deferred maintenance issue is not only for the current Southern community, but for the future of the institution.

"As I head into my 20th year as president, I do not want to turn over this campus to the next generation as a time bomb about to detonate," he said. "In spite of all of its beauty and all of its utility, there are some things that are ticking as some of these buildings approach their 90th year."

According to Mohler, the largest area of concern is the Mullins Complex. The complex consists of Whitsitt, Mullins and Williams halls and makes up one-third of the campus. If the complex were to require plumbing or electrical replacement, the cost for each would be $4 million. Then, updating 1926 facilities to match 2012 codes would cost at least $4 million.

During the next 10 years, the seminary's newly adopted and implemented master plan will defer maintenance no more. This plan will dissolve the $52 million in deferred maintenance and position the campus for immediate and future structural and financial sustainability. Phase one will restore and update the campus, primarily in terms of housing and administrative offices.

"We are going to look at the issue in terms of its component parts," Mohler said. "Look at what issues are the most crucial and put it together in a package that will include some fundraising and some use of capital." Mohler insisted that the seminary will not draw funds for the proposed master plan neither from tuition increases.

The Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention has approved a $20 million loan for the SBTS master plan. This loan will help repurpose the Mullins Complex as a state-of-the-art facility for Boyce College, the undergraduate school of Southern Seminary.

Phase two will advance the learning community of Southern Seminary, primarily through renovation of the James P. Boyce Centennial Library. Phase three, without requiring any firm commitments, anticipates future development.

By the completion of the first phase of the master plan, Southern Seminary will almost entirely be free from its current deferred maintenance bill. The leadership and staff of the seminary are carefully, aggressively and creatively addressing the persistent challenge of deferred maintenance -- but not just as a means to keep paint fresh and building infrastructure up-to-date. Instead, the master plan eliminates longstanding maintenance needs in a way that strategically resets the campus to better fulfill in our age its enduring mission of training ministers of the Gospel.

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Pastors, students walk in footsteps of Baptist forebears

By Keith Collier

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Following in the steps of their theological ancestors, a group of Southern Baptists traversed five countries in Western Europe and discovered firsthand the faithfulness and unyielding commitment of 16th-century Anabaptists. The group traveled as part of the Radical Reformation Study Tour organized and led by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary faculty and President Paige Patterson.

The tour focused on 16th-century Anabaptists, who sought to build New Testament churches on the major tenets of biblical authority, believer's baptism, believers' church, a proper view of the Lord's Supper, religious liberty, discipleship and church discipline. Anabaptists championed a return to the Bible much like their Magisterial Reformer contemporaries such as Martin Luther, John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli, but they believed these Reformers had not gone far enough in abandoning unbiblical practices such as infant baptism. Their advocacy for a "free church" separate from the state incited opposition and persecution from both Catholics and Protestants. Many were martyred for their faith.

Southwestern's tour group of 24 people traveled to sites in Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic from May 14-24. They explored castle ruins where Anabaptists were imprisoned, caves where they gathered for worship and riverbanks where many were drowned. Along the way, professors lectured on the theology and biographies of these faithful men and women.

Although historians misunderstood Anabaptists for centuries, scholars in the 20th century recognized the diversity among Anabaptists and the valuable heritage they left for present-day Baptists and other Christians. Former Southwestern Seminary professors such as A.H. Newman, William Estep and James Leo Garrett were some at the forefront of this scholarship. Estep's "The Anabaptist Story" has been a staple textbook on the subject for more than 35 years. Today, Southwestern continues to lead the way in Anabaptist studies as seen by its "Anabaptism and Contemporary Baptists" conference in January 2012, which attracted more than 500 students, faculty members and guests from around the world.

Estep's legacy was strongly felt on the study tour. His contributions to Anabaptist studies initially sparked Patterson's interest in the subject, and the two became friends in later years. Additionally, two pastors on the tour first remember hearing about the Anabaptists from Estep as they sat in his church history classroom.

Mike Hopkins, senior pastor at Simpson Creek Baptist Church in Bridgeport, W.Va., took Estep's class at Southwestern in the early 1960s and knew the Estep family from church. He has continued to study the Anabaptists throughout his pastoral ministry and was excited to hear that Southwestern would be leading a study tour on the topic.

"I find it very moving to be at the sites where Anabaptists gave their lives because of their faith in Christ," Hopkins said. "I like history, and when I study history, I don't want generalities. I want to know exactly where this happened and what happened here, and this trip has been excellent.

"I wanted to come on this trip if for no other reason but to stand in Zurich at the Limmat River where Felix Manz was drowned, and to think of his dear mother calling out to him to be strong and not to compromise. That was the high point of the trip for me."

Jimmy Patterson, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Newnan, Ga., first learned about the Anabaptists at Southwestern in Estep's class in the 1980s. Patterson -- no relation to Paige Patterson -- used his sabbatical to join the study tour. He came away refreshed physically and spiritually and said the trip provided practical benefits for his ministry as a pastor.

"I'm now able to go back home and give my church compelling and passionate reasons to continue being distinctively Baptist," Patterson said. " also be able to persuasively instruct new converts on the importance of believer's baptism and Christian prospects from other denominations on the essentials of believer's baptism."

Patterson said the study tour also fueled his passion for evangelism and missions: "The price paid by the Anabaptists for their faith has motivated me to new levels of evangelism.

"Our association has adopted an unreached people group in the Südtirol Valley. spoke about George Blaurock in the 16th century who went to that part of present-day northern Italy , and Anabaptists exploded in that area. But now, they're an unreached, unengaged people group according to the IMB. … I thought, 'Wow! These people have an Anabaptist heritage, and they used to not be unreached. I think a great strategy would be to go back and tell these people a little about their ancestral roots and use that as a launching pad to introduce them .'"

Jon Clark, a master of divinity student at Southwestern, took the church history class offered as part of the study tour, which served as his final class in his master's program. Upon graduation, he plans to continue in pastoral ministry.

" was a culmination of everything I've been working toward and learning," Clark said. "It's an inspiration to learn about the Anabaptists and their sacrifices and faithfulness. Now, I have the motivation to be as sacrificial as the Anabaptists and as faithful as they were. It makes me want to love God more and show Him more to the world regardless of what the cost might be."

Dan Moon, a Southwestern alumnus who served as a church planter and the church planting director for Asian-Americans with the North American Mission Board until his retirement in 2003, also participated in the study tour. He believes a proper understanding of Anabaptist theology and the heritage left for modern Baptists would benefit Asian believers and churches.

"The Korean Protestant movement needs to go back to the basics of New Testament Christianity, patterned after what Anabaptists did," Moon said. He noted the importance of teaching Baptist distinctives because "the future explosion of mass Christendom in the 21st century will be in China, South Korea, North Korea and Southeast Asian countries."

Southwestern hopes to continue to lead study tours on the Anabaptists in addition to its study tours on the English Reformation, the Early Church, and the Holy Land.

Keith Collier is director of news and information for Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas (www.swbts.edu/campusnews).

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German bus driver stays on narrow road

By Keith Collier

RHEINLAND-PFALZ, Germany -- After decades of running from God, Klaus-Peter Schmidt could not bear the weight of conviction any longer. For a year, he had attended a local Baptist church, sat under the preaching of God's Word, and read the Bible given to him by the pastor. But he still felt desperate.

"On the 16th of February in 2011, I was driving in my car, and I felt like I should stop now," Schmidt recounts. "I read the letter of John, and after I finished reading, I started crying. All of the sudden, I noticed what a sinful life I had led throughout all these years. And I was so grateful that through the words out of this Bible my whole life was being changed."

Despite his desperation, he sensed the Lord saying over and over, "Do not give up." Sitting in his car, he repented and put his faith in Christ.

"In this very moment, I knew that God had given me a present, that He had shown His grace to me, that I was really converted to Him."

Schmidt continued to attend Bible classes and worship services at his church as much as possible. However, his profession as a long-distance coach driver often had him driving a tour bus around Germany on the weekends.

Then, one day, his company told him an upcoming assignment would involve driving a Christian group across five countries over the course of 10 days. Some may call it coincidence, but Schmidt says it was divine providence. The company assigned him to be the coach driver for Southwestern Seminary's Radical Reformation Study Tour, which focused on traveling in the footsteps of 16th-century Anabaptists in Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic.

"When I first got the documents saying it was Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, I was smiling all over my face and thinking this can't be true," Schmidt says.

In addition to navigating narrow city streets and hairpin curves in the Swiss Alps, Schmidt listened in on the lectures about the committed believers who lived in the region and held to biblical principles even at the cost of their lives. Schmidt also joined the group to see the prison cells where Anabaptists were sequestered, the barns and caves where they hid to worship, and the riverbanks where they were drowned for their faith.

"I learned how important our personal faith is for us, and I've learned so many new historical and theological facts; I took everything in like a sponge," Schmidt says. "At each and every place, I had the impression of diving into history and to learn from our forefathers."

"I've experienced during this week such a true faith and a faith that is alive. It's my goal to live the same kind of living faith. Every day was so amazing, so indescribable."

Despite traveling some rocky roads in life, Schmidt is determined to stay on the straight and narrow road.

"During those 10 days," Schmidt says, "I came to see how easy it can be to living your faith if you just live according to what the Bible says. It's not easy for any of us. Sometimes we, ourselves, make our way pretty difficult."

With God's help and direction, Schmidt has set his course to stay on the straight and narrow road. His primary goal is to "live the life that God expects us to live together with my wife and little son."

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Former Muslim embraces Christ,

plans mission trip to home country

By Frank Michael McCormack

MARIETTA, Ga. -- The road that led Brahima Nabi Toure to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary's North Georgia Hub was longer, and had more twists and turns, than that of many students at NOBTS. Toure, a truck driver by trade and a master of divinity student, is originally from Burkina Faso, a nation of about 16 million in West Africa.

The long road from Toure's village, Diebougou, to the Atlanta area ultimately led him from Islam to faith in Jesus Christ. It also led him to his wife Mikyong and to a call to ministry.

And that long road, Toure said, ultimately will lead him back to his village as a minister of the Gospel. His ministry there will be the first.

Toure said he always dreamed of coming to the United States. He majored in English in college in part because of that desire.

Then in 1998, a friend who already lived in the States connected Toure with a farmer in Wisconsin. A main motivation for leaving Burkina Faso for the United States, Toure said, was to provide for his large family. Toure spent only one planting season in Wisconsin, though. As it turns out, the Wisconsin weather was a little extreme for the native Burkinabè. Continued...