One year ago, I published a blog entitled “An Open Letter to Young Southern Baptists.” I do not intend here to copy that entire blog, but a quick reminder of the challenges I offered will help in understanding the words that follow:

• Know that many of us realize that we have much room for improvement. We older leaders are not ignorant of the concerns that grip you.
• Do review the history of this denomination. Remember that past and current leaders deserve respect.
• Do not give up on the SBC. You, your church, and the SBC lose if you simply walk away without patiently trying to make a difference.
• Continue to support the Cooperative Program even while you seek your role in the denomination. Be kingdom-minded enough to give even when the immediate benefits for you and your church are not always obvious.
• Stay focused on the entirety of the Great Commission. Refocus our churches on strong discipleship, but never allow evangelism to be a “back burner” task.
• Pray humbly for Southern Baptist Convention leaders. From pastoring a local church to leading a denominational agency, the tasks involved in SBC life are not easy.

That blog ended with these words:

Young Southern Baptist, I believe in you. I want you involved in SBC life, trusting that you affirm our clear stand on the Word of God, choose to live a God-honoring life, and are committed to the Great Commission. Be both patient and persistent with us, modeling humility for us in all that you do. All of us want to see God do a mighty work through this denomination.

During the fourth week of June 2009, young leaders did show up at the Southern Baptist Convention, and their passion brought a renewed sense of excitement to the event. In light of that event, here is my follow-up letter – this time, written to older Southern Baptists (a group to which I belong).

Older leaders, we must first love younger Southern Baptists. This one is not difficult for me. As a seminary dean, I have the privilege of working with young men and women whose Great Commission focus puts mine to shame. Most are energetic, passionate, and unashamedly Christ-followers. They are deeply serious, yet genuinely fun. They want to make an eternal difference with their lives. They are, to state it simply, easy to love.

We must also listen to younger Southern Baptists. Whether or not we always agree with them, their voice is worth hearing. These are brothers and sisters whose Christian integrity, doctrinal fervor, and evangelistic zeal deserve our attention. New voices that critique old paradigms should not threaten us. We will miss much if we choose not to hear their thoughts simply because they are young or inexperienced.

As we love and listen to our younger leaders, we must be willing to learn from them. There is no question that young leaders sometimes wrongly assume that they have the answers to whatever ails us. We have all thought that way at some point, and we recall with embarrassment our own youthful pride. But let’s be honest: if we assume that we have nothing to learn from leaders younger than we are, we, too, are gripped by arrogance. We who claim maturity should know better.

We must also labor in prayer on behalf of our younger leaders. As Paul prayed for Timothy – remembering him constantly, night and day (2 Tim. 1:3) – we must intercede now for those who increasingly lead the good fight of faith. The enemy aims his arrows at young leaders, knowing that their youthfulness makes them vulnerable. Hence, our most important work on their behalf might well be what we do in our prayer closets.

Finally, we must still lead younger leaders. That’s the way it ought to be – older leaders leading younger leaders, who then are better prepared to lead on their own. Indeed, I can say with certainty that young leaders long for strong, faithful, experienced, godly Christian leaders to pour themselves into their young lives. Young leaders may stretch us, challenge us, and even dislodge us from our comfort zones, but we must not abdicate our responsibility to help guide them. They still need us, and we still need them – and a dying world needs all of us working together for the sake of the Great Commission.

I am a seminary dean who believes that the best seminary education occurs in conjunction with service in a local church. Education gains relevance and significance when we put to work what we learn through planning worship services, training laypeople, preaching the Word, and doing evangelism. In fact, if I were king for a day, I would require all seminary students to serve in a local church full-time internship prior to graduating.

With that in mind, I am pleased that the Billy Graham School at Southern Seminary offers a PhD that still requires students to complete their coursework at Southern but that does not require a physical relocation to Louisville. We still encourage students to move to our campus, but qualified students now serving in ministry away from Louisville may attend PhD classes for four weeks a year (typically two weeks in Nov-Dec, and two in May-June) while majoring in Evangelism and Church Growth, Christian Missions, World Religions, or Applied Apologetics. In addition to the intensive on-campus class time, students have significant Internet interaction and discussion with the professor and other classmates throughout the year. All students—whether living on-campus or off—complete the same courses.

The Graham School doctoral degrees emphasize biblical foundations for evangelism and missions, honest analysis of church growth and missiological methods, historical reviews of God’s work throughout the world, apologetic preparation for countering world religions, and scriptural approaches to spiritual warfare in evangelism and missions. Equipped well, our current PhD students and graduates have served, or are serving, as local church pastors, North American and international missionaries, seminary and college professors, college executives, denominational employees, church staff members, mission administrators, and in other church-based roles.

Our prayer is that Graham School doctoral students will continue to lead evangelicals throughout the world to focus on the Great Commission. If you are interested in getting more information about this program, contact Dr. Adam Greenway, BGS Director of Research Doctoral Studies, at agreenway@sbts.edu.

The twelve-year-old who first shared Christ with me more than thirty years ago presented the gospel this way: “It’s a good thing you lived through the night… because if you hadn’t, you’d be in hell right now.”  His approach seriously lacked tact, but truth he did not lack.  I was destined for hell apart from the gracious move of God in my life. 

Needless to say, you do not sleep well when you hear the gospel in that manner.  Every night, I tossed and turned, so frightened about not waking up that I could not easily close my eyes.  The fear of death was so strong that I began every morning thanking a God I did not know for allowing me to live another day.  That pattern continued for more than eight months before I became a follower of Christ at age 13.  Only then did I genuinely rest again, and never since then has death been a fear. 

Now, though, I am again not sleeping well.  I am tossing and turning like before, but my fear is not death.  No, my fear this time is life.  Dying does not scare me, but living does. 

I fear, for example, that I am happily living my dream — teaching at a seminary, preaching every week, leading conferences, traveling — without really seeing my neighbors living for dreams that amount to nothing eternal. How easily the temporary trumps the eternal in the busyness of life!   

I am afraid that my wife and I are so ingrained in our way of life that we would battle hard against God if He changed our plans.  What would we do if God required of us what He demanded of Abraham — to leave it all behind and seek His city (Gen. 12:1-3)? 

I am concerned that I am so busy living that I sometimes miss people who are hungry, hurting, homeless, and helpless.  I am simply disconnected from that part of the world.  Yet, the needs are still real, and Jesus’ expectation that we minister in that world remains (Matt. 25: 31-46). 

I am also afraid that I sometimes work more for my glory than for God’s.  I make no claim to be famous, but I would be lying to say that my ego is not stroked when I see my name on a book cover or a conference brochure.  After all, isn’t this the American dream, even for Christian leaders? 

Having no children, I fear that I will live my life “successfully,” but leave behind no next generation to carry on the work of the gospel.  I know that little matters if the mark I leave is as fleeting as life itself, but the time needed to invest heavily in others seems so limited. 

I read of 1.7 billion people who have little or no access to the gospel, and I worry that my North American lifestyle weakens my efforts to get the gospel to the ends of the earth. I am terrified that I can live too easily without grieving over thousands of unreached people groups around the world.

In fact, I fear that somewhere in the world is a non-believer seeking truth in the wrong place, a new believer longing for a mentor, or an entire congregation pleading with God to send them training — and I will be so busy doing other “good things” that I miss the opportunities.  The door is open, and I will have missed it. 

No, it is not death that scares me.  What scares me is coming to the end of life, looking back, and seeing little but wood, hay, and stubble to be burned in the fire (1 Cor. 3:10-15).  It’s living in such a way that I could not face my own mortality with the confidence of Paul: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Tim. 4:7). 

A dying world demands that we be willing to put our lives on the line to get the gospel to them.  We must follow Jesus with all of our being, always ready to do what He requires. That kind of radical obedience means changing the way we live at some level — and that’s often frightening.  I doubt I’ll sleep much tonight as I think on these things.