Volume 69, Number 11
Campus Newspaper of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary • Fort Worth, Texas
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
a look inside »
the scroll
Patterson answers questions on his high school GPA, new Calvinism, and more pg 4 »
Songwriter, worship leader strives to place Jesus in center of worship By Alex Sibley | SWBTS
Dorothy Patterson trains, shares burdens of women in Ukraine by Keith Collier | SWBTS
Southwestern student Tim Lawles says that 100 percent of who he is today is a direct result of God bringing his wife, Molly, into his life. Though Lawles was already writing and coordinating musical productions for his family by age 9 and was playing music professionally by age 14, it was his relationship with Molly that gave him direction. Specifically, it began a process that produced in him a desire to see people love God more than themselves, more than money, more than glory, and more than the rock star lifestyle of touring around and “living the dream.”
“Molly is just a really beautiful example of this,” Lawles says. “She's changed a lot of who I am.” Lawles grew up in a Christian home with 10 brothers and sisters. Each of them musically talented, the family performed in multiple venues in the U.S. and Mexico. Their parents taught them that whatever they do should be done for God. More specifically, they taught that God has called all Christians to use their abilities for His glory. For Lawles, a Christian since age 5, that had always meant music, but not necessarily from a ministry perspective.
“It was more this idea that, as I'm going about what God's doing in my life, making sure everything that I do represents Him,” Lawles says. “Not necessarily using religion, but showing the relationship I have with Jesus as the most important thing in my life and reflecting that in how I treat people.” By age 20, however, after playing music professionally for six years, Lawles began to see the value that music and worship have together. Specifically, he saw that playing music as a form of worship within the church was not just more fulfilling than playing music professionally
North America comes to Southwestern during Church Planting week By Michelle Tyer | SWBTS During the annual North American Church Planting emphasis week on campus, March 25-27, Southwestern Seminary students learned that the desperate need for churches is not just overseas but also in America. Stephen Davis, vice president for the North American Mission Board’s (NAMB) South Region, said the need for churches is not obvious to those living in the Bible belt, where there is a Southern Baptist church for approximately every 3,000 people. But other areas of the country especially need Southern Baptist churches. “It’s easy to think that life is like this everywhere else,” Davis cautioned students
in chapel March 25. But NAMB and church planters look elsewhere to places such as Canada, where there is only about one Southern Baptist church for every 118,000 people. In the northeastern United States, statistics indicate one for every 36,000 while the Midwest has one for every 15,000 people. But NAMB has not let those numbers discourage them. NAMB pg 5 »
During a recent visit to Ukraine, March 10-12, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary First Lady Dorothy Patterson provided biblical training for women from across the country and empathized with the struggles of these women at such a critical time in their nation’s history. Ukranian Baptist Theological Seminary in Lviv, Ukraine, invited Patterson to speak to women about themes of biblical womanhood. Seminary president and Southwestern Seminary Ph.D. graduate Yarslov Pyzh has led the school to start a women’s studies track at the seminary. Patterson pg 3 »
Preaching yields fruit during Revive This Nation By Alex Sibley | SWBTS In 2 Timothy 4:2, Paul writes a simple imperative: “Preach the Word.” For this year’s Revive This Nation—Southwestern’s annual effort to send students and professors to preach in churches across the country and evangelize the communities around them—97 preachers responded to that call. From March 9-12, they collectively preached 485 sermons in 35 states. God blessed these efforts abundantly, sometimes in ways that could not be seen, other times in very tangible ways. Early reports indicate that, overall, there were 43 professions of faith, 88 rededications, 6 calls to ministry, and 19 other commitments. Each of the 97 preachers has numerous stories to tell concerning the amazing works that God performed in their respective locations, much of which cannot be measured by the number of decisions made. Matthew Robinson, a master’s student in biblical counseling, preached at North Hill Baptist Church in Minot, N.D. Using Colossians 4:2-3 as his prayer (“… that God would open a door for our message”), Robinson shared the Gospel before he even got off the plane. Revive This Nation pg 3 »