By David Melton
Most of my articles focus on our students. Our college exists to meet the needs of students. So I figure I should help you “see” our students so that if you are a financial part of underwriting this educational ministry, you’re not spending blind. I want you to meet our students in print.
But this month I have another angle. I could tell you about our professional, dedicated, passionate staff. I should tell you about them — soon. I could tell you about our supporting churches growing in numbers steadily. That too is another article.
This month I want you to meet our trustees. Every college has them — they bear the responsibility of keeping a college on mission, functioning as it should, governing all aspects of institutional activity. To understand Boston, you have to understand the Boston Baptist College trustees. They manage the climate in which our students thrive.
Everybody talks about leadership, but I get to see it when I walk into our board room. Bruce Garner is our chairman, and to say, “He gets it,” is to put it mildly. A third generation BBF preacher, Bruce pastors in Huntington Beach, California, primarily because he and his family were blockaded from spending their lives in Cuba. Bruce is one of the best minds and hearts this movement has.
Half of our board members are church planters. That reflects our deliberate, unshakable commitment that ministry education cannot be separated from real, live ministers. Boston is not theoretically about starting churches — it is who we are, from the top down. Students recognize quickly that our college leaders know what it is to strike out on faith. Our board is full of men whose lives scream out, “It can be done!”
Almost a fourth of our board members are active adjunct professors. They don’t have to make guesses about building a great college for our students — they are living the student experience with them. In not many colleges can a student recognize a trustee by name (and get recognized back!), then share memories from a classroom, or a study trip to Greece, or private chats, or prayer times. It happens all the time in Boston.
Of course, a board has to have experience. Again, in Boston we are loaded. We have three men with missionary experience, an entrepreneur with business experience I can’t even fathom, and 11 of the 17 preachers on our board have done what I call second-level ministry. That is when a pastor follows a great pastor and keeps on building. In an age where there are too many churches in decline, I sit in a room full of men who know how to escalate church life! David Mills followed a legend at Berean in Mesquite, Texas. Tracy Roby worked alongside Jerry Byars in Overland Park and then was called to succeed him. Ken Armstrong planted a strong church just south of Boston. I was at an ordination at that church recently, the church now pastored by one of our trustees, Bill Smith.
I could go further if my one-page article could bear it. But I must add one dominant attribute of our trustee board. These men, in many ways, are studies in contrast – (Gary Favor and Duke Hergatt aren’t exactly twins!) Phil Webber is a National League guy, Terry Kizer is American League, Rob Willis is pretty much baseball converted while Curt Wiedenroth has always known that the Red Sox are the divine elect; Tim Robertson is a southern gentleman, and then we have a few northeasterners, Mike Ivey finished a dissertation while Dave Brown built a multi-million dollar expansion —are a team. Our trustees in reality are a band of brothers.
I wish you could see it. I’ve seen the Boston board work through the toughest issues among us, some of which tear at the roots of our Fellowship. I see them disagree regularly, but they aren’t disagreeable. I’ve seen them bear one another on their shoulders. I’ve seen them laugh from the soul at one another, at themselves. Some, like Dan Burrell, can blog during a discussion and still stay ahead of the rest of us! The whole time Todd Witte is trying to keep minutes of conversations that are breaking all speed limits. But these guys all understand what we are trying to do here. We want to get it right, do it well, make a difference, pass on the legacy — together. Best moments have been aplenty. But one above others comes to my mind. One of our board members had just lost on a vote that really mattered to him. In a quiet voice after the vote, he said, “Guys, I obviously didn’t get what I wanted, but I want all you men to know, I’m not going anywhere.”
With leadership like that it’s no wonder to me that we have such great student stories.