by David Melton
Walmart has just about everything. I call it “the $200-store” because with a family our size we can go in there to stock up on nothing fun and still leave $200 lighter.
Then there is a wonderful guy in my town named Wade, who is a real craftsman. He is up in years and works with wood for fun. Need a power bar, go to Walmart. Need a table refinished, go to Wade.
Now I am not suggesting that Walmart and the other megamarts aren’t important, maybe even necessary. But it is an entirely different thing than going to Wade’s. One works to have just about anything you could want. The other knows what he is good at — very good at — and that is what he does. No smiley faces, no nice old fellow saying hi to you and pushing a cart toward you. Nope, just Wade (who also smiles), and his tools, and his wood.
Colleges always wrestle with what they will be. And in a Walmart world, there are tons of colleges that “do it all.” Wade-kind-of-colleges are a different story entirely. Boston Baptist College is a Wadekind- of-place. We do ministry education for Baptists. We know we are not for everybody, we know we are not one of the big guys. We embrace the “wood” we are privileged to work with, and we pray to God to be skilled in our efforts — to do quality work, to treat every project with the love and care of a craftsman.
I can tell you about Wade’s work. He doesn’t rush, but he doesn’t waste time either. He doesn’t create the wood, he just tries to sand it, polish it, and finish it to its finest potential.
Reminds me of some students. When you — our churches — guide students to us, they are just about never “finished.” But we see the “grain of God” in their lives. So we go to work.
In Boston, I have said from my inaugural address to this very minute, “Ministry education is too important not to be led by ministers.” We have strong academics; of course, those are the tools that shape the wood into form. But ministers know the craft, and we make it clear that is what we want — we use those who bleed “ministry” to educate our students.
Get this. We just honored Phil Smith who has been an affiliate mathematics professor for us for almost a decade. He has an MBA from one of New England’s most respected business schools. But even more importantly, since the first of this year Phil has just started a new Baptist church as a ministry out of Ocean State Baptist Church pastored by Archie Emerson. Did you catch that? Our math prof is a church planter! That’s no Walmart thing. Nope, sit back and soak in the sounds and the skills of a craftsman. This is just the way Wade likes it. It’s the Boston way.