Don't Share the Gospel with Me: Luther, Forde and a Seminarian

BY RALEIGH SADLER

“Whatever you do, don’t share the Gospel with me?” Those were my exact words to my slightly mystified seminary professor. As he set his coffee down, I could tell that he was holding back in an effort to allow me to process what I was thinking. “To be honest,” I said, “I don’t think God loves me. I feel like He is angry at me. I feel like I have prayed the “prayer” over a thousand times and He won’t hear it.” As I continued to share, I figured that this couldn’t be the “norm” for incoming students, like myself. I mean, you don’t have to be perfect to be enrolled to be at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, but you should at least, at bare minimum, be a believer…right? Here I was baring my soul to my “Formations of Christian ministry” professor over dry bacon and watery eggs. In my head, I figured that the only recourse would be for the administration to send me home. This would make sense to me because ultimately I can’t tell people about the love of Christ if I am not sure that I have received it.

Surprisingly, my professor didn’t condemn me. As a matter of fact, he didn’t do much at all. He just sat there silently listening to me as I poured out my heart. He didn’t respond with Christian cliches or platitudes nor did he give me any advice to “fix” my problem. He just sat with me as I struggled to finish my breakfast. After waiting for me to gather myself, he calmly asked to pray for me. He encouraged me to stay the course and to seek him out as I processed my current crisis of faith. .........