10 Reasons to Pray for Seminaries Today

Today, I’m writing to ask a favor. I’m a seminary professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and I know that all seminaries need the prayer support of believers. Would you please read this post, pray for us, and then encourage others to join you this day? Here’s why we need your prayers.

1. Thousands of present and future church leaders are under our influence. In the 270+ seminaries accredited by the Association of Theological Schools are 71,000+ students. The potential sitting in our classrooms is huge.
2. Our students are longing for mentors. That is, these young leaders want someone to walk beside them, help them to follow Christ well, and do ministry effectively. We can’t always meet this request personally, so we need prayerful wisdom to help our students.
3. We live in an educational world that is continually changing. The Internet has changed much of what we do. More classes are online or hybrid. Accreditors are revising their standards. Again, we need wisdom.
4. We’re sometimes training students who have never been discipled. Because churches often do poor discipleship, we have to partner with local churches to disciple young leaders in just a few years. That takes work.
5. We need to know how to best train the nations through the Internet. Because of online opportunities, we are now privileged to train people who are living on the mission field – both the missionaries and the nationals. We can touch the nations, and we want to do that well. Prayer support is critical.
6. We face financial realities that are challenging. Many educational institutions are facing increasing costs, and we don’t want to make up the difference by always increasing tuition. Our institutional advancement offices need God’s direction.
7. We are continually learning how to center theological education in the local church. Churches increasingly want to do their own equipping, and we want to partner with those churches. That’s a bit of a change in how we do seminary, so we need God’s help to do it well.
8. We want our students to give God a blank check. We continually encourage them to consider, and be open to, multiple ways that God might use them. These are life decisions for students who are often young. Knowing they have prayer partners encourages and emboldens them.
9. Our students struggle with sin issues. Seminary may be a place of Bible study, worship, and fellowship for students, but those students struggle with the same issues as most believers. Sometimes our Deans of Students have to guide young leaders who are close to disqualifying themselves from ministry before they ever get started.
10. Even professors fall sometimes. It happens. Degrees don’t make us immune from the enemy’s arrows. We, too, need your prayers.  

Maybe you want to pray for your seminary (and/or your pastor’s) today. Your prayers are critical.