President Akin reports at the SBC on training students to flood the lands of darkness
January 19, 2017
Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, gave his presidential report at the 2015 Southern Baptist Convention in Columbus, Ohio on June 17. Akin spoke about how the seminary is training more than 3,400 students to flood the lands of darkness with the gospel light.
Currently, Southeastern graduates are serving in unreached and underserved areas in North American and around the world as church planters in the Northwest, Midwest and Heartland regions and in 40 countries.
Akin quoted the missionary John Falconer. “I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light.” Akin stated that Southeastern seeks to instill the same heart and passion of Falconer in today’s seminary students.
The Kingdom Diversity Initiative has propelled the non-majority student population at Southeastern to increase almost 50% in the past four years to nearly 14% of the total student population.
The seminary would like to see that number continue to grow and build up future leaders of the convention. “We hope to see number increase so that our seminary, churches and convention look like the church in heaven,” Akin emphasized. “In God’s grace the nations are coming to us.”
The Distance Learning program at Southeastern provides theological training to students in 50 countries and the EQUIP program has partnered with over 300 churches since it began. The Global Theological Initiative currently features 15 to 20 international partnerships with new programs beginning this year countries such as Cuba, Hong Kong, Brazil and the Ukraine.
“At Southeastern Seminary we take pride in saying it is a dangerous place to come study,” Akin said. “We are going to challenge you to pray the prayer ‘why should I stay?’”
Akin expressed his gratitude to the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention. “Thank you for making it possible through your prayers and generous giving for Southeastern to have a thumbprint all around the world,” he said.
To view photos from the SBC, please click here.