A Centers Series: Equipped to Pastor and Preach

For students like Drake, who are pursuing pastoral ministry or currently serving in a local church, Southeastern Seminary’s Center for Preaching and Pastoral Leadership (CPPL) doesn’t just act as a resource hub. It’s much more than that. It is a community creator for pastors and students alike.

Before coming to Southeastern, Drake had the opportunity to go overseas on missions for a summer, and that experience helped clarify his call to ministry. At first, he felt compelled to return to the mission field himself, but then God began to reveal to him a need in the local church — a need for believers to be equipped to go.

“My heart really shifted from going to equipping and sending, which was my main drive for picking Southeastern,” Drake explained. “I wanted to be equipped to be a better pastor so that I can then go shepherd with an emphasis on missions and the ultimate goal of sending.”

A year into their marriage in August of 2022, Drake and his wife, Hannah, moved to Wake Forest to pursue God’s calling to ministry. There Drake enrolled as a Master of Divinity (MDiv) student, and it wasn’t long before he discovered what is more colloquially known as the pastor’s center.

The center and its community soon became a permanent fixture of Drake’s theological education. During his first year at Southeastern, he had the opportunity to experience the center primarily from a student perspective. Then in October of 2023, God opened the door for him to begin pastoring at a local church in nearby Franklinton as he worked on his degree, and this connected Drake even more closely with the center’s primary mission: to equip and encourage pastors to lead healthy, disciple-making churches for the glory of God around the world.

Community for the Long Run

“First and foremost,” Drake said, describing the work of the center from his own perspective, “they are getting the student around the experienced pastors. They are putting you with the right people from the very beginning — to watch, to listen to, and to learn from.”

They are putting you with the right people from the very beginning — to watch, to listen to, and to learn from.

One of the primary ways the center forms these connections is through equipping lunches, which Drake has been attending for the past couple of years. These lunches regularly draw a large number students, faculty, and pastors from the surrounding area.

From a student perspective, Drake explained, the equipping lunches provide prime opportunities to network and get to know local church leaders.

“Students are not only here to be equipped,” Drake said. “They also need to go somewhere.”

Beyond personal connections, the lunches also provide opportunities for fellowship, friendship, and deeper community, something Drake has greatly benefitted from as both a pastor and a student.

“I’m getting to know the students around me who are seeking the same thing I am, and those are the people I want to meet the most — so that we can do life side by side, walking in the same direction,” he expressed.

These friendships have given Drake many opportunities to pursue deeper conversations outside of the lunches. Now, Drake explained, when he has a question or topic he wants to wrestle through from a biblical and pastoral perspective, he knows which guys to go to, and he has fellow brothers in Christ who are willing to debate it out in love and in truth.

These friendships, especially in the face of years of ministry, matter for the long run.

“There are going to be people going all across this country, if not internationally,” Drake said, “that I’ll be able to reach out to and talk to and keep up relationships with well past our time here at seminary — which is huge.”

There are going to be people going all across this country, if not internationally, that I’ll be able to reach out to and talk to and keep up relationships with well past our time here at seminary.

Equipped for the Present

In addition to the community of Equipping Lunches, the pastor’s center also provides a wide variety of resources for those in pastoral leadership. These include weekly articles and podcast episodes addressing a range of ministry topics as broad as missions and as narrow as funeral officiating.

Drake can trace his first experiences with the center back to these resources and how they’ve equipped him to better understand the pastor’s role as a shepherd, not a speaker.

Moreover, the center particularly excels in its opportunities for practical application and learning, Drake expressed, such as the Engaging Exposition conference and Christ-Centered Exposition workshops. These events draw pastors from far out of state as well as those more local.

Christ-Centered Exposition workshops go back several years. Hosted on a smaller scale than the conference, the workshops bring pastors to Southeastern’s campus for a full day of learning, during which attendees and faculty walk through an entire book of the Bible.

“Those workshops are phenomenal,” Drake said, describing how the event equips pastors to study and preach that particular book of Scripture so that they can then go back to their own churches and faithfully lead their congregations through God’s word.

In a similar vein, the Engaging Exposition conference, which happens every fall semester, seeks to equip pastors in the work of ministry while also encouraging them through the preaching of God’s word.

“As a pastor, the conference allows me to just take a break to worship, to be around people,” Drake said. “I got to meet somebody in the community that I’ll probably never see again, and we had the fellowship of a lifetime, just hearing about how God is using him, sharing how God is using me, and encouraging one another to be better husbands and more intentional with our people.”

Lessons from the Past

As Drake is forming friendships and growing in his understanding of God’s word, he is also pursuing a deeper knowledge of those who came before him. He has discovered that the study of past preachers and pastors can pay dividends in the present.

In fall 2024, the pastor’s center began something called the Dead Preacher’s Society, an initiative held dear by the late Senior Professor of Preaching Jim Shaddix.

During the society’s gatherings, students, pastors, and faculty meet to learn about, discuss, and listen to the preaching of pastors from years past.

“My favorite thing is that I’m learning about men who walked this walk before me,” Drake described. “Back home we never talked about past preachers unless you were talking about the big ones. I’m from Memphis, so everybody would talk about Adrian Rogers and Billy Graham — but no one talked about Spurgeon. And I had no idea who Zwingli was until Dr. Eccher’s church history class, and then Dr. Eccher came and spoke about him and his pastoral side at the Dead Preacher’s Society.”

These regular meetings have provided deep dives into the methods, theology, applications, and illustrations of the great preachers of old. More importantly, however, they have also examined the lives and faith of these men.

“You get to see what made these men so respected and so great. And something that I’m seeing is that it’s more than just their talent,” said Drake. “As I reflect on all these men, what made them great was their walk with Jesus. Like Charles Spurgeon — great speaker — but he loved and intimately walked with Christ, and it was evident that that blessed his ministry.”

As I reflect on all these men, what made them great was their walk with Jesus.

“I’m personally challenged to walk better with Jesus because of these men. They were not great because they were great, but because Christ was great. It’s evident when you look into their lives.”

Brothers on All Sides

For Drake and many other students pursuing pastoral leadership, the road of ministry — of equipping and sending — stretches ahead. As he labors to shepherd and serve the congregation of Perry’s Chapel Baptist Church, Drake is growing in his understanding of what it means to be a servant of Christ and a teacher of God’s word. By God’s grace, he is not alone.

From his time attending the Dead Preacher’s Society, Drake has witnessed “how God has moved before. And the same God who lived then is the same God who lives today — the same Spirit that dwells in us today.”

The same God who lived then is the same God who lives today — the same Spirit that dwells in us today

Through his experiences with the pastor’s center, Drake has been surrounded by community, preparing him to go into ministry with brothers on all sides.

Many of the men who have invested in Drake through the pastor’s center, have also poured into him in the classroom — men like Dwayne Milioni, Allan Moseley, and Stephen Eccher. And these men, all of whom have served their own churches for many years, serve as examples in Drake’s own life, demonstrating how to view his studies and learning through the eyes of a congregation, of the people of God.

For Drake, the journey is not yet over, but even when graduation day arrives, the learning will have just begun. His seminary experience and especially his time with the pastor’s center is providing a well of knowledge, learning, and friendships to draw from in the years to come.

To learn more about the Center for Preaching and Pastoral Leadership, its resources and events, and how you could be equipped to faithfully serve your local church, visit sebts.edu/pastorscenter.