May 20, 2024
HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. — Southeastern Seminary partnered with Fruitland Baptist Bible College and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina to offer the Leading Through Preaching Bible Conference on Fruitland’s campus on Monday, May 6. With the goal of equipping pastors to lead through reliance on God’s inerrant and infallible word, the conference offered the opportunity to sit under the teaching of several of Southeastern’s faculty: President Danny Akin, Provost Scott Pace, and Chuck Lawless, vice president for spiritual formation and ministry centers.
In his introductory welcome, Jonathan Six, Southeastern’s vice president of institutional advancement, explained the motivation for the conference and its foundation on the Bible. “The word of God is not only our source book; it is our textbook,” he commented. “It is the word upon which we feast, but it also shapes and forms and molds how we lead, how we pastor, and how we serve the church.”
Throughout the conference, lectures were interspersed with worship as well as breakout sessions on topics ranging from “Engaging Generation Z Through Expositional Preaching” to “Preaching to Mobilize for Missions” and other significant areas of leadership.
During the first lecture, Akin spoke from 1 Peter 5:1-4 on the role of pastors and how they shepherd their flock.
“The chief Shepherd is the one that we under-shepherds should seek to please, seek to follow, seek to honor,” Akin concluded. “His model of leadership is to be our model of leadership.”
Following this, Pace preached from 2 Timothy 4:6-12 on the elements of expositional leadership and what that looks like practically: “Expositional leadership is the process of smoothing and shaping the hearts of God’s people through a steady stream of the renewing and redeeming word of God through faithful expository sermons.”
At the end of the conference, Lawless challenged listeners on the importance of the preacher’s prayer life, walking them through examples of Jesus’s prayer life in the Gospel of Luke. Towards the end of his message, Lawless asked his listeners, “Why do we so often preach much but pray little?” In answer, he explained, “We do it because we can. And here’s my point: the reality is we can do a lot of church in our own power, and our church will never know the difference because we haven’t discipled them to recognize power from the pulpit in the first place.” In this, he urged pastors to go before the Lord in prayer in all of their preaching and to seek out the support of prayer in community.
Southeastern is grateful for the opportunity to continue its strong partnership with Fruitland and the Baptist State Convention to equip church leaders throughout the state. The Leading Through Preaching Bible Conference represents Southeastern’s heart to serve local churches by training pastors to lead God’s people through solid biblical exposition and reliance on the complete authority of God’s word. Moreover, Southeastern is eager to continue serving and equipping those called to leadership in the church and to the proclamation of God’s word wherever he sends them.
To learn more about how Southeastern is equipping and partnering with local church leaders, visit Southeastern’s Church and Convention Relations page.
