Why Mentor at TBC?
by Brent Beasley
TBC Staff Intern

One of the components of the M.Div. degree at Truett Seminary is the mentoring program. This is a “residency” or “apprenticeship” program where each student is assigned to a ministry for the purpose of receiving hands-on experience.

Depending on the student’s ministry goals, he or she may be placed in a local church, denominational office, or any other place where guided learning and experience can take place.

I am pastor of a small church in Lorena. I am getting my share of hands-on ministry experience in the local church, so, rather than do my mentoring with a local pastor, I am driving to San Angelo once a week to work for Texas Baptists Committed.

With all the options available to meet my mentoring requirement, why would I choose to do it with TBC? The simple answer is that I care about the future of the Baptist denomination in Texas. I care about the future of Baptist life in Texas for very practical reasons. The present is an uncertain time to be a Baptist seminary student— especially at a school which has yet to graduate its first class. My classmates and I ask questions like, “Now that the takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention is complete, what does the future hold?” and “Will the BGCT remain free and faithful to mainstream Baptist principles or will it eventually face the same fate as the SBC?.”

As a 25-year-old student and minister, my future and the future of the BGCT are inextricably intertwined.

Texas Baptists Committed has played a key role in establishing a seemingly bright future for traditional freedom-loving Baptists in Texas. I want to participate in that work and contribute to it in any way that I can. The way I see it, the future of the BGCT, part of which is my future, is at stake.

I also care about the future of the Baptist denomination in Texas for ideological reasons. In other words, I care about what kind of Baptists Texas Baptists will be during my ministry. I am not a Baptist only because my parents and grandparents are Baptists. No, I remain a Baptist and embrace my Baptist heritage because such things as soul freedom, local church autonomy, and the separation of church and state are important to me.

I am a Baptist because of the stories of my Baptist forebearers such as Isaac Backus, Roger Williams, George W. Truett, Clarence Jordan and Jimmy Carter. I want to support Texas Baptists Committed in their quest to ensure that the future of the Baptist denomination in Texas is shaped by the mold of these Baptist heroes, rather than patterned after current SBC prototypes such as J. Frank Norris, Paige Patterson and Jerry Falwell.

My future as a Baptist minister will not include being a part of any institution that has forsaken its Baptist heritage.

I will not be a part of an institution that would blame the fall of humanity on Eve and use that as justification to overrule a woman’s call from God to ordained ministry.

I will not be a part of an institution that would pass resolutions calling for mandated prayer in the public schools and public funding of parochial schools through the use of “vouchers.”

I will not be a part of an institution that, ignoring the model of Jesus, views the pastor as the ruling authority of the church. I will not be a part of any institution that would do to Southern, Southeastern and Southwestern what the SBC has done to what used to be excellent schools.

It is for these reasons that I have chosen to do my mentoring with Texas Baptists Committed. I, and other moderate Baptists, want the BGCT to be a place that we can call home — now and in the future.

February 1997