Bethlehem College and Seminary held our sixteenth annual commencement exercises on May 15, 2026. This God-centered, Christ-exalting service featured vibrant singing, earnest prayers, stirring testimonies from multiple graduating students, an address from Chancellor John Piper, and a charge from Pastor Kenny Stokes. By God’s grace, we conferred degrees on fifty-three Bethlehem graduates who will, we pray, join hundreds of alumni in making a disproportionate impact for Jesus Christ in their homes, churches, neighborhoods, and workplaces.
It has been a tremendous privilege to interact with these graduates in the classroom and other contexts during their Bethlehem studies. Here is my prayer for these remarkable men and women as they launch into life and ministry to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.
Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
You are our Maker, our Sustainer, our Rock, our Redeemer; you are our God. You have been constantly faithful to these graduates day after day, class after class, semester after semester, year after year. You have strengthened them, helped them, and upheld them with your strong right hand, and you have equipped them for every good work.
So I pray that you will make these men and women worthy of your calling and fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by your power, that your name may be exalted!
Satisfy them in the morning with your steadfast love, that they may rejoice and be glad all their days. Make them glad even in times of sorrow and affliction and show forth your glorious power in and through them. May your favor be upon them, O everlasting God, and establish the work of their hands, for your glory and their joy.