Continue to Rejoice

Dear Friends,

With all of our income and expenses now accounted for, I wanted to invite you to give thanks to God with me for his provision over the last academic and fiscal year. The Lord was faithful to supply all of our needs in full, including allowing our Class of ’22 graduates to launch into life and ministry as promised, without federal student loan debt, compensating our staff and faculty, enabling us to conduct again Serious Joy: The Bethlehem Conference for Pastors, and supporting our extension sites.

We did fall short of our goal of funding 250 Serious Joy Scholarships, and of our budget of $2.26M, but between the $1.9M of generosity that was expressed this past year, as well as the resources God had previously provided in our reserves, we enter the new year confident in his favor and provision.

We now begin a new school year. We again ask you to join us in prayer that God would enable us to get to scale, bringing 250 students to our programs and supplying $2.5M in Serious Joy Scholarships to support them. We also ask God to empower us to deliver fully on our college and seminary promises. We want our college students to graduate as mature men and women who are ready to witness for Christ with wisdom and wonder for the rest of their lives. We want our apprentices to graduate as mature leaders who are ready to shepherd God’s people with biblical clarity and Christ-exalting affection for the rest of their lives.

Reading through Philippians recently, I was struck afresh by the source and means of Paul’s courage and confidence that he will magnify Christ in life or death. Paul knows that God will deliver him from the shame of dishonoring Jesus in his circumstances. He is eager and expectant about the future. And he knows that the means of strengthening his heart to treasure Jesus and face hardship will be the prayers of the saints and the help of the Holy Spirit.

So too with us. As we enter this year, I will continue to rejoice because I know that through your prayers and the help of the Holy Spirit, we will magnify Jesus in pursuit of our mission. To live is Christ, to die is gain. And in that spirit, we work for the progress and joy in the faith of each other, our students, and our churches.

Finally, I want to extend a special invitation to you to join us on September 30 and October 1 for Godward Life: A New Gathering for Serious Joy. This new gathering is a part of our ongoing efforts to hand Christian Hedonism down from generation to generation.