The year 2020 has reminded us as vividly as any year in recent memory of the truths in James 4:13–17:
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
How many churches, schools, or organizations put together “2020 Vision” plans at the beginning of the year? Bethlehem Baptist Church did! How many of those plans included the events we’ve witnessed this year? None of them. (Thankfully, even Bethlehem Baptist Church’s 20/20 Vision plan was finally approved just a couple weeks ago after a coronavirus delay, moving each campus to campus-specific preaching. We join them in praising God for this exciting development!)
Here in the admissions department, we also started the year with plans and goals. “Today or tomorrow we will recruit students at such-and-such Christian conference”—cancelled. “Today or tomorrow, we will host our Spring Preview Day”—online. “Today or tomorrow, we will have our final deadline and close admissions for the year”—We will be accepting applications and transfer requests right up to the first day of in-person classes.
And yet, through all the uncertainty, this year has been one of the best college admissions years in recent memory. We have as many accepted students in our incoming freshman class as we’ve had any year over the past four years. Our staff and faculty put long hours into crafting a safe in-person reopening plan, and students are excited to come.
Because we anticipated that students and families would be making late decisions this year in light of the circumstances, we decided to leave admissions open up until the first day of class. Just this week I conducted two application interviews, and two more applications were just submitted. Will there be a few more students who join our programs this Fall, even at this late hour? We don’t know what the next two weeks will bring—we don’t even know what tomorrow will bring.
Even though we are having a potentially record admissions year (if the Lord wills!), we are reminded as clearly as ever that any boasting about that would be “evil,” “arrogant.” The pandemic could just as easily have wiped out our incoming class as strengthened it. We don’t control these things. Our team works hard every single year to admit students, but at the end of the summer, it is the Lord who brings the students here—or doesn’t. Even now we wonder if he might bring a few more to our college, to our evening Master of Arts, or to our evening Bachelor of Theology programs. If you know of a student making a late decision, please send them the link to the application right away: bcsmn.edu/apply!
Classes start in just over two weeks, on August 24.
Resting in His will,
Daniel Kleven
Director of Admissions
Please pray:
- For our accepted students who are moving to Minneapolis, looking for jobs (in the midst of trying economic times), and preparing for the semester, that God would supply all their needs.
- For our faculty as they prepare for another semester and navigate the new health and safety protocols in place for the Fall.
- For our admissions team as we try to process applications quickly and provide quick decisions at this late hour.
- For any students who God would have to attend Bethlehem College & Seminary this Fall and are just now applying.