Charge to the Community

By Paul Roberts Sr., President of Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-14

President Irizarry, congratulations to you and your family! As one of the longest serving PC(USA) seminary presidents now and as the vice chair of the denomination’s Committee on Theological Education, I excitedly welcome you to this ministry. Like most everyone in this room, I believe in the relevance and importance of this work. Now, fourteen years into my own service to Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary, I find the work as meaningful as ever.

Often during occasions like these, the Charge to the Community is an encouragement to students, staff, and faculty to support the new president. Well, this is not that! (Of course, I trust and pray that you all will grow together as a mutually supportive community.)

Instead, this is an encouragement to mediate more. Repeat those words with me please: Mediate More.

Here’s what I’m getting at.

Years ago José, your predecessor, the Reverend Dr. Theodore Jackson Wardlaw and former Association of Theological Schools (ATS) President Daniel Aleshire encouraged sitting seminary presidents to read the work of Hugh Heclo titled On Thinking Institutionally. It was during those conversations that I began to understand the Presbyterian seminaries, often considered the gold standard in theological education, as mediating institutions. I expect this community is well versed in these themes, so I have chosen to draw on them as I offer the charge to you, the Austin Seminary community.

In short, a mediating institution is an organization— any organization: congregation, union, non-profit—that undergirds the basic building block of society, the family.

No matter how a particular family is configured, and no matter how well that family functions, it will from time to time need the support of a trustworthy institution as it navigates the complexities of the larger society. Churches, and their affiliates like seminaries, have done this work well for centuries. They have been not only the central gathering places where families and individuals encounter the divine but also where they have found protections from societal hostilities; where they have acquired emotional support like pastoral counseling; where they have accessed basic education; and where they have been provided social services and childcare.

Now, I have read the data about Austin Seminary on the ATS website. This is a strong institution!! Praise be to God!! You have the chops to do—and are doing—the very thing I’m describing.

As you think about what it means to be a widening place, I’m charging you to mediate more!

U.S. institutions of all flavors have garnered significant distrust in recent decades, sometimes due to circumstances of our own making. Consequently, they may be weakened in their ability to connect with and mediate on behalf of those who are most vulnerable and most in need of what they have to offer.

All the more reason it is incumbent upon strong institutions of favorable repute like Austin Seminary to mediate more—to bridge more gaps, to do more with what you’ve been given; to bear the dual responsibilities of maintaining health inside the Seminary’s four walls while contributing to the health of sectors that may or may not be your core audience.

I’m charging you to mediate more—to be more connectional, more collaborative and non competitive, recognizing we’re more effective when united in mission than when we’re not.

I’m charging you to mediate more by expanding your identity, by offering the most relevant, most accessible, high-quality theological education you can while simultaneously engaging with those who today have left the pews, who may never again sit in a pew, who may not even know what a pew is but who nonetheless hunger for a safe place to explore and live their faith.

There’s a passage from the book of Jeremiah that encapsulates what I’m getting at: “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.

Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

Our core mission as seminaries may be leadership formation, but our end goal is to seek the peace and prosperity of the city where all can flourish. Mediate more. Please. Our societal health depends on it and, more importantly, our salvation!