New day on Seminary Hill alumni, friends hear at ‘Southwestern Nights’ Houston event

A new day is dawning on Seminary Hill, President Adam W. Greenway said in his remarks to alumni, friends, and supporters of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary at the first Southwestern Nights event “bringing the Dome” to Houston’s First Baptist Church, April 12. The evening also featured a panel discussion with two Southwestern Seminary alumni, Chris Osborne and Matt Carter.

Three more Southwestern Nights events are planned for Oklahoma City (April 19), Little Rock (April 21), and Dallas (May 10). The free events allow attendees to hear from Greenway, members of the Southwestern Seminary faculty, and local pastors who graduated from the Fort Worth institution.

“What we have done since 1908 is to provide theological education for men and women preparing for Christian ministry,” Greenway said. No institution “has seen more people called out for more diverse kinds of Gospel ministry and mission across Texas and around the world than Southwestern Seminary.”

Greenway shared recent highlights from the seminary, including strong attendance at the recent Preview Day for prospective students and the upcoming class of spring commencement that includes 300 graduates, which is larger than the enrollment of the average accredited seminary in North America. 

To the gathering that included Southwestern Seminary alumni from across the Greater Houston Metro-area, Greenway noted the Fort Worth-based seminary has “more living alumni than any other SBC seminary.”

“Most of us alumni are going to do tours of duties here in Texas,” Greenway said. “If we can reach Texas, we can reach America and the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And at the end of the day, we exist to push back the darkness of lostness that the light of the Gospel of Jesus might shine for all people everywhere. That’s the heartbeat and burden.”

Greenway recalled the ties between the institution and the city of Houston, including the former Houston extension center of Southwestern Seminary where many in attendance took classes. He also noted the school’s third president, E.D. Head, was the pastor of Houston’s First Baptist Church prior to assuming leadership of the seminary.

Noting that seminary graduates need a theological education that will sustain them “for the long haul,” Greenway said his “prayer” and “desire at Southwestern Seminary is that we will again be that kind of seminary that is more holistically and comprehensively training as many as the Lord our God will call as many as the churches will deploy in the Kingdom service.”

“I want you to know that there’s a home for you under that iconic, majestic ‘dome’ of Southwestern Seminary,” Greenway said. “We want you to know Southwestern Seminary is for you, and for your churches and for your ministries.”

In a panel discussion with Carter and Osborne, Greenway asked the two alumni to recall the history of their relationship.

Carter, who was the founding pastor of Austin Stone Church in Austin, Texas, for 18 years before he became pastor of Sagemont Church in Houston church in 2020, was in Osborne’s ministry as a college student. Osborne served as the senior pastor of Central Baptist Church in Bryan-College Station, Texas, for 33 years before becoming professor of preaching and pastoral ministry at Southwestern Seminary in 2020. 

Carter said the first time he heard Osborne preach when he was a college freshman was the “first time” he heard “anointed, expositional preaching of God’s Word.” Carter said Osborne had a “pivotal impact” in his life and ministry.

Carter, who graduated from Southwestern Seminary with a Master of Divinity in 2006, said he did not realize how much he would “need a theological training in my ministry.” 

“There are things we encounter every single day as pastors that we better have a solid biblical, theological foundation for,” Carter said noting his theological education at the seminary has enabled him to navigate cultural issues by approaching them with systematic theology.

Osborne, who earned his Master of Divinity in 1977 and Doctor of Philosophy in 2019, said when he attended the school in the 1970s, it was “the only conservative seminary” that remained in the Southern Baptist Convention in that decade. 

“What Southwestern really did for me is it deepened my commitment to the inerrancy of Scripture,” Osborne said.

Carter observed the impact of Osborne’s commitment to the Word of God, as “a whole generation of pastors” and “church leaders” came out of Osborne’s ministry in College Station who have “gone all over the world and believe that every single word of the Book that we believe in is absolutely true. And you trace back the roots to Southwestern.”

Greenway explained the faculty of Southwestern Seminary, past and present, has the academic qualifications for teaching but has also understood both “the heartbeat of ministry” and “the church.”

When asked how Southwestern Seminary can help him reach Houston with the Gospel, Carter said by continuing to have professors that have academic and field experience that prepares students for ministry “because when you get out of that classroom, then that’s when the rubber meets the road.”