FULLER

Last night the wife and I hosted our small group’s weekly Bible study, prayer, and fellowship time. I must say that, since I have been a part of a small group, my appreciation for a consistent meaningful prayer life has grown tremendously. It is also quite beneficial to worship and study with fellow ministers. We are fortunate to have in our group former missionaries, soon-to-be missionaries, future preachers, speakers, and church planters, as well as future professors, scholars and writers. Quite a nice slice of the next generation of Southern Baptist leaders.

So during our fellowship time, one of the future missionaries to Asia asked me about my trip to Fuller Theological Seminary. He made note of the fact that I had not yet posted my experiences of that trip. And he’s right; I have not publicly commented yet. Most of my recent free time has been filled with study and my recent post on deliberate childlessness and moral rebellion.

So allow me to touch on my California experience.

We arrived at LAX on Tuesday morning at around 8:00am. Flying into Los Angeles, I was surprised at how large the city actually was. Though we were flying on a jet airplane, we spent several minutes flying over hundreds of thousands of houses dotting the outer suburbs of the city. We quickly exited the airport and experienced the cool climate of 60 degrees. In no time at all we picked up our rental car and headed northwest. Fuller seminary is located in Pasadena in north LA. Since neither my wife nor myself had ever visited California, we were somewhat anxious to survey the city and the sites. As I said, we drove northwest and arrived at Venice Beach. Here we exited our car, putting about ten minutes of time on the meter, and walked onto the Venice pier. Again, neither my wife nor myself had visited California and we had never seen the Pacific Ocean. We stood there for five or six minutes watching the enormous waves and the dozens of people surfing. As we walked back to our rental we noticed a LAPD car and a police officer standing next to our car. We wondered what the problem was because the meter was not scheduled to expire for another minute … actually another 15 seconds it appears, because as soon as we walked up, the meter expired and the officer immediately began to write us a parking ticket. Of course we began to protest this action, but the officer was busy talking to a friend on her cell phone and refused to acknowledge our existence let alone answer our questions. …. Yes, we now know where the LAPD gets its worldwide reputation from. “Why can’t we all just get along?!”

Following this unwilling donation into the California coffers, we headed north and visited Santa Monica beach and its famous pier …. Big whoop. The only interesting site we saw were the numerous … er … “people temporarily without domicile” who were gathered up and down the street and sleeping in the parks.

We next took Santa Monica Blvd northwest. We passed through Beverly Hills and headed toward Hollywood. Just before we entered Beverly Hills we began to get hungry, noticing that it was nearing 1:00 PM here and 3:00 PM in Texas. Unfortunately, there were few restaurants in Beverly Hills that we believed that we could afford so we continued on.

Eventually, we found a small artsy-alternative neighborhood between Beverly Hills and Hollywood with reasonable priced cafes. We entered one restaurant called The Basix. As we set down inside, I noticed a gentleman between the ages of 45-50 sitting in front of a girl between 15 and 16 who was neither his daughter nor granddaughter, if you know what I mean. This in itself was interesting, but what I found even more interesting were the two gentlemen sitting on the other side of us who were …. of a more flamboyant nature. These two men were apparently record executives. It was very informative to overhear their conversation. They were talking about (and you conservative Christians will love this) how they were using and wanted to use the music and movie industry of Hollywood to legitimize homosexuality in America. They even mentioned a number of recent PG movies that were family oriented and contained a number of pro-gay “propaganda”. I kid you not.

As the lunch wore on (and it was quite a good lunch), I began to notice how many men were in this café, usually eating across from other cleanly dressed men, and how few women there were. In fact, I noticed that the only other two women in the place (besides my wife and the waitress) were sitting with a group of rather “happy” men. Soon I began to notice how many men were entering this café … and they were all … flamboyant. So while the missus was finishing off her meal, I began to count the number of homosexuals were in the place. Finally, I leaned over to my wife and said, “I’m guessing about sixteen.” Well, the missus thought I was talking about the age of the girl eating with the 50 yr old man. She replied, “I think about 17.” So I began to look around at all the other patrons. “Who came in? Which one? That guy over there who looks like he’s related to Danny Glover? He looks pretty butch to me.” Needless to say the confusion was quickly rectified.

So anyway, now I can say that I visited a gay café on Santa Monica Blvd between Beverly Hills and Hollywood.

Which brings me to Hollywood. … Well, we did see the famous Hollywood sign. We also saw a city that looked like Lebanon in the 1980s. It looked like the worst part of New Jersey. It looked like Blacksburg, SC. It could easily be the place where they filmed all the Mad Max movies. Now I know why they make so many post-apocalyptic films in Hollywood … they don’t have to build sets. Yes, Hollywood proper was a gigantic cess pit of the ignorant dregs of society ... and sure enough most of their films appear to reflect this.

Quickly leaving Hollywood, we ventured north and came into Pasadena.

I must admit that while I was in California I was constantly humming all my favourite California songs: California Dreaming, The Little Old Lady From Pasadena, Going to California, and Another One Bites the Dust ... okay, that last one is not so much a song about California but I still like it.

We finally arrived in Pasadena and the Fuller Theological Seminary campus.

Now let me just begin by saying that they have a very nice campus there, Very nice. Let me continue by stating that they have one of the best seminary bookstores that I have ever seen. It makes Cokesbury on Camp Bowie look like Lifeway on James Avenue. Oh, yeah, it was nice. It had voluminous commentaries of every sort and complete libaries of numerous Christian subjects from missions to preaching to pastoring to Judaic influences on the New Testament.

Oh, and how kind and gracious were the staff! They were all extremely Christlike and more than willing to answer all our questions. In fact, they knew so much about the application process that they answered all of our questions before we even asked. As soon as I had told them that I was looking to apply to their doctoral program, they immediately set up doctoral advising meetings, a tour of campus, a financial advisement meeting, and a chance to sit in on a class.

Here's something else: all of the offices that a student has to visit in order to cut their way through administrative red tape is all in the same building with simple directions on how to reach appropriate offices and a front desk to direct you ... Catch your breath.

And as I talked to the faculty and staff, I was amazed at how Christ-like they were and how interested in they were in spreading the gospel message and reaching people for Christ. And how anxious they were to train others to on how to reach others for Christ.

Yes, here is a school of top academic standards that has lead the evangelical world in missions, New Testament and theological scholarships, church growth, and developing ministry practices to reach contemporary unbelievers. ... Why can't other evangelical schools do this? Why do other schools want to sacrifice scholarship for the sake of praxis? Beats me.

So I found the professors, staff, and school administrators to be quite wonderful people interested in proclaiming the good news of Christ.

So I am extremely excited about the possibility of attending Fuller. It is my first choice among schools and I am really praying for God's guidance in all this. Please pray for the missus and me as we discern God's will for this situation.

I must say that most if not all our fears were alleviated after visiting with them. And I know that the people at Fuller can prepare me for a great ministry.

Yes, my fellow Baptists, there are people out there in the world (in California) who are extremely intelligent and competent and are actually reaching people for Christ. Who knew?