Illumination…

November 5, 2007 | 1:22 AM

Almost four years ago, in February 2004, I drove to Fort Worth to visit SWBTS.  I discussed my desire call to follow Jesus (ministry) with my pastor, and my desire to attend seminary in New Orleans.  As an alum of SWBTS, he strongly urged me to visit Fort Worth; it didn’t hurt that his good friend was also the new president of the seminary.  At the time, I was looking strongly at collegiate ministry and missions programs.  NOBTS was the only seminary I knew of that had specializations in particular areas of ministry, which is and has always been a strong attraction for me.

During my visit to Fort Worth, I did the campus tour.  I’ll be honest- it wasn’t a great tour.  I’ll chalk it up to the tour-giver having a bad day, but I didn’t get a positive vibe from the guy.  In fact, he turned me off pretty quickly by making derogatory comments about New Orleans and NOBTS, among other things.  As one of my professors recently put it, I’ve got an “arrogance detector.”  Regardless of that tour, I still felt like I could live in Fort Worth.  The evening after my tour, I attended a missions meeting in the seminary’s missions center.  I was highly impressed with their missions center- it was obvious they’d put a lot of money into it.  They had a group of missions students meeting, outside of class time, in the center with a professor that night.  The topic of discussion was Chronological Bible Storying.  At the meeting I met more than a few folks from across the world.  I wish that kind of stuff would happen here at NOBTS- more out of class interaction between professors and students, especially in the missions department.  But that’s another story.  My only real day at SWBTS had both a strongly negative and strongly positive event.  I spent that night thinking very hard about where I was going to attend seminary.  I knew that I could comfortably live the next three years in Fort Worth.

I think (and often find myself able to hear God) best when I’m doing one of three things: walking around, driving around, and in the shower.  So I took a shower.  Then I drove around the Metroplex for a couple hours.  I stopped in the Lifeway at the last exit on I-20 W before taking the loop north.  I decided it was a good time to pick up some music, so I spent the next two or three hours listening to Shane and Shane’s Carry Away while I drove the loop around the Metroplex through downtown Dallas and back to SWBTS.  I know that certain albums have truly gotten me through watershed moments in my life.  David Crowder’s All I Can Say got me through some intensely difficult times in Auburn, and I still listen to certain tracks when I need encouragement.  Carry Away was the backdrop for my discussion with God about seminary.   By the end of the night, I knew that even though Fort Worth and SWBTS were nice places to live in, I didn’t belong there.  I’d be too comfortable.

I left Fort Worth, and two days later I was in New Orleans for their preview weekend.  The events of that weekend are another long story, but my call to NOBTS was confirmed.  This was the place for me.  Every moment of this blog has been a documentary on my journey since I first moved here, so you can go back to day one and read that story.  When I came here for the first time that February weekend, everything inside me confirmed what I thought in Fort Worth- I belong here.  That gut feeling, deep down inside, said New Orleans.

So here I am, nearly four years later.  A lot’s gone down since then.  And I find myself in the same position I was in four years ago.  What’s next?  December.  I visit Fort Worth again in December.  I’ll bet there’s one guarantee: there’ll be a lot of driving time to get things straight.  I’ve been listening to Shane and Shane again.  It’s decision time.

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