Learning to shepherd: C-N students embrace common desire to share the gospel

It’s a rainy Thursday on Carson-Newman University’s campus. A few minutes before noon. But the late February overcast doesn’t dampen spirits of the students filing into the conference room.

The weekly mid-day meeting is a new class called “Sermon Preparation and Delivery” and is the structured result born from events that began organically last fall. The commonality among the young men taking their seats: a collective desire to share the Good News and to learn to do it well.

Dr. Jonathan Akin, C-N vice president for Church Relations and Campus Ministries, recounts how things all started for the assembled group, composed of primarily freshmen and sophomores.

“So every Tuesday morning at 8:30 before chapel, there are 10 to a dozen students along with local pastors from our association who gather to pray for chapel, the speaker, and the students,” he said. “So they started that.” It was these same gatherings that took place in the fall that fostered what was to come.

Each week prayers were lifted. Relationships took root. Hearts were shared. The growing connection between students, local pastors, and the Jefferson County Baptist Association eventually led to the creation of “Carson-Newman Sundays.” The association offered to open the door to preaching opportunities, which resulted in area Baptist churches inviting the students to preach the gospel to their congregations.

Once the wheels were set in motion for a September Sunday launch, Akin said he began meeting with the young men to help them prepare for the pulpit.

“We would meet so I could walk them through how to do sermon prep and how to create a message and preach it,” he said. “I would ask them, ‘What passage are you going to preach? What’s your main idea? What’s your outline? Do you have an introduction? Do you have a conclusion? What are the illustrations you are going to use?’”

Questions like these fostered conversation, growth, awareness and fuel to the young men’s desire to present the Word in the most effective way. Following their first Sunday of preaching, the students regrouped to reflect and review each’s sermon, a routine that continues. It’s a time of critique, assessment and encouragement. Iron sharpening iron.

Isaac Melber, a 19-year-old C-N student from Buford, Georgia, fondly reflects on his first Sunday in the pulpit at Emmanuel Baptist Church. “It was January 18. I had my first preaching opportunity and I thought, ‘man, I enjoy this.’ When we came back, the guys said ‘hey, you need to fix this, but guess what? You did really good on that.’”

After a successful start to the Sunday efforts, momentum for the group grew, and the weekly gatherings continued.

The following month, the East Tennessee Baptist Association joined the Jefferson County Baptist Association, inviting the students to preach in their churches, with churches in Morristown and Knoxville following suit.

Recognizing the opportunity as a blessing, the young men have enthusiastically embraced the offers. From Jefferson County’s French Broad Baptist and White Pine Baptist to Cocke County’s Trinity Baptist and Calvary Baptist, the growing band of students has preached in over 40 churches since the fall semester.

“It’s a great discipleship tool that’s giving these guys hands-on experience to do what they’ve been called to do,” said Akin, adding that the weekly campus gatherings eventually led to the creation of the “Sermon Preparation and Delivery” course, which he now leads. The effort’s growth is something in which Akin gives the students full credit.

“They’re recruiting guys. They’re wanting to see this go beyond their time at Carson-Newman,” he said. “This is independent of me. I just kind of help empower and give them the space to do it.

“I’m most impressed with how seriously they take the task,” added Akin. “They’re avid students of the Bible and do a really good job for as young and inexperienced as they are. They’re not only incredibly teachable, they want to be taught.”

According to Akin, he could not be more pleased with the feedback he has received from pastors.

“They are delighted. I’m just so thankful to them because they are opening their pulpits to these young men and seeing it as a value of investing in them and letting them invest in their churches.”

Akin notes that the collaboration between churches and the next generation of pastors comes at an important time.

“We have a crisis in terms of the number of churches in our state that don’t have pastors. So the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board has been working with Carson-Newman, Union University and BCMs to try and create pipelines to get more pastors into the churches.”

From a student’s perspective, Melber says the chance to preach and gain experience is proving invaluable as he prepares for a pastoral calling he has felt since the age of 16.

“When I was in high school, I was nervous of public speaking,” said Melber, who considered himself shy prior to coming to Carson-Newman. “I would fumble my words and had a speech impediment as well. When I preach, that goes away, because I have the Word of God in my hand, and that’s my manuscript. I have the whole manuscript there. If you don’t deviate from it, you’re doing the Lord’s work.”

It’s but one example of how the aspiring pastors continue to grow. It’s a process that is rewarding to watch according to Akin, who says that mentoring and working with the group is an honor.

“My biggest hope is that they will become pastors who are able to shepherd their church with the Word of God, and I’m fully confident that they will be. I think these guys will be future leaders of the Tennessee Baptist Convention and beyond our local associations. I’m super excited to see where God takes them.”