by Marty Hughes
The familiar words of our beloved school song seem to ring truer every year. As I have the opportunity to participate in the work that the Alumni Association is doing, it gives me reason to consider all of the impact that BBC has had in my life and ministry over the last 30-plus years. Our school truly has been a fount of Christian knowledge to me. I arrived on campus in 1976 along with 1,100 other freshmen, pretty full of myself and ready to whip the devil at the drop of a hat. I was the perfect embodiment of R.O. Woodworth’s old adage. He used to say, “BBC is a vast repository of Christian knowledge. The freshmen arrive on campus knowing so much and the seniors leave knowing so little, it must be here somewhere.”
I am very thankful that the first thing that God was able to do for me as a student at BBC was to break down that high wall of arrogance and ignorance that I had built around my heart. I came to genuine faith in Christ as a freshman and God brought godly professors and pastors into my life that have served as a wellspring of inspiration, information, and accountability in my ministry down through the years.
The classes that I took at BBC gave structure to my understanding of the Bible. They didn’t teach me what to think as much as how to think. They gave me the tools that I needed to properly interpret and apply the Word of God to my daily life and to proclaim the truths that I learned with power and clarity. Very few times in my 32 years of ministry have I gone back to my notes and syllabi to find the answer to some problem that I was dealing with, but I constantly draw on the training I received in how to hear God’s voice, find His will, and obey His plan through total dependence on His Word.
If Baptist Bible College is a fountain, then its students and alumni are a river that has made its way by a very circuitous course to every corner of the world. At almost every turn, God has used a classmate or fellow alumnus to help direct my course down through the years. As a pastor, the missionaries that I invite to our church, the evangelists that I have speak, and the churches that I fellowship with are almost all connected in some way to Baptist Bible College. This is not because of some bias or prejudice, it is simply because I know their hearts, recognize their vision, and share their passion, and all of these things were instilled in them while at Baptist Bible College.
I value the heritage of BBC, but I am also thankful for those who are faithfully serving now so that its legacy can continue. As a pastor, I am thankful to have a school that I can wholeheartedly recommend to the young people of our church as they surrender to the call of God upon their lives. I am thankful for a school that recognizes that the rapidly-changing culture in which we live demands creative and innovative methods which find their power in the never-changing message of the gospel. I am thankful for the passionate spirit that I see in today’s BBC students. Psalm 24:6 says, “This is the generation of them that seek Him, that seek thy face….” I see in the present-day students a hunger for God that is refreshing and exciting. If the Lord tarries, this generation of BBC students will face a much different world than my generation faced. Islamic extremism, the secularization of American culture, and the headlong plunge into worldwide moral decadence makes the world a much more dangerous place in which to live and minister. But the generation that seeks the Lord’s face will also see His hand.
Like any other resource, it is easy to take a fountain for granted. I am particularly blessed because I live and serve only two hours from Springfield. I am on campus fairly regularly almost year round, even more so during basketball season. As a result, I have a perspective on the school that many of my classmates are not blessed with. I am refreshed by the spirit, challenged by the passion, and encouraged by the vision that I witness every time that I am on campus. It encourages my heart to know that the “fount of Christian knowledge” from which I drank so freely in the past is still flowing vibrantly today and will bless the lives of others for generations to come.