A Faculty Charge to President Chuck Conniry
Western Seminary officially inaugurated its 12th president, Chuck Conniry, PhD, on Nov. 10, 2022, at Hinson Baptist Church in Portland. As part of the ceremony, Professor Todd Miles, PhD, delivered the following presidential charge on behalf of Western’s faculty:
Chuck,
We will hear many different charges today. They have all been biblical. They have all been good and important. You have been charged to hold fast to the truth of Scripture and hold fast to the gospel. I affirm those charges.
On behalf of the faculty, let me add to those words:
The apostle Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote to the church in Philippi, in 3:17-20.
17 Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us.
Chuck, in addition to the obvious things that a President is supposed to do, we need you to be someone that we, the faculty, can follow. Earlier, Paul had explained what the Philippians were to witness in him so as to follow:
10 My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, 11 assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.
Paul’s all-consuming goal was to know Christ, to trace his life along the outline of Christ’s own life, the good and the bad, the easy and the difficult. We, the faculty, need to see you do the same. Paul did not think that he had reached the goal, he was not perfect. Rest assured, as much as we love you, we know the same to be true of you. But you must strive for it, forgetting what is behind, reaching forward to what is ahead, pursue as your goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
“Your goal has to be to pursue Christ. And we need to see you pursue Christ. To be a leader worthy of emulation as you follow the One who is most worthy of emulation, the Lord Jesus Christ. ”
We would love for you to raise such large amounts of money that you create endowments. We would love to see you oversee record enrollments. But those cannot be your goals and we cannot charge you to do such things. Your goal has to be to pursue Christ. And we need to see you pursue Christ. To be a leader worthy of emulation as you follow the One who is most worthy of emulation, the Lord Jesus Christ. In the good times and in the bad, perhaps especially the bad times because we serve a crucified Lord. But you pursue Christ with hope, because we serve a resurrected Lord.
Why is this so important? Because as Paul explained in verse 18, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.
18 For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their end is destruction; their god is their stomach; their glory is in their shame.
Paul could have been talking about our day. This is a good time to be faithful. The days are dark. We are graduating students, trained to be ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ into a world that is hostile to the very message of grace. And that hostility is not “over there;” it is right here in our own setting, our own cultural moment. Lead so they are equipped to faithfully minister. They will be your legacy. Not endowments, not buildings.
20 Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Live your life and exercise your duties as president this day in anticipation of that day, the Lord Jesus’ return. Perform, as President, for his eyes first and foremost, but do so in such a way that it catches our eyes as well. Follow Jesus in such a way that he is honored. And we will follow.
