Convocation At Tyndale (Or, Why I Am So Glad To Be Serving Here)

Our annual convocation ceremony took place here at Tyndale a few weeks ago. Convocation is an evening to assemble at the beginning of the school year to worship and corporately commit ourselves to God for the upcoming academic year. During the service there was a time for all the faculty to stand and make the following pledge together:

"We, the faculty of Tyndale Theological Seminary, pledge before our Lord and before those gathered the following:

We promise by God's grace to maintain a vibrant and personal devotion to Jesus Christ in our own lives, to be regularly in the Word of God, to be people of prayer, and to participate actively in the local church. We will endeavor to be Christian examples, living lives that are consistent with what we teach.

We promise to be submitted to and to teach, with the Holy Spirit's enablement, the whole counsel of God--both the truths that are popular and those that are unpopular. We promise as a community of scholars to pursue excellence in all our various disciplines.

And finally, we pledge to encourage you, our students, to apply the truths you learn and seek to live by them in your Christian pilgrimage. We pledge to be available to help you, to encourage you, to counsel you, to challenge you, and at times to admonish you.

As a team of professors, we will endeavor, by God's grace to make this one of the best and most important years of your life. May our Lord give us grace to that end."

It is a joy for me to teach and serve at a place that annually publicly declares its commitment to God, Scripture, and our students in such a way. The students also corporately made a similar pledge later in the service.