Dear Praying Friends of Free Lutheran Bible College and Seminary:

We are reaching the close of a remarkable semester, and I want to take this opportunity to share some of it with you as a praise before I list out some prayer requests for you. I sincerely thank God for each of these items. It has been an amazing semester.

Our 60th Anniversary Gala

This year we declared our annual Friends of FLBCS Banquet to be our “60th Anniversary Gala.” We had a great time filling the Student Life Center floor with over 300 guests. Our keynote speaker was Dr. Philip E. Dearborn, president of the association for biblical higher education, and accreditation and training body that has been a great help to FLBCS. Doctor Dearborn texted me the other day to tell me that his visit to our campus the highlight of his fall travels.

Note: If you read/listen/interact with only one item in this lengthy email, listen to 25 minutes of Dr. Dearborn and me talking about Christian higher education, accreditation, and opportunities/challenges for places like FLBCS. You can listen to my interview with Dr. Philip Dearborn here: https://flbc.edu/interview-with-abhe-president-dr-philip-dearborn-audio/

You can watch the Gala program here: https://youtu.be/dol82Z7gBE8?feature=shared

The Lutheran Studies Room at ETS

The Evangelical Theological Society is an annual event that has been going on for over 70 years. I affectionately call it “nerd camp for theologians.” We have taken our faculty to this event for many years, and it is a valuable source of continuing education and context for them. There has been limited Lutheran theological input in ETS, and that is something that we have tried to remedy. For the past four years. FLBCS has hosted a Lutheran Studies room that has grown in popularity. We invite high quality presenters from a variety of Bible-believing Lutheran perspectives. We did a trial project, which was then extended to a three-year program, and now we have received a six-year extension, so we are more or less a permanent part of the event. Many people— including some you would not expect— are benefiting from this input. This year, about 20 students from a Southern Baptist seminary came to our study room to hear one of their professors, whom we had invited, present on law/gospel hermeneutics. We are blessing people outside the AFLC.

The debut issue of Sola Scriptura, our FLBCS theological journal

Just today I received a copy of the debut issue of our new theological journal, Sola Scriptura. This journal contains theological writing from our faculty and seminary students and will be an annual blessing to everyone who picks it up. You will hear more about this after our January Symposium, which is the official launch of the journal. We will have a website to explain all of this. More, but it will be a source of substantial theological input for the benefit. Of the AFLC and others through the ministry of the Association.

Beyond Limits

Many of you know about this year’s pilot project with Beyond Limits, a ministry to college-aged students with developmental disabilities. The pilot project has gone exceptionally well and is going to be renewed for another two-year period. Next year we will host up to 8 students through this program, which provides a Christian college opportunity to students who would otherwise never be able to experience the same. Our partnership with Beyond Limits has blessed our campus beyond our expectations.

Our Christmas Concert and commissioning of a choral work

Last weekend over 1000 guests came to the Hauge Memorial Chapel to enjoy the beauty of Christmas at FLBCS. I am so proud of our music programs and these students who are involved. Nearly 80% of our students are actively involved in music ministry at FLBCS. There were other activities, including basketball and volleyball games with alumni teams, but the best part of it all was being together for a three-day event centered on celebrating the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have also joined with a couple of other colleges to commission a significant choral work that will be performed by our Concert Choir this spring, including a debut concert on campus on February 2nd. You will hear more details about this later. We are pleased to have commissioned three works now for the benefit of Christ-centered choral music.

As of this writing, the Christmas concert is not on our web site, but it will be soon: https://flbc.edu/media/

Yahoo Sports

Our athletic programs at FLBC exist for a different purpose than other places. We see athletics as a means for leadership training and discipleship. Some years we are very competitive, and this year our women’s basketball and volleyball teams are pretty good. Our men’s team has had a tough season, though, extending a streak of winless games stretching through last season. Unfortunately, a website chose to pick up on that story in a somewhat disrespectful and mocking way. That got the attention of a legitimate journalist, Jeff Eisenberg of Yahoo Sports, who reached out to us to ask us about the mission of athletics at FLBC. It turned into quite the story. I am very proud of our men’s basketball team and its coach, Logan Strand, for the way they have represented Christ and FLBC.

You can read the story here: https://sports.yahoo.com/make-fun-of-the-so-called-worst-college-basketball-team-of-all-time-all-you-want-they-have-a-bigger-priority-than-winning-165648133.html

Enrollment

Finally, enrollment looks pretty good. We have 19 students in our seminary right now, including interns. That is a lot of students for a church body with 250 congregations. It feels like we need more, and we certainly want more, because of the number of congregations without a pastor and the number of older pastors who are retiring. Our Seminary is much larger than it used to be and seems to be growing. I think we will have over 20 students total next fall. The Bible College has grown to about 120 this spring, and we will probably approach 130 next fall. We are not too far from maximum capacity, as our student body of 120 is about 80% of the practical dorm capacity of 150. I have pasted a graph below that shows the total number of completed applications through last week. We are ahead of our best pace since we started tracking such things. An incoming class of 70 is not out of the question. If we finish with 100 completed applications, we will probably get there.

Merry Christmas, and as always, thank you for praying.
In Christ,
Pastor Wade

Praise God for:

• A great semester at FLBCS, including strong enrollment and focused staff
• All of the above blessings
• The steadfast love of Christ
• Hard working, focused, motivated faculty, staff, and administration

Please pray for:

• Students who return home for Christmas break, that they would be wise sons/daughters/siblings and also winsome proclaimers of the gospel.
• For seminary students awaiting (or planning for) internship assignments
• For congregations in general, especially those waiting for a pastor
• For students coming to study at FLBCS in the fall, both Bible College and Seminary
• For God’s provision for FLBCS (annual campaign through July 2025 is about 60% complete as of now)
• Our January strategic planning refresh (every year we roll our plan ahead, always three years at a time, always refreshed annually)