Dear Praying Friends of Free Lutheran Bible College and Seminary:

Cast your burden on the Lord,
    and he will sustain you;
he will never permit
    the righteous to be moved.
(Psalm 55:22, ESV)

This past weekend was quite the weekend for me! The end of a school year, with our spring concert Friday night and graduation on Saturday. We ended our weekend with my son’s Confirmation on Sunday. We also had a big year-end celebration for my kids’ Classical Conversations community, always a highlight in our family. We get to do home school with some of our favorite people, with families coming from all different kinds of faithful Christian expressions. It’s a privilege.

You can watch some of these events here:
Friday concert: https://vimeo.com/1080946781
Saturday graduation: https://vimeo.com/1081126982

Probably the highlight of my weekend was hosting about 40 people in our backyard for an afternoon dinner. The guest list was all put together by my son. We didn’t really help him, and the list included neighbors, friends, family, FLBCS employees, church members, pastors/wives/kids… quite the variety. It got me thinking about the power of being surrounded by faithful Christian witness, and the privilege that it is to raise my kids around a campus of almost 200 students, faculty, staff, and administration who show and share Christ with them.

For some reason I feel the need to stop and rescue the word “privilege.” It’s been misused of late. I mean that I am deeply grateful and not at all taking this for granted. My family benefits.

As you pray for the Free Lutheran Bible College and Seminary you are praying for students who are being established in God’s word who will go on and live their lives faithfully representing Christ in their families, in their congregations, and in their communities. Do you realize that you are positively impacting souls you will not meet on this side of heaven? That’s amazing.

Thank you for praying. Feel free to use the list of praises and prayers below. We love you.

In Christ,
Pastor Wade

PS— If you want, I recently had an interview with Philip Dearborn, friend of FLBCS and President of the Association for Biblical Higher Education, about our distinctive type of Christian higher education. It’s about half an hour long.

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/biblical-higher-ed-talk/id1703844686?i=1000706475388
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0AYdGymrfX0Sw3jp1OrCKm?si=zOQSXb8qTPu6Xfqx1K1Igw
YouTube: https://youtu.be/iVeCS0kdYZg?feature=shared

Praise God for:

• A great end to the school year— This might have been my favorite.
• Annual Fund 24-25— Our fiscal year ends on July 31 and we are 90% of the way to our Annual Fund goal of $1.3M. Next year’s goal is $1.5M. More or less, this is what it takes to offer a $34,000/year education for $21,000 (tuition, room, board, and fees). THANK YOU for you support. It’s amazing.
• Mark Sivertson is the new VP of Advancement for the AFLC, and he’s great. If you hear from him, he is ready and able to talk FLBCS with you. He represents everybody, and you can talk to Sherry Mork and me any time about more detail, but Mark is well-versed on FLBCS, having helped us in various ways for years.
• Oh! And thank you for praying for my knee replacement. I’m six weeks out and it went well. Don’t do it for fun, but if you need it… miracle of modern medicine.

Prayer and Praise:

• Faithful faculty, staff, administration— They have worked so hard for the benefit of our students. Pray for some key departures/additions in the coming months. Hiring is key.
• Board of Trustees, and the Schools Corporation— They meet in June at the Annual Conference. The Corp is the ownership group for FLBCS. The BOT is elected from the Corp to run the school. Collectively, those 7 BOT members are my boss. We can’t have a great School without a great Board.
• Annual Conference— And pray for the AFLC Annual Conference, too!

Please pray:

• Graduates as they go out— What happens next for our two seminary grads (six next year) and about 60 Bible College grads is key. Pray that they will continue to grow in Christ.
• Seminary interns— Six seminary interns leave campus this month. Pray for a great year of congregational education. It goes quickly! Then the call process…
• Summer teams— Our summer teams go out in June. Please pray for safe travel, great ministry, and learning lessons for a lifetime of ministry.
• Fall enrollment— We never know for sure until they get here… but we hope to have around 22 Seminarians and 120 Bible College students. Please pray for students and families as they are deciding/committing this summer.