Dr. Gene Wilkes, President
A couple from our church’s small group drove back home to Minnesota recently to help their family with the harvest. Due to weather and the abundance of the crop, they stayed two weeks instead of one. I thanked them for doing the work that feeds all of us. Without families like theirs, we would not have the harvest-filled tables that feed us all.
Farmhands are essential to reaping the harvest. This couple’s emails and pictures reminded me of my junior high and high school days when I would work for my uncle in the Texas Panhandle plowing under wheat stubble, helping with the cotton harvest, “hauling hay,” and preparing fields that lay fallow for next year’s crop. The memories guided my thoughts to how our professors, supervisors, and teachers are “farmhands” of sorts.
Our students and readers feast on what the faculty harvests from their formal training and ongoing studies, which are applied to real-life ministry in the fields of harvest where our students serve. Jesus asked his disciples to pray for more laborers in the harvest because the harvest was plentiful, but the farmhands were few. Join me in thanking those who labor in the fields and for praying for more farmhands to help with the harvest.
Our Board of Governors met on October 12. They gathered online and in person to affirm our Tenets of Faith, receive and adopt reports from the five working committees of the board, including adding two new members of the board. Dr. Rhonda Johnson and Dr. David Strawn were elected to serve on the board for a three-year term. Dr. Johnson is a licensed professional counselor who owns with her husband, The Center for Counseling and Family Relationships, in Fort Worth. Dr. Strawn has been part of the Carroll Family since our inception. He served on the staff of First Baptist Church, College Station, an early Teaching Church with Carroll, and who in retirement is President of Ministry of Education. I am honored to serve with these two servants of the Lord along with the rest of Carroll’s outstanding Board members.
We are moving, AGAIN!?! No, not to other offices. We did that last month. We are moving our learning management system from Moodle® to Canvas.® Thanks to a private donation, we have begun to make the move from the delivery platform we have used from our beginnings to the industry-standard platform, Canvas. Dr. Molly Floyd, our Director of Online Instruction, and Mr. Carl Heath, our Director of IT, have begun to work with our faculty and staff to bring the new platform to our students in January 2022.
Two events that demonstrate our mission to equip men and women called to serve Christ and his church beyond formal theological education are upcoming. They are:
Equipping Ministry Leaders Series will host its first event, “Helping Couples Survive Infidelity,” on November 1 online and in person at The Carroll Center. This event is open to everyone who has been faced with helping others survive an affair or unfaithfulness in their marriage. We are grateful for a Resource Grant from The InTrust Center for Theological Schools that allows us to offer this event free of charge to participants and to offer CEUs for only $15.00. Other similar training events for pastors and staff are planned for the coming months.
Christian Counselor Series Brown Bag Luncheon will host its next event, Understanding Sex Trafficking, on November 8 online and in person at the Carroll Center. Our own, Dr. Shannon Wolf, who is a licensed professional counselor with supervisory status in Texas and an expert witness in many sex trafficking cases, is the presenter. The workshop is free or one can receive a CEU for $15.00.