Thank you for listening to another season of Gospelbound! You’ve downloaded this podcast more than 2.2 million times since it started last year right before COVID-19, and I’m grateful for your encouraging responses. Please continue to share your favorite episodes with friends over the summer. You can also help others find resolute hope in an anxious age when you rate the podcast.

I would appreciate your prayer this summer as I undertake several major long-term projects—including a new seminary course for 2022 and biography releasing in 2023, Lord willing. I’m excited to share this news in due course. I’ll also be reading new books to prepare for the next round of Gospelbound interviews in September.

On the Gospelbound podcast, we often discuss what’s wrong in the world and the challenges for the church. But because of the gospel, there’s always hope. God’s always working. Even in the rubble, you can find defiant new growth poking through the rocks. You see such hope in seminary education today. And one of the greatest success stories can be found in Kansas City at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The president there is Jason Allen, and under his leadership, the school has grown in enrollment and resources and in quality of education. We shouldn’t take this good news for granted, because it’s not the case at most schools. It’s exciting to consider what this turnaround means for generations of churches in the Southern Baptist Convention and beyond.

Jason says that “never before in the history of the church has theological education been so accessible—and so needed.” And he joined me on Gospelbound to discuss his new book, Succeeding at Seminary: 12 Keys to Getting the Most Out of Your Theological Education.

In this episode, we talked about the promise and peril of online education, why students should still consider residential relocation, and how you know if you’re really ready for this momentous step.

“Life tends to get more complicated with each passing year,” Allen told me. “And so if God is calling you, go ahead and go do it, pursue it, fulfill it, enjoy it.”