Kansas City, MO—On Tuesday, August 19, Midwestern Seminary and Spurgeon College welcomed faculty and staff to an all-employee meeting marking the beginning of the 2025-2026 academic year. Held on campus, the gathering served as a moment of reflection and encouragement led by President Jason K. Allen.
Allen opened the meeting by celebrating God’s continued grace to Midwestern Seminary and Spurgeon College in the previous academic year. The 2024-2025 academic year featured several items of celebration, including the 13th consecutive year of record enrollment with more than 5,500 total students training for the Church and for the Kingdom.
Additional markers of grace include a record incoming Spurgeon College residential class of 158, nearly doubled from six years ago. Institutional enrollment indicates growth in the Fall of 2025 semester as well.
Strategic Priorities
Looking to the academic year to come, Allen reminded employees of the institution’s mission to “serve the church by biblically educating God-called men and women to be and make disciples of Jesus Christ.”
He then shared the theme verse for the 2025-2026 academic year. Coming from Ephesians 4:1-3, Allen encouraged employees to walk in a manner worthy of their calling. “If an institution gets this wrong,” he said, “it doesn’t matter what they get right.”
Allen went on to review the seminary’s five strategic priorities, originally approved at the Fall 2022 trustees meeting. The five strategic priorities include:
1. Mission Faithfulness
“The first priority of a Southern Baptist Seminary is to be faithful to the Bible as the Word of God. A seminary with doctrinal confusion or compromise has already failed, regardless of other apparent successes.”
2. Student Success
“Our Southern Baptist Ministry Assignment charges us to train pastors, ministers, and missionaries for SBC churches. Unfilled ministry positions, national demographics, and needy churches add urgency to this responsibility.”
3. Faculty Strength
“An institution of higher learning rises no higher than its faculty. Our world-class faculty is not just an institutional advantage to enjoy, it is an institutional stewardship to exercise.”
4. Flourishing Community
“Midwestern Seminary and Spurgeon College are joined together in community, believing God has drawn us together for spiritual growth, service, and life together.”
5. Intergenerational Stewardship
“We have been called by God and charged by our churches to make our work an enduring one, serving Christ and His church until He returns. And so we strive to be found faithful as stewards, conveying this institution to the future with ample resources to carry on our work for the glory of God and the good of the Church until Christ returns.”
Institutional Values
Following the five strategic priorities, Allen introduced six core values to clarify and define the culture at Midwestern Seminary and Spurgeon College. As Allen shared, “These values remind us who we are and who we aspire to be.” The six values include:
1. We Value Southern Baptist Churches
“As Southern Baptists, the primary reason we partner together is for the sake of the Great Commission,” Allen said. “We never want to be confused about who owns us, who governs us, who past and presently funds us, and who we are called by God as our primary focus when we think about the needs of the local church. This value is intended to communicate commitment, gratitude, and a profound stewardship.”
2. We Value a Redeemed Culture
“We are a people in community,” Allen said. “We value things like personal holiness, collegial warmth, service in the local church, worshiping together, Christ-like character. Be present at chapel, lean into community, and guard your life and your doctrine.”
3. We Value Personal Trustworthiness
Allen shared, “We need employees who are mature, who the institution can have confidence in that they will follow through, and that will faithfully fulfill what has been assigned to them. We also value how we interact with one another—we want to be an encouraging environment that is quick to celebrate.”
4. We Value An Entrepreneurial Mindset
“We are goal-oriented and seek to have appropriately focused ambition targeted to kingdom ends,” Allen said. “We want to be an institution that hustles, works hard, and demonstrates contextual excellence.”
5. We Value Shaping Students
“We understand that, at the end of the day, what we do in the classroom is our most essential task,” he said. “We desire to see our students mature through our mentorship. We serve churches by training the students the churches send.”
6. We Value Servant Mindedness
“This value is best channeled by gratitude, understanding that our calling is a precious stewardship” he said. “We want to be institutional-oriented. We don’t live unto ourselves or serve unto ourselves, but we serve together through our unified mission.” To conclude the meeting, Senior Vice Presidents Jason Duesing, Camden Pulliam, and Jim Kragenbring, along with President Allen, prayed for faculty, staff, and students for the 2025-2026 academic year.
