Cedarville Magazine, Spring 2019

passionate, no one can communicate more effectively than the Spirit applying the words He inspired. Illustrations and stories may tug at our emotions, but only God’s Word will change our hearts. A text-driven preacher trusts the Word to do its work and tries not to get in its way. He then illustrates and applies the Word to the listener with a passionate appeal for spiritual growth. FITNESS LEVEL This past summer, I went in for my yearly physical. They placed sensors on my chest and then put me on a treadmill and slowly began to increase the speed and elevation. In order to check my health, they needed to make sure that my heart worked well and that my recovery time fell within normal ranges. In my younger years, I thoroughly enjoyed lifting weights, but I generally hated cardio. I learned that it’s possible to present the appearance of being in good shape on the outside while failing where it matters most — this especially holds true when it comes to Christian colleges and universities. If you want to test the fitness level of a Christian school, go to chapel. You’ll find that some have already flatlined, while others have a hard-to-detect pulse, but the healthiest will have a strong heartbeat, revealing the vibrant spiritual nature of the campus community. Hopefully, you now understand why we say chapel is the heartbeat of Cedarville University. Thomas White became Cedarville’s 10th President in 2013. He earned his Ph.D. in systematic theology from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author and editor of numerous publications, including First Freedom: The Beginning and End of Religious Freedom (B&H Academic). The music fades, the lights brighten, one foot in front of the other up each stair, and I slowly turn. More than 6,000 eyes stare back at me. These eyes relay information to more than 3,000 minds, with more watching online. I frequently find myself scanning the audience. While most of our students listen and take notes, I’ll see that one. The one with arms crossed, a hollow, disinterested gaze revealing a glimpse of a soul in shambles. That’s the one. The one my heart longs to connect with and the one I pray for God’s Spirit to reach. But how? The hurt or doubt is real. My words are never well-crafted enough; my thoughts are always clearer in my own head than when I speak them out loud. My voice emerges with too thick of an accent to be intellectual and too little to be captivating. Often I stand despite the staggering weight of knowing that someone as flawed as I am isn’t worthy to preach the Word. Surely there is someone better. I can do nothing to reach that one. Only God can do that. So I trust the Word to do its work. The one represents someone’s son or daughter, depressed, anxious about the future, darkened by sin, or perhaps resistant to the truth of the Gospel. Eternity hangs by the frayed thread of life on the precipice of disaster. So with all the passion my heart can muster, with the clearest words my intellect can form, and with every fiber of my being, I proclaim the eternal truth of the Gospel. Because God still changes lives, because the Spirit still draws sinners to the Savior, and because Jesus is King, chapel forms the pivot on which each of our students’ 1,000 days turns. The most intimidating, exhilarating, and terrifying moment arrives at 10 a.m. each weekday. Every genuine preacher feels the weight of the task before him, and I hope by reading this you, too, can sense the gravity of the moment. And I hope you will then join me in praying. Pray for the music, for the preacher, and, most importantly, for God to grant every student the ability to see clearly the truth of His Word. Pray that all 6,000 eyes will look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. But mostly pray that the Spirit will open the spiritual eyes of that one. The one who doesn’t yet see. THE GRAVITY OF THE MOMENT