Weekly Email: January 26, 2026

In this email:

• Student Tip: Motivation, Calling, and Persevering Through the Long Haul of Seminary

• Program New: New Course with Dr. Mohler Starting March 10 - The Southern Baptist Convention:
  Past, Present, and Future

Note: Due to the snow here in Louisville, offices are closed today (Monday, January 26)

Student Tip: Motivation, Calling and Persevering Through Seminary

For many of us, this past weekend meant staying bundled up while snow, sleet, and ice came down. It is a stark reminder that as an online student, life rarely pauses. You always have the next reading, the writing assignment is coming due, and your ministry responsibilities don’t take a break because you’re in class. When that is the reality, perseverance cannot be built on a good mood or a burst of energy. It has to be built on something sturdier.

Seminary takes perseverance and consisten work. You may be sitting here thinking that perseverance is something you either have or don’t have. But it is actually the byproduct of meaning. People endure hard things when the hard thing feels connected to a purpose they care about. When the purpose gets lost, every task feels heavier than it should. When the purpose is clear, the same task can still be difficult, but it stops feeling pointless. That is why your “why” matters. Not because it makes the work easy, but because it tells your mind and heart what the work is for.

A lot of us assume perseverance is tightly intertwined with motivation. You feel motivated, then you work hard, then you keep going. But most long journeys work in the opposite direction. You work, then you see tiny signs of progress, then you start believing the effort matters, then you keep going. This is important because it means waiting around to feel motivated is a bad strategy for long-term faithfulness. Motivation is unstable. It rises and falls with sleep, stress, conflict, health, and your five different calendars that you’re juggling. If you attach your consistency to something that unstable then you will get pulled around by it.

Calling changes the equation. Most of you are not doing seminary out of pure joy for academic work. You are doing seminary because God has called you to serve real people with real burdens. That calling can sustain effort when the work feels repetitive or when the payoff feels distant. It turns a Hebrew quiz into preparation for preaching with accuracy. It turns a theology paper into training for the counseling chair. It turns reading into a deeper well to draw from when you are on the mission field. In other words, the “why” does not simply inspire you. It organizes your effort.

This is also why perseverance is often more about identity than emotion. Over time you become the kind of person who does the work because that is who you are becoming. The workload does not get smaller, but your capacity grows because you stop negotiating with yourself every time the week is hard. You start operating from a settled conviction. This is part of my calling. This is part of my stewardship. This is one of the ways God is forming me.

So as the weather changes and your classes keep going forward, remember what is actually happening while you are in seminary. You are not just getting through assignments. You are being formed. Every reading, every paper, every discussion post is another small act of preparation that God is using to shape you into a steadier, wiser, more faithful servant. Perseverance is not pretending every day feels inspiring. It is showing up because your calling is real, because the Lord who called you does not change, and because the people you will serve deserve more than your good intentions. They need a ministry leader who stayed with the work long enough to be ready when it counts.

Program News: Dr. Mohler’s New Course

Dr. Mohler will be teaching The Southern Baptist Convention: Past, Present, and Future this spring, and registration is open now.

If you want a clearer understanding of the SBC and how its story intersects with broader evangelical Christianity, this is one of the best opportunities you will have. It is also one of the only settings where you get Dr. Mohler’s firsthand perspective on key controversies, defining events, and pivotal moments across the years, with the chance to engage him directly in live dialogue.

Online students can take this as an LS (Live Seminary) course, meaning you attend live via Zoom and can ask questions in real time. Sessions are recorded, and if you miss a class you will have access to the recording within 24 hours.

It will count toward a Church History elective, or you can count it as your Systematic Theology III core course by completing one additional reading.

The syllabus is still being finalized, but the format will be consistent with previous years with assigned reading, reading responses, and a research paper due at the end of the spring semester. You will be able to start the reading ahead of time, with most of the writing concentrated later in the semester.

Class meetings are March 10, 12, 24, 26, 31; April 2, 14, and 16 from 2:45–4:45 pm Eastern. There is no live class meeting on April 7 or April 9.

Registration is open in MySBTS. Course Number: 25177 LS (Studies in Church History)