Weekly Email: May 11, 2026

Weekly Email

May 11

We are now in Week 6 of the Spring 2 term. This week I want to share some reflections and encouragement from graduation weekend, and also highlight a student resource worth getting familiar with.

In this email:

Student Tip: Reflections from Graduation
Program News: Get to Know students.sbts.edu

Student Tip: Reflections From Graduation

This past weekend, we had nearly 270 master's students walk across the graduation stage. It was one of those beautiful spring days in Louisville. Not a cloud in the sky, around 65 degrees. One of those days where sitting in the sun made it feel hotter. Graduates walking on the seminary lawn. You can't really get a more picture-perfect day. But beyond that, it represented years of faithfulness, of hard work, dedication, sacrifice, not only from students but of family and co-workers, and churches.

It's one of those days where you look out and you know that each one has a different story, but it's also very familiar, a very similar story between each one of them. I know this because many of you write to me telling me these stories. I love hearing what's going on in your lives. I say this to you because I know that some of you are just starting off. This journey looks long and arduous. You don't know what the next weeks, what the next years, what they will befall you.

The data tells its own version of these stories. The average graduate this year took slightly under six years to finish. Ninety of them were enrolled for five to ten years before they walked. Twenty-two of them had been enrolled for more than ten years. Together this class earned 20,956 SBTS credit hours across 8,139 courses. We had two graduates who started back in 2001, just finishing this past weekend. Each one had substantial breaks along the way, but each one kept returning, kept finishing what God called them to.

Some of you are almost at the end. You're thinking, can I do this? I'm almost there. The end is in sight. Well, just know that this past weekend marked the 237th commencement and 167th session at Southern Seminary. You are in a long line of faithful gospel ministers, each one going down a different path. Each one called by God to set this time aside in your life to become more equipped to encourage others in the faith, to teach, to evangelize, to preach, to counsel.

Dr. Mohler preached from 1 Timothy 6 at commencement, charging the graduates with five imperatives for ministry: flee what is false, pursue what is godly, fight the good fight, take hold of eternal life, and guard the deposit entrusted to them. You can watch his full address here.

And so, as you're reading this today, just know that one of these days it'll be you walking across the stage. There's a phrase from one of my favorite series of books, The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. The Knights Radiant in those books swear an oath that begins, "Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination." And what that means is that we're all on a journey. We will never fully arrive, we'll always keep growing. There will always be hardships, things coming up.

And so as you're plodding along during the semester, be encouraged. It's the journey, it's the faithfulness, it's the hard work. Graduation is just one point on this journey of life where we're called by God to teach others in the faith. If you ever have questions or just want to talk or have some encouragement or anything, always feel free to reply to these. I read and reply to every email.

These graduation stats are not just numbers. They are real stories. Stories of faithfulness, sacrifice, dedication, late nights, and more. Stories of moms and dads driving kids to sports practices, Wednesday night church activities, hospital visits, and then early morning study sessions. Stories of some students dedicating four continuous years of their lives, no fall or spring break, completing course after course. And stories of many others taking a break when life demanded it but continuing on. They are stories just like yours.

And so, as spring is fully upon us, and summer is coming up ahead, I just want to encourage you to stay faithful, to slowly plod along. There's never an arrival. We're on different points of the journey. Be encouraged. God has called you.

Program News: Get to Know Students.sbts.edu

One link worth bookmarking this week is students.sbts.edu. It's a hub of useful information for you as a student.

It has a list of every course we have posted publicly for upcoming terms. The page is a little easier to sort through and look at than the course registration page on MySBTS, and you can filter and search in different ways depending on what you're looking for.

It also has your degree audit, where you can see for yourself which courses you still need to take and which ones have already been completed toward your degree. You'll also find the student handbook there along with several other resources.

Worth a few minutes to poke around and get familiar with what's available to you.