Weekly Email: August 17, 2026
We are now in Week 3 of the Fall 1 term. This week I want to share something Dr. Vickers said at our new student orientation on Friday that reframed something I've written to you about many times. I also want to put Preview Day on your radar because it's not just for new students.
Also, I realize I never put an end date on the survey and giveaway, so we'll keep it open through this week. It will close Sunday night on August 23 and I'll announce the winners next Monday. Amy will reach out from there to get you your books, swag, and shirt choice. Here's the survey.
In this email:
- Student Tip: Loving Your Neighbor
- Program News: Preview Day on October 23
Student Tip: Loving Your Neighbor
This past Friday we had our on-campus new student orientation. During the faculty panel in the afternoon someone asked what advice the professors had for seminary students. Dr. Vickers answered with a question of his own. What are the two greatest commandments?
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. And the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself.
Then he asked how studying relates to loving your neighbor as yourself.
His answer was that you need to block out time on your calendar to study. Because if you don't get done what you said you were going to get done early in the week, then later in the week your wife needs you on Thursday night or a church member ends up in the hospital or a friend calls wanting to meet up and you can't go. You have a legitimate reason. You have to study.
Sometimes that reason really is legitimate. Seminary takes time and there will be weeks where studying is exactly what you should be doing when something else comes up. That's part of the season you're in and the people around you know it.
But too often the reason we can't show up isn't the studying itself. It's that we didn't study when we said we would. We made a commitment to ourselves and to our family and to our church but we let distraction win. And now the work we pushed off is crowding out the very people we're being trained to serve.
I've written to you about calendars and planning ahead more times than I can count. I usually frame it around getting your work done and protecting your attention and not falling behind, which is all true and all worth doing. But framing it as obedience puts the stakes somewhere else entirely. The block of study time you keep on Tuesday morning is what makes you available on Thursday night. Your family, your church, the people God has actually put in front of you, they feel the difference between a student who does the work when he planned to and one who is always catching up.
So look at your week before it starts. Decide when the reading and the writing and the lectures are going to happen. Then treat that time like you would treat any other commitment you made to someone you love. Not because you're trying to be more productive but because the person you're going to need to show up for later is counting on you doing it now.
Blocking out time to study is loving your neighbor.
Program News: Preview Day
Orientation on Friday leads right into what I want to tell you about this week. This semester 28 students are moving from online studies to Louisville to finish their degrees on campus. A lot of them got there by coming and seeing it first, either through our experiential modulars, which are full for the fall but will open for spring registration soon, or through Preview Day, which is coming up on Friday, October 23.
You may be reading this thinking Preview Day is for new students and you're already enrolled. Come anyway. Some of you have been sitting with a question you honestly haven't put words to yet, which is whether online is right for the rest of this degree or whether a season is coming where you need to be somewhere else.
I've talked with enough of you to know that for a lot of you the answer is no and for good reason. Some of you have family you need to be there for. Some of you are in a position at your church where leaving doesn't make sense. Some of you are in an internship or another formal, intentional track of ministry training and discipleship at your local church. You're getting the best of both worlds there, top notch academic training at Southern and on-the-ground ministry leadership discipleship right where you already are. I'm not going to try to talk you out of any of that.
But some of you are in a different spot and quite frankly, you likely already know it.
Ask yourself whether you're receiving discipleship from your pastor or another elder in a way that complements what you're doing online. If you're not receiving that and family or a church staff role isn't what's keeping you where you are, then the question deserves a look instead of another year of wondering about it.
What you'd be looking at is bigger than classes and faculty mentorship. In Louisville you can go down a list of 50, 75, even 100 local churches that check all the theological boxes you're looking for, where in most cities and towns you're hunting for the one or two, maybe three, that you align with. You'd be finding a church you can plant yourself in, building friendships with people in the same season you are, and getting discipled and handed real ministry to do by pastors who know your name. The academic training and the on-the-ground training end up running alongside each other, one on campus and the other at a church a few minutes down the road.
Preview Day is how you look at all of that without guessing. You'll see the campus, meet professors, and get a feel for the city and the churches in it. For just $25 we'll cover two nights of lodging and all your meals while you're here.
You may walk around all day and drive home certain that you're exactly where God has you for this season. That's a good day too. Either way you'd be trading a question you've been carrying for an answer. That's worth some time here in Louisville.
Register for Preview Day: Friday, October 23
Quick Reference of Upcoming Term Dates:
- Current Week: Fall 1, Week 3 (August 17-24)
- Fall 2 Term Begins: October 5, 2026
- Winter Term Begins: November 30, 2026
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