Graduation Day is a Great Day

Our graduation at Northern Seminary, which we hold at the beautiful chapel on Elmhurst College’s campus, was yesterday. Graduation combines joy of accomplishment, sorrow of the departure of those whom we have learned to love as students (and sometimes colleagues), and hope and prayer for their future ministries.

I have been going to graduations for 30+ years as a professor, and the graduations — get this — at Northern and far and away the best graduations. We had splendid music, and solo of Andrae Crouch’s famous song that brought the house down, and celebrations of graduates that take your breath away in joy. Kris looks forward to attending Northern’s graduation — that might be the best praise I can give. And, of course, seeing David Fitch in a suit is out of this world (and totally inappropriate).

To celebrate Northern Seminary graduation, I post four pictures:

Mattie Phillips, a wonderful student and pastor in Lawndale; Stanley Ratliff, yet another pastor to the formerly incarcerated and ministering with Wayne Gordon at Lawndale Community Church; Gerald Drew, a DMin student who pastors at Antioch Baptist Church in Chicago, and my friend and fellow Cub fan, Phil Jackson, also ministering at Lawndale Community Church.

If you want to study with those who are ministering in some of the most challenging neighborhoods in the world, come to Northern Seminary.