Seminary awards 42 students for excellence in academics and ministry

Every spring, the faculty of Southwestern Seminary nominate students for awards based on merit in academic and ministry endeavors. At the 2016 Student Awards Banquet, April 27, Southwestern conferred 43 awards to 42 recipients in recognition of their achievements in their respective disciplines.

Speaking on behalf of students to the assembled faculty, administrators and friends of Southwestern, Adam Mallette, a Master of Divinity student and recipient of both the G.R. & Jessie Klempnauer Memorial Award and the O.S. Hawkins Outstanding Pastoral Ministry Graduate Award, expressed profound gratitude for his time at Southwestern. Describing how God called him to ministry from the life of an officer in the Marine Corps, Mallette said he had initially resisted the call because he enjoyed the honor, prestige and lifestyle that accompanied his position.

God, however, would not give up on the recalcitrant Mallette. “God, being rich in mercy because of His great love, reached down into my rebellion, reached down into my chaos, and guided [my family] here to Southwestern,” he said. “He knew that we needed to leave all that was comfortable to us in order to come here so He could prune our hearts.”

Once Mallette and his wife, Heather, arrived at the seminary, they began to understand why God led them to Southwestern. “He knew that I needed to sit in chapel on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, being soaked up and saturated by the Word of God,” he said. “He knew that we needed to sit under the brightest minds and the brightest scholars of the evangelical world. He knew we needed to sit here and identify with the global calling … a calling to go anywhere that God would have us to go.”

After Mallette’s testimony, deans of each school announced the award recipients. Recipients included eight students from the School of Church Music, 12 from the Terry School of Church and Family Ministries, and six from the Roy Fish School of Evangelism and Missions. The School of Theology also awarded 13 students, and the college awarded one, and three more students received interdisciplinary awards.

“You gained those awards because there is something in you that is remarkable that drives you on,” Southwestern President Paige Patterson told the honored students. “It is not just your ability—it is a commitment to that which is best.”

At the conclusion of the ceremony, Patterson encouraged the students to continue pursuing a course of excellence in academics and ministry. “Thank you for what you have done up to this point, but this is just the beginning,” he said. “Now, you have to keep running. You have to make it work.”