VISION STATEMENT 1998
By
Jerry Falwell
INTRODUCTION
A Doctrinal Statement tells others what you believe. Our doctrinal statement tells others we are an evangelical educational institution.
A Mission Statement tells how an organization does its ministry. As an illustration, the mission statement of Thomas Road Baptist Church would include soul-winning, baptizing, and Bible teaching because we are committed to the Great Commission.
A Vision Statement tells where an organization is going. This sermon is about my vision statement of 1998.
But it does no good to have a great vision statement that tells you where you are going, if you don’t have the fuel in your tank (fire in your belly) to motivate you to get where you are going.
I must live for Jesus Christ to have His power flowing through me to be a leader. Remember, people will always buy into you as the leader, before they buy into the vision of the University. The first Law of Leadership is the Law of Dreams/Visions. When people buy into your vision, they buy into your leadership. Therefore for you to be a leader, you must be a visionary leader. For me to be a leader, I must be a visionary Chancellor.
A. WHY THIS MESSAGE?
1. Liberty and America have experienced tremendous changes in the past few years. America is not the same nation that she was when Liberty was founded. Liberty is not the same school, when she was founded.
Please understand, the purposes of Liberty remain the same, the principles remain the same, and we have not changed our doctrinal statement. But we have different faculty, additional majors, new schools, and new athletic programs. We need a new vision from year to year.
Liberty University has responded to the needs of America with compassion; Liberty University is not responding to the needs of 1971, we are gearing up to respond to the needs of 2000 AD.
I have pastored in five decades. I have pastored since the last part of the 50s. Let me characterize each decade for you.
50s: A Maintenance Decade - life continued after WWII as it was before the war.
60s: A Decade of Revolution - the young people began throwing off the restraints of the establishment; this was the Decade of Anti-Vietnam, hippies, free-love and drugs.
70s: The Beginning of Decline - two things I remember in this decade: First, in the 70s this was the decade of America’s decline; but second, this was the decade of the mega-church. Let’s go back to the first point. The greatness of America was beginning to erode—Watergate, our first impeachment of a US President, lack of national trust—and the 70s ended with Americans imprisoned in Iran, while President Carter was incapable of doing anything about it.
While America was declining, this decade ushered in the mega-church movement. At the beginning of the 70s, Thomas Road Baptist Church was the 9th largest in the US with an attendance of 2640. By the time the 70s were over, we averaged approximately 8,000 in attendance. Thomas Road Baptist Church was growing, but so were a number of other churches. At the beginning of the 70s, there were only about 100 mega churches in the United States (with attendance over 1,000). At the end of the 70s, there were approximately 4,000 mega-churches in the US according to the research of Dr. Elmer Towns.
80s: A Decade of Militancy - two forces were organized into militant camps in the 80s. First, the fundamentalists organized Moral Majority to stand against four specific evils:
(1) abortion, (2) homosexuality, (3) watering down of US military might, and (4) a firm stand for Israel’s defense.
There were many other organizations that were started to help us, but Moral Majority was the leader in the early 80s. Good Housekeeping Magazine voted me Man of the Year because of my leadership on moral issues. But in this Decade of Militancy, the opposition also organized. The NOW, ACLU, and other groups that hated what we stood for, came into existence along with the homosexuals, the pro-choice faction and many other groups.
90s: A Decade of the Boomer and prosperity - the Boomers came of age in the 90s and with them, they brought prosperity. The Boomers became dominate with their theme, “You can have it all.” We’ve seen financial prosperity, not because of Clinton, but because of the foundation laid by President Reagan. Along with money came all types of entertainment, and information through the Internet. Americans gained a new freedom, and exceptions were made in the White House and exceptions were made by the citizens.
Before Clinton: Presidents have made exceptions for the American people.
After Clinton: The people must make exceptions for the President.
Review of Liberty University in these decades:
70s: Liberty had a Pioneering Decade. We went to classes on school buses, and lived on an island or in a downtown hotel. We fought to get everything started-- classes, accreditation, sports teams, recruitment, etc.
Some remember when this campus didn’t have one paved street (only crushed rock roads) and no sidewalks. One graduate quipped, “I praise God for good teachers and sidewalks.”
80s: Liberty had a Decade of Struggles. We got a campus, activities building, DeMoss Building, and Hancock Athletic Building. We fought the state to keep teacher education, and to get the Seminary accredited. We fought the government over scholarship funding. Liberty joined Moral Majority in the battle over moral and legal issues. We won some battles and we lost some battles.
90s: The Decade of Survival - financially we “dodged the bullet,” week by week. We lost an industrial bonding program because the Virginia Supreme Court said we were “pervasively religious.” But our loss was our salvation because in Virginia a 501-C-3 religious institution cannot be forced into bankruptcy. No court could touch us.
I salute the faculty who stayed with us in those dark days and I salute the students who stayed here to get an education. Even though we had little money, we gave a superior education. Some of our greatest students came out of those dark days.
The Coming Decade: The Decade of Growth - I want to see the campus grow, and I want to see more buildings, bigger buildings and a growing endowment fund. I want to see Thomas Road Baptist Church build across the highway so all Liberty University students will have a chance to be involved in a strong, evangelical church. This is a large goal—it’s the Decade of Growth. I want to grow better students. I want to grow more students. I want to take the University to a higher level.
B. THE SOUL OF THE LEADER DETERMINES THE SOUL OF AN ORGANIZATION.
There needs to be a “soul-check” each time the organization takes a step to a higher level of living and serving. I believe Liberty needs a “soul-check” for the future.
Liberty pursued accreditation for a higher level of ministry.
Liberty pursued accreditation for a higher level of student.
Liberty pursued accreditation for a higher level of excellence and expectation.
A “soul-check” is like a “gut check.”
C. THE CHANCELLOR HAS A TWO-FOLD RESPONSIBILITY.
1. To position Liberty spiritually to achieve the highest spiritual level possible.
2. To call for each faculty, staff and student to
give the highest level of Christian
commitment possible so that Liberty can
reach the next level of attainment.
1. We can reach our goal by growth. When you grow a student, i.e., you cause everything around that person to grow.
When Liberty grows a pastor, it causes growth in everything in the church, i.e., spiritually, professionally, and technically. In the long run, Liberty causes a community to grow.
Notice the reverse, when everything around you begins to die, it is because you first began to die on the inside.
Liberty is here to make students grow. (Application)
1. The rules are not here to punish the rule-breaker, but to give you a standard of living, to pull you up to a higher level of attainment. Rules are to help you grow.
2. Chapel is not here to preach at you, but to give you a vision of what God wants for you to do. Chapel is here to help you grow.
3. Christian/Community Service is here to fill jobs in a church or the community. Christian/community service is to give you an opportunity to become involved in the work of God. When you face a challenge that is bigger than yourself, you will begin to grow. Christian/community service is here to help you grow.
When I began Liberty, we had a two-fold motto. One half of the motto involved Christian/community service:
Academic excellence, action-oriented.
The phrase “action-oriented” was applied to serving Christ. In the early days, Thomas Road Baptist Church conducted an evangelistic crusade and we shut school down. Every student went soul-winning.
There was a day Liberty owned a DC-3 airplane and flew to Haiti every two or three weeks. Every student was expected to go on two weeks of foreign exposure where they slept in hammocks and learned serving by serving. Students built a Christian school with their hands. They passed out tracts and went door-to-door witnessing.
Christian Community Service is to make you grow.
4. You are required to take Bible, doctrine, evangelism, and Christian Life classes. Why do we have these classes here? We feel they are absolutely MANDATORY to help you to grow.
5. RAs and SLAs. Why do we pay the extra money to train our RAs and then pay them for what they do? It is because we want to help you grow as a child of God.
6. Altar calls. I believe that personal spiritual growth is always enhanced by right motives. When I ask a young person to come to the altar and get right with God, it is to get his motives and attitudes right. That is a “touch stone” of life. When we get our motives right, other things begin to fall into place. I believe in the altar call because it helps you to grow.
1. Joe Hale. When a student exposure team visited Korea in 1978, God spoke to Joe Hale. He knelt down and dedicated his life to missions, and now there are Christian schools in several nations around the world because of Joe.
2. Steve Reynolds. Steve came to Liberty to play football but God spoke to him in a chapel service; he came to the altar, surrendered and became a pastor. Today, he pastors Capitol Baptist Church, a great church in Washington , DC, that he planted and built.
4. Dave Earley. Dave was President of Liberty’s student body. Today he leads a great church of 1,000 in Greater Columbus, Ohio. I’ve been to his church twice to dedicate his church sanctuaries. He has almost $5 million in property and buildings.
D. WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION FOR A STUDENT?
People usually ask what year are you in college? What is your major? Or where are you from? But, the most important question is, “What are you becoming?”
Personal growth is a lifelong passion. I try to tell the students don’t look for quick fixes, instant spirituality or shortcuts. Someone said the longest distance between two points is a shortcut. Pay the price, become a man or woman of God, learn the lessons and grow.
When you begin to grow in Christ, you begin to touch your family, your friends back home, and your roommates around you here.
To grow you need to be stretched daily. This means that you need to have daily goals, daily challenges, and daily commitments. I love it when I walk around seeing students preparing for quizzes, practicing musical instruments, and I love to see the athletic teams practicing on the playing field—this means these students are in the process of growth.
Two verses in conclusion:
“As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious” - I Peter 2:2,3
“. . . grow up in all things into Him (Christ)” - Ephesians 4:15
If you have never really accepted Jesus as your personal Savior, would you do it right now? Do not delay or put it off. If you would like to receive Christ by faith, pray this simple prayer in your heart:
Dear Lord,
I acknowledge that I am a sinner. I believe Jesus died for my sins on the cross, and rose again the third day. I repent of my sins. By faith I receive the Lord Jesus as my Savior. You promised to save me, and I believe You, because You are God and cannot lie. I believe right now that the Lord Jesus is my personal Savior, and that all my sins are forgiven through His precious blood. I thank You, dear Lord, for saving me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
If you prayed that prayer, God heard you and saved you. I personally want to welcome you to the family of God and rejoice with you.
For more information on the TRBC Pastor’s Bible Class, log on to the Internet for TRBC Home page at www.trbc.org/pbc.
