Editor’s note: Chuck Kelley is president emeritus of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. This piece was adapted from a post he made on social media and is used with the author’s permission.
I was speaking at a Texas evangelism event years ago when a young man approached me in the hall to ask if we could have a conversation. We found a quiet place, sat down, and he began telling me his story. He was a church planter, several years into a new church plant that blossomed from its earliest days and was going very well.
In the midst of launching this church he found time to get M.Div. and D.Min. degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, connecting with Dr. Roy Fish (Hall of Fame Evangelism professor) as a mentor and friend along the way. For nearly everyone, that would complete the educational process, but this young man found himself feeling very strongly that the Lord wanted him to return to seminary and earn a Ph.D. in evangelism. As he talked about this sense of divine prodding, Dr. Fish advised him to pursue what God wanted him to do by going to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and studying under me.
That young man asked me if I would be willing to take him on as a student, and I assured him that I would be happy to work with anyone influenced by Dr. Fish. He then asked if I could assure him that he would be able to pastor a strong church in the New Orleans area that would sustain him and his family if he left this church he had founded and moved to a place he had never been before. I told him that was above my pay grade, for only God could give his heart that kind of assurance. I would help in any way I could, but a leap of faith could not be avoided in a decision like this. If he truly believed God wanted him to take this unusual step, he would have to truly believe that God would make a way. We prayed and moved back into the flow of the conference.
The next fall that young man started the Ph.D. program in evangelism at NOBTS, and yes, God did open the door for him to be a pastor in the area. As we worked together it quickly became apparent that this young man was the real deal. I thanked Dr. Fish many times for sending him my way. Along with his deep passion for evangelism, he had an excellent mind, above average skills, and a great work ethic.
At the end of his first year in the program, I called him in for a conference. I told him I wanted him to transfer from the evangelism program to the preaching program. He could still minor in evangelism, but I wanted him to major in preaching. He was shocked and afraid that he must have disappointed me in some way. I assured him that nothing could be further from the truth, and that my faculty colleagues were going to think I was crazy. This move was about a path into the future.
I was serving as chairman of the Pastoral Ministries Division, and in our first year of working together, I had become convinced that God wanted this young man to plant his life in the academic world as a professor one day. I did not see any openings as a professor of evangelism in sight at NOBTS or any other seminary, but I did think our seminary was going to be in need of a preaching professor within the next year or two. I wanted to be able to recommend him for a faculty position when that time came.
Preaching was his minor in our Ph.D. program, and if he was willing to make the switch now, it might open a door to becoming a professor as he was finishing his studies. I had never considered anything like this recommendation before (or since). My heart was torn, because I loved working with him as a student and knew he shared my passion for evangelism. Yet as surely as I knew my name, I knew God wanted this young man in the classroom preparing the rising generation of pastors. He was also passionate about expository preaching, and I felt Southern Baptists needed voices advocating the systematic exposition of Scripture with an evangelistic bent. Decades later that remains the most unusual conversation I ever had with a student.
As I anticipated, a preaching position opened on our faculty while he was in the final stage of his Ph.D. work. I urged President Leavell to hire him even though he had not quite finished his Ph.D., because he did already have the D.Min. Dr. Leavell was not wild about the idea, but I lobbied intensely, and that young man did join our faculty.
He was an instant success. When I became president, I took a historic step. I named that young man dean of the chapel. I wanted him to model expository preaching and not just teach it. I wanted him to preach in chapel on a weekly basis, doing sermon series, preaching through books of the Bible or other subjects requiring multiple sermons to address. I wanted him to feed our seminary family on the Word of God. Nothing like this had ever been done before at our seminary or any SBC seminary. The response of our seminary family to both the teaching and the preaching of that young man was terrific.
Through the years God eventually led that young man back into the pastorate in another part of the country for a few years. In God’s time he did come back into the classroom at another seminary for what turned out to be the final chapter of his ministry. That young man’s name was Jim Shaddix. His funeral was earlier this month at Southeastern Seminary, coming much sooner than I expected.
Please join me and so many others in praying for his dear wife Debra and their three precious children, whom we watched grow up on the NOBTS campus. Thank the Lord for the tremendous impact of a life wholly devoted to the Lord, determined to be obedient to His purposes at every step of His journey, and unfailing in His love for others.
I am especially thankful for that hallway conversation between sessions of a Texas evangelism conference all those years ago and all the blessings that followed. Thank you, Jim, my dear brother, for the joy of being your professor and later, your colleague. As we remember and honor his life, may we all be reminded to never flinch when God puts something unusual and unexpected before us.
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