In a 29–2 vote, Alabama native Jason K. Allen has been elected by Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (in Kansas City, Mo.) trustees as the school’s fifth president. The vote took place Oct. 15 during the trustees’ biannual meeting.
Allen, 35, comes to Midwestern from Louisville, Ky., where he served as vice president for institutional advancement at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and as executive director of the Southern Seminary Foundation. He had concurrently served as senior pastor of Carlisle Avenue Baptist Church, Louisville.
Midwestern’s new president, who assumed the seminary’s helm effective immediately, described his thoughts upon being elected.
“I think the key word that defines my state of heart is first that I’m honored,” Allen said. “I’m honored by the trust this board has overwhelmingly placed in me.”
Allen said he and his wife, Karen, “both have sensed unmistakably the Lord’s leadership these past several months that has come to fruition and completion in many ways today. I intend to lead in building a seminary that serves all Southern Baptists, that is committed to the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention and, by God’s grace, will [be] a seminary that the vast majority of Southern Baptists are both proud of and pleased with.”
Allen added that throughout the process God has placed a great love in his and his wife’s hearts for everything about Midwestern. “Over the last several months the Lord has given us a love for people we are yet to know and a seminary we are yet to reside at,” he said. “We are zealous to get there and invest our lives [in] the Midwestern Seminary community and to see God do a great work within that community.”
Emphasizing that during his administration Midwestern will be “absolutely committed to the Great Commission,” Allen outlined his approach to leading the seminary into the future.
“We are a denomination of the Great Commission,” Allen said. “This will be a seminary of the Great Commission, and I will be a leader that leads the seminary to fulfill the Great Commission.”
Allen added that he foresees two specific ways of achieving this climate.
“We want to build a robust campus community culture,” Allen said. “It will be marked by godliness, fellowship, a place [where] every square inch of the campus is family friendly and a place where there is a sense of Great Commission commonality and a sense of being here to train, to learn, to serve the local church.”
Secondly, Allen said he intends for Midwestern to be known as “the school that is steadfastly committed to serving the local church.”
In other ministerial roles, Allen has been senior pastor of Muldraugh Baptist Church, Muldraugh, Ky., and has worked in various positions at churches in Alabama and Kentucky since 1998. From 1998 to 2001 Allen served as assistant to then-pastor Clint Pressley at Dauphin Way Baptist Church, Mobile.
Allen holds a doctorate and a master of divinity degree from Southern and an undergraduate degree from Spring Hill College in Mobile. Allen and his wife have five children: Anne-Marie, 9; Caroline, 8; William, 7; Alden, 5; and Elizabeth, 4.
Allen was officially announced as a nominee Sept. 5 by Midwestern’s presidential search team.
Bill Bowyer, leader of the presidential search team and pastor of Crossroads Baptist Church, Raleigh, N.C., added that things setting Allen apart from the other candidates included his previous seminary experience and answers during hours of discussion about numerous matters pertaining to the seminary. Ultimately, though, it was the leading of the Holy Spirit.
“Prayer, fasting and following the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit led us to him to the point that seven of us unanimously agreed, ‘This is the man God set aside for us at Midwestern Seminary,’” Bowyer said.
Midwestern has been in search of a successor to R. Philip Roberts since his resignation in February. Robin D. Hadaway, the seminary’s professor of missions, had served as interim president since Feb. 10.
(BP, TAB contributed)
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