Welcome to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

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Welcome - Pavilion

Tour stop audio transcript

Welcome to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Founded in 1859, Southern Seminary is one of the oldest and most established theological institutions in North America and the flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention. The seminary's first campus was in Greenville, South Carolina, then the school's founders moved to downtown Louisville, Kentucky in 1877. Southern Seminary moved to the campus you'll see today in 1926. We start our tour in front of the Duke K. McCall Sesquicentennial Pavilion. This unofficial front door to the seminary was built in 2009 to celebrate the school's 150th anniversary. Each year, dozens of campus events are held in the pavilion.

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Cooke Hall

Tour stop audio transcript

Southern Seminary includes two complementary graduate schools, the School of Theology and the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism, and Ministry. And this building, Cooke Hall, is home to the Billy Graham School. As one of his first acts after being elected president of Southern, Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr. founded the Billy Graham School with the blessing of the famous evangelist, to raise the priority of missions and evangelism at Southern Seminary. Cooke Hall provides guitar and drum labs, piano rooms, studios, and an intimate auditorium, as well as classrooms and offices.

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Alumni Chapel

Tour stop audio transcript

Welcome to the Alumni Memorial Chapel, the location of almost every significant event in the life of Southern Seminary. Opened in 1950, the chapel is a replica of the historic First Baptist Church in Atlanta. The leaders of Southern Seminary recognize that true theological education includes sitting under the preaching of God's Word. The primary purpose of Alumni Memorial Chapel is facilitating Southern's bi-weekly chapel services. The pulpit in Alumni Chapel has been filled by pastors and Christian leaders, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Billy Graham, and that legacy continues with men like John Piper and Matt Chandler.

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Norton Hall

Tour stop audio transcript

This building, Norton Hall, was the first building constructed on the current campus of Southern Seminary when we moved to this location in 1926. Norton Hall forms the heart of the campus. To memorialize the seminary's mission to prepare men and women for gospel ministry, a line from 2 Timothy 2:15 is engraved on the face of the building in the original Greek: "rightly dividing the Word of Truth."

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Norton Hall Lobby

Tour stop audio transcript

Norton Hall is the main academic building on campus. In Norton, you'll find not just state-of-the-art classrooms, but almost everything you need as a student, from financial aid and faculty offices, the registrar, our office of career development and even the iconic Broadus Chapel.

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President's Office

Tour stop audio transcript

Welcome to the President's Office. Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., who serves as Southern Seminary's 9th president, celebrated his 25th year in office in 2018. A renowned author, and Christian leader, Dr. Mohler has been called the "reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the United States.". In addition to his leading the seminary, Dr. Mohler hosts two popular podcasts: one daily podcast called "The Briefing," and another called "Thinking in Public," in which he hosts regular conversations with leading thinkers. Both series are recorded right here in the president's studio.

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Broadus Chapel

Tour stop audio transcript

This is the iconic Broadus Chapel. Before being converted in 1998 into the beautiful chapel you see here today, this space was once used as a reading and reference room for Southern Seminary's original library. Modeled after the First Baptist Church in America in Providence Rhode Island, Broadus Chapel's elegant design makes it a picturesque location for special chapel services, weddings, lectures, or even private reflection.

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Norton Hall Classroom

Tour stop audio transcript

Classrooms like this one are the most important spaces on the campus of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The core commitment of the seminary is to provide rigorous theological education and practical ministry training for pastors, missionaries and ministry leaders. In these classrooms, Southern Seminary's world-class faculty nurture students' knowledge of the Bible, their love for Christ, and their commitment to the church. At Southern Seminary, you will study with the authors you would read in seminaries around the world. Many of our professors here are also practitioners committed to serving in their own local church contexts and putting into practice what they teach in the classroom.

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Seminary Lawn

Tour stop audio transcript

Welcome to the Seminary Lawn—the center of campus. As you look around, you can appreciate the beautiful design of Southern Seminary's 84-acre campus. Back in the early 1920s, the leaders of Southern Seminary decided to move the campus to this location. They enlisted the day's best architects to design the campus, including the firm of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead — the same one who designed Central Park in New York City. The Seminary Lawn gives you a 360-view of this historic campus, with Towery Plaza and Norton Hall to the south, the library to the west, the Honeycutt Campus Center to the east, and the Mullins Complex to the north.

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Library

Tour stop audio transcript

Here is the James P. Boyce Centennial Library, built in 1959 to commemorate Southern Seminary's 100th anniversary. With four floors and more than one million items, the Boyce library is one of the largest theological libraries in the world. But the library is more than a collection of resources: Team members are always on hand to give you personalized help with research and writing and the library regularly hosts events aimed to help students excel in their classes.

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Honeycutt Hall

Tour stop audio transcript

The Honeycutt Campus Center is the hub of student life on Southern Seminary's campus. Honeycutt is where you'll find the campus store and post office, called Fifth and Broadway — a name that nods to Southern Seminary's original Louisville location. You will also find the Lifeway Campus bookstore, Founders Café, the campus coffeehouse, study lounges, and the cafeteria, all within Honeycutt.

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Health And Recreation Center

Tour stop audio transcript

One of the best campus amenities for our students and their families is the state-of-the-art Health and Recreation Center located in the Honeycutt Campus Center. The HRC — as it's known — includes a kid's playroom, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a huge weight room, running track, racquetball courts, and a CrossFit box. These facilities are completely free for students and their families to use. It's a great place for families, as the HRC offers all kinds of fitness classes for men, women, and children.

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Bevin Center

Tour stop audio transcript

Training ministers to fulfill the Great Commission is the mission of Southern Seminary. That's why the Bevin Center for Missions Mobilization exists. The center opened in 2012 in honor of Brittiney Bevin, a 17-year old who tragically died in a car wreck before she was able to go to the mission field herself. Her parents Matthew and Glenna Bevin funded the center to help people like Brittiney advance the gospel among the nations and around the United States.

City of Louisville

Tour stop audio transcript

One of the best parts of studying at Southern Seminary is its location in Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville is known as one of the top foodie cities in America, and regularly named one of the best cities in which to raise a family. The Ville, which is considered one of America's great sports towns, is home to more than 120 parks to explore, a minor league baseball team, the Kentucky Derby, and some of the biggest college sporting events in the nation. It's fitting that we end the tour at this stop, as Louisville serves as a great place to live, study, and prepare for a lifetime of faithful ministry at Southern Seminary.

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