As the fall semester at RTS Orlando approaches, there are a number of important events that new and returning students will not want to miss.
New Student Orientation | Tuesday, August 27, 10:30 am – 4 pm
Dean of Students Mike Osborne has planned a great day of orientation for new students on August 27. Beginning at 10:30 am, you’ll be introduced to the people, programs, and policies of RTS Orlando and placed on a path to success in seminary. For more information about New Student Orientation, email Mike Osborne.
Fall Kick-Off Dinner | Tuesday, August 27, 5:30 pm
One of our favorite traditions at RTS Orlando comes later the same day at 5:30 pm. The Fall Kick-Off Dinner offers new students the opportunity to meet faculty, staff, and students, while offering returning students the opportunity to reconnect with each other as we begin a new semester. RSVP for the Kick-Off Dinner here .
Convocation | Wednesday, August 28, 11 am
The academic year officially begins with our Convocation service on August 28 at 11:00 am in RTS Orlando’s Pamplin Chapel. We will look at Romans 1:1-7, considering the topic of “The Crowning Good of Theological Education.” After the service, all are invited to a free Convocation Lunch. RSVP for the Convocation Lunch here.
Every program of study, whether it’s medicine, law, auto mechanics, or theology, is designed to help students acquire some good, whether that good is conceived as a body of knowledge, a particular way of life, a skill, or some combination of all three. As we anticipate another year of theological study and preparation for ministry, John Calvin’s description of “the chief good” of human beings, which is also the chief good of theological education, is instructive and encouraging:
For whatever the philosophers may have ever said of the chief good, it was nothing but cold and vain, for they confined man to himself, while it is necessary for us to go outside of ourselves to find happiness. The chief good of man is nothing else but union with God.”
Let’s “go outside of ourselves” this academic year to the wonderful, expansive world that unfolds before our eyes in Holy Scripture, that commends to us and draws us into our supreme happiness: union and communion with the Father through Jesus Christ the Son in the Holy Spirit. As there is no higher good for us than union and communion with the triune God, there is no program of study more worthy of our attention, devotion, and sacrifice than the study of theology.
