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ALUMNI FOCUS Southern graduate takes Gospel to New Orleans By Garrett E. Wishall Some boys grow up dreaming of one day playing professional sports. Others set their sights on police work or being a fireman. Still others stare up at the stars, longing to walk on the moon. By age 11, Travis Fleming had other plans. Converted to Christianity at age 4, Fleming said he began to sense God leading him into full-time ministry at age 11. “Growing up, I particularly had a passion for being in the pulpit and preaching,” said Fleming, a South Carolina native. “I remember standing up a box in my basement as a podium for myself and preaching to my congregation, which at the time was my brothers and sister.” While Fleming became a Christian early in life and quickly sensed God’s call to ministry, his life was not without bumps and bruises. “My senior year of high school and freshman year of college, I tried to do my own thing for a while,” Fleming said. “I wasn’t too crazy about the ministry route, and I started making plans to be a history teacher. In my sophomore year of college, God began to draw me back [to ministry] and I ended up going to North Greenville College.” At North Greenville, Fleming met George Martin, who now serves as the associate dean of the Billy Graham School at Southern Seminary. Challenged by Martin’s God-centered theology, Fleming said he began to develop a greater appreciation for God’s sovereignty over salvation. Fleming graduated from North Greenville in 1996 with a bachelor of arts in religion. Martin had left North Greenville to go to Southern the same semester Fleming graduated. Before Martin left, he told Fleming to give Southern a look if he decided to enroll in seminary. “We are missionaries in this culture.” Fleming attended Southern’s fall 1996 preview conference and was impressed with the seminary’s faculty and campus. Fleming said he knew Southern would challenge him spiritually and academically, and the next fall he began taking classes. In December 2000, Fleming graduated with his master of divinity and in fall 2001, began his Ph.D. studies in evangelism in the Billy Graham School. Throughout his M.Div. studies, Fleming had supported himself by working with a painting company that he and another seminary student started. As he began work on his Ph.D., Fleming began searching for a ministry position. In January 2002, Concord Baptist Church in Dry Ridge, Ky., called him to be their senior pastor and Fleming filled that role for a few years. In the spring of 2006, Fleming was serving as an intern at Crossing Church in Louisville, when James Welch, Crossing’s teaching pastor, approached him with a question. Welch asked Fleming if he was interested in planting a church in New Orleans with him. “I wanted to help New Orleans rebuild, especially with my construction background, but I never thought about going there to do full-time ministry,” Fleming said. “I began to think about it, and I thought, ‘man, where could I find a better place to go do ministry right now?’” Fleming accepted Welch’s offer and on September 10, 2006, entered the city that Hurricane Katrina had ravaged a year before. The church they planted, named Sojourn Church, is located in the Orleans parish in Uptown New Orleans. Fleming said little evangelical work is going on in that section of New Orleans, which is strongly postmodern. “We are missionaries in this culture,” he said. “It is a culture that can be antagonistic toward the Gospel. We set out from day one to live in the culture and engage the culture with the Gospel, believing all along that Christ is the one who can change people.” As he continues to minister in New Orleans, Fleming said he is grateful for the training he received at Southern. “Southern taught me how to preach from the pulpit,” he said. “They taught me how certain evangelistic methodologies might work in some areas, but not in others, such as suburban Atlanta, versus the neighborhoods of New Orleans. They also taught me how to contextualize the Gospel, based on the cultural setting you are in.” page 20 Fall 2007 | Southern Seminary Magazine
ALUMNI FOCUS Ministering the Word through music: Clay Layfield By Garrett E. Wishall Three years into marriage, Clay Layfield found himself in a position that required great faith. Wed to Amy Fields in March 1995, Layfield was blessed with a good job and young child. However, Clay was not content, as he sensed the Lord leading him into full-time ministry. So, he resigned his position – turning down a good to stay in his job – and the Layfields prepared to move to Louisville, Ky., where Clay would attend Southern Seminary. Two weeks later, the couple learned that Amy was again pregnant. “I will never forget loading up the moving truck with a two-year-old child, a wife who was pregnant, and moving to a place where I had no job,” Layfield said. “The Lord had used that third year of marriage to show me that I needed to go to seminary. We knew that God was in our coming to Southern. Though there was a lot of uncertainty, especially financially, we knew that we were in the right place.” Growing up Layfield said his mother made sure, even at an early age, that he attended church every Sunday and Wednesday, and around age 10 he became a Christian at Vacation Bible School. “I continued to be active in the church following my conversion,” said Layfield, who was born in Macon, Ga. “When I was in seventh grade, my dad left the home and my parents divorced. The music minister at my church spent a lot of time investing in me, as well as did other men in our church.” Sensing God leading him into music ministry, Layfield majored in music education with an emphasis in percussion at Brewton-Parker College in Mount Vernon, Ga. Layfield met Amy at Brewton-Parker and they dated throughout college. During that time, Layfield said the Lord led them to a church in Hagan, Ga., where he learned the value of expositional preaching. “We need to be singing good theology.” “My eyes were opened to what it is like to sit under an expositional preaching ministry [at that church],” he said. “I really began to go deeper in my understanding of theology and developed a craving for theology. I began to see the importance of reading, and being a student of, the Word.” Preparing for ministry Layfield began taking classes at Southern in fall 1998. With his wife staying home with their one child, soon to be two, Layfield knew money would be tight. However, throughout seminary the Lord met their financial needs. “We never went hungry, or without clothes and we never missed a payment on anything,” he said. “Every time we would think we didn’t have the money for something, God would provide it. There would be times when we would go to the mailbox and there would be a hundred dollars that we could use for groceries or rent. That happened multiple times and sometimes we didn’t know where the money came from.” Layfield said he chose to attend Southern because of the school’s emphasis on sound theology. He views his calling as being, “a minister who happens to be a musician.” The teaching of Chip Stam, associate professor of church music and worship at Southern, was particularly formative for Layfield. “Chip Stam came to Southern in the middle of my time there,” Layfield said. “His love for leading God’s people in God-centered worship had a profound effect on me. I do a lot of the things that he taught and showed us to do. I would not be who I am today if Chip Stam had not come to Southern Seminary.” Layfield graduated in December 2002. In November 2005, Layfield became the minister of music and senior adults at First Baptist Church in Eastman, Ga., where he currently serves. Layfield said as he continues in music ministry, the one thing he most wants to emphasize is that every member of the congregation should actively worship God in song. “Our aim must be for every member of the congregation, regardless of their vocal ability, to be engaged and profoundly moved as the wisdom and love of God are proclaimed through the cross of Christ,” he said. “We should strive to have our worship services as much like heaven as possible: Redeemed people singing praise to the Redeemer as we give thanks for our redemption.” Southern Seminary Magazine | Fall 2007 page 21
Page 1 and 2: FALL 2007 THE TIE VOLUME 75, NUMBER
Page 3 and 4: 2 CONTENTS 18 10 16 FEATURE 2 Forum
Page 5 and 6: The Southern Seminary Magazine rece
Page 7 and 8: Moore: “Your doctrine of the chur
Page 9 and 10: By Chuck Lawless As a non-believer
Page 11 and 12: Southern Seminary Magazine | Fall 2
Page 13 and 14: When we say mode of baptism, we are
Page 15 and 16: The importance of church discipline
Page 17 and 18: iblical church discipline can be im
Page 19 and 20: STUDENT FOCUS ing them. After less
Page 21: alone that drove him to embrace a t
Page 25 and 26: SOUTHERN NEWS AND NOTES Mohler issu
Page 27 and 28: York squares off against former KY
Page 29 and 30: Noted author, alumnus added to Lead
Page 31 and 32: Billy Graham School of Missions, Ev
Page 33 and 34: Southern donors won’t regret one
Page 35 and 36: DEATHS T. T. Crabtree (‘49, ‘53

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