Accepted For Admission, Invited to Enroll!

Russell, thank you very much for that point of clarification. That knowledge is very helpful to me as I go about the process of making a dicerning, informed choice. As I said, the "insider" perspective is always better.

 

Pastor Seibel,

I notice your are from Grand Forks. I spent some time in Minot (nice community) and once visited Fargo (liked what I saw). Also used to visit Crosby as a kid.

Now, you are Baptist and you live in ND. A rare person indeed. I think nearly every church I saw up there was Lutheran. In fact there were Lutheran Churches in the middle of the bald prairie.

North (who wishes you the best in your doctoral quest)

 

As a matter fo fact I did meet a Roman Catholic from St. Cloud. Up until that point I thought the Motto for the states of ND, MN, & WI was "Here I stand.....", and the state song was "A Mighty Fortress".

In all seriousness, I love ND. Nice state, and good honest people.

North

 

North,

Martin would be very proud of you for quoting him, however, the pope may get jealous.

Russell

 

Around 1990, a Chaplain I worked with enrolled his wife in undergraduate courses with Liberty University. At that time I think Liberty U may have been growing beyond their ability to handle student issues. At any rate both the Chaplain and his wife gave up on Liberty and to put it mildly were very irritated. They were Baptists but not feeling much of a sense of brotherhood with Liberty.

North

 

Hey, North--The experience of your chaplain friend and his wife likely would not have been unusual during the early 90's. As for me, I attended Liberty from '94-'96. I dealt with a perpetual series of headaches in dealing with the business office and registrars office, etc. This was due not only to the rapid growth that Liberty experienced, but also due to the fact that, in the wake of the Swaggart and Baker controversies, the whole Falwell conglomerate suffered a significant reduction in charitable giving. As a result, the University was in financial dire straights and was forced to cut back their faculty and staff significantly. Of course, as a result, the quality of student care suffered quite a bit. In recent years, however, their financial situation has been revolutionized dramatically. Several gigantic charitable donations have helped to dig Liberty out of the deep financial pit they were in. They now seem to be on more stable ground financially, and have been rebuilding a strong faculty. In addition, for about 4 years, they've had a new president who has really helped to whip things into shape around there. So, things have definately been on the up and up. At the time I graduated (1997), I would not have recommended Liberty to much of anyone, largely because of the frustrations I faced as a student there. However, now I think that Liberty has a solid thing going on.

 

Neat to hear of your positive impressions of ND. This is a great place for many reasons. However, without question our greatest resource and attraction is our people.

You are very right in saying that, as a Baptist, I am a bit out of place up here. In ND and MN, most everyone affiliated with a church is Catholic or Lutheran, as you've observed. This makes sense, since this area is populated mainly by Swedes, Norwegians, and Germans. In Grand Forks, a community of 50,00 + an Air Force base & a university of 12,000 students, we have umpteen Lutheran churches and only 5 Baptist churches. However, we also have Assemblies of God, Church of God, Church of God in Christ, Four Square, Evangelical Free, Evangelical Covenant, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, and a handful of independent churches. So, there's actually quite a diversity here. My church is affiliated with the North American Baptist Conference, which began as the German Baptist branch of the Northern Baptists (now, the American Baptists).

 

That should be 50,000.

 

Indeed, Liberty U is an excellent option for some. They have an RA M.Div which can be done through both DL & short on campus visits. Very affordable for military. They have a well laid out M.A. in Counseling by DL with a couple of short campus visits, which has an internship designed into the program so as to meet board certification requirements for many if not most state's LPC.

You have to say this for Jerry, he is a survivor. Even hacks off fellow conservatives (eg meeting with gay church leaders).

North