LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) — President R. Albert Mohler Jr. announced the appointment of Timothy Paul Jones as vice president for doctoral studies and Brian Renshaw as associate vice president for the Global Campus at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Jones is currently the associate vice president for the Global Campus, and Renshaw is the executive assistant to the provost. They will start in their new roles on March 1.
Jones will oversee the seminary’s doctoral studies, ensuring that men and women are well trained for Gospel service in the church, missions, and Christian higher education. Renshaw will lead the online and hybrid program at the seminary, so that those who are not able to relocate receive robust theological training.
“I am incredibly thankful that Timothy Paul Jones is going to take responsibility for Southern Seminary’s doctoral program,” Mohler said. “Our program is one of the oldest and most respected doctoral programs in the entire nation, and Timothy Paul Jones is just the leader for this time. He is a true scholar, an apologist for the Christian faith, and an incredibly gifted administrator. He understands the central purpose of Southern Seminary’s doctoral studies program, and I have no doubt that the entire program will be faithfully led in his capable hands.”
“Brian Renshaw is another very gifted administrator who has an intuitive understanding for the power and potential of online learning,” Mohler said. “I am very pleased that he will be leading our program going into the future, and we will need his gifts as Southern Seminary continues to serve as the leader in online theological education of the highest quality.”
Jones currently serves as the C. Edwin Gheens Professor of Christian Family Ministry, a role he has filled since 2007. He will continue to serve as chair of the Department of Apologetics, Ethics and Philosophy. Prior to coming to Southern, Jones pastored local churches in Missouri and Oklahoma.
“Timothy Paul Jones is one of Southern Seminary’s most proven and trusted academic leaders,” said Matthew J. Hall, provost of Southern Seminary. “He is a skilled administrator and innovator. As a scholar and theologian, he epitomizes what has made our doctoral programs so highly esteemed within theological education. I am confident he is the right man to lead these programs forward into the future and to expand their impact for the Kingdom of Christ.”
Jones earned a Master of Divinity at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a doctorate in apologetics at Southern Seminary. His book, “How We Got the Bible” won the 2016 Evangelical Christian Publishing Association Award.
“I’m delighted to build on a foundation of excellence in doctoral studies that extends back to 1892, when Southern Seminary became the first seminary in the United States to launch a research doctorate,” Jones said.
Renshaw brings nearly a decade of experience in online education at the seminary to his new role as associate VP for the Global Campus. Prior to his role in the provost’s office, he served as director for instructional design.
“Southern Seminary’s Global Campus is a tremendous success story,” Hall said. “Our faculty now instruct students all over the world, investing in equipping a generation of pastors and leaders everywhere. Brian Renshaw is uniquely suited to assume this critical leadership post at this moment in our institutional life. His background and expertise in online theological education, along with his tremendous administrative abilities, are precisely what we need to maximize the stewardship of the opportunity before us. I am delighted by his appointment.”
Renshaw completed his Master of Divinity at Southern Seminary, and is finishing a doctorate in New Testament under Jonathan T. Pennington. He looks forward to continuing the legacy that Jones established for the Global Campus.
“Southern Seminary has been my home for the past eight years,” Renshaw said. “Over that time I have grown to love and deeply resonate with the mission to train, educate and prepare ministers of the Gospel and to serve Southern Baptists. The urgent need to train properly and equip those who are unable to relocate to Louisville, Ky., is ever increasing. I am grateful to join and lead an already established team in the Global Campus to continue providing the highest quality training in Scripture, theology, missions and ministry all over the world.”
Jones and his wife are members of Sojourn Church Midtown, where Jones also serves as a teaching pastor. They have four children.
Renshaw and his wife have a son and are members of Sojourn Church East.
