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OBU—Oklahoma Baptist University

Rummage Delivers First Chapel Message of Semester on Bison Hill

January 27, 2021

Dr. Stephen Rummage, senior pastor of Quail Springs Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, delivered the chapel message Wednesday, Jan. 27, in Raley Chapel’s Potter Auditorium. The chapel service was the first of the spring semester and the first in-person chapel since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. A maximum capacity of 300 students were allowed into the service, with physical distancing and mask wearing enforced for the chapel attendees.

Rummage earned a Master of Divinity with a specialization in biblical languages from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and completed a Ph.D. in preaching at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Before coming to Quail Springs Baptist Church in 2019, he pastored churches in Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and Louisiana. He has served on the faculties of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and currently serves on the faculty of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of several books and the founder of Moving Forward, a radio teaching ministry which airs daily nationwide. He and his wife Michele have one son, Joshua, who resides in Florida with his wife Morgan.

Rummage taught from James 1:1-12. He spoke about how God works in our lives through the trials we face. He also talked about how trials are in fact trails, or pathways, that lead us to different points in our lives as well.

“Every trial we face in our life is a trail that’s either going to take us closer to where God wants us to be or further from where we need to be from God,” he said.

He shared the example of seeing two people who go through similar trials in their lives. He noted that one may be drawn closer to God through the experience, while the other may go through almost the same things but instead become bitter, angry or distant from God.

“Those same trials that twist us, and cut us, stretch us, turn up the heat in our lives – God is using those trials to turn you into someone He can use for a very special purpose as you trust Him in that trial.”