When I look back, from my retirement office recliner, at the 18 years I invested as a professor at Logsdon Seminary, I feel deep gratitude for young friends and mentees who are replicating the experiences and insights of our West Texas school.
Many are pastors with various specializations helping individuals and congregations deepen their commitment to God, their neighbors and the earth. Some have gone from seminary to additional graduate programs and are now influencing their own students in classrooms at elementary or secondary schools, colleges and universities. Others are utilizing the skills of listening, guiding and helping as chaplains in hospitals, hospice care facilities, educational institutions, prisons and the military. Another group is committed to counseling ministries in churches, schools or therapy centers, working with families or individual clients. A few are serving in strategic posts in local, regional or national denominational or nonprofit organizations. A number have embraced mission assignments in needy places around the world as diverse as Guatemala, Albania, Macedonia, Switzerland, Cambodia, Nepal, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Rwanda, South Africa, the Mississippi Delta, the Borderlands, the Four Corners, the Northwest, Philadelphia, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Palm Beach and Washington, D.C.
Robert Sellers
The stories of such Logsdon alumni certainly could be profitably shared, for these and so many others are now engaged in meaningful, important work, both sacred and secular. Yet the passion and profession of one particular graduate recently stirred my imagination and confirmed, once again, the power of theological engagement in a safe, encouraging setting.
That alumnus, Jason Lain, is both absolutely unique and totally representative of the hundreds of students who discovered that an education at Logsdon Seminary could change their lives.
Jason’s parents are highly successful in their chosen professions. His mom is a physician and humanitarian. His stepfather is the CFO of the largest multi-family real estate development company in the country. They modeled for their son multiple ways to help others, both locally and internationally, and gave him a love for the real estate industry.
“I was never given a handout,” Jason said. “I was simply given the resources … and (my parents) taught me how to help enrich the lives of those in need. I was taught etiquette, leadership and organization formation … that I use today.”
“The passion and profession of one particular graduate recently stirred my imagination and confirmed, once again, the power of theological engagement in a safe, encouraging setting.”
He continues: “I started doing real estate at age 18. I became a real estate broker in roughly 2003 when I started my first real estate company. That company developed luxury homes and brokered luxury homes … (and) we did (mid-range) homes as well, just not to the same level. We were voted Best Real Estate Firm in the Big Country around 2005 or 2006. During all this time I was an undergrad with a double major in psychology and ministry.”
When he finished his bachelor’s at Hardin-Simmons and entered Logsdon Seminary, Jason aspired to become the pastor of a megachurch. But his experiences in graduate seminars as well as his friendships with peers and professors began to alter his plans.
Jason Lain
“I never imagined that my education would lead to my becoming more focused on the ground-level ministry of providing sustainable, affordable housing (than on) speaking from a stage,” he explained.
Something was happening to Jason as he studied, reflected, wrote papers, conversed with fellow students, articulated his previous perspectives and wrestled with new ideas. A couple of professors, with whose ideas he especially connected, were challenging his worldview and expanding his horizons. At the same time, he was still a busy real estate broker, running his own company. He also was serving Petosi Baptist Church as their youth minister and doing a lot of speaking and preaching, which he believed would help him one day to be the pastor of the megachurch he kept imagining. But a shift in life direction, ambition and calling was subtly yet dramatically occurring.
Around the seminary, Jason reveled in his reputation for being a class gadfly. He admits that he sometimes offered outrageous opinions “that would intentionally get people angry,” just to keep the ensuing discussion interesting. He often defended a diametrically opposed position from the rest of his peers just “for entertainment.”
But in the process, Jason began to listen to his classmates. “It was in these moments I realized that I grew up in a life of privilege and didn’t understand where (my friends) were coming from. I didn’t know their experience.” This was an epiphany moment, a dream-altering and worldview-modifying experience that he couldn’t really explain at the time. But looking back, he knows what was taking place in his heart and head.
“The Logsdon family dramatically changed my position on how ministry can be done to serve those that are the least of us.”
He summarizes: “The Logsdon family dramatically changed my position on how ministry can be done to serve those that are the least of us. (I realized that my) service could be utilized through the connections I had within the community of real estate development to act as a greater platform than a stage could ever be. This (new passion was) about enacting the power of the privileged to empower the less fortunate.”
Since graduating from Logsdon in 2010, Jason has spent more than a decade chasing his dream of providing sustainable, affordable housing options, with full social services, for homeless youth or low-income families. In October 2014, Jason joined OM Housing, a Dallas-based real estate development firm, as full-time director of acquisitions. Owner and President Deepak Sulakhe’s vision of developing high-quality affordable housing resonated with Jason’s core spiritual values, making this career maneuver a good fit for multiple reasons. Jason’s Western spirituality aligned with Deepak’s strong Eastern spirituality, both of which are reflected in OMH’s philosophy, thus streamlining their professional and spiritual paths.
Over the years, as Deepak and Jason have shared in one another’s holy days, their friendship has deepened. OMH is an award-winning contributor to the affordable housing industry in the DFW Metroplex, developing more than 7,500 housing units, the vast majority rented to working class families.
From his perspective as a Christian, Jason explains, “This is more than just brokering deals and breaking ground on new dirt. It is, in my view, a pragmatic and tactical way to be (Jesus’) hands and feet. As (Francis of Assisi is credited with saying), ‘Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.’”
Britain Way Apartments
In the spirit of this ancient wisdom, OMH began to develop affordable housing complexes that were not only financially accessible to low-income individuals and families, but also were aesthetically beautiful, environmentally green, and desirably located. One premier, multimillion dollar project, for example, is Britain Way Apartments, located in Irving, Texas. OMH completely redesigned a former military barracks to create Tudor-style apartments with LEED Gold Certification that not only have become a prototype for affordable housing but also have given the area previously known for drug trafficking and prostitution a totally different character.
With the OMH vision serving as a compass, and perspectives provided by seasoned industry experts, the team never misses an opportunity to develop new land for multifamily housing. The newest project is Lakeview Point in Garland, Texas, an excellent example of how the OMH team blends architectural design excellence and social ministry purpose.
According to Jason and his staff: “Not only will Lakeview Pointe have all the top-notch features as the other properties, it faces Lake Ray Hubbard, a premier lake in the D/FW Metroplex. It is important, in land selection, to provide housing in strategic locations that most benefit the least of us in such a way (as) to deliver every opportunity for the betterment of all lives. (Accordingly), this site will be the first of its kind in more ways than one. It is the first waterfront development that offers units below market rate, and it also faces the $1 billion-plus Sapphire Bay development by Hyatt, Disney and Crystal Lagoons. Adjacency to this resort across the lake makes it a once in a lifetime location for affordable housing.”
“Adjacency to this resort across the lake makes it a once in a lifetime location for affordable housing.”
Two additional unique features will set Lakeview Pointe apart from other complexes.
All tenants will have the same opportunity to select the best lake views, regardless of the rental price they are able to pay. A sliding scale will allow each potential renter to enjoy the finest accommodations with total financial anonymity.
Also, OM Housing’s collaboration with Tillie Burgin, whom then-Gov. George W. Bush called “the Mother Teresa of Texas,” will enable Mission Arlington/Metroplex to provide social and spiritual programs that OM Housing cannot initiate and oversee as apartment owners. Thus, a home at Lakeview Pointe will include meals for children during the summer months, after-school activities, free tutoring, adult education classes, counseling services and other life-enhancing opportunities.
Jason has chosen to use his education, experience, industry connections and entrepreneurial skill to facilitate faith in action. To my mind, he is a Christian hero, although he would not identify himself in that way.
His desire to be at center stage in a megachurch, with multiple “campuses,” thousands of members and a cult following has faded. In its place, there is now a behind-the-scenes dedication that drives him humbly and quietly to use every bit of energy and creativity to help the less fortunate among us.
“The trajectory of his transformed dream and the way it is being realized is a testament to the wonderful place that was Logsdon.”
Jason’s story of how God used a seminary education to change his life is but one of the multiple accounts that might be used to validate the value of a good theological education. More precisely, the trajectory of his transformed dream and the way it is being realized is a testament to the wonderful place that was Logsdon — a laboratory of learning, a community of caring and a staging ground for global service that was closed and locked by a few men who felt it was too liberal to continue to exist.
To paraphrase Alan Jay Lerner’s words from 1960 that still stir my emotions: “Don’t let it be forgot / that once there was a spot / for one brief shining moment that was known / as Camelot.”
To be sure, there are other great divinity schools and seminaries, yet for hundreds of former professors, staff members and student alumni, there was a legendary theological Camelot that never will be forgotten. Thanks be to God for alumni like Jason, who heard God’s voice in those now-darkened halls and silent classrooms, who will always be a living tribute to what once was.
Rob Sellers is professor of theology and missions emeritus at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary in Abilene, Texas. He is a past chair of the board of the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago. He and his wife, Janie, served a quarter century as missionary teachers in Indonesia. They have two children and five grandchildren and now live in Waco, Texas.
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