Andersonville Theological Seminary holds worldwide graduation in Albany
ALBANY — While the Camilla-based Andersonville Theological Seminary may graduate some 750 students on an annual basis, the actual graduation ceremony seminary officials host each year in Albany is a special event.
Hundreds of friends and family members come to Albany from all corners of the globe to watch their graduate accept one of many ministry degrees offered by the seminary.
One hundred twenty-five such graduates took part in the 2024 ceremony Friday at the Albany Civic Center, seminary students from 24 states and five countries outside the U.S., including Bermuda, Trinidad and Tobago, India, Jamaica and Pakistan.
"Since we established the seminary in 1981, I'd estimate we've had 25,000 graduates from around the world," ATS Doctor of Educational Ministry and Curriculum Director James Hayes, the son of seminary founder Jimmy Hayes, said before Friday's ceremony. "Graduation is always a special day for us, but we have students enroll and graduate every day."
It was Hayes' father, Jimmy, who felt the calling to start Andersonville Theological Seminary in 1981.
"I had a family and we were broke," Jimmy Hayes said Friday while discussing the founding of ATS. "I was dealing with what the Lord wanted me to do, and one day He said to me, 'I want you to start a school.' I had to borrow a typewriter just to type up an ad letting people know about the school, and when I sat down to type it, I realized I didn't have any typing paper. I had to borrow that, too."
Hayes told the graduates and a crowd of some 1,500 that came for Friday's celebration about talking an ad agency into allowing him to place his ad, which came at a price of $2,300, in a publication on credit.
"We ran the ad for a month and made $300, which to someone who was broke, was a lot of money," Hayes said. "So I called the ad agency and talked them into letting me run the ad one more time on credit. ... And, now, here we all are today."
Prior to James Hayes' charge to the graduates at Friday's ceremony, the Gadsden, Ala.-based Gold City Quartet provided a one-hour performance featuring the group's dazzling, four-part harmonies. The quartet also provided musical interludes during the graduation ceremony.
Graduates, including those from the seminary's School of Practical Ministry and School of Theology, received undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees. Doctoral degrees were awarded in Pastoral Theology, Pastoral Leadership, Biblical Counseling, Christian Counseling and Christian Education.
"I think this is our best year ever," Jimmy Hayes said. "The Lord has really blessed us; He's been so good to us. I am pleased that we've been able to add the School of Practical Ministry (which had 101 graduates Friday).
"I was reading my Bible every day, studying specific lessons the last two or three years, when they Lord woke me up. He said, 'What you've been learning, you need to let other folks study.' We've already had more than 1,000 sign up."
In introducing James Hayes at Friday's graduation ceremony, Jimmy Hayes told the story of his efforts to win over a deacon who had been considering a call to the ministry. After he preached a sermon "as hard as I could to reach him," the elder Hayes called for the invocation. The deacon didn't come forward.
"Instead, this young man walked down the aisle," Hayes said. "When I took his hand, he said, 'Daddy, I've been called to preach.' I went there looking for a deacon and got a preacher."
Jimmy Hayes looked out over the growing crowd that filtered into the Civic Center Friday as the Gold City Quartet sang. He became momentarily wistful.
"You know, I started this in my kitchen with one student who paid $25," he said. "Now ... $38 million later ... God has really blessed us."
