The Practice of Integrity

Mark Wagner is the president of community management at Walgreens, based in Deerfield, Ill. and is a member of the Moody Bible Institute Board of Trustees. We asked Mark if he would reflect on Moody’s 125^th anniversary in today’s blog post and share what he is most excited about for Moody’s future.

By Mark Wagner, Moody Bible Institute Trustee

Celebrating 125 years of service is a remarkable accomplishment, and one that deserves a moment of reflection on how we got this far. Our Biblical values have helped shape our success in the past, and are the main reason I’m excited for many more years of service to come for the Moody Bible Institute.

One of Moody’s core values that resonates with me is “the practice of integrity.” Just scanning a newspaper shows how a lack of integrity can cause much harm and burden upon our communities. A lack of honesty and ethics can cause mass problems, and harm even to those people that are making all of the right choices.

As a leader in the business world, integrity and honesty are some of the things I expect most from my team. Integrity can sometimes be the difference between making an easy decision that is wrong in principle, or making the difficult choice that at its core is right and moral. The people who make the right choices are the ones that ultimately succeed. Even though those choices may cause more work or cost more money, people with integrity make them without compromising their ethics and morals.

The benefit of a Moody education is that students learn the practical use of biblical principles, and how to keep their integrity in the face of adversity. Their faith in God prompts them to then be honest influences in their communities through their ministries, making decisions that align with their core biblical principles.

125 years of students and constituents have learned how to practice integrity within the biblical context through the guidance of Moody. That’s 125 years worth of people who are out in the world helping others understand and live these same biblical standards. Just think about how many people in the next 125 years will benefit from the leaders that arise out of Moody’s halls.

It makes me proud to be affiliated with an organization that has such broad potential to make an impact on our world and spread a foundation that will help our communities flourish. I look forward to the next 125 years and beyond, as more and more Moody students venture out into the world to share their biblical education of the practice of integrity.