9.11.2011

SHEPHELAH - University Style

The first month here has been an awesome start to the ministry on campus at University of Idaho and Washington State.  We've made some awesome connections, both on a personal and vocational level.  My number one job has been to "show up and keep my eyes open"; in addition to "seeing" new people, I've also been learning a lot about life on campus.  Who are the students today at the university and what kind of world do they live in?

The things I've seen have been very surprising and encouraging as I've encountered and listened to the students.  I want to share an example of what I mean.

This week, I was spending my third week at my first CARE Group (CARE = Creating a Relational Environment; next week, I will be headed to a new CARE Group for 2-3 weeks, until I meet them all).  Each night, we read the Text and share stories from our lives.  We talk about what we hear God saying to each of us and what we'll need to do about it.  I have been amazed that week after week, the students will turn the conversation, on their own, to the topic of how they can make an impact in their world.   

To be honest, I didn't expect that.  I had an image of apathetic, misguided ("like sheep without a shepherd"), and somewhat lazy college students who really needed to be fired up about life.  What I am consistently seeing week in and week out is a group of students who want to make a difference.  I had heard that the rising culture was certainly "cause-driven" and inspired, but I just wasn't buying it -- until I got here.  I've been impressed by the maturity of faith I see in some of these young men and women.

This last Wednesday, one of the girls was asking for prayer.  She said she wanted an infusion of wisdom, strength, and discernment as she dealt with her friend, whose father had slipped into a coma and wasn't likely to survive; she began to tear up as she said that she also was torn as she interacted with her roommate who was a self-described atheist and had a lot of hurt.  I was moved by her emotion and depth of concern. 

I wasn't the only one.

Another student, Adam, began to say that he had needed to hear her prayer that night.  He said that each and every year he struggles to make any kind of an impact in his world.  He expressed that he either seems to get sucked into a destructive way of living or he retreats and becomes a "Holy Hermit" (I absolutely love that term).  He wanted the group to help encourage him to live out a more potent faith.

As I listened to Adam, I was instantly taken back to the desert in Israel where we had learned all about the "shephelah", the land between the Judah Mountains (where God's people lived) and the region of the coastal plain (where the Philistines lived).  There was this constant tension in the shephelah to try to impact the world and put God on display for others and retreat to much safer ground.  The former would challenge your fortitude and commitment to God's way and the latter would fail to accomplish the mission of God.

Here is the link to a great article on the "shephelah" by historian/scholar Ray VanderLaan:

Adam's plight was not new.  It's been our struggle for millennia and continues to be the dominant cultural conversation for the church today.  I was just encouraged to see the intensity and authenticity these students carried with them to engage that tension in their lives.  It's that kind of intensity that we can do something with and just one more glimpse into "Impact the U.  Impact the World."

9.05.2011

via "Aquachurch" by Leonard Sweet

Be not afraid to trust God completely.  As you go down the long corridor, you may find that He has preceded you and locked many doors that you would have entered in vain.  But be sure that beyond these there is one that He has left unlocked.  Open it and enter, and you will find yourself face to face with a bend in the river of opportunity, broader and deeper than anything you had dared to imagine in your sunniest dreams.  Launch forth on it, for it leads to the open sea.

F.B. Meyer
 


The Scripture is a tree, or rather a whole paradise of trees of life, which bring forth fruits every month, and the fruit thereof is for meat, and the leaves for medicine.  It is not a pot of manna or a cruse of oil, which were for memory only, or for a meal's meat or two, but as it were a shower of heavenly bread sufficient for a whole host, be it never so great, and as it were a whole cellarfull of oil vessels; whereby all our necessities may be provided for, and our debts discharged.  In a word it is a pantry of wholesome food against mouldy traditions; a pharmicist's shop (Saint Basil calleth it) of preservatives against poisoned heresies; a code of profitable laws against rebellious spirits; a treasury of most costly jewels against beggarly rudiments.  Finally, a fountain of most pure water springing up into everlasting life.

Prefix, "Address to the Reader", King James/Authorized Version (1611).