PULL UP A CHAIR: Stories on Message

For a summary of what I’m hoping to accomplish in this blog series (in the fourth week of every month of 2018), I recommend reviewing my explanation here.

Describing my relationship with Brent Billings proves to be quite a challenge. I knew Brent originally as a colleague to work alongside of at Real Life on the Palouse years ago. Brent then became a student of BEMA and has gone through the study more than anyone I know. Brent has been a facilitator for me on my trips to Israel and Turkey; he has been an unbelievable asset in the production of the BEMA podcast and my recent season of ministry. More than any of that, however, Brent and his family have become great friends of ours. I could think of nobody that has more interaction with the idea of "Message" than Brent Billings.

To say that Marty and the work of Impact Campus Ministries has changed my life would probably be putting it lightly. The narrative view of the Bible as a whole body of work is what I have been looking for my whole life, but I had no idea I was looking for it.

Reflecting on the idea, I see how I was drawn to it. I knew the stories of the Bible pretty well, and the parts that weren’t stories (the prophets, perhaps, or Leviticus) were basically ignored. Of course I knew the key passages, such as Isaiah 53, but I didn’t have an understanding of what Isaiah was doing with his prophecy. (And on top of that, I had a fundamental misunderstanding of how prophecy worked.)

I knew Abraham was a patriarch, but I didn’t know why God chose to partner with him. I didn’t even view their relationship as a partnership, and I certainly never considered the idea that God would want to partner with me in the same way. I had heard of the concept of “children of Abraham” that Paul speaks of in Acts and Galatians, but the implications of that idea were far outside my realm of understanding.

If I’m being honest, I didn’t even consider the “Old Testament” something important. It was more like a collection of good stories and some historical documentation thrown in for good measure. I spent the vast majority of my time in the New Testament, happily taking what it said at face value. I simply didn’t know how Tanakh (the Jewish name for the Old Testament) fit into the story, or my story. Am I even a part of this story?

Today, I don’t spend time fretting about the inconsistencies between the creation stories of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2–3. I see them in the proper context of the entire narrative and reap dividends of wisdom from both accounts. Today, I don’t shudder when I think about the book of Leviticus. I see what the book is doing and I understand how it develops the relationship between God and His people (including me). Today, my eyes don’t glaze over when I open the Text to a prophet. I know where this prophet sits in history, I know who his audience is, and I know the image he uses to speak to them.

Even on the very day I write this, as I am going through the book of Matthew, I see the references Jesus makes to the Words spoken before. Jesus didn’t come to invalidate the Old Testament, but to make it come alive. We see Jesus live out the Text if we can only open our ears to hear it.

The pursuit of Message at ICM has opened my ears to hear things I never knew I was missing. The Bible truly is a single story about God’s work in the world—a story that continues to this day. I have so much more to explore, and there is much I do not yet understand, but I am no longer afraid of the unknown. My faith is not dependent on a perfect grasp of the meaning of every passage. Even though the journey ahead is long, I’m thrilled to be heading in the right direction.

MAKING AN IMPACT: Message

For a summary of what I’m hoping to accomplish in this blog series (in the third week of every month of 2018), I recommend reviewing my explanation here.

In the previous entries of this series, we’ve been able to cover the most important pieces of who we are. We have talked about our purpose at Impact Campus Ministries of making disciples, and we have journeyed through ICM’s mission of pursuing, modeling, and teaching intimacy with Christ with our students and others.

In 2015 and 2016, Bill Westfall (ICM’s previous president) returned from sabbatical and emerged from a season of pursuing a doctoral degree in global missional leadership. In his dissertation, Bill wrote about the importance of three key ideas: message, mode, and milieu (Mx3). Bill came back from a time of reflection on his leadership of ICM and encouraged us to think about and grow in these three areas.

To be sure, we are still growing. Many of these ideas are just starting to sink in and we feel as though we are charting new ground in these areas at ICM. We do believe in their efficacy and we continue to strive towards growth even as we learn. This is important to know as I begin to write on these concepts, because any perceived “wisdom” is yet to come from years of experience and application. This is all the passing on of concepts that we are beginning to experiment with.

These ideas are built around how to make disciples of these new generations effectively. Specifically, we are talking about bringing effective discipleship practices into the world of Millennials and Generation Z. These ideas will probably not prove to be timeless, but timely, so there is a sense of urgency to the learning curve that we seek to be on. I want to spend the next few posts talking about these ideas espoused in Mx3.

So today we talk about MESSAGE, and we have defined it as “the whole story of God and His invitation to join.”

The effort rests in the idea that our young generations experience life through the lens of narrative. They are used to the ideas of story — being surrounded by shows, movies, story-based video games, sound bites, YouTube, etc.

We believe God has been telling a story, as well. And yes, while we are talking about the Bible, what we have noticed is that our theological world (predominantly in the West) lacks a coherent understanding of how biblical history works as a narrative. Very few biblically trained ministry professionals can articulate the narrative arc of biblical history in less than five minutes. We just don’t have that kind of grasp of the Text. It wasn’t taught to us as a narrative.

What we are trained in is understanding systematic theology. We were educated insistently on a “biblical worldview” in a package that is becoming increasingly useless among a generation influenced by technology and online streaming narratives.

We need to learn how to convey what God’s been doing in the world in a compelling way. We need to be able to talk about how we got where we are now in increasingly honest avenues and to think critically about engaging the mission of God as a partner. In short, we need to be able to show students what God has been up to since the beginning of our world and what it has to do with them; we need to be able to show them that God is inviting all of us (including them) to join in His redemptive work all throughout creation.

Think about it. Could you give a synopsis of how the Bible works, from Genesis to Revelation, in less than two minutes? If you had a whiteboard, could you map out biblical history as a narrative arc? Could you identify the core elements of narrative in that arc? What is the conflict and plot? Who are the major characters? What is the moment of narrative climax? Is there a resolution? Where do you and I fit?

Our young adults are begging for somebody to make the biblical story compelling. Their postmodern world does not put such a high premium on resolving paradox or answering questions; in fact, these approaches seem shallow and irreverent to them. To “fix” this like it’s a problem is a gigantic adventure in missing the point — and the opportunity.

Luckily, this last decade has brought us some attempts at providing resources to these ends. There have been some books, such as The Drama of Scripture by Craig Bartholomew, and a few others. One of the most popular podcasts and video hosting sources is the work done by The Bible Project. Of course, this is also one of my own personal passions, so I have spent the last decade collecting and creating a body of work that I have been making available in different forms. I spent over four years writing a blog series that walked through the narrative of Scripture in detail; the series starts here and moves through the archives (navigable on the right sidebar) through the first quarter of 2017.

I also created BEMA Discipleship, which evolved into a “flipped classroom” that produces (in partnership with Brent Billings) the BEMA Podcast, which does the same thing as my blog and is intended to be used as a discussion centerpiece for students all around the country. I also have hopes to write a book in the next couple of years to put this discussion into a more concise and palatable format.

All that to say, this world of theology is trying to keep up with the very things Bill Westfall pointed out in his work. Would you join us in trying to become a better storyteller?

A DAY IN THE LIFE: Family

For a summary of what I’m hoping to accomplish in this blog series (in the second week of every month of 2018), I recommend reviewing my explanation here.

I started my last post in this mini-series with a statement on discipleship: “It is the most meaningful work that I have done in over 17 years of ministry.”

Let me now write a post about the most meaningful thing I have ever done (and will ever do) with my life: family. I realized that I should have followed the February discussion on travel with this discussion on family. One of the most common questions I get about my travel schedule is about the impact on my family (and rightfully so).

I wish I could say I’ve always had the perspective that I mention above. Beyond simply giving lip service to the idea that “family is most important,” it is something that the weight of parenting and fatherhood continues to teach me. I also wish I could in any way imply that I’ve gotten really good at this whole “putting family first” thing, but rest assured — I cannot make such a claim.

But I can say that my recent change in vocational role and its accompanying demand on travel has become a gift. Because I am home less often, I am far more intentional about the times when I am home; I find I am much more present as a father and a husband these days. And here comes another wish: I wish it didn’t have to be that way. I wish I could be as intentional about my family time no matter what my schedule looks like. How frustrating that has been!

But about all that wishing. I find that parenting and husbanding (is that a word? [Editor’s note: Not yet.]) from a place of guilt, shame, and regret is simply exhausting. Our lives are full of “should haves” and “ought tos,” and I know that for most of us, those feelings hide most prominently in the world of family. (Can I get a witness?) I want to parent and husband from a place of overflow and freedom — a place of joy and wonder. So let’s resolve to leave all of those “I wish” statements where they belong… apparently right at the beginning of this post.

About intentionality with my wife. I have begun to learn how to ask questions about her needs and her perspectives. I’ve even learned how to ask those questions not just because I’m trying to “do my duty,” but because I really care about understanding how she feels. How has she felt about my travel? How does she see my efforts to parent? What does she see about my stress and energy levels? What does she dream about for our family and our marriage? I wish it hadn’t taken me almost a decade of marriage before I figured out how to do this well (and I still have so much further to go). Oops! There’s another one of those wishful statements!

About intentionality with my kids. When I’m home, one of the first things I do is schedule into my week two things: quality time with my kids (sometimes together, sometimes separately) and time to help coach them in their extra-curricular activities. While Becky carries this load when I’m gone, I think it’s really important to find time to be present as a dad in those areas of life. I want to hang with my kids to have special time to cuddle and do fun things. I also want to be there to encourage Zeke in Cub Scouts and guide Abigail through her pursuit of the violin.

I’ve found that this intentionality has given me things to celebrate, rather than simply wish for. And I’m grateful for that.

Here is a fun video diary of some of the things we got to do over the last few months:

Top 12 of CiHD: #8

For a summary of what I’m hoping to accomplish in this blog series (the first week of every month of 2018), I recommend reviewing my explanation here.

As we continue our look at the Top 12 Blog Posts at Covered in His Dust, we will examine the post that got the eighth most views in the history of the blog. This brings us back to the pastoral letters of John and my post on 2 John. It was titled “2 JOHN: the ‘Woman’” — and you can find it here.

In this series, as we look at each post, I want to ask three questions: why, what, and what else? Why do I think this post got so many views; why were others drawn to it? What do I hope people found when they got here; what do I hope they heard? Finally, what else have I learned about this; what else would I say about these ideas?

WHY THIS POST?

If you have been following along and noticed that we hit 3 John and then 1 John, you might have thought it weird that the book of 2 John got skipped. Well, after a quick break to talk about atonement, we are back to round out our journey through the letters of John. As before, I am taken aback that these posts found themselves on the list. Whether it is the fact that people are doing studies in Johannine literature or that the name “John” is a thoroughly Googled name… I’m a little struck at the number of views here. I certainly never finished writing on the letters of John and thought to myself, “Now that was a good one!”

However, if there is one element that might have caused 2 John to rise above the other two pastoral letters, it is the great discussion about the nature and identity of this “woman” who John directs his letter to. Any search for “who is the woman mentioned in 2 John” could have led a reader to this post.

WHAT DO I HOPE THEY FOUND?

First, I hope they found a concise and well-presented argument for the different opinions on the identity of the woman/audience of 2 John. If I did my job, I hope that by pulling out a few key references in the letter, we noted how much credence there is to the different options. I also hope they didn’t sense me swaying the conversation toward my favorite option (more on that below); without a personal “dog in the hunt,” I wanted to let the potential Bible student use their own research to make a choice they felt good about.

In addition to this, I also hope that by asking these questions and provoking critical thinking without resolution that I encouraged a better way of engaging the biblical text. I do not mean this merely from a textual criticism perspective, for cold textual criticism is shallow and lacking in any power. But there is something to learn by engaging the Text from a place of critical (and yes, even western) thought. It causes us to become more intimate with the Text, grow closer to the God speaking through it, and consider the message He may be imparting to us through the original author’s intent.

WHAT ELSE WOULD I SAY?

There isn’t much I would add to the existing conversation. That is, of course, except my own favorite opinion. Now that the original conversation has run its course and I don’t have to worry about influencing the student/thinker, where do I personally land on the opinion? I love the third option, of course. I think John could have easily written and sent the letter to a prominent woman and her family in the church. In fact, I have a personal hunch that this woman was the leader of the larger church John wishes to speak to. We know from Paul’s writings (particularly letters like Romans) that the early church didn’t balk at placing women in places of leadership in the church. Knowing John’s role of leadership in the church of Asia and Asia Minor, I would imagine he followed suit.

But to cloak a deeper message within the trappings of surface-level reading would be exactly like John in his other writings. One of the things we find consistent within Johannine literature is a multi-layered approach to his writing where the reader keeps peeling back one layer after another to find John’s larger point being applied at deeper and deeper levels. We see John doing this all throughout his gospel and the book of Revelation. Many scholars have argued against the idea that the Apostle John penned all of the letters that are written under his name. Looking at 2 John, I would argue that the same John wrote the gospel, the letters, and Revelation. While I’m no Greek scholar, I see a lot of similarities in the style of writing.