PULL UP A CHAIR: Stories on Mode

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.

Zack Dean is the team leader for Impact Campus Ministries at our location at SUNY Albany. Being an alumni of that university and our campus ministry there has always given Zack a unique perspective. None of this should take away from the fact that Zack is such a unique person! Zack has been on two BEMA Trips and was able to take his wife Melanie on the most recent trip in 2016. I thought it would be insightful to ask Zack about his perspective of "MODE" as it pertains to his experiences in Israel and Turkey.

In July of 2014, a conflict between Israel and the Gaza Strip began. Within a week, I and 25 others landed in Tel Aviv and traveled south to the Negev Desert to begin the first Bema trip to Israel and Turkey. After 24 hours of air conditioned train, plane, and automobile travel, we were dropped off in the desert wilderness. I used to live in the Mohave Desert in California. I was used to jackrabbits, Joshua trees, cactus, and tumbleweeds. You know, desert. It’s a dry heat, so it isn’t as bad.

This wasn’t southern California.

There aren’t jackrabbits or Joshua trees or cactuses (cacti?). There is nothing. No plants. No animals. No shade. No water. There aren’t tumbleweeds, because there aren’t plants that grow then die and roll around.

The heat was terrific. It was the type of heat that is impressive when you first feel it; we stepped out of the bus at 9am and said wow. The sun is beating down and the rock is radiating heat up. There is no escape. Again, it is 9am. Wow.

I think Marty wanted to take it easy on us the first day. We walked the desert with what will later be seen as minimal hill climbing. As we walked this scorched earth, our shoes began to fall apart. Literally. Our soles were peeling away. Some people pulled out tape to try to coble their shoes back together, while other people started vomiting. People were coming close to passing out... from walking flat terrain.

The condition of our group was unexpected. Here we are, people who have trained to hike 7-12 miles a day while hiking thousands of feet of elevation change each day, prepared for an intense trip.

We were ready.

Day 1: We were falling apart walking on flat ground.

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wildernessthese forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was inyour heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbledyou, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, whichneither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does notlive on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth ofthe LORD. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell duringthese forty years. 

Deuteronomy 8:2-4 

Today as we look at Mode from the Mx3, we look at how we open the story of God for students. Mode is defined as engaging the mind, heart, and body.

As I read this passage from Deuteronomy, I see that God takes care of His people. Intellectually, I know that our God is good and takes care of His people. That has been taught to me. It is clear from scripture. This has engaged my mind.

I used to live in the desert, so I can relate to the toughness of desert living. Our air conditioned home was on the edge of town. When we drove to the store for food, it was hot as I walked between the air-conditioned grocery store and the air- conditioned car (at home we parked in the attached garage because we aren’t animals and didn’t deal with the heat if we didn’t have to). My heart can be engaged because I can relate to the situation more than just intellectually. I have lived in similar situations as the Israelites walking the desert for 40 years...

The Bema Trip is an experience of engaging the body. I knew God took care of His people. I knew what it was like to be in the desert. Going to the Negev Desert and learning from experience why people accept lying down and dying changes the whole idea of what that passage is talking about. On day one, our shoes had fallen apart. God took care of their clothes for 40 years and mine only lasted a few hours? There is no food of any kind, or water or anything. God provided food on these hot rocks? It is hot enough to bake bread, so that makes sense.

If I were to just walk this desert, my shoes would fall apart. I would be hot and tired. I would be feeling all the same things. My body would be engaged, but that’s it. Only one aspect of mode isn’t the best way to teach or learn. Without engaging the mind and heart, without knowing the story of how God watches over His people who would normally struggle to survive, the lesson is missed.

If I know the story of God in my mind, if I can engage my heart and emotion to empathize with the people of the text, and if I engage my body by trying to step into their world, I will learn in a way that I’ll remember for years to come.

I know this to be true, because the mind, heart, and body engagement of the Bema trip has been life changing. Four years later, I still talk about it all the time. It still influences how I understand the narrative of scripture. I have spoken about it so much that two years after the inaugural Bema Trip, I brought four people with me as I went on the trip again in 2016. This year, 2018, someone who I brought is sending a friend of his on the Bema trip. Life change is infectious.

We might not all lead trips to Israel, but we can all find ways to engage the mind, heart, and body. When we teach and learn about the biblical prerogative to care for the alien, orphan, and widow, we can remember a time when we were seen as an outsider. We can engage the body to serve these people who are marginalized in a multitude of ways in our hometowns.

The mode in how we teach is greatly important. Each mode by itself can be good, yet incomplete. The best and most difficult mode is to combine all three, but it is also the greatest experience for both the teacher and the student.

MAKING AN IMPACT: Mode

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.

We have spoken about our purpose at Impact Campus Ministries; we exist to make disciples who make disciples. In light of this, we started with our definition of disciple and the method of discipleship. We want to allow people to become submitted to Jesus by inviting them to imitate a mentor who is imitating Jesus.

We have spoken of ICM’s mission statement: to pursue, model, and teach intimacy with Christ within the context of Christian community on the American university campus. This led us to taking the time to define those three terms — pursue, model, and teach. We spoke of pursuit being the way we intentionally engage in spiritual practices. We spoke of model being the way we pursue God in front of others so they can physically see what it looks like. Then we talked about teach being so important, because as we instruct our students in furthering the discipleship process, we are enabling them to do so much more than simply mimic the actions — we are allowing them to possess the truths for themselves.

When we speak about imitating a mentor who imitates Jesus (our purpose), we see that road map of imitation laid out in our mission statement.

In the most recent post of this series, we began walking through the idea of message, mode, and milieu. This is what enables us to become more effective in chasing our vision — Impact the U, Impact the World. Hopefully the reader can see how these are building blocks that allow us to create an approach to ministry that is more and more effective in reaching our goals. One of those things is message; this is the idea that we need to be able to understand the narrative arc of the Text as just that — a narrative.

The next word that shows up for ICM is MODE. Gifted to us by our last president, Bill Westfall, and the work he did during his dissertation, the idea is simply this: Young adults (particularly college students) learn much better when we can stimulate their mind, heart, and body. On some level, I feel ill-equipped to write about this idea as Bill was the one who did all the research, but the idea makes perfect sense to me and resonates with my experience as a teacher and campus minister.

I’m not sure if this has been true for all generations or not. I have a hunch that on some level, this has always been true. And yet, the research concludes this is even more true with this generation than was typical in the past. There are many hunches as to why this is, from the impact of technology on our culture to the very physiology of our children. But the truth remains: If you can holistically engage the learner, simultaneously impacting every part of their self, the learning is deeper, more retentive, and more powerful.

One of the best ways I can talk about this personally is describing my biennial trip to Israel and Turkey. Every other year, I take a group of students to wander around the Middle East for a few weeks. All the things you would expect to happen are going to happen. We are going to take lots of pictures, learn lots of information, and see lots of famous places. But the trip is so much more than a tourist experience.

On our study tours, my goal is to help students experience the lessons that the biblical story is trying to teach us. A great example is the time of Israel wandering in the desert. I take my students and drag them into the Negev and Paran deserts of southern Israel. I purposely take this trip in August so it is as hot as it will be all year. (I have been in the Negev with students in 117-degree heat.) I do this on purpose because I want to teach them (intellectually, this is the mind) about the Negev and the experience of the desert. I want them to feel (physically, this is the body) the heat and the thirst and the hopelessness of it all. I then want them to connect with the struggle of those ancient Israelites as they cry out for water — and then make the connections to the deserts they have experienced in their own lives (emotionally, this is the heart).

If this is done correctly, the student will learn a lesson, have a mental image, and experience a heart tug that will forever change their walk with God. We attempt to do this over and over again, multiple times a day, day after day for three weeks. I can speak from personal experience to how effective and life-changing this learning style is. I have been with over twenty seminary-trained and graduate-level participants who all said they got more out of two weeks in Israel then in four years of seminary.

Why is this method so impactful? Because it engages the whole person and doesn’t just pursue a transfer of data. It instead creates a complete learning package where nothing is wasted and everything is loaded with potential.

Realizing we don’t drag people around the world every day, we must do the hard work of figuring out how to pursue this kind of engagement in our day-to-day environments. It is difficult, but it is also very rewarding when it’s successful. May we strive to settle less and less for classroom-style teaching (although it certainly has its place) and emotionally manipulative moments. May we create big, holistic moments of learning where the entire student is engaged in the lesson.

A DAY IN THE LIFE: Real Life on the Palouse

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.

One of things that has defined my weekly work presence over the years has been my family’s relationship with Real Life on the Palouse. It’s been an incredible blessing to have a church family that we love as much as we do here on the Palouse. Those of you who know me know that I don’t qualify as “normal” (easy with the jokes). The church has often struggled to know what to do with those who lie outside the bounds of typical. But RLOTP has been incredibly accepting of me and all of my quirks; there are days when I still can’t believe the level of involvement they’ve encouraged (not just allowed) us to have.

Becky and the kids love serving in the children’s ministry here. They have been a fantastic encouragement to my children, identifying their ability to lead and encouraging their involvement at every level of the ministry. They treat my kids as true volunteers, inviting them to the same events and awards they would offer to any other volunteer.

When I first arrived on the Palouse in 2011, I was certain I would not be welcome in the faith community. Instead, I was ushered right into staff meetings and invited to staff retreats; I was immediately given a seat at the RLOTP table and was never forced to “earn” a voice at the table. I found my first place to serve as I always have in church — behind the drums. I enjoyed helping lead worship on almost a weekly basis for the first few years.

Eventually, I was invited to fill the pulpit for a Sunday when Aaron was gone and that led to a place on the teaching team. For years, we have met for what we call “Sermon Club,” a weekly get-together where we plan upcoming sermons and sketch out the message for the upcoming week. We share ideas and give feedback on how to design each message and what we think might be important. It’s a wonderful practice. Obviously, preaching and teaching are my greatest joys and most prominent gifts, so I love to get to use them on a regular basis. I know I’m playing my part in the body in a way that blesses others.

We have served the community in different ways throughout the years — leading small groups and helping establish accountability and mentoring — but what I mention above has definitely been the places where we have found our home as members of RLOTP.

With recent changes to my job and the increase in my travel schedule, I have had to continue to step further and further back as I do the things my position requires. This has been one of the most difficult things to navigate in living here on the Palouse. I suppose this kind of connection is a good thing and a testimony to the kind of family we have. I have made some of the deepest friendships I have ever had in my life here in this body of faith, and I’ve experienced acceptance like never before.

Here is a video diary of my weekly time at RLOTP:

Top 12 of CiHD: #7

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.

We continue our look at the Top 12 Blog Posts at Covered in His Dust by introducing the seventh most viewed post in the history of the blog. This is the first post I ever wrote for this more-than-four-years journey; it was written all the way back in February of 2013 and served as the launching point for my entire body of work. It is titled “SABBATH: A Trust Story” — 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?

First of all, I’m super happy to see that this post made it onto the “top 12” list. This is the foundation of my entire body of work. The first time this idea was presented to me, it changed everything. I began to orient my entire theology around this idea. It was the approach that I believed (and still do) maintains the most hermeneutical integrity, logical consistency, and compelling potency.

There are a lot of reasons people might have found this post. They may have been researching Genesis 1 and the creation narrative. They might have been trying to study Sabbath. I know this particular post has been shared by many, many students and people connected to my ministry. People who know me well know this lesson is where it all begins and where it all keeps circling back to.

For me, this is it. It doesn’t matter so much to me why they got here — but I’m thrilled they did.

WHAT DO I HOPE THEY FOUND?

This concept is the result of me piecing together two separate teachings that impacted me and changed my theology forever. The many questions and observations I had compiled over years of study and Bible college education finally found expression, and over the course of a few years I was able to package them in a way that finally “clicked.”

To give appropriate credit, the first teaching was one I heard in person at the Black Sheep in Colorado Springs. It was the Everything Is Spiritual tour by Rob Bell, and I got to see an earlier version with additional material that never made it into the recording. This was before Bell’s more provocative days when he became such a controversial figure. I also listened to a sermon from Mars Hill Bible Church on August 16, 2009, that finally dropped the last few pieces into place for me intellectually.

What had bothered me for years was the fact that almost all schools of Protestant theology I had been exposed to had made the story of Christian theology about the entrance and removal of sin. As I studied the Text, though, the story seemed to be about something much wider, deeper, and comprehensive than that. Sin was certainly a part of the story, but it seemed not to be taking its proper place in a larger theological narrative — it had become the narrative.

To hear a teaching that spoke of the importance of beginning where God started His story and ending where God ended His story was like throwing the lights on in a dark room. I realized the theology I had been handed started a tad late in the biblical story. Even if Genesis 3 was only a couple chapters later, skipping the first story (or rendering it irrelevant because of the second) was a major theological faux pas.

Obviously, I want to keep writing about this, but that is what my four-and-a-half-year blog series was for. Suffice it to say that I hope people found a refreshing way to reframe the biblical narrative, and perhaps a different way to begin to understand God.

WHAT ELSE WOULD I SAY?

I’m not sure there is much I would add to this post. It’s relatively thorough. Over the years, I have continued to learn, shape, and adapt this teaching in different ways. There might be nuances I would approach differently, but I would be nitpicking. There is a lot of material here to get introduced to beyond just the theological shift. This whole teaching is bathed in a combination of historical-contextual and literary hermeneutics. There are conversations about chiasms and other Hebraic literary devices. There is a lot in this post!

I can also appreciate the way Rabbi David Fohrman’s teachings have shaped the material in this post (and even more so over the following years). I would certainly recommend his online academy (Aleph Beta) for those looking to learn more from an orthodox Jewish perspective. While Fohrman is not a follower of Jesus at all, his approach will help one become familiar with how Jews interact with the Text, and his conservative perspective will temper the progressive overtones of a voice like Bell for those who struggle to accept that.

Overall, I’m thrilled to have this make the list. Here’s to trusting the story!