PULL UP A CHAIR: Stories on Passion

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.

Jeff VanderLaan (no relation to Ray, for those of you familiar with my teachings) is the Vice President for Impact Campus Ministries and has become one of my closest friends. He has served with ICM for over 24 years and knows our organization and its DNA intimately. Jeff was discipled by ICM's founder, Dean, and knows these principles in ways that few of us do. I could think of nobody else to close out this year's blog posts then by having Jeff share his perspective on PASSION. 

“Will you pursue God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul?” 

It was the fall of 1994, and I was a senior at Michigan State University attending His House Christian Fellowship when Dean Trune asked me that one question. That question was the whole application and interview process to join the first Impact Campus Ministries campus ministry plant in Albany, NY. There was no written application, no reference checks, and no skills assessment. All Dean cared about was if I would have a passion for God.

For the next 15 years, while Dean was my boss, the question about my passion for God led every conversation and was included on every report I had to turn in to the organization. Often my answer would start with ministry success stories. Dean would politely listen, then re-ask about my personal relationship with Jesus.

Dean knew what I needed to learn. Ministry is hard. It would be easy to lose focus on God and get distracted by the ministry. It was not that Dean was anti-ministry. He just knew we cannot control “making an impact” or “fruitful ministries,” but we have absolute control over developing intimacy with God. He would say, “We must not allow ‘ministry for God’ to crowd ‘intimacy with God’ out of our lives.”

Dean knew that passion for God would naturally lead to ministry. Actually, it would lead to a ministry where you would willfully do more than is required to do. It would lead to a ministry driven by more than enthusiasm or excitement when successful. Your passion for God would lead to an ambition that is materialized into action through the good times and the bad.

Dean was right. We called the first year the year of tears. It was hard. Between Satan opposing the expansion of God’s kingdom to the University at Albany through campus ministry, and God’s appreciation of my choosing to serve him, I discovered the need for God to refine me to be a more usable vessel. It was never clear if the blow was from Satan trying to stop me or God trying to shape me, but I was sure it hurt. Yet passion for God gave us the strength to continue into year two and eventually through year 15.

Through the years, Impact’s value of passion for God has continued to teach me so many things.

• When I focus on ministry, people will be drawn to ministry. Focus I on God, people will be drawn to God.
• When I focus on ministry, I often take the credit. When I focus on God, I often give him the credit.
• When I focus on ministry, my weaknesses limit the ministry. When I focus on God, his strength empowers the ministry.
• When I focus on ministry, I often choose the direction taken. When focusing on God, he directs the ministry.

There was so much learned from such a simple concept.

Impact Campus Ministries values passion for God. May this value continues to underlie everything we do and continue expanding our understanding of what it can teach us in the future.

MAKING AN IMPACT: Passion

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.

The last value we have to talk about is the value of passion for God.

This value is really the first on our list and I purposely saved it for the last post in our series. Why? Because this brings us all the way back, full circle, to where we started years ago under the leadership of Dean Trune. Dean’s passion for Jesus, back then and still today, is his sole concern. For Dean, his pursuit of God was his passion, and true passion is seen in our pursuit of Jesus.

Anyone who meets Dean would be able to tell you about his spiritual posture, through all of the ups and downs of his family and their experiences. Through Dean’s successes and mistakes (he’d be the first to tell you he makes them), his steady gaze, fixed on Jesus, is the one trademark he tries to pass on to as many people as he can.

At Impact Campus Ministries, following Jesus and giving him our everything is not an afterthought. It is not a secondary focus. It is not what comes at the end, or the value that gets our leftovers.

It is the foundation we start from. We begin our workday, our productivity, with a focus on what Jesus is doing in us, through us, and around us. We attempt to discern the movement of Jesus and go with it. This is not just the thing that we do “before the real work begins.” On the contrary, this is actually the work.

One of the things I should certainly do here is recommend Dean’s writings. His first two books have always been my favorite when it comes to communicating the essence of who we are at ICM. Dean’s first book is Path Toward Passion, and I’ve always felt like it is his personal magnum opus. His second book challenges me to be more “awake” and present in my interactions; the book is titled God's Divine Appointments.

This last January, we had an opportunity to let Dean come in and remind us (for some, it was brand new) of the thinking he instilled in our beginnings. One of the examples he used was the idea of deep friendship versus romance. Many of us have experienced or observed a deep and meaningful friendship; we have also seen or experienced the different kind of quality in a romantic relationship. Both are meaningful and powerful, yet one is so much more intimate.

Dean suggested to us that far too many Christians have a deep friendship with Jesus, but not a romance. I have written at great extent to show how far the Scriptures go to reiterate this perspective of God’s relationship with His people. Outside the metaphor of “Father,” the metaphor of “Lover” is a close second. God wants to have that kind of intimate relationship with us.

God wants to have that kind of relationship with college students.

It is this kind of intimacy that empowers them with a supernatural ability to Impact the World.

How will we ever Impact the U with this kind of message if we don’t experience it daily in our own lives?

Jesus, please lead us, call us, and draw us to yourself, that we might know you intimately and be able to share that kind of “knowing” with the world around us.

A DAY IN THE LIFE: Promotion

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.

The last installment of A Day in the Life is going to be a post about organizational promotion. Is there some reason that I waited to the last month to talk about this? Is this the climactic part of my job that defines what I do?

Simply, no.

This was the part of my new role that I was most unfamiliar with. While it hasn’t been the worst challenge I’ve ever faced, it isn’t the part of me that comes naturally. I’m pretty introverted in my nature. I like to retreat and study, to teach and preach, to create and dream and podcast. While I don’t try to avoid people (and I can even enjoy them in small doses), I typically like to sit just enough away from social situations.

But promotion is the exact opposite of that natural tendency for me. Promotional conferences are about face time and intentional connections with others. It’s about putting your face on the organization and letting the organization grow through your interactions. It’s all about people.

And this actually explains why I didn’t have a post until now. These experiences are so filled with anxiety for me that I never get any videos! I like the challenge, but the focus needed for me to do this part of my job well can be exhausting. One thing is for sure: I sleep extra well on these trips.

We have a natural and annual rhythm to the promotional events we take part in. Every May, we head to the Campus Ministers Retreat put on by the Association of College Ministries at McCormick’s Creek State Park in Indiana. A few weeks later in June, we are usually on our way to wherever that year’s North American Christian Convention is; the NACC (no longer taking place after 2018) is a gathering where people come to hear speakers, attend workshops, and browse the exhibit hall full of different missions organizations.

In July, the Association of College Ministries puts on their annual National Student Conference where many different ministries bring their students to learn from speakers and workshops, as well as network with other opportunities to grow and serve in the field of missions and vocational ministry. Then, right before Thanksgiving, we attend the International Conference on Missions, usually somewhere in the Midwest. This gathering is very similar to the NACC, with more emphasis on networking and service.

These are beneficial times where we get to strengthen our relationships and partnerships with other ministries. We get to meet people interested in the work of campus ministry and often find new recruits at events like these. And of course, we also get to pursue some exposure, helping people recognize our name, our mission, and what we are doing.

Here’s a video diary I made of my most recent trip to ICOM.

Top 12 of CiHD: #1

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.

This is it! We’ve travelled this 2018 path of the Top 12 Blog Posts at Covered in His Dust and we have arrived at the end of our list — the most viewed post in my blog’s history. The winner of this title is the blog I wrote on the Resurrection back at the end of August 2015. The post was titled “Empty” and you can read the original post here.

So, for one last time, let’s remember what I’ll try to do.

In this series, as we look at each post, I want to ask three questions: why, what, and what else? Why do I think these posts got so many views; why were others drawn to them? 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?

Well, if you would have asked me about which post I had hoped would get the most views, it would have been this one. I am a big believer that the most important truth, the most profound reality, the pinnacle of all theology and of the Kingdom is the resurrection. There are many theologians who talk about the crucifixion as being the most central to theology, that everything revolves around the work of Jesus on the cross. Many of these theologians are men and women I respect very deeply. But I respectfully disagree.

The apostle Paul did not say that without the crucifixion, our faith is in vain. No, he said that without the resurrection, our faith is in vain. That’s a strong assertion to make and it drives my theology.

Having said that, I wonder if there are other reasons the page views were driven up. I don’t feel like it was one of my best written posts. Are people that driven and interested in the resurrection? That hasn’t been my experience, typically. I can’t seem to find any unique or unusual words or phrases that would have caught some other Google search. Did people think I was posting about how I was feeling empty and so they were driven to click in and read? That could be.

WHAT DO I HOPE THEY FOUND?

Well, the truth and power of the resurrection is really, in a lot of ways, a mystery. Part of the reason we don’t get more excited about it is because there is so much about it that we don’t understand. Much of the last century has been misdirected in simply trying to prove the historicity of the event. This is a shame, as the power of resurrection doesn’t lie in intellectually proving that it happened. No, the power of the resurrection lies in realizing what it means for our daily walks, trusting that great truth to be real, and leaning into the consequences.

Even I struggled (then and now) to write about the resurrection in such a way that captures the power of this great truth. To that end, I recommend a great book called Surprised by Hope by NT Wright. It does a good job of talking about the resurrection in a western way that helps us capture some of the applicable ramifications of the resurrection.

WHAT ELSE WOULD I SAY?

I would talk about the power of hope.

The story of God’s people, all the way back to the story of Abram, is a story about hope. It’s a story about people who believe there is more going on — that more is possible than simply the concrete thing we experience in the Order of Brokenness. This reality is deeper and greater than a battle between optimism and pessimism. This isn’t about whether or not the glass is half-full or half-empty.

This is about whether or not you believe the glass was meant to be full — and, no matter what happens, will be full again.

The resurrection is about what you fundamentally believe is true about the world. What is the truest true? What is the realest real? What is the thing that if you burned away all of the dross, would remain? Does love win? Does life end in death? Or is death not really an end? And no, I’m not just talking about what happens when we die. I’m talking about the true order of things.

Here. Now. When we are alive.

When the Order of Death rears its ugly head, is it a roar of triumph, or is it the gasping and grasping of a creature whose days are numbered?

When you encounter greed and selfishness, are you dismayed? Or are you grounded — as a Child of the Resurrection — in a truth that what you are looking at is a fleeting shadow? And does this change the way you live?

It should. It should make us more selfless. More generous. It should make us better priests. It should prepare us for Kingdom, making us conduits of God’s redeeming work. It should rid us of fear and equip us to lay our lives down — because we understand that there really is no way to lose our life.

Maybe this is the reason the Rabbi said the only way to save your life is to lose it.