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: Sabbath & Personal Retreat Day

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.

In this post for our DAY IN THE LIFE series, I take a look at something that should not have taken me ten months to write about, because it’s really where everything begins, not ends. It is not the byproduct or the result of the work I do elsewhere, it is the preparation for all of that other work. And yet, I waited until now to talk about it. Why? At least two reasons. First, the idea is horribly misunderstood by many and to start there would have been confusing for some. Second, because when I’m fully present in these moments, the last thing I’m thinking about is trying to shoot some video!

What am I talking about? I’m talking about SABBATH and PERSONAL RETREAT DAY (PRD).

SABBATH

For years, our family has made the Sabbath a non-negotiable priority. Now, before you read too much into that statement, you need to know that I’m not jumping across the table with a legalistic interpretation of Sabbath and what it is. Not at all. We have found a deeply compelling narrative in the practice of Sabbath and it’s become a fabric of our family life. Since this comes around once a week, no series on my daily life would be complete without it.

So what is it? Quite simply, it’s a day where we quit working and producing — no matter what the to-do list looks like. It’s a day of rest and of fun; it is a day that reminds us of what is most true about ourselves. It is not a day that comes AFTER a week of work; it is not a practice of recharging our batteries. No, this is a practice where we tell ourselves the truth about the world, about God, and about ourselves.

If you were to ask my children, “What do you do on the Sabbath?” they would tell you: “We rest. We play. No work. God loves us.” When I was trying to teach my children about Sabbath, I didn’t want to teach them a bunch of theology. I wanted them to understand something so simply that they could own it as a two-year-old. So we came up with that statement and it became a mantra for our family. First, we rest. Second, we play. One thing that isn’t allowed is work. And why do we do this? To remind ourselves that we are loved by God, not because of the work that we do, but simply because we are.

On these days, you’ll catch me sleeping in. You might see me enjoying the outdoors or spending time with the family. You might see me catching my favorite college team play ball or playing a video game. The one thing I will say is that I go through “Sabbath seasons.” Sometimes, I will need to spend time with my family and you’ll see me spending time with the family for a few months, but then that starts becoming a chore and it loses the ability to tell me the right story. So then I might go into a season where Sabbath is about my own self-care and doing things that I enjoy. But then that becomes selfish and starts to get in the way, so hunting season rolls around and I spend time in creation, close to the Creator.

Want to read more about Sabbath? There are incredible books out there by Heschel, Brueggemann, Bell, Winner, Sine… I wrote about it here and I talked about it here.

PERSONAL RETREAT DAY

So if you do Sabbath as a family, what is the PRD?

A PRD is a requirement for all staff at Impact Campus Ministries. Once a month, we are each supposed to take a paid work day and remove ourselves from the normal and usual workflow. It is a day for listening and changing our perspective. It’s different for everyone (for lots of different reasons), but the purpose is the same. We have come to talk about it in terms of a dance.

Imagine that ministry (or your job, whatever it might be) is a dance in a ballroom. You do a lot of things to make sure you are a good dancer. You study the art of dancing and you practice. You invest in your development as a dancer. But most of the time, you dance. You are engaged in the art of dancing. Tangibly, directly, immediately engaged.

But what do you think would happen if once a month, you stepped off the dance floor and joined God where He sits up in the balcony? Would the change of perspective be helpful? Not only would you enjoy rest and relief from stepping off the dance floor, but I imagine you would begin to see and notice things that you weren’t able to see when you were fully engrossed in the work of dancing. I would imagine you might be able to hear God’s voice a little more clearly when you are sitting next to Him in the balcony, versus being fully engaged in the work itself.

The balcony is certainly not where we are called to live; it is not the work we are called to. But it is important to the work that we are called to.

I made this short video to talk a little about my experiences on my own PRDs.

Top 12 of CiHD: #4

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 month in the Top 12 Blog Posts at Covered in His Dust, we’ll look at the fourth most viewed post. Sort of. You see, when I constructed my “Top 12” list in January, I apparently did not count well, because I ended up with a baker’s dozen. (Hey, cut me some slack — they didn’t make me do math in bible college!) So in order to make the list work, I’m going to talk about two posts that go together here at #4. Surprisingly, they were both about trees of the desert. The first was called “Trees of the Desert: ACACIA” (you can find it here), and the second was called “Trees of the Desert: AR’AR & TAMARISK” (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 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?

I would assume that these posts got so many hits because of the tree names. But not only did we get biblical interest in the posts, we also had some other key search engine words in the titles, like “desert.” At the core, though, we had trees that would have been very commonly searched for: acacia tree and tamarisk tree. There would have been much interest for these trees beyond the biblical content, so that probably skewed our results for the “fourth-most-viewed blog post.”

However, I would say that these lessons continue to be some of the most poignant that I teach to my students. I can remember how these lessons hit me originally. The word pictures contained in these lessons are so strong and visually profound that they were stunning to learn in their context. Obviously, the lessons of the desert are so meaningful for so many of us because the “deserts” of our lives are so defining and shaping. Anything that helps us relate to and understand these experiences is powerful.

Even though the newness of those lessons has worn off for me, the power of them in the lives of others hearing them for the first time is still significant. I have recently returned from a trip to Israel and Turkey where the first few days are filled with time in the desert. These lessons still impact the trip participants in the same way they impacted me years ago. So maybe all of those page views aren’t coming from a bunch of botany enthusiasts on Google.

WHAT DO I HOPE THEY FOUND?

I hope the reader found encouragement in their deserts. For too many of us, deserts are just a metaphor for our spiritual experiences. I can vouch for the ability to walk through the deserts of the Bible and the ability to connect those very real physical experiences with very real spiritual seasons in our lives. The connection is palpable and the images of the desert provide comfort that words, explanations, and theology just cannot. In a sense, these physical pictures are like God’s “artwork.” One of the profound things about art is its ability to speak and communicate things that words cannot. I find the same to be true about the images of the desert. I hope, for instance, that people can put up a picture of an acacia tree (whether literally or figuratively) and let it remind them of the reasons why we walk the path of spiritual practice with faithfulness.

I also hope the lessons give the reader a call not just to receive the comfort of God in the desert, but to physically participate in that comfort for other people. So often the fruit we bear, the shade we provide, the tamarisks trees we plant for others — these are things that we experienced once from God in our deserts, but the experience also equipped us to be able to serve others in those same places. Oftentimes we received the desert provision of God through other people. Why not be that desert provision — the vehicle God uses — for others?

WHAT ELSE WOULD I SAY?

For one, I might be more quick to point out how thick the debate is about identifying these trees in real life from the ancient Hebrew. I was recently reading a book about the botany of the Bible and realized how many of their conclusions differed from the lessons I was taught. Like I stated in the first “Trees of the Desert” post, I based my work on the conclusions of Nogah Hareuveni, who in many circles is considered the leading authority on the plants of the biblical world. I have been told that his work is still the textbook for studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Anything else I would say is probably best consumed by listening to my most recent work through the BEMA Discipleship podcast. I spent time discussing this in Session 1 about Torah. You can find that specific podcast in iTunes or by going to this link. If the conversation about acacia trees and spiritual discipline intrigues you, I would recommend listening to this conversation and a follow-up conversation here.

A DAY IN THE LIFE: Spiritual Practices

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.

Spiritual practices really are the center of everything I do. Organizationally, this is the spiritual DNA that Dean Trune instilled in Impact Campus Ministries (and me personally) years and years ago. You have seen me write about the importance of pursue in the work of ICM and I wrote earlier about our counter-intuitive definition of success.

Personally, this space in my life has been incredibly important to me over the last decade. I am thankful that my mentors (not only people like Dean, but also Steve Edwards and Bill Westfall) have invested in me to the extent that they taught me how to possess the same passion for pursuing God that they had. This was even more important when I met Ray Vander Laan and traveled to Israel and Turkey and was challenged to get the Text inside of me like I had never known. For years, I had gravitated towards the Text and struggled with our conventional understandings of prayer. ICM’s commitment to spiritual practices, combined with Ray’s passion for the Text, made for an experience that would change my life forever.

Emotionally, these practices have been a life saver. Being a person who struggles with anxiety, I find the daily rhythms of spiritual disciplines allow me to manage my anxiety in a way that is incredibly helpful — and healthy.

Vocationally, it is the center of the work I do with students. As we seek to make disciples through the art of mimicry and imitation, this is my starting place. With every student I have ever intentionally discipled, I have started with this premise: it all begins with your daily pursuit of God; imitate me as I show you how I make space for Him in my life.

There are lots and lots of ways people can create this kind of space. We are all wired differently and we gravitate towards different practices and expressions of worship. I have a teaching that I give every year to my students that you can find here. It describes many (but not all) possible ways we can create space for God in our lives. For years, I have been surrounded by people who are deeply committed to prayer. I, however, have always struggled to pray and gravitated to more structure in my pursuit. Having not been raised in a church experience of heavy liturgy, I have found structural disciplines to be life-giving.

Some of the books that have shaped me the most in this regard are Celebration of the Disciplines by Richard Foster, The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard, Sacred Rhythms by Christine Sine, The Contemplative Pastor and A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Eugene Peterson, Finding Our Way Again by Brian McLaren, The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, and many other specialized works (like books on fasting or prayer).

No series on A Day in the Life would be complete without talking about the daily spaces I create to passionately pursue God with my time and attention. I made a video diary of my practices here:

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:

MAKING AN IMPACT: Teach

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 started this series by introducing our definition of discipleship and the role that imitation plays in making disciples. We begin to expand on those concepts in our mission statement, to pursue, model, and teach intimacy with God on the American university campus in the context of Christian community. This is the kind of imitation we want to create space for. First, we want to intentionally engage spiritual practices in our own lives; we want our staff to be pursuing a certain level of expertise in this area. If we are trying to make disciples through imitation, however, we also want to be pursuing God in front of others. But there is still one more word/idea expressed in our mission statement that is important to this process.

We define “teach” as instructing others in furthering the discipleship process.

In order for imitation to find its fullness, it needs to transcend the mere work of mimicry. It is possible to mimic an instructor and still have no real concept of what you are doing, why you are doing it, or how it works. I can remember being a much younger preacher and imitating the sermons of my favorite preachers. I would mimic them to perfection. This was problematic in some ways and incredibly beneficial in others. This happened for a season of my life and then I continued to grow. My point is that during that season, I was mimicking incredibly well, but I did not truly possess the content. I was not intimate with the teachings in a way that the original teachers were; I had not done the work and taken the material through my own heart.

The same is true for our students. They can mimic our pursuit of God as we model it for them. This is good and a part of the greater process, but we ultimately want them to own and possess the pursuit for themselves. We don’t want them to simply mimic intimacy with God, we want them to truly have intimacy with God! And this means we must be ready and able to TEACH.

As with everything we’ve been talking about, this needs to begin with our pursuit of God. What does your pursuit of God look like? Maybe you memorize the Text and pray with a prayer journal. How intentional are you? Do you truly understand and “possess” those disciplines? Do you know them well enough that you could explain to your disciple how you memorize? Most students of mine will say, “I’ve tried to memorize… I just can’t do it!” What is your next step? We must be ready to do more than shrug our shoulders and say, “Keep trying!”

We need to know how to help them learn the essence of the discipline. That might involve learning how they interact with information and what kind of a learner they are. It might require immersion in the discipline. It might be as simple as a step-by-step approach. The first thing you need to do is this, and the next is that. The same thing would be true for a prayer journal. How do you interact with your prayer journal? What do you write? When do you write it? How do you use it?

Do you see how critical this is? It’s certainly not theological “rocket science,” but our typical discipleship methods are too often void of these crucial elements. We meet for coffee on Thursday morning and ask, “Did you read your Bible? Did you pray? What are you learning from God this week?” These are fantastic questions! But did we teach people how to read the Bible? Did we teach them how to pray? Have they ever seen us pray? There’s a good chance they are at home, trying to pray, completely frustrated, thinking, “Is this how everyone else does it? I don’t feel like it’s working!” And then, too ashamed to admit the struggle, the discipleship process breaks down. Did we ever teach them how to “learn from God” or hear His voice? How many people reading this understand these concepts? Probably very few — and at some point, none of us did.

I know I learned how to listen for God and learn from Him daily because of spiritual mentors who taught me how to do it and helped me ask questions and deal with the frustrations. They shared real life stories and experiences with me and it helped me find my way.

But I might even go one step further and say that this principle goes far beyond our spiritual practices. True discipleship happens in absolutely every facet of life. We should be pursuing, modeling, and teaching all kinds of aspects of life as their spiritual mentors. It needs to begin with and be centered around our pursuit of God; everything needs to flow from that time spent abiding in the Vine (John 15). But it also needs to influence our relationships and our work ethic. Our disciples need to see us model healthy relationships and boundaries with others. They need to see us repent, say we are wrong/sorry, and forgive others. They need to see us submit to authority with humility and grace. They need to see our character and integrity.

And more than just modeling, we need to be able to teach them all of the things mentioned above. Can you teach somebody how to forgive? We need to be able to. Are you prepared to take every opportunity to talk about why you dress a particular way at work, turn in paperwork on time, and say no to work and yes to family? These are things that must be taught! We have an entire generation suffering from a world that just expects them to do these things —  a world that is unwilling to teach.

And yes, this even gets down into the business of sacred vocation. This work of discipleship isn’t only for church leaders and Bible students. This work is for all people in every facet of life. Let’s say you are a mechanical engineer. Do you know why your job matters? Do you know how it is holy and sacred work, blessed by God? Do you see yourself merely as an “employee” of Such and Such, Inc.? We need to be able to disciple people in their vocation. And I’m not just talking about how we try to be hard workers and nice to others (although that is important; see the paragraphs above). I’m talking about the actual work we do. Every job is, at its essence, about the proper ordering and stewarding of God’s creation. That means my work, my art, is a craft, and I need to disciple all of the potential I can out of others by pursuing my craft, modeling its proper engagement, and teaching others how to excel (even beyond my own abilities).

God has placed each and every one of us here on this earth to impact the world. Becoming absolutely everything we were designed to be is critical to being part of a beautiful story that God is telling in history, because we each have a role to play.

It’s all holy, sacred work.

It’s all discipleship.

A DAY IN THE LIFE: Disciples

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.

It is the most meaningful work I have done in over seventeen years of ministry.

It has not drawn crowds of hundreds and it doesn’t involve speaking from a stage. It isn’t something I do by leading trips across the world or being an important leader in our organization.

It is the daily pursuit of discipleship in the real lives of real young adults. They are the people who go on to impact the world. Now, for another series, I wrote about discipleship here. I won’t repeat myself, but I remember coming back from Israel and Turkey in 2010 and praying that God would give me the opportunity to make just one true disciple. I got into campus ministry and knew I would be running ministry programming and probably finding different places to serve as a teacher of the Text. But what I was really convicted about after my time in Israel was experimenting with a more “rabbinic” discipleship model.

A real “come, follow me” approach to mentorship and spiritual formation.

I didn’t want a hundred disciples or even twelve. I actually didn’t even want three. I prayed for one.

God started by giving me two: students named Megan and Nate. They raised funds for a full-time, paid internship and walked with me every day as I did my job. They lived life as closely as they could to me and learned how to mimic my every move. Life eventually called Nate on to new things within the year, but Megan continued working with me for the next couple of years. (You heard from Megan in the guest post last month.)

And so I was left with exactly what I asked for — just one disciple. Megan poured her life into the work and the art of discipleship; I poured my life into her development and personal growth. In the end, it paid off in ways I still struggle to explain. It is… the most meaningful work I have ever done. We walked to class and drove to events. We debriefed at staff meeting and worked together on projects. But what really made an incredible difference was the “regular ol’ life stuff”: talking about roommates and conflict, character and integrity, hospitality and generosity — not for job purposes, but for a real conversation about who we were becoming as people.

I say “we” because the process of discipleship has been as much about me being vulnerable as a leader and working my own stuff out in front of others as it was about me sifting through all of their baggage. Sometimes I think the best things I did to help them was simply work through my own struggles with determination, resilience, and — on my better days — humility. And they taught me with their youthful willingness to do the right thing all the time, even if it was crazy and not lining up with “social norms.”

It continues to be the most meaningful work I do.

God has brought different disciples into my life, family, and ministry at different times and in different ways. After Megan transitioned on, there were two, then there were a handful. I took what the LORD gave and tried to do my best with what was in front of me.

Eventually, it came down to two disciples. Tyler is now a full-time associate staff member at ICM; thinking of him as a “disciple” may not always be the best fit. He’s often more of a colleague, but I still appreciate our relationship and discipleship walks. And Kevin is still here, hanging out with the rabbi and following him around Moscow — rain or shine, snow or sun. I caught myself even this last week thinking back over the last few years and my time with Tyler and Kevin, realizing how meaningful the work that we do is. It has been more deep and true and profound than any sermon I have preached, homeless dinner I have served, or BEMA Trip I have led.

I am proud of all my disciples and the people they are becoming; I’m proud like a father is of his children.

I am humbled, honored, and privileged that I get to do this work every day.

Here is a fun video diary I made of our time in discipleship this year:

PULL UP A CHAIR: Stories on Model

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.

You've heard and read me refer to Megan before; in my first few years of campus ministry, she was my first disciple and I learned more about discipleship in those few years than all of my other ministry experience to that point. Megan worked for ICM full-time before moving on to work in the non-profit world of homelessness and poverty. She, her husband Chris, and their son Josiah now reside in Raleigh, NC and Megan is currently serving as our chairperson for ICM. After talking about MODEL last week, I asked Megan to share what it was like to follow me around for that season of her life.

When I was first learning about the original context of discipleship, I was told this short anecdote of a rabbi and his disciples. “There once was a rabbi walking through the airport who was closely followed by his young disciples. The rabbi then walked into the bathroom, and the disciples followed. The rabbi then walked into a stall, and still his disciples followed!” This can be shocking for our typical American coffee-date discipleship, but this rabbinic style of discipleship is imitation with the purpose of becoming just like the rabbi.

I spent more than a year imitating Marty as closely as a female disciple could. I imitated Marty in the office, in the classroom, and at home. Practically, this means Marty crafted a schedule that included staff meetings, sermon club, spiritual disciplines, BEMA class, Sabbath, and more. I gained so much from the structure alone, but I believe the true discipleship experience started once we settled into the schedule and got comfortable living among each other.

Through my experience imitating Marty, I learned lessons about discipleship that completely transformed the way I engage my spirituality and Jesus.

I now believe a disciple is as capable of as much as the rabbi, and the rabbi sets the bar. When I first became Marty’s disciple, I thought I was just an intern. I know many people saw me that way, too. However, Marty didn’t. He required of me the same spiritual disciplines he required of himself (although, slightly less). He believed I could do more than I thought I could, and his belief didn’t waver. Together, we were able to establish discipline in me. I could write the Text! I could memorize!

A rabbi and a disciple must have a safe relationship to make mistakes and ask hard questions. I probably thought this beforehand, but now in the depth of the rabbinic discipleship context, it seems more crucial. Of course, I never made mistakes… (Editor’s note: Ha!) But assuming I did, there would have to be a safe space for me to reject religious shame and embrace Jesus. I do know I asked a lot of hard questions. Since we had a safe space for questions, I was able to wrestle with my community and God. That is the Text incarnate.

Discipleship inherently creates accountability as well. There is a certain expectation in the construct of rabbinic discipleship. For my discipleship experience, I was expecting Marty to be disciplined, dedicated to the Text, and supportive. I think he expected me to be faithful, available, and teachable. We both showed up in those ways because we had to be accountable to one another in order for the process to bring forth our desired results. If one of us did not fully show up, the discipleship experience could be a waste of time for both of us.

I believe discipleship transforms both the rabbi and the disciple. You cannot follow, nor be followed by, a person for a year and not learn profoundly from them. We experienced transformation on many occasions. The most memorable for me is in regard to my friendship with a recovering addict. My passion for the marginalized brought this friend into our community. It was a blessing for me and for Marty’s family to be able to love and support this new friend. However, Marty’s family was providing respite care for foster children at the time. Marty and I had to discuss legal boundaries and ways to protect everyone in our community. This transformed both of us because it forced us to have eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that understand multiple vulnerable populations.

I treasure most the walks and drives to campus. These were the moments when Marty was not on stage or in front of a classroom. It felt like it was on these walks and drives that our relationship grew from a rabbi and disciple, to friends and co-laborers. Eventually, he could be himself freely and process more than just Text with me. I can imagine the disciples experienced something similar with Jesus. And I am excited for the day when we get to share our rabbi pranks!

MAKING AN IMPACT: Model

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’ve covered our definition of discipleship as being imitating a mentor who imitates Jesus, and we’ve even hinted at the fact that, for years, we’ve had a mission statement that serves this end by providing us a roadmap to discipleship. For a long time, we have said ICM exists to pursue, model, and teach intimacy with Christ on the American university campus, in the context of Christian community. In our last post we spoke of the first word on that roadmap — pursue. We spoke of having an intentional pursuit of God and defined the word pursue as intentionally engaging spiritual practices.

But is this enough? Is it enough to pursue God, creating space for Him and letting Him bear fruit?

On one hand, yes! If we truly pursue God in a way that resembles the “abiding” of John 15, the idea would be that God will call us to do what He wants us to do. The “fruit” is a natural (or supernatural) byproduct of our intentional pursuit of God — without a doubt.

But God also told us to do a lot of things. The Bible is a big book full of a lot of big ideas, so there are probably a few more things we can use to give us guidance. Of that whole big book of God’s dreams for this world, which ones do we use to give us direction?

Fortunately, this is where our purpose of making disciples and our definition of discipleship serve our mission very well. If we are to make disciples who make disciples, and we have defined that as a process of imitation, then the next word to come is only natural: MODEL.

If we really believe that pursuing God will lead to intimacy with God (what we define as success), and if that intimacy with God is what He uses to bear fruit that will last in our lives and ministries, then discipleship is the process of teaching our students how to do this well. Our job becomes one of pursuing sustainable spiritual formation. In this regard, it is not enough to simply pursue God and create space for Him in our lives. We also have to show our students how to do this. We’re going to show them in a very literal fashion… by modeling it.

ICM’s Vice President, Jeff VanderLaan, has one of my favorite sayings in relation to this topic. He likes to say, “Just because you’re wearing clothes, doesn’t make you a model. A model is somebody who wears clothes in front of others for the purpose of being seen.” This is a fantastic metaphor and drove us to define the term ‘model’ as pursuing God in front of others.

This is also a natural progression from the rabbinic idea that discipleship is about mimicry and imitation. You cannot imitate a rabbi or a mentor if you don’t have a model to mimic. I would never have learned how to tie my shoes without a model to follow and a teacher to imitate. I would never have learned how to do a load of laundry without imitating my mother’s example. Why do we think others can learn ideas like memorizing scripture or taking a sabbath by merely talking about it? Aren’t these things that need to be seen?

Now, some very astute Bible students will be quick to point out, “We aren’t supposed to do our spiritual deeds to be seen by others! We’re supposed to pray and pursue God in secret, without the left hand knowing what the right hand is doing.” And this desire for secrecy is a good point and certainly worth addressing. The reference comes from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6) and reads as follows:

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

But we would be wise to remind ourselves of words Jesus spoke as part of the very same teaching in the previous chapter:

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

So what gives? Obviously Jesus taught us that the way in which we live is to be seen by others so they can know and glorify God. But what we have to be careful of is our motivation. Jesus says not to do these things “to be seen.” If this is the reason you are doing them, you are going to be disappointed in the reward you receive. You’ll end up with the praise of others as your reward, but not the mission of God (i.e., disciples).

And so we model our pursuit of God on purpose in front of our students. We pursue God in front of them so they can see what a healthy pursuit of God looks like. We do not do this in order to be seen, but to instruct them and help them develop as maturing followers of Jesus.

But speaking of instruction, is pursing and modeling the whole of the process? Is it enough to merely mimic our instructor? Or is all of this imitation a part of something bigger?