Extreme athletes will often go to extreme measures in their training in order to be most fully prepared for their upcoming event/s. It's a part of what makes them great! Their willingness to push themselves beyond their limits - and far beyond what most of us would be willing to do - is what distinguishes them from the rest of us. We both admire them and believe them to be completely crazy.
We would love to be like them -- just without having to go through all of the hard work that it takes to become like them...
Picking back up on the theme of training students 'up in the faith' that I talked about in my post last Friday, and reflecting on some more of the teaching and conversation that occurred at the SICM (Summer Institute for Campus Ministry), I want to explore the idea of including 'extreme measures' in what we do with students.
In one of our sessions last week, Jerry Sittser painted for our group a picture of early church disciples who were put to the test. Their discipleship included 'extreme measures' in the form of widespread persecution. Following Jesus Christ was not easy, nor was it something to be taken lightly. Conversion and baptism didn't happen as we know it to today. There was a high level of intense questioning, educating and training the served to "prepare" new believers for what they were getting into. The exemplary lifestyle of the early Christians was very attractive to outsiders, but mature believers felt it necessary to make sure that would-be 'converts' knew the possibilities and realities of persecution and possibility even martyrdom before they 'committed' themselves..
Jerry compared, and contrasted, the realities of early Christians with those of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. Similarly, the Desert Fathers and Mothers took their pursuit of, and obedience to, Jesus very seriously. Unlike early Christians, though, the Desert Fathers and Mothers were not met with threats of persecution and martyrdom... so they sought out their own form of it in the desert. These Christians, feeling 'untested' and 'too comfortable' in normal society; chose to seek out the challenges of fighting the devil in the desert. They would withdraw, alone, to do battle with the Devil, put their faith to the test - and to be trained up in the faith - as a way of showing their devotion to Jesus and allowing the Spirit to shape and form them in the process.
Two different, but equally incredible, examples of hardcore discipleship. And when I hold them up to what we do today with students it makes me wonder how things might need to change... I realize that, on most of our campuses, intense persecution and martyrdom are not realities - but in some parts of the world they are. For most of us, I would think, our student culture is much more like what the Desert Fathers and Mothers experienced in terms of 'cultural Christianity' and human comforts -- and they chose to withdraw from it.
So I'm left with some questions, that I now pose to you:
- What lessons do you find here for those of us serving college students?
- Are there 'extreme measures' that you already include in your discipleship with students? Are there some that need to be added?
- Are students attracted to the 'right' kinds of things in your ministry?
Thanks for joining the conversation!
