The Problem With Being Present With My Family

| Guest Post | Nathan Foster |

I love my family. 

I can’t begin to describe the intimate connection I feel when I think of my kids. I never knew I could love this much. 

Yet I’m not really a very good father. Can I admit that I’m easily distracted and often get bored when I hang out with my kids? In spite of my persistent desire to wake them up at night because I miss them, in spite of the butterflies I get when I stare at them, sometimes I can’t handle more the 15 minutes of running around the park or playing hide and seek. 

I often wonder what is wrong with me that after a couple of hours of watching my kids I’m anxious to run away.

Starting at Home

| Guest Post | Nathan Foster |

How do we know when we are loved?  Is it that look of acceptance, a smile and warm embrace?  Or is it when someone buys us crap we don’t need or lets us have our own way?  The ultimate expression of love has to be taking a bullet for someone, losing your life so someone else can live. You know, the Jesus way.  A heroic stranger sacrifices her own life to save that of a child about to be struck down by a wayward semi.  Our heroine just gave the child what potential time on earth she had left so that the kid could have more.  Minus the potential pain, dying for someone is giving them lots of potential time.  When we share our time, is this not the pinnacle of human sacrifice? 

Time lets us know that we are loved.  In periods of isolation or sadness when someone shares their time, it doesn’t just mean a lot-- it means everything.  The only thing I have any control over is what I do in this fleeting moment.  Time, my most valuable possession is quite possibly my only real possession.  (Excerpt from Wisdom Chaser).

Satisfying Work [?]

If you've caught my last few posts you know that I've recently been on retreat with a bunch of campus ministers at the Summer Institute for Campus Ministry on Whidbey Island.  It was good for so many reasons, and in so many ways.

Our second full day on the island was spent with Ken and Jo-Ann Badley talking about campus ministry assessment.  It was a daunting task, no doubt, but they did a fantastic job covering a subject that I think we'll all agree is both significant and challenging.

Ultimately, we all want to be involved with work and ministry that is satisfying... right?!  Effectiveness, and knowing that what we're actually being effective in what we're doing is important to finding true and deep satisfaction.

SO, here are a few quotes that were presented during the opening session that might serve as a springboard for some upcoming posts on assessment:

Searching for Significance

| Guest post | Nathan Foster | 

I once heard an ultra-conservative guy who had built his ministry empire on the proselytizing of “family values” give his pseudo-retirement address. Apparently, after spending years of working at the ministry 60 to 80 hours per week, he had decided that it was time to slow down. Even at retirement, however, he seemed completely unaware of the notion that he may have spent more time focusing on his work than his own family. He was championing the value of being a workaholic.

My father and I once spent a couple of hours analyzing the lives of influential Christian men, both current and historic. With limited data, we tried to assess just how well famous people bore the name “Father.” It became clear to us that the history of evangelical men was largely a story of men who ditched their families (excerpt from Wisdom Chaser).

SICM and Nathan Foster

I'm leaving later today for one of my favorite places (at least in the US) - Whidbey Island.  

For the last several years the CCCU (Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities) has hosted a Summer Institute for Campus Ministry (SICM) on this quaint little island off the coast of Seattle.  

Dr. Keith Anderson (President of Mars Hill Graduate School) and Rev. Bill Fischer (Dean of Christian Faith & Life at Huntington University) are the co-creators of this retreat-style spiritual formation experience and have served as co-hosts since the retreats' inception.  

I have attended this event  4 or 5 times now and it always seems to be the perfect mix of instruction, conversation, activity and relaxation.  The size (typically between 25 and 40 attendees) has always drawn me in as well!

This is a great place for me to be with colleagues and friends, to be renewed and encouraged in the midst of my summer, and to be challenged and shaped in some intentional ways.

This year's theme is 'Learning Spiritual Formation' and the plan is to focus on:

• How we learn spiritual formation?
• What is an effective way of spiritual formation that is always learning?
• What elements of formation are necessary for us to learn so that we may teach?

Hocking Jesus

:: [Guest Post by Michael McCord] ::

NOTE:   As you read this I will be walking the streets of Nassau while introducing other campus ministers to the mission possibilities there. I wrote this blog post several months ago after returning from a mission trip with eleven students. It is mostly in response to a deep conversation we had about what will happen when the students leave college. See, they get it – they’re tired of churches that are more concerned with creating their own world rather than changing THE world for the sake of The Kingdom.

So as our students walk across their stages and receive their long expected degrees, will there be a church they can be part of? Will there be a movement of Jesus followers who actually pray as Jesus taught us… and believe it?

9 "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread.  12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.

I was recently walking through the straw market in Nassau, Bahamas. I’ve been there close to a dozen times on mission trips through our Wesley Foundation. It’s a familiar experience to me. What struck me during my most recent visit was the likeness that I found between the current church models and this collection of traders.

When you are new to the scene, you instantly become overwhelmed by the shear size of the venue and the number of traders packed into the space. At times, you may be pressed against the musky cigar trader who’s covered in sweat and whispering, “green, mon, want some green” (note: green is marijuana, for those who don’t know) while a little old lady from one of the cruise ships elbows her way through the crowd. That’s just another typical day in the straw market. What one realizes once they have been to the market several times is that most of the merchants are all selling the same thing. In fact, they actually work for the same boss.

Getting It Right

:: [Guest post by Sarah Baldwin] ::


I live a few miles west of the city of coffee aka Portland, Oregon.  Portlanders take their coffee seriously. It must be one of the only cities in the world where you hear people pursuing “going into coffee” as their career plan instead of the gap year job after college.  Experienced baristas opt for the more hipster coffee shops and although there is Starbucks, there is a general disdain for anything that brews cookie-cutter capitalism and coffee together.  For the true Portlander nothing beats Stumptown coffee.  Stumptown is locally owned, committed to fair-trade, and is known for pursuing the best-quality coffee, roasting method and pouring it out all over Portland. 

A couple of nights ago we happened to have one of the Stumptown baristas over to share a meal.  I confessed that sometimes I feel a little intimidated coming into Stumptown.  You have to know what you want, know it quickly, and select from their very sophisticated coffee blackboard-menu with the options: coffee, cappuccino, Americano, espresso, latte.  No white chocolate mochas, no cinnamon- shot vanilla lattes, no Pumpkin Pie Chai. This place is not catering to the sugared/flavored coffee crowd, this is just  good coffee.  That’s what they do.  The barista tells me, “We are the coffee experts.  We know good coffee.  We don’t try and appeal to all the options and flavors.  If people want that, they can go somewhere else.”

Longevity in College Ministry

A few weeks ago I started polling my readers so I could:

• better understand who you are,
• gain some statistical data,
• test out some theories I have,
• attempt to provide some posts that are meaningful and relevant to the work we are doing.

 The question I posed two weeks ago was:

How long have you been serving in college ministry?

Nearly 70% of those who took the poll reported having served in college ministry for 6 years or more (6-10 years 31%; 11-20 years 31%; and 20+ years 6%).  I, myself, am just finishing my 13th year serving in college ministry.  Over my 13 years of working with college students I have worked on 4 different campuses - within 3 different denominations - spanning 3 different geographical regions within the US.  The results of my poll, coupled with my own experiences over the course of my ministry life thus far, have served to confirm a bit of wisdom I was given when applying for my first position in college ministry:

Part II :: Moses AND Joshua :: Different Sides of the Same Ministry

I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. ~ I Cor. 3:6

Understanding our purpose and calling as leaders is SO important.  We are not all called to do the same things.  We are not all called to serve the same people... in the same ways.  All places and problems are unique - and God calls us based on the unique gifts/talents/passions He has designed us with to 'go and do' what He calls us to.

In my post yesterday I shared some thoughts on how the unique nature of Moses' leadership of the Israelites might be able to shed some necessary light on our current ministry leadership experience.  


Today my attention turns to Joshua and how God chose to use him to complete the mission that He had originally called Moses to - conquering the Promised Land for the Israelites to inhabit.


The task had been Moses', but now it was Joshua's.  Joshua had been with Moses, even serving as a spy sent to explore the Promised Land in the book of Numbers, but at the end of Deuteronomy we see Moses passing on his leadership baton to the new leader of the Israelites.  

The mission was not complete, but Moses' part in the process was.

Joshua's 40 year of leadership would take on a much different look than that of his predecessor.  All of the struggles that Moses experienced while moving the Israelites towards the Promised Land would be replaced, in Joshua's season of leadership, with success in the form of a united Israelite army following - ultimately - the leadership of God.


But wasn't Moses' ministry leadership critical to setting the stage for Joshua's success?  Some of us may too quickly give all of the credit to God... and truthfully, He may be deserving of it.  I wonder, however, if as we look at this transitional period in the history of the Israelites, we don't catch a glimpse of how God chooses to use different people - in different seasons - for different reasons.


Would Moses' really have been able to lead the military campaigns in the successful manner that Joshua did?  Would Joshua have been able to deal with the stiff-necked nature of the Israelites for 40 years in the same way that Moses did?  It's hard to say with any certainty, but it's definitely worth us considering.


These two men led the Israelites in different ways through very different seasons of their history.  And if we pull back just a bit on the panorama of their history, we are reminded of the Patriarchs and Joseph who helped to pave the way for these two men... and if we pull back further yet we'll see that faithful individuals like the Judges, Ruth, Samuel, some of the Kings, the Prophets, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, Jesus & the Disciples, Paul, Timothy and many others were used to lead the Jewish nation at different times in their collective history.


The point that I'm trying to make is that we never know for sure where our leadership will fall in the lifetime of a ministry context.  We don't know how our current course of action - including our present challenges and/or success - are setting the stage for the leaders who will come after us.  Neither do we oft consider the legacy of those who have come before us... and how all of their efforts have helped to set the stage for us.

We are stewards of the relationships and ministry contexts that God chooses to entrust to us.  

SO:


How does this truth shape your current ministry leadership?


What role do you currently find yourself playing (soil tiller, seed sower, waterer, pruner, harvester, other)?


Does it help you in your current ministry season to consider that God has called you to it, designed you in ways to help it, as well as to see that you are simply carrying out the role that God has asked of you... in the line of many who have come before you... and the many who will come after you?


I'd love to know what you think.


Grace and peace.

Ideas for April

For most of us, April is the final (full) month of ministry with students before they leave for summer break.  The end is in sight, but there are still more meaningful ministry opportunities for us to take advantage of.

Last week I posted some thoughts on Avoiding Autopilot Syndrome during this post-spring break season of ministry.  Students tend to check out during these final weeks of the school year, and it can be very tempting to 'return the favor' as we are equally tired - from a full season of ministry, and eager - for the change of pace that comes when students leave for the summer.  SO, I thought I might post a few ideas about how we can still connect with, love and serve our students over the month of April.

This list will NOT be complete, so please feel free to add your ideas in the comment section below: