Campus Ministry Conundrum

This week I'm in the Houston area (The Woodlands, ya'll) at a campus ministry conference called "Refresh '08." It is the third annual "Refresh" and it is a joy to hang around 160 or so dedicated Christians interested in college ministries and young people. We've heard great speakers, experienced edifying worship, attended helpful workshops and have enjoyed spending a lot of time connecting with one another.

I've been in campus ministry long enough that these folks really feel like close friends. Of course, I see some of them only at this event in a year's time. For you United Methodist clergy types, it's like going to annual conference (perhaps a tad more fun). It is NOT like annual conference in terms of acting on business items. The goals of "Refresh" are three: (1) be refreshed,(2) get connected with other college ministers and (3) find resources for your work.

For a research project I'm beginning to build, I looked at the Census Bureau statistics online to try to figure out just how many college students there are in the United States. I need to get back to the site, but I think, if I found the right number, there are almost 16 million college students in this country. Sixteen million. Did I say sixteen million?

Some of my friends in this work have - by the usual standards of measurement - huge ministries: several hundred students coming to a mid-week worship and engaged in small groups for discipleship and other practices of spiritual growth and ministry. They are the mega-churches of campus ministry. For others, the scope of their ministry is smaller, but no less significant. When I hang around these folks and listen to what they're doing, I envision their students. They're doing some really amazing things. I see the fruit of the ministry (some of their former students are now in campus ministry, or local church ministry, or on the mission field, or - perhaps the best - engaged in radical Christian discipleship in "secular" jobs). When I think of those sixteen million young people and the efforts of my friends and colleagues to reach some of them, my heart swells with joy.

But something else is going on at this conference. It is a common theme among us. Why are (especially) erstwhile mainline denominations - in spite of much rhetoric to the contrary - so fatalistically detached from the mission field that is college ministry? Why do we hear so much about new church starts (by the way, how are we doing on them?) and don't see the field white for harvest among college students? Clearly, there are committed, interested, leaders, from the top of our United Methodist Church to the grass roots. We have two bishops attending our event. God bless them! Yet, I've also talked to denominational executives who are working hard and constantly frustrated by the lack of movement. Some of us have stood around in little knots, this week, during breaks, verbally scratching our heads about the inertia.

So, on the one hand, we can rejoice in the tremendous work that is happening. I thank God for concerned individuals working so hard to make a difference. On the other, when we go back home, save for a few notable exceptions, we will get back to work within an ecclesial (United Methodist) context that largely ignores us.

That is the conundrum of campus ministry.

Christmas Pet Peeves

I know it's the most ridiculously wrong time of the year to be talking about pet peeves, but I've got 'em. Here's my Christmas list.

1. The sappy Christmas music that my favorite radio stations start playing right after Thanksgiving. OK, once in awhile I chuckle at some of the more farsical ones, but mostly, I'm just irritated. I heard Christmas stuff on the radio even before Thanksgiving this year! Which leads me to my next gripe.

2. Most of us Christians completely ignore Advent. That's partly what bugs me about Christmas music. I used to get in a little trouble when I pastored in the local church. I made my congregations actually sing Advent hymns (there aren't very many in our UM hymnal) during Advent. They are, except for just a handful, little-known. We want to jump right to "the good stuff" with Christmas, so we skip over all the yearning and desire and awareness of our need that Advent draws out. And then, of course, immediately after December 25th, we quit singing carols and stop celebrating too soon. Which leads to my next gripe.

3. Truthfully, the churches that do practice Advent seem to want to avoid all that "second coming" stuff about Jesus that Advent brings up. If you read the lectionary passages from the Gospels, it's not about "gentle Jesus, meek and mild." It's about Jesus the Coming King. If we actually paid attention to the Advent scriptures instead of reading them through all the nostalgia associated with Christmas, we might more passionately worship the Newborn King! Which leads to my fourth gripe.

4. The liturgical calendar, which is something to which we should pay attention, gets treated more cyclically than linear-ly (clearly not a word, but oh well...) and we lose sight of history almost completely. The result of this theological amnesia is that remembering and preparing for Jesus' birthday becomes the focus of our Advent. We start looking only backwards and praying for "Christ to be born in our hearts again," which, on its face, is not a bad sentiment. It just means that we're looking in the wrong direction. We should be looking more toward the future and the full coming of the Kingdom. Which leads to my final gripe...for now.

5. Why do we reduce everything to slogans? "Jesus is the reason for the season." Yes, good reminder, but so pathetically shallow if that's all the farther we ever go. "Happy Birthday Jesus." I'm telling you, there ought to be some sort of ecclesial ban on putting this one on a church sign or board or bulletin!

Christmas gets close and all the pop-culture practices fairly nearly cause all of us - even and especially Christians - to miss the point. Christmas is ultimately much less about Jesus' birthday remembered than it is about the Incarnation of the Word of God. It's not just a day on the calendar that we have romancticized to the point of nauseum and sentimentalized into meaninglessness. It is (along with the resurrection) the most startling, unexpected, "impossible," awesome event that has or will ever, ever, ever take place.

Now, before you go off on me as nothing but an old scrooge, consider this truth: the good is the enemy of the best.

The Breakthrough

It has been almost two weeks since the general elections and pundits are still buzzing about Barack Obama's victory. Like so many people, I spent the whole evening on November 4, watching the returns, then Senator McCain's gracious concession speech and, finally, well past my bedtime, the President-Elect.

Yes, it truly was an historic moment. I don't really qualify as a politics junkie - not even close - but I have stayed in touch with various news programs since then. Obviously, one of the regular themes has been what the election means for African Americans, but, more importantly, for the whole nation. A very long, very large burden is finally, mercifully lifting.

As I watched the party in Grant Park, Chicago, the TV cameras returned again and again to Jesse Jackson and Oprah Winfrey. The whole world could see both of them alternatively laughing and crying. Although Jackson appears to be beyond his prime in terms of prominence in the news, Oprah Winfrey most definitely is not. She is one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world, much less the United States. (Some of you may think I'm too prone to overstatement here, but think about it: her wealth, her reach via TV, her book club, for goodness' sake!) And there she was, shedding tears of joy.

Last Spring I attended the United Methodist General Conference. Worship is always incredibly well-done at this international two-week event. I may not have the details of this memory exactly right, but one moment stands out. A combined choir of two African American United Methodist churches sang at one of the evening worship services. They sang a number well-known among Black churches, with lyrics characteristic of black gospel: oppression, struggle, faith and perseverance. I noticed how our African American sisters and brothers sang - not merely with enthusiasm (because they like the music) - but with a level of feeling that is hard to describe. They felt that song deep in their collective soul.

Affluent, powerful, middle-class black people singing a song about oppression and deliverance; singing with a pathos and a poignance that caught my attention.

I did not grow up in the lap of affluence or privilege. My parents were Depression-era western Kansas, hard-scrabble cowfolk from pioneer stock. My Dad became a preacher and never made more than minimum salary. We pinched a lot of pennies when I was a kid and I often felt embarrassed about not having stuff other kids had, even the kids who lived out in the middle of nowhere.

But, watching Oprah crying on national TV; listening to the songs of Zion sung like only people who know the sting of racial hatred can sing, I'm telling you, I got it. As close as an over-educated white boy can get it, I got it. You can have a billion dollars in the bank. You can have fame beyond description. You can have a modicum of acceptance on the basis of education or wealth. And you can still feel the emptiness of that something, so basic to human community, that is still denied.

Far beyond Republicans and Democrats, far surpassing party power, beyond whether or not they'll get a filibuster-busting super-majority in the Senate, this election is The Breakthrough. That something-so-basic is no longer denied. Or deniable.

Defining the Opponent

We're a week away from election day and I don't know how it is at your house, but my mailbox is being inundated with glossy, oversized postcards. And my phone rings daily, several times, with messages from candidates and requests for funds from political parties. Wow.

The one common characteristic to all the ads is the way they "define" their opponents. I started noticing this word, "define," several months ago, usually coming from the mouth of one of Obama's or McCain's campaign reps on TV.

"Defining" the opponent is quite an ingenious strategy. It appears that the aim is to make the opponent look as bad as possible while staying within the bounds of "factual." One of my local favorites: the Bluestem Fund (a Kansas thing) is a PAC "defining" a certain local Republican candidate for State Senate. About every other day I'm getting something in my mail from the Bluestem Fund, telling me how awful this candidate is. Just one example: he "voted against funding" for science education. The bottom of the card asserts that this abhorrent action is "fact."

The issue lurking is Kansas' infamous fight over how evolution is taught in public schools. In the hopes that you won't dismiss my criticism of the Bluestem Fund on the assumption that I support their opponent, let me say that I'm not in favor of this Republican candidate's position on the evolution question. I'm not happy at all that it is even a political issue. I have very strong opinions about what ought to be done on this topic, but I'll save those thoughts for another time.

Back to "defining" a candidate. The Bluestem Fund's approach is classic: you take a "fact," rip it from its original historical context and magnify it as much as you can for your political aim. Mix in a little alarmist language about what will happen if so and so gets elected and you have the classic "defining the opponent" slop.

Everyone does it. I'm sickened by it and I promise you, I'm not trying to sound all morally superior. Let's call "defining an opponent" by what it is: lying. Otherwise honest, decent, hard-working public servants are all doing it. Their campaign advisors are doing it. They should be ashamed, but, more importantly, we should be ashamed that such "defining" works.

Could we get just a little grass roots movement going to demonstrate that we will not be bought so easily with this tactic? We hear again and again that campaigns pull this sort of stunt because it works. So, let me just start with Christian people. We should never, ever, ever, engage in these sophisticated forms of lying for the sake of getting "our" candidate elected. This tactic ultimately demonstrates our lack of faith in a good, sovereign, holy God. No matter who gets elected, there is still a God in heaven...whose eyes are everywhere...who is not surprised by anything.

I'm not advocating political quietism. We should get involved and exercise responsible citizenship. That's my point: the tactic of "defining" an opponent is rash and irresponsible. Worse, when Christians engage in it, it demonstrates our loss of perspective, our foolishness. It's not worth the horrible consequence of eating away at truth with de-contextualized "facts." Let us not sell our birthright for this mess of political pottage. We are contributing to the degeneration of American society. Christians are supposed to be salt and light, not pawnish political hacks.

Why Are We Surprised?

No doubt like you, I've been following the ups and downs (mostly downs) of the stock market and listening to the pundits talk about this latest economic crisis. I've been amused - in a sickened sort of way - by the finger pointing of political parties and candidates.

In my morning prayer time I started reading Proverbs today. In the opening chapter, "my child" (NRSV), or "my son" (NIV) is instructed to avoid getting involved with friends who will lead him into a life of greedy dissipation. 1:19 says, "Such is the end of all who are greedy for gain; it takes away the life of its possessors." The proverb writer thus makes the point that greedy people (who are violent even if they never lift a physical finger against someone) are trapped in their own devices, like a bird caught in a net.

An apt picture, this is. Why, then, are we surprised, when greedy people act greedily?

And what is greed, really? It is an insatiable (never satisfied) appetite for money and material possessions. It is the economic form of sexual lust (a form of sin about which we conservative Christians demonstrate obsessive concern). But of course, this is only a partway definition. The reason greed gets a hold on anyone is because of what a super-abundance of money and material possessions promises: freedom, comfort, pleasure, joy. The promise is a lie. It's always a lie. It will forever be a lie. How do we stop falling for it?

In the end, greed (like sexual lust) is disordered desire. It is the economic manifestation of Genesis 3: the woman and the man saw the fruit, saw that it was desirable, and believed that it would give them something good that they didn't yet have. No wonder this story is a classic. We should never be surprised when someone - either the fat-cat Wall Street types or the eighteen-year-old who gets his first credit card and doesn't know how to handle it - falls prey to this problem.

Because we all have the problem. We should neither be surprised, nor should we be jaded, when Wall Street gets out of whack or when Congress-persons contribute to the problem by over-loosening regulations. It's pure hypocrisy for anyone, Democrat or Republican or Independent, to point fingers and pretend that they, themselves don't have the same problem.

Greed tempts us to believe what is not true. It is desire out of whack, like a swollen river exceeding its banks. Disordered desire always gets us in trouble. We are caught in the net of sin - every one of us. Our "caught-ness" manifests itself in different ways, for we are not all tempted by the same things. But we are all tempted.

I just wrote a bunch of stuff you already know. So, why am I writing it? Frankly, because I think Christians, of all people, ought to be able to exhibit (and help to provide) some balance and sensibility during this very heated political season. We ought to have opinions, strong ones, about the best candidates and policies, but we ought not get swept away by the nonsense pumped at us from so many directions. We ought not to be surprised, nor jaded, when we get caught by our own temptations. We thus could be in a better position (rather than playing the stupid politics game) to witness to the One who can redeem us (in more than a merely "spiritual" sense) from the power of sin - economic or otherwise.

Christian people living Christianly - brilliant!

Cooling Off, a Little

A commenter on my blog about getting a job (10/11) reminded me of a verse from Ecclesiastes (3:13), "It is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil." Since this statement is all that the commenter left me, I take it to be a gentle criticism of my "worker bee" reference.

I'll accept this remonstrance. As I think about people who work in technical fields with technical degrees (including my own son) I do not want to create the impression that such jobs are not good, honest labor with their own inherent value. They certainly are. My intent was not to play the elitist and put down technical schools or work, in general. In fact, I want just the opposite.

Rather, I was and still am aiming at the absurd prejudice so prevelant in our society, that the main purpose of going to college is so that you can get that good job. That is not the purpose of college at all. It is, rather, to figure out who you are; to become a thoughtful, wise person. Furthermore, Christian higher education , to which I am committed, is about becoming a mature, fruitful disciple of Jesus Christ. (Perhaps the Bible college mentality is the Christian analogy to technical schools. Now I'm probably in trouble with a different set of people.) Having a job is certainly an important part of being a faithful Christian. But the "technical school" approach to adult life is dangerously short-sighted.

I suppose what I'm really talking about is the old idea of "vocation." You can get training in a particular skill set and get yoruself a good job. But you - a person - are so much more than your job skills. I'd like for every line worker in the country to know and believe this truth deeply about him- or herself. How will anyone know it if all we think a college education does is help people get a good job?

Here's the irony I find behind my commenter's gentle criticism: it is at least possible that a college student might actually have to read Ecclesiastes 3 for a class and think about what it means. That action of having to think about something beside just how to work a piece of equipment or solve a mechanical problem (worthy skills, I repeat) is exactly what I'm talking about. I have a hard time imagining that a student in technical school would - as a part of his/her education - ever run into such a reading.

Thus I return to my main concern: wise, thoughtful, people and, more to the point, that kind of Christian populating our society. It is why I reacted so negatively to that newspaper article. We need a broader vision about college than the entrenched technical school mentality and, however people get it, our society needs people who know the difference between sound wisdom and instrumental skill. We are slipping badly on this count.

Yes, But Will It Help Me Get a Job?

It's Homecoming time at good old Southwestern College, which means I get to talk to some of my "old" students. I love these interactions. For one, these alums make me smile inwardly at their "I'm getting old" remarks. More importantly, they remind me of what I'm doing with my life. I'll come back to this point eventually.

A couple of weeks ago I read an article in the Wichita Eagle that just made me mad (yes, I'm still fuming: see my earlier post), although what irritated me was not the main point of the article. The president of one of the technical colleges in Wichita (which feeds the very large local airplane industry) made the offhand remark that he was the "poster child" for getting a college degree and then not being able to find a job. As if getting a job is what a college degree is about! In higher education, there is not a dumber thing that could be said. Statistics regularly demonstrate that practically any bachelor's degree will get you your first job - except in some of the technical fields. Colleges are not and never have been about dispensing "knowledge," if by "knowledge" we mean merely instrumental, technical skill. That sort of knowledge is obsolete before one graduates anyway. The main point of that newspaper article, then, is actually a very good one: if you're interested in a skill to get you a job, by all means, don't waste your time and money on college! But don't slam college on the way out the door.

If you want to be more than a worker bee the rest of your life; if you want to be able to do more than just react viscerally to whatever the latest news cycle throws at you; if you want some joy that takes you far deeper than the fleeting pleasure the stuff you can buy can give you; in other words, if you want to be a whole person, then you'd better either figure out how to read serious, weighty, elegant writings on your own and with a group of friends...or you'd better go to college.

Listening to our college alumni reminds me of what I'm doing. I'm not "dispensing information." (Why do my new students use that word so much?! What is going on in high school that reduces everything to "information?") I'm introducing students to a way of life: the way of wisdom. And more importantly, as a Christian leader, I am both modeling discipleship and helping them into that cruciform life. And a big part of discipleship is thinking wisely. You absolutely cannot hurry it. Learning how to reflect, to pray, to ponder, to learn the difference between strong opinion and sheer bigotry; to recognize what is true and beautiful and enduring - that(!) is what college is about. This kind of learning is grounded in relationship. It requires community. And that, too(!) is what college is about.

The fact is (yes, it can be empirically demonstrated) that gaining wisdom is hugely practical. But it's not very fast.

If you're a parent, pleeeeze don't tell your child not to major in something because it's "not very practical." If you're a college student, don't make the mistake of thinking that you have to major in something in order to get a good job. Figure out who you are! Get a grasp on what is eternally important. Lengthen your vision.

I've listened to lots and lots of alumni from our school - people as old as my parents' generation and as young as the 20-somethings just a fear years out - and I regularly hear a common theme: what really has stuck with them about college and what means so much to them now is not the scintillating lectures that we professors give or the brilliant research papers that they wrote as students. Of course, those things have their place. Nevertheless, as the years go by, what remains of supreme value about college are all the intangibles: the relationships, the conversations, the outside-of-class (even chapel) experiences.

The "will-it-help-me-get-a-good-job?" obsession is vastly over-rated and ultimately counterproductive! Can we imagine this irony? Our grim determination to ensure our future is, once we slow down and look, rather hapless and silly. We're all going to die. There'd better be much more to life that having that good job. And there is.