Why Did I Go to Seminary?

I get asked often what I want to do with my life (read: what kind of work I want to do), particularly once people know I went to seminary. I also get frequent questions about Spiritual Formation, this thing I spent three years of my life studying. So, I thought I’d take a moment to answer these questions. 

Last May, I graduated from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary with a Master’s in Spiritual Formation. Because of the broad application of spiritual formation, at least as encapsulated by this particular program, graduates go on to a variety of things. I know one fellow student who is a full time counselor and another who works full time with a college ministry. Others receive training to become spiritual directors. Spiritual formation can be applied to a wide variety of ministries, including worship, educational ministries, counseling, discipleship, and others.

Simply put, spiritual formation considers how we are spiritually formed as Christians. It considers how our spirits (and lives) are shaped by the Holy Spirit into the likeness of Christ. It asks how we can encourage this sort of development in the lives of believers. In my opinion, this is at the heart of what the church should be about—creating a space for people to come into contact with the living God and have their lives transformed as a result. 

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LICC and Whole-Life Discipleship: A Resource

Have you ever had one of those moments when someone finally put clearly into words what had been echoing and churning in your heart? You know, when you listen and want to scream “Yes—this is what I’ve been trying to say!” 

I had one of these moments when I heard Neil Hudson speak last year at the seminary I was attending. Neil is from the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity, which was founded by John Stott (that name might ring a bell for some of you) in the early 1980s. I hadn’t heard of Neil or LICC when I went. I went because I resonated with the title of the day-long conference: “No Time for Mission? Cultivating a Missional Imagination for Over-Busy Christians.” But I found there, finally, a clearly and powerfully articulated expression of what has been stirring in my heart for years—the need for, as he calls it, “whole-life discipleship” in the church. 

The work of LICC aims to give churches and individual Christians a vision to see beyond what is often portrayed as a sacred-secular divide in the life of the Christian, and instead see how the Gospel impacts all of ordinary life.

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How Many Hours of Your Week Are Dedicated to God?

I remember the sessions from my high school days, a moment intended to create a self-evaluation of the use of my time (good), which ended in guilt (not-good). 

“How many hours are there in a week?”

Twenty four each day, times seven days. One hundred sixty eight hours.

“How many of those hours do you spend sleeping?”

If I’m trying to get eight hours of sleep a night…fifty six hours.

“How many of those hours do you spend at school or work?”

About eight hours five days a week…forty hours, maybe more.

“How many of those hours do you spend doing extracurricular activities? . . . How many of those hours do you spend recreationally, doing something fun with friends?”

On and on it went, with the activities and responsibilities of my week slowly chipping away at the hours allotted to me each week. 

And then of course came what was to be the climactic question: “How many hours a week do you spend dedicated for the Lord?” 

Two hours at church on Sunday, two at church on Wednesday night, and maybe 30 minutes for devotions each morning…

My teenage self looked at the meager sum. Not even eight hours a week.

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Do We Affect God's Reputation?

Our small group is currently studying the book of Daniel. As we started last week, I was struck by a simple statement in the first few verses. 

“And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his [Nebuchadnezzar’s] hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god.” (Daniel 1:2)

The Kingdom of Judah is crumbling and on its last legs, finally coming under its rightful punishment of exile after decades of unfaithfulness. Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, invades, carrying away the political, social, and cultural elite—and “some of the vessels of the house of God.” He, a pagan invader, marches into the Temple and plunders the precious tools and containers used for the worship and sacrifices in the Temple, and then he takes those symbols of the religious life that was at the center of Jewish identity and puts them in the temple of his own god. In the cultural understanding of the day, this was a clear statement that Nebuchadnezzar’s god was more powerful than Israel’s God Yahweh: Yahweh was weak; Nebuchadnezzar’s god had won. God’s reputation was tarnished—God’s sovereignty and might were called into question…all because of the Israelite people.

And this was what struck me—God chose to identify himself so fully with His people that their behavior and fate colored His reputation. To outside rulers and leaders, He was who they were—their strength and character reflected on His. 

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Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: A Review

Have you ever traveled internationally? If you have, I’m sure you’ve seen the reality of differing cultural values. You can often tell you’re rubbing up against a different cultural value when you have one of those head-tilting (or fist-clenching) “why on earth are they doing that?” moments. Some cultures see time as a specific value as shown on my watch, others as the appropriate timing as dictated by life events. Some cultures prize privacy, and some prize interconnectedness and hospitality. Some value planning ahead and saving for the future, others value enjoying life in the here-and-now. Which of these is correct? Well, it depends on who you talk to.

Cultural differences can be the source of hilarious blunders and extreme frustration. They can also lead to profound miscommunication. Talk to anyone who has spent an extended amount of time living abroad, and they will have ample stories to illustrate. 

We expect some level of culture difference when we travel—it’s why we use terms like “culture shock”—because we recognize that we’re entering into a cross-cultural experience. We prepare ourselves. But when was the last time we consciously prepared ourselves for a cross-cultural experience when we picked up the Bible? 

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