Make the Best of (5/5): Things to chew on

In the following section I want to give you some things to chew on. They will probably apply to everyone but I broke it down into what each year is likely to be dealing with.

1st years

You are the babies, and that is perfectly fine. There is no hurry to look mature and have everything figured out. Be curious, if any year should be able to do that it is you. Ask stupid questions. They are always the best ones, as long as you have the patience and the humility to know that you are not going to figure it out right away.

I want you to wrestle with this question starting today, in light of Mary and Martha, what does choosing God over school look like?

2nd years

Maybe in 1st year someone prodded and kicked you in the butt and kept you going, and you went to some church because all your friends went, maybe you're here at CCF because you have been doing all your life.

You are 2nd years now, so just as Joshua told the congregation of Israel when they finally got to Canaan, choose for yourself. Will I go out of what's familiar and safe? Will I think of and see God for myself? Or would I rather busy myself with my five year plan and the usual Christian routine and mob mentality if that is all there is?

3rd years (and 4ths who are not graduating)

This 2nd to 3rd year turn is the toughest of these 4 years. Your expectations suddenly change from being receivers to givers. So while the 2nd years should get started on deeper, it is absolutely crucial for you, because for whatever reason, a lot of you will forget or think you do not need to receive anymore.

Yet here is a simple fact, you can not give what you do not have.

I am sure you received much in 1st and 2nd year, but if your journey deeper ends there, then what you have to give stops there too. Do not let your zeal for the Lord overtake your intimacy with Him.

If any year needs to remember to be Mary, to stop plugging away at the same old same old and to value His presence in new ways, it is you 3rd years. I know God is eager to do that for he said, "Come all who are weary", but only if you stop and come.

Graduates

Me and Giselle met up with an old friend in New Zealand and she told me I should always say this next bit preceded with a "dun dun dun" sound.

One of the motivations that drives my work here at CCF, is I know that the transition off the campus fellowship will be a huge wet blanket for most of you. Maybe you will be able to go back to your home church where things are great, hearing from quite a few of you, maybe not. Maybe you will find another great community in whatever city you end up at, I am trying to do that right now, it is really hard.

After 12 years at Mac, I have realized, not just for CCF, but campus ministries in general today do not prepare you for a life in anything other than full time ministry; that going harder, doing more, does not strengthen you for the thorns ahead.

When your life here at Mac, when this great community ends, what you will leave with is not the meetings you led, or the causes you have served on, or the theology you have memorized. What remains, what will ultimately be tested after this time of frenetic spiritual activity is over, is your inner connection, your personal relationship, your own intimacy with God.

Deeper is the only thing you take with you.

I am tired of watching zealous brothers and sisters get choked out after they graduate before they have even realized they can't attend or learn their way out of dryness anymore. So if busyness, even for God, is starting to become just busy, if you have not been intentional these 4 years about going deeper with God and valuing His presence personally, please, make decisions today that will change that.

Make the Best of (4/5): Share

Story "Clarence and the Mormons"

Over the last 12 years at CCF, someone every year, without fail, will complain or worry that CCF is not under anything bigger or we do not have any theological oversight, or have highly trained staff.

As much as I understand their concerns I am actually glad for that because it means you get to explore and wrestle without being overprotected and have some sandbox drawn around you constantly. As for me, even though I used to get so much cut eye for this, I like that I do not have a seminary degree because I never get to play that card, and you never get a chance to rely on it.

That, however,  does not mean that there is no one looking out for you; that you are all prone to drinking whatever kool-aid comes along. Look around you, you have 70 brothers and sisters at your side. Beyond that, look inside you, you are the residence of the Holy Spirit, the spirit that Jesus said will guide us into all the truth.

While it might be easy for one of us to fall off the rocker, but if we're willing to be authentic and vulnerable to one another in our DGs, willing to slow down and listen and discern God's heart at PMs, willing to actually wrestle and not just google our way to easy answers when we look at the bible together, if we are willing to be a community that perseveres through each other's explorations and messes and questions and doubts with the Holy Spirit, rather than always proxying through the most popular authorities, it will be hard to fool all of us.

Jesus said in Matt 18 "where 2 or 3 gather, there I am also", and in John 16 that His spirit will "guide us into all the truth". Those are promises He'll keep as we put our heads, our hearts and our experiences together and move deeper into the heart of God. Which is exactly what the Bereans did when they heard Paul, they opened their bibles together and wrestled with it together, and they were commended for it by the Apostle.

Not only that, just as exploring and wrestling takes us beyond where our histories could take us, sharing in each others journeys will take us beyond where we could go by ourselves. It pools together all of our explorations and revelations so that we as a fellowship can partake in all the things that God has spoken over this community. We become greater than the sum of our parts.

The race is long. Your walk with God, Him willing, will continue long after you have graduated.  By exploring, wrestling and sharing this journey with those around us during these undergrad years, we starting building habits that point us beyond where our spiritual histories would allow us, and begin to prepare ourselves for a future with God that few of us would have thought possible.

Make the Best of (3/5): Wrestle

Story "Does being challenged spiritually just mean being told to do, in a louder, more convincing and more persuasive way, things that we've heard and agreed with hundreds of times already?"

There is nothing wrong with that per se. There is nothing wrong with evaluating our lives and being reminded of things that we should be doing.

But Jesus did say Mary chose something that was better than what Martha chose.

Of course, that story in Luke 10 is not telling us to simply stop looking at our behavior or get out of serving, but what I think is latent in the story of Mary and Martha is that growing and abiding in Christ is more about who we are in God's eyes and how we value His presence, than it is about what we do as servants and what we do to fix ourselves.

That Mary Martha contrast is what we actually need to be challenged in in undergrad as this is probably the largest step a lot of your have ever taken out of your childhood Christian environments. We need to be challenged in the way we perceive who God is, how we view who we are, what we think He expects of us, and how we and God relate and interact.

Yet those sorts of foundational, soul-shaking paradigm shifts are precisely what we tend to skim over or avoid or even be hostile towards, because we think we have that figured out by now and we're scared to be seen doubting or wrestling with such things. Just as with that CCFer I talked to that first frosh week potluck, we Chinese Christians tend to gravitate towards environments and paradigms that push us to go harder, but not necessary deeper

Because Chinese! Working hard defines our race, and our spirituality.

If your spiritual environments, whether it be church, or fellowship, or a mentoring relationship, is urging you to work and serve and learn and strive but not moving you into deeper personal revelation and experience of intimacy with God, you are not being challenged to grow there.

Story "It’s either God or I’m having a psychotic episode"

I am not telling this story because i think the spiritual gifts are really important or that being pentecostal is the thing to do, but to say that it is unlikely you are ever going to grow and go deeper with God if you are already busy sticking with what you agree with and feel safe about.

In Acts 17, Luke describes a group called the Bereans. They were Jews living in a foreign Roman city. As with all the places Paul visited, he testified about Jesus, and it must have been earth shattering for the Bereans. Clearly it was earth-shattering enough for the Jerusalem Jews to crucified Jesus.

Yet the Bereans did not attack Paul, nor did they let it go in one ear and out the other, they did not reference their rabbi or teacher and let them dictate whether Jesus was legit. If they had done that they really would've missed out, just as I would have if I went to the prophetic conference with a closed mind, closed heart and just laughed everything off as coincidence or sheer luck, and chose not to follow up on that encounter.

When you explore, have an open mind, truly wrestle with what you see and experience. Often times God building you up will require Him shaking you to the core and laying down a deeper foundation. Let Him take you deeper than the safe and the familiar, do not be afraid to stop and wrestle.

So explore, go and see. Wrestle, be taken deeper. Lastly, speaking of the Bereans, Share, do it in community.

Make the Best of (2/5): Explore

Story "Academic consultancy…..or Starcraft"

Some of you, before you even got to Mac, have had everything already settled and hammered out for your life, whether it be your schooling, your career, your sort of church, your faith practices, how you view your relationship with God, etc. You have grown up with a ton more teaching and voices keeping you safe and on the straight and narrow so to speak, than I ever did.

Yet I wonder if you think that what you've been told is all there is? I wonder if you're content to sit in your childhood sandbox, always learning and knowing that there's more to God, but never venturing out to find Him?

I wonder if you are satisfied with that. I wonder if you have had enough of God in your life already.

Jesus in Acts 1 told his disciples, indirectly telling us, that we are to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth.

Story "I married a lawyer ... material and expert witnesses"

Expert witnesses are chosen because of their academic study and achievements. Their “expert-ness” is relied upon to give a third-person, arms length interpretation of the evidence leftover by an incident.

Material witnesses, on the other hand, were people who were actually there at the incident. They saw. They heard. They felt. They often were changed by that experience.

So which type of witness was Jesus calling us to be?

In Acts 4, Peter and the disciples were brought before the Jewish authorities, the Sanhedrin, because their were spreading the word about Jesus. The scripture records that Sanhedrin specifically noticed that they were uneducated, common men and that they have been with Jesus. They stood out because they were not experts and that they had spent material time with Jesus.

So when I think back to Jesus telling us to be his witnesses, I believe he meant material witnesses, not theological experts. We are to testify of what He's done in our lives and the lives around us, not just postulate and theorize about things we have not seen.

Because the kingdom of God is real, the person of Jesus is real today, the Holy Spirit works today. They are not just words on a page; they are not just data.

There is more to you, there is certainly more to God, than what you have learnt, than what you have been told and how you have been shaped. Now is the time, when you are surrounded by possibilities and bus passes, to get out of your familiar spaces and familiar ways and seek Him out anew: to see the things that you think you know, and walk with God in completely new ways.

Try out different church services, fellowships even, start new spiritual disciplines, questions the easy answers, doubt things you never dared to before, prayerfully examine the expectations and limitations that have been ingrained in you.

Explore and witness and testify to more of God, He really is immeasurably more than you can imagine.

Make the Best of (1/5): Intro

A question that God was chatting with me on my honeymoon was that, by His grace, my race has lasted well past undergrad. I’m 31 this year. So looking back, what would have prepared me better spiritually in my transition to being a kingdom-pursuing working adult?

If I could do undergrad all over again what would I have done differently? What would I have paid more or less attention to or done more or less of?

When I came back to CCF 2 years ago someone asked me once what was the biggest difference between the CCF of my era and now. There are, of course, a lot of differences throughout the years. When I first got here we were 25 people meeting in the TSH 7th floor women’s studies lounge. We also had a few years where we were trying different pho's. Let's just put that discussion to bed. I have been to every pho that has opened or was open in Hamilton in the last 12 years, BnT is the best.

Fun aside, the most glaring difference to me is that you guys are under so much more pressure to perform and to succeed than we ever felt. So many of you are in a rush to have everything figured out. There is this whole life plan, this whole way of life, that you or maybe even someone else has laid out for you.

Which brings me to the first thing I want to encourage you to do,