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.