ABHE Bonus – Time with Michael Card

When I heard that Michael Card would be at ABHE, I was really excited about seeing him in concert.  Little did I know that he would be leading worship and teaching a class as well.  (If you aren’t familiar with the ministry of Michael Card, check out his website here:  www.michaelcard.com.)

The best way to explain Michael is that he is a Bible teacher who uses music to take you deep into the text of Scripture.  He is also a speaker and a writer (19 books!)

But here’s my story about Michael from Friday.  In the course of his class, he divulged that he is writing a book on slavery in the New Testament.  Remembering back to my days at seminary, I had a few questions about the topic I wanted to ask him.  So I asked if he was familiar with Scott Bartchy’s work on the topic of slavery, which he said he wasn’t.  Over the next 20 minutes, we talked and I found references and articles on the topic in my Libronix program.  Not only did he give me his email address to send them to him, but he brought me his manuscript, showed me his bibliography, and shared an overview of what he had found.  One minute I was a stranger, the next minute we were colleagues, conversing together on something he has poured 3 years into.

Today I wrote him a letter expressing my appreciation for him.  Here is a portion:

I want to thank you so much for coming to bless us at ABHE this year. Having been a fan of your music since high school (20 years ago, when I first heard the Life of Christ trilogy) and a listener to your radio show for the last five years, I have wondered what it would be like to actually meet you. Not only did you live up to every expectation I had, you went far beyond.

I knew you were a talented musician. I have sung many of your songs in church and have all of your albums. I’ve seen you in concert before and heard you play all the interesting instruments on your radio show.

I knew you were a talented writer and teacher. I’ve read several of your books and heard tons of your devotions. Your ability to understand the Scripture is inspiring, but even more is the way you bring your listener right into the text of Scripture, whether in a song or a sermon. I felt like I lived in Acts 10 as you told the story of Peter and Cornelius. And your description of the discipleship process in Mark 3-6 brought a fresh perspective of familiar passages.

Here’s what I didn’t know: how incredibly humble and joyful you are. When you were introduced as “Michael W. Card”, there were any number of ways you could have gotten a dig back in using humor, irony, or sarcasm. But as you walked to the piano, I saw the sparkle in your eyes and the realization that it was ok to just let it go. And after we didn’t clap for one of your songs, you reminded us later that you appreciate the applause, but it’s cool when we don’t clap as well. I’ve heard you call yourself an affirmation junkie, and you received plenty of it. But I also saw you humbly receive suggestions and resist the temptation to glory in yourself instead of the Lord.

And now a question:  How would you expect Michael Card to respond after he traveled across the country to teach a class and talk about the book he has spent three years researching, and someone he never met from the audience told him, “Have you heard of this person? You really should read it before you publish your book”?

I think I know how I would likely respond: defensive and dismissive. And I would lose the chance to demonstrate the lesson Michael Card taught me: No matter how much I know, I can always learn more, and it may come from an unlikely source. He displayed the message of 1 Peter 5:5 to me, “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”   Michael is a man with plenty of knowledge, but his humility is what makes you want to learn from him.

Oddly enough, our students will respond to the same thing.  They want to receive our knowledge while simultaneously contributing to it.  They want to question, probe, suggest, and participate in the conversation.  We can either stifle them or humbly listen to them.  Today, I learned what it feels like to be listened to by someone I look up to.  I hope your students experience that with you.

David

ABHE Session #3 – Reggie McNeal

Reggie McNeal serves as the Missional Leadership Specialist for Leadership Network of Dallas, TX.  His message was entitled “Missional Church Architecture.”  Blending a hyperactive speaking style and humorous content (some of which you should sense from the notes below), he challenged us all to think carefully about the future of the church, which certainly affects the values we instill in our students.  He provides much food for thought.

“Missional Church Architecture”

Most Christians don’t understand that we are winning.  We are the fastest growing religion in the world, not Islam.  There will be 2.7 billion Christians by the middle of the 21st century.  Over the next 24 hours, there will be tens of thousands of new Christians in communist China.  Most new believers in China are associated with the house church movement.  In India, there will be 40-50,000 new believers before tomorrow morning.  One missionary had documented 10,000 conversions a month.  “The church is growing so fast that we don’t have time to do evangelism.”  Christianity may be approaching 18% in some Islam countries.  There are house churches in Pakistan.  One missionary planted 6 house churches on a busload of Christians traveling home from church, when 6 Christians agreed to host a church in their home, which the missionary could help to preach in.

 

Christianity is doing so well, everywhere, except in the West.  In 1900, 80% of Christians were white, northern hemisphere.  Today it’s reversed, with 80% of Christians worldwide being non-white, southern hemisphere.  In Africa, it was 3% Christian in 1900.  Today Africa is 47% Christian.

 

We don’t know that we’re winning because we’re desperately hanging on to what we’ve got.  Christianity is only suffering where the Constantinian footprint went down.  In other parts of the world, it is flourishing.

 

For years, our missions agencies exported styles that weren’t working here to overseas, then wondered why they weren’t successful.  But there’s a Pentecost going on worldwide, and we need to see what is there that we can import to America.  We aren’t God’s home zip code.  We are the largest English-speaking mission field in the world.  What’s going on around the world right now is the biggest thing since the Reformation.  One of the gifts of the Reformation was the gift of denominations.  Worldwide, there’s a much simpler taxonomy today:  those who get it, and those who don’t.  The affinity of Christianity in the new world is around mission:  what God is up to in the world, what we are as Christians, and what our engagement with the world should be.

 

God is doing something largely outside of the church.  He isn’t being caught off guard, but is stirring up a missional renaissance.  After the birth of the renaissance, people could never think again in the old way.  Once you move from Ptolemaic to Copernican, you can’t go back.  In music, art, and politics everything changed.   That’s where we are in Christianity right now.  It is preparing the way and has set the stage for the missional church.    The confluence of these elements is what is changing the landscape out there.  The book of Acts is being replayed as the gospel is going to some shocking people (Samaritans, Gentiles, etc.)  Remember that in Acts 15, they had to call a meeting to see if the Spirit could continue this work!  The church was playing catch up to the Spirit.  That’s where we are today, because the Spirit isn’t limited by us.  God is quite comfortable being God, he doesn’t have to wait for us to do things.  These three things are contributing to the spiritual renaissance:

1. The altruism economy.  We’ve moved from the agronomic economy to the industrial economy to the service economy to the experience economy to the altruism economy.  It’s not just the headliners (Bill Gates, Oprah, Bono, etc.), but it’s across the board.  This will increase.  There is an enormous push to be serving others.  Americans are the most generous people on the planet.  In 2007, we gave almost $300 billion to charities in America, which is even post-Katrina and post-Rita.  Churches and religious institutions got about 35% of that money.  Educational institutions got about 18%.  The next most generous country is Great Britain.  This is an enormous amount of money available.  American Idol raised $70 million in one night.  In this bipolar world, it’s the worst of times, but also the best of times.  (By the way, for the athiest, the problem of good is much more challenging than the problem of evil for the Christian.  How can an atheist explain so much good in the world?  There is no easy answer for them.  But we know it’s because God is good, and every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father.)
2. The desire for personal growth.  Anything you offer for adults, they will sign up for.  Look at cable tv shows to see all the things you can learn to do.  This is what people are hungry for.  With an educated population who have accomplished the basics, they are looking to more fulfillment.  We have a whole culture built on lifelong learning. 
3. The search for spiritual vitality.  In the modern era, the world was assaulting the idea of God.  God was pushed further and further into the corner.  But the post-modern era is widely spiritual.  Right now, secularism is not our challenge.  People are wildly spiritual.  They will believe anything.  The resurrection is a piece of cake compared to alien abductions, parallel universes, and other things they believe.  It’s happening outside the world in the street.  Church people are nervous, because we believe that Oprah stole God from us and we have to go out and retrieve him like getting the Ark of the Covenant back from the Philistines.  But God doesn’t belong just to us. 
   

 

There is an appropriate response and an inappropriate response to these factors.

 

The inappropriate response is business as usual.  All over the world, people are still doing conferences on how to do church better.  That’s irrelevant.  We have the best churches we’ve ever had.  We’ve got everything and people aren’t coming.  Is our response to ramp up another program going to work better?  No. 

 

If you want to do something to match the needs of the time, figure out what God is up to and get on board with it.  This was Jesus’ message to the apostles in Samaria. 

 

John 4:34-35 – Jesus doesn’t go into the village.  On their way to get food (feed themselves), the disciples walk right past the woman walking out to the well.  Then the woman goes into town to take care of what 12 guys on a mission trip should have been doing while they are coming back with food.   Perhaps Jesus sighs, “They just don’t get it.” 

(John 4:34-35 NNAS)  Jesus said^ to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. {35} “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.

The verses remind them that they need to look out and see what God is doing instead of looking in at their need for food and their timetable (“four months mentality”) for the harvest.  Remember, what you’re looking at is what you’re working on.  If you’re looking for opportunities for what is going on in the mission field, that’s what you will be working on.  Once you see it, you can’t ignore it.

 

There is an appropriate response, which is to make three shifts:

1. The shift from internal to external focus in ministry.  If you keep sending students out with a church-centric view of the world, you will do them a disservice.  Americans have looked at the kingdom of God through church lenses.  Instead, we should be looking at the church through kingdom lenses.  In the old days, we taught that the kingdom was realized in the church.  The church was the scorecard of what God was doing on earth.  But that confuses things.  Once you make the church the destination, you mess up people’s focus.  It would be like an airport thinking they are successful when all the planes are on the ground and the airport is full of people.  The airport should be a connector to get people where they want to go, not a destination for them to spend lots of time at.  Life is the destination.  Jesus didn’t say, “I’ve come to give you church and give it to you more abundantly.”  He came to give us life, and the church helps connect us to real life.  We must help students figure out sooner that we aren’t in a church-centric world, but a kingdom-centric world.  The form of the church is not the point.  The point of being the people of God is to play out God’s redemptive mission beyond his people.  It isn’t “God so loved the church that he gave his only begotten son,” but “God so loved the world.”  Look at how God worked through Melchizedek, Jethro, the whale, etc.  The Pharisees went postal when Jesus said there would be people at the table who weren’t from the line of Abraham.  What part does the people of God play?  Genesis 12:  Blessed to be a blessing to those who are not in your tribe, clan, family.  Genesis 12 is an external focus, not an internal focus.  You can transform communities by being a “blessing people”, finding ways to be a blessing to others.  The millennials understand this.  They already have the missional DNA within them. Sometimes we ask the question, “Do you know you’re going to hell and fry like sausage?”  Instead, we should be asking the question “How can I ask God to bless you?”  That’s what the people of God should be.  Pagans will even join us working side by side, which gives us an opportunity to bless our fellow workers.  They want to serve the world, but they don’t know why.  We can explain why we serve.  
2. The shift from being program-driven to people-development.  We think that the program church model is the only way church can be done.  This is the hardest shift to make.  If you don’t make this shift, you’ll end up throwing a bunch of community service on top of what everyone else is doing and burning people out quicker.  Only Western thinkers consider church as a noun.  Missional thinkers consider church as a verb.  They “church” wherever they go (“as you are going, make disciples”).   Life coaching will be huge.  It is demonic to assume that people develop in mass standardized templates.  We need to figure out how to mass customize education.
   
3. The shift from church-based leadership to apostolic-era leadership.  Many people we train will lose their heart in the black hole of the church leadership system that wears people out but doesn’t accomplish life change.  The apostolic-era leader was all about leading a movement.  They were missionaries within the culture and the arenas and the classrooms of the world.  This missional church emergence makes this a great time to be alive.  Don’t miss it.

As you might imagine, this sermon was a huge stretch for me to hear.  How does it stretch you?  Where do you want to push back?

ABHE Session #2 – Peter Teague

Peter Teague is the president of the board of ABHE and the president of Lancaster Bible College. He spoke Thursday night on the topic “What is the face of biblical higher education? Do we need a face lift?”  His answer follows below:

Our roots go back all the way to the Mayflower Compact, when the Pilgrims said that they would create schools to teach their children to read the Word of God. From 1620-1820, education was in the hand of parents and the church. 52% of the 17th century Harvard graduates became local church ministers. Yale was created in response to Harvard being too expensive and drifting away from spirituality. Princeton maintained its evangelical connection longer than any other Ivy League school.

Similar to Bible Colleges, there was a focus on the content of Scripture, the need for understanding culture and the historical past of man and the classics, the need for teaching people to preach and reach the lost. Colleges changed in cycles of 40-50 years. They forsook their original direction for a liberalized educational process. It was during that age (the late 1800s) that the Bible College movement began.

Some believe that biblical higher education is no longer relevant, but we don’t agree. In days of escalating biblical illiteracy and moral confusion (even among God’s people) and worldwide global evangelism, our mission and programs could not be more relevant. However, many people desiring to serve God want more than what the Bible College has traditionally offered.

The heart of our mission is the fulfillment of the great commission. The presidents of our more prestigious Bible colleges affirmed that there is a difference between biblical higher education and Christian liberal arts education. The ability to define this difference is essential to maintain our identity. Here is what makes biblical higher education unique.

1. We intentionally engage in biblical higher education which involves extensive and serious study of God’s eternal word.
2. We intentionally engage in transformational higher education, which calls students to explore the moral and ethical implications of their studies.
3. We intentionally engage in experiential higher education, facilitating service opportunities in which students discover their god-given gifts and sense of calling.
4. We intentionally engage in missional higher education, not merely producing graduates to sustain the status quo throughout church and society, but instilling a biblical and global world view that will enable them to change the world.

Our future will require continuous strategic refinement. The traditional Bible college label is not necessarily where we are today or where we need to be tomorrow.

In “Built to Last”, Collins explained that stellar performing businesses consistently operated from a foundation of uncompromised core values.

In “Built to Change”, Lawler, Worley, and Porras say that organizations which survive in a rapidly changing world, must be willing to change and must be built to implement strategies that address both current and future domains. The state of our culture and world is rapidly changing. How can Bible colleges achieve organizational effectiveness in a changing world?

Powerful influences are affecting key societal structures:
· The family is challenged, and is sometimes a challenge to the Bible college.
· The church is wrestling with issues and is being affected by the culture more than affecting the culture.
· The entertainment media encourages hostility towards all things Christian.
· Financial pressures due to escalating costs, salaries, benefits, etc. have placed Bible colleges in an economic bind that may become a death grip.
· Helicopter parents for Generation Y and stealth bomber parents for Generation X have an appetite for a smorgasbord of programs.
· Will education be located in one place or online?

This agenda for change is overwhelming, because we must have viable Bible colleges. So we can’t ignore the external requirements.

Environmental Climate Assessment:
· Rising cost of Bible college tuition (affordability)
· Increased burden for scholarship dollars
· Dysfunctional families don’t produce ministry minded students.
· Increased students with learning disabilities
· Significant changes in the church
· Growing Islamic influence
· Cultural hostility to Christian beliefs
· Cultural preoccupation to normalize sexual perversion
· Terrorism, natural disasters, and the high costs for energy

In the midst of all of this, our movement of biblical higher education is coming into a tremendous age for opportunity. We wish to read the signs of the times (Esth 1:13).

“In times like these we need a Savior”. In times like these we need biblical, transformational, experiential, and missional education.

Impending change is contagious, little causes have big effects, and change happens not gradually but often at one dramatic moment (Gladwell, The Tipping Point).

Biblical higher education may be entering that one dramatic moment. Are we entering that moment and are we prepared for it? Is there a shift taking place, and are we nonchalant about it?

It only takes one generation to notice a drift from the original intent of the founding fathers of an institution. Drifting is bad, and some schools may be doing that.

J.I. Packer (A Passion for Faithfulness) says that the church is growing in Africa and Asia while in the Protestant world, the church is becoming secular and most congregations are in a very low state. The Western church has shriveled and shrunk and has ceased to count as a community of faith.

As the church goes, so goes the Bible college movement. We have a choice. We can simply defend what we have or create what we need.

The following things will be required for our “growth”:

G – Goals driven by mission and core values wrapped around vision. Many of us need to go back to our mission and core values and celebrate it daily at our institutions.
R – Realistic assessment of who we are. We’ve got to stop being everything to everybody and stop apologizing for who we are.
O – Open and vulnerable
W – Wonderment - Don’t lose the wonder of our movement, our mission, and our core values and vision. Some of us are starting to get weary in well-doing and lose the wonder we should possess.
T – True to intentional, biblical, transformational, and missional higher education.
H – Hope for what Christ can do through us and realizing that we are the hope that this generation needs, the hope of the church.

Peterson (A Widening Light) says that song and dance are a result of excess energy in a believer’s life. When we are normal, we talk. When dying, we whisper. When more in us than we can contain, we sing. When healthy, we walk, when decrepit, we shuffle; when vital, we dance.

Our dancing days are ahead (figuratively, of course!). Let’s ask God to lead us there.

So how does this make you feel about the future of Bible College education in general and ABHE in particular.  Does this fit what you feel is the future of Central?

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ABHE Session #1 – Gary Stratton

Gary Stratton was the opening speaker for the conference. He had one text from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament. Following is my typed summary of his sermon, which was entitled “Two-Handed Warriors and Spiritually Transformational Communities.”

1 Chronicles 12:1-2 shows the value of a two-handed warrior. Paul picks up on the metaphor in 2 Corinthians 6:4-7 – “by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left.” Gary applied that metaphor to training workers to use both hands to serve the Lord.

The two weapons they had were the power of the Holy Spirit (prayer, worship, fellowship, and service) and the power of the Word of God (study, learning, speaking, etc.)

The early catechetical schools were key to overcoming paganism and Arianism (Origen, Clement & Athanasius and the catechetical school at Alexandria in the 200-300’s.) It was one “Christian college” against the world, the college of Athanasius.

In the 300-400’s, Augustine led a revival of the spirit and learning at the catechetical school at Hippo.

The Celtic Missionary Orders were established in the 400’s by St. Patrick. It was a traveling Christian college.

In the 500’s, Columba established one to convert Scotland.
600’s, Augustine of Canterbury converts England.

In the 12th century, there was a very important split between the cloister (monasticism) and the academy (scholasticism). There were two types of schools: Monks (interior) and Clerics (exterior) who did not study theology.

Monastic education: “Knowing the love that surpasses knowledge in a community devoted to the disciplines of worship, prayer, and service.”

Without study and reflection, the cloister would become irrelevant, other worldly, and experiential, without the power of the word of God. Without intentional spiritual disciplines, the academy became dry and desolate.

“We can not do without our schools, for they must rule the world” (Martin Luther).

In the 15th century, the protestants rejected the cloister in favor of the academy.

So what makes a college “Christian”? Possible answers:
1. Our Content makes us Christian. We had the Bible college movement begin under the authority of God and His Word. There was an early missionary/Bible institute movement. Today there are 35,000+ students in 105 accredited schools plus 87 affiliates. We require at least 30 units of Biblical studies, Christian service, and Christian character. These Bible schools and missionary institutes were key to the early-20th century awakenings. They gauged success by the number of ministers produced. The strength of the Bible College was teaching the English Bible, developing spirituality, equipping students for evangelism, and training leaders for the local church and missions. But they were training one-handed warriors. There were no cultural leaders being trained. (CCCB style)
2. Our Worldview makes us Christian. Led to the “Christian Liberal Arts College” (1950-2000)=”integration of faith and learning. These were survivor liberal arts colleges, new liberal arts colleges, and transformed Bible colleges. These were the key to mid-20th century awakenings (Asbury, Wheaton, etc.) Their strengths are disciplines in a Christian worldview, critical thinking skills, and leaders in society and higher education. They judged success by the # of Ph.D’s produced. But they were weak in biblical and theological literacy, evangelism and ministry, and nurturing vital spirituality. (Milligan style)
3. Our Mission makes us Christian. These were parachurch campus ministries at secular universities. Campus Crusade, InterVarsity, Navigators, other ministries. Their strengths are passion, evangelism, mentoring, and leadership development. They gauge success by the staff produced for similar ministries. But they have weak biblical literacy, anti-intellectualism, and methodological rigidity. They also focused on rescuing Christian kids from losing their faith. (Campus Ministry) They are also one handed warriors.

The big question for the 21st Century is what makes a College genuinely Christian. A consensus answer is this:

4. Fostering spiritually transformational communities. Our content is crucial, our worldview is critical, and our mission is central. But we are committed to both the life of the mind and the life of the Spirit. All the disciplines can come together in spiritually transformational communities. It requires a reintegration of revivalism and scholarship.

Three guiding principles for campus transformation:
a. Vital spirituality produces students who live and serve in the power of the Holy Spirit.
b. Vibrant intellectualism prepares students informed by a thorough understanding of God’s Word and God’s World.
c. Community discipleship forges transformational spiritual friendships between students and faculty/staff and upperclassmen mentors.

Foster spiritually transformational community on campus through these steps:
1. Maintain the College’s accreditation with FSHS (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) through radical intentionality in outcomes, resourcing, and assessment.
2. Vision cast the possibility of knowing the love of Christ and the value of spiritual discipline and its rewards.
3. Intentionally foster spiritual formation community, soul friendship, and mentoring of the faculty and staff. This is the 2nd highest professional priority modeled from the top down. Students won’t go where faculty and staff aren’t going.
4. Develop partnerships between curriculum and spiritual formation. They are not separate.
5. Create a chapel program that is the heartbeat of the entire campus community (catechism + contextualization)
6. Cultivate a culture of prayer. This creates “spiritual water pressure on campus.”
7. Bet the farm on student leadership development. We can’t hire enough staff to do this. Let the student leaders do it.
8. Cultivate morale as much as morality. High morality + High morale = Maximized mentoring.
9. Champion a redemptive approach to student discipline and doubting. Let mercy triumph over judgment on campus.
10. Replace the gospel of America (moralistic, individualistic, intellectual) with the gospel of the kingdom (costly, communal, experiential, transormational)
11. Ruthlessly maintain the intimacy, obedience and anointing of my own walk with God as my highest professional priority. If we don’t do this one, the rest is a waste of time. “The heart of Christian Higher Education is the heart of the Christian educator.” “The most important thing a faculty member ever brings into the classroom is the state of their own soul” – Parker Palmer.

Where is your heart? If it’s not in the right place, get it there. Apart from Him, you can do nothing. Revival will start in the College when it starts in me. When I’m ready to take the next step in my spiritual journey, I can help students take the next step in their journey.

The big picture is this:  we can’t take students to a place we haven’t first gone.  What do you think?

News from ABHE Conference

We have finished the Dean’s meeting and are now in the main sessions for ABHE in Orlando. Sorry to inform you that the weather in Orlando is about 80 degrees and partly cloudy. Ron, Rick, and I will try hard not to forget how cold it is back in Missouri.

I’ll be posting from the different workshops and sessions that I am attending, and hope that you will be benefited from reading about what I am hearing.

The Dean’s meeting was well received by all of the participants and we worked together to ask and answer many good questions about the work of the deans in our Bible colleges. I sensed a real unity and encouragement for one another within the room. I also got some great ideas for future sessions, activities, and workshops that we can do to develop our abilities and knowledge.

So stay tuned at mindofadean.wordpress.com for future posts in the next three days. Feel free to comment or email me back with your thoughts.

Hermeneutical Quiz

At last week’s faculty meeting, we took a hermeneutical quiz that had been recently published in Leadership Journal. In Senior Bible Seminar on Wednesday, I gave the same quiz to our graduating seniors. The following information has some interesting results from that quiz.

Click here to read the report.

You can find how each question was answered by the faculty as a whole, along with grouping the questions into those which were most conservative, less conservative, and most moderate. The same information is included for the seniors as well.

Overall, there’s a lot of similarities between the faculty and the seniors (unsurprisingly). But if you look at the document, I think you’ll find some interesting differences as well. What do you see? Feel free to comment below.