Chris Bean

Occasionally I browse my way over to the Northumbria Community online to pray the daily offices. You can learn more about that here if you’re interested. Recently I also downloaded a dramatic and interpretive reading of the Psalms inspired by the Bible Experience. These and other tools help me do something which seems to be a necessity in order to daily walk with Christ.

It’s no secret that if I stop running and training regularly for marathons, several things will happen:

• Gain weight
• Lose endurance
• Perform poorly in the event
• etc

In the area of financial responsibility…careless spending, failure to save, and neglecting the behaviors which produce income will result in debt and financial ruin.

All these lessons are quite easily learned and without much difficulty can be applied.

Is it the same in the area of spiritual health? I often “preach” that it is…our spiritual health can appear to be directly proportional to the effort and time which we invest in appropriate Christian disciplines and behaviors:  prayer, bible study, worship, fasting, meditation, serving the poor, reading, etc. In fact, I was just discussing the need for “daily quiet time” with a student who has allowed me the privilege of discipling them in the faith. As I challenged him to incorporate this component of spending time with God, two issues began to irritate my own mind on the matter.

1. First of all, it was a reminder to practice what I preach. I’ve become lax, you might say, when it comes to my disciplined approach to a daily “quiet time” with the Lord over the years. That has been a reaction, in part, to the second issue.
2. There is a danger of cultivating a spiritual work ethic which can lead to pride and entitlement. A friend of mine shared a quote (or paraphrase) from Brennan Manning recently which suggested something to the effect of this…if he had his life to do over, he wouldn’t waste one minute on trying to develop his spiritual life.

So I come back to the analogy. Is developing our ’spiritual’ life (as if we have a non-spiritual life??) similar to mastering our finances, or our health, or any other area which requires discipline? Is our spiritual health directly proportional to the amount of time we spend “with God” or engage in the disciplines of the Christian life? Or are we compelled to engage in those disciplines as a response to the overwhelming grace of God?

Resolving that tension is perhaps not  the right question. Maybe the right question is this:

How do I live within the tension of grace and working out salvation?

How do I push myself to lean further up and further in to the Kingdom while avoiding a tendency towards pride, duty, or entitlement?

The CCO sponsors a fabulous conference for college students each February in Pittsburgh. The final session ended about 24-hours ago and I’m still processing and cataloging the experience in my head.

Joining me at my first official Jubilee as a campus minister was…Joey Dupps & Paul Harris (two UC students I’ve been discipling), Jamie Noyd (a fellow campus minister at the Edge House), Kalman Tinka (my backpacking Beavercreek bud who is interested in OLT ministry with the CCO), and my family (my wife Deb and two daughters–Jessica & Jaquey–were able to attend as well).

The weekend was a terrific time of reconnecting with fellow CCO staffers…these are truly some of the most intelligent, faithful, fun, Kingdom-minded people on the planet!

The general sessions were highlighted with a few of these faces:

Amena Brown shared several powerful spoken word vignettes.

She is a poet, speaker, and journalist.

Each time she would ‘do her thing’ I got chills!

Over the course of the weekend, the crowd of about 2500 engaged in some energetic and inspirational times of singing and worship.

It’s always good to gather as the Church and pour out an offering of praise and worship to the God who has so graciously reconciled us to Himself through the Cross.

It was a bit of a tossup for me between these two speakers as my favorites of the weekend (especially from an entertainment and comedic angle). Susan Isaacs (left) beautifully shared her journey and at one point said, “God ruined my life…and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”  Bob Goff (right) is an amazing lawyer, father, professor, Kingdom advancer, etc who shows up in Donald Miller’s latest book (A Million Miles in a Thousand Years). What he shared was simply an inspirational life of “playing riffs in the key of Jesus.”

There were so many other great moments, speakers, and truths shared at Jubilee. Dr. John M. Perkins challenged the present generation of college-age “young folk” to take the baton of reconciliation and be the post-racist generation that becomes fluent in a language of love. The impact which that man has had on the urban America and the reconciliation movement is astounding. It was a great honor to be in his presence….especially as I listened in on a more informal session with him and student leaders who are seeking justice.

Besides the great content, programming, and speakers which all made Jubilee quite amazing…sharing it with Joey, Paul, Kalman, and Phil was especially good. I see that God is doing great things in each of their lives and look forward to seeing what kind of great adventure God launches their lives into in the coming weeks and months!

There is no Gospel which allows one to be reconciled to God while unreconciled to neighbor.

That statement sums up the content of this challenging book on racial reconciliation. Since day one of my ministry at the University of Cincinnati, I have felt the Gospel compulsion to pursue relationships with students of all culture groups on our campus. So far, I’ve had the great privilege of connecting with a young female African-American student who has a tremendous passion for music, worship, and serving God. I look forward to more opportunities to connect with Darienne and her friends from choir, church, UC, etc.

As I move forward toward that goal, however, Perkins & Rice have challenged me with the basic structure of their book: Admit, Submit, and Commit.

Although, as a nation, we have elected our first black president and made many advances towards racial equality, in the Christian community we have certainly not come as far as we might think. Admitting that we have at least some biases (if not outright prejudices) is a crucial first step in the reconciliation process. And whether this is with the black, Latin, Asian, Native American, or any other community…we must remember that the Gospel can never be reduced to “me and God.”

That was Jesus’ point when he responded to the religious lawyer who wanted Jesus to pick and choose for him: loving God or loving neighbor. We cannot pick and choose when it comes to the very nature of the Gospel, which is a ministry of reconciliation as Paul points out in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19. We can’t even pick and choose which neighbor we do or do not want to be reconciled with.

Intentionality. At one point the authors challenged me with this statement, “We must be intentional, relentless, and forceful.” Now I believe as that progresses from intentionality to relentless to forceful…there must be a good bit of discernment and Spirit-guided actions. But it will certainly take action (not just loving with words and tongue–1 John 3:17-18) if we are to pursue reconciliation and model what the Gospel actually calls us to in our own relationships and ministry.

That’s what the butcher said when he backed into the meat grinder!

Ha, ha…but seriously. We’re into the second week of February and I’m about 3 books behind in my reading goal for 2010. But that’s okay…I just came across this helpful post on book reading techniques from Tim Elmore.

If you’re trying to be more efficient with your reading goals, check out his article here.

On a positive note, I’m on track to finish two books this week, so I should only be one week behind after that.

And I’m still open to swapping out some titles on my list if someone has a great book you want to pitch to me!

This has become a popular word in discussions of mission, culture, sociology, economics, and other similar studies.

One simple definition states: “to place in a context”

Within the conversation, challenge, and community that is campus missions (ministry) the word contextualization tends to represent an effort to communicate the Gospel in ways that are meaningful, relevant, and readily grasped by college students. This does NOT mean that we change the message of the Gospel, just the method of communicating and sharing that message (I know, the message-method statement is sounding very cliche these days).

I believe that there are basically two ways of approaching our mission of engaging with college students:

• In ways that reinforce negative stereotypes of Christianity (see Unchristian by Dave Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons) and push students further from God and Church
• In ways that challenge, suprise, and attract students to the Gospel and to Jesus

As I understand Paul’s approach to sharing the Gospel with gentiles, (Acts 17 etc) he did NOT simply regurgitate the Jerusalem Church’s teaching throughout the Roman Empire and Asia minor. He contextualized the method in order to place the message in a particular context.

What makes any of us (especially campus missionaries) think that we can get away with anything less than that? And do we understand the Gospel thoroughly enough (via our own experience and study) to respeak it into our own contexts?

Apparently, John Piper would disagree.