Chris Bean

Anytime you push yourself to step into a new environment, there’s a mixture of courage, trust, and determination which is necessary. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve found myself intimidated by the opportunity to connect with student athletes at UC.

The Higher Ground Conference & Retreat center, which hosts the Bearcat training camp for football each summer, happens to be affiliated with the Church of the Nazarene. With my role as a campus minister for the Church of the Nazarene (and the CCO) at UC, that connection has provided me the opportunity to spend some time with athletes and coaches.

At no point during my high school or college career would I have been considered an athlete.

(I did pitch and play short stop for a few years in Little League).

Although “athletic,” my preferred crowd during those years was more interested in the arts and/or academic pursuits.  I probably would’ve enjoyed spending a little more time with student athletes back then, there just weren’t many opportunities for our paths to cross.

So over the past week or so I’ve been asking myself a few questions, like…Why would I pursue mentoring/discipling relationships with these guys? Am I qualified to connect with student athletes? Will I be able to relate to a 300-pound offensive lineman who lives in a whole different world? What do I think the Gospel looks like in the life of a division one college athlete?

The most paralyzing question and fear, however, that confronted me each time I tried to make room in my schedule was perhaps a more basic and common one. What are people going to think? Will the athletes accept me? Will the coaches kick me out? Will people wonder about my motives…my agenda? The fear of being perceived negatively or not liked or just unaccepted is perhaps one of the most primal social fears one could experience.  Apparently a 39-year old veteran pastor dude is just as susceptible to this fear as a 13-year old junior high student walking into a new cafeteria at school for the first time.

After making three trips to the football camp, I connected with about 10 of the players and a couple of coaches. Honestly, that feels like a “win” in my book. It doesn’t sound like much, but if I can bump into a half-dozen or so players on campus come mid-September who I know by name and who actually recognize and remember my face…that’s a great start to reaching into this world of student athletes. These athletes are indeed college students. And I’m at UC to transform college students to transform the world.

As I was sitting in a campus ministry training seminar today with my CCO peers, we were discussing ways in which theology should inform our understanding and application of the Gospel.

Faith & Repentance are the mechanisms by which we grow. Our guest speaker, David Kim from Gotham Fellowship in New York City (out of Redeemer Presbyterian Church w/ Tim Keller) pointed out that sanctification is the process by which we become more like Christ.

For some reason, images of Tony Horton and flashbacks of P90X workouts popped into my head. Tony calls it “muscle confusion.” That’s why those P90X workouts have so much variety and a 90-day rotation system. To make a muscle grow, you must force it to encounter resistance and in every-increasing doses. In addition to that, varying your routine keeps the muscle from becoming comfortable with a particular movement which results in a plateau.

This can certainly happen within the context of our sanctification and spiritual growth. Unless we are continually coming to a place of faith & repentance, the stream of our spiritual life becomes stagnant. Stagnant water stinks. There’s no flow…direction…energy.

Just a couple of evenings ago, I set aside some time for prayer and repentance. Over the past few months, for a variety of reasons, my sense of God’s presence and my own willingness to engage the Scriptures and prayer had become quite weak. This very lesson was being spoken to me by the Spirit and thankfully I responded (this time). The extent to which that time of prayer on Sunday evening restored my soul and transformed my mind continues to surprise me. In describing the experience to a friend, I likened it to the feeling of responding to God at a Thursday night youth camp service…when you walk away from a time of prayer and repentance feeling about 50 lbs lighter!

In order to continue a trajectory of spiritual growth…we must continually engage our faith muscles and do the heavy lifting of repentance.

Having just spent some time in the latest issue of Catalyst’s free online magazine, my passion is definitely stirred as I think about ministering to college students. There’s a good article/interview with Francis Chan who uses the analogy of surfing to talk about how dependent we really are when it comes to whether or not lives are changed.  In any kind of ministry setting, it’s easy to begin believing that “success” and results directly correlate to our efforts, gifts, programs, etc. I notice this in my own weekly and day-to-day schedule. Many times I fail to prioritize time with God or simply time with people (i.e. the students I’m hoping to see transformed). It’s often easier to spend time sending emails, posting on a blog, working on communications, putting together curriculum, studying for a talk, or any other number of things…than to prioritize time in prayer, reading Scripture, or loving on students.

The interview with Dallas Willard was brief but packed with some great points. I’ll on it another day or so before completing this thread on spiritual maturity.

Any thoughts on this topic? Good or bad experiences? Ideas for defining success when it comes to discipleship and spiritual formation?