Higher Ed at a Crossroad

Columnist; Contributor

Why the local church should care, and what it can do.

I recall the moment it became clear to me that American Christian higher education was in trouble. It was May 2008, and I was visiting the South African Theological Seminary in Rivonia, near Johannesburg. As the website puts it, the school focuses "on equipping you for service, right where you are in your local church." To this end, it offers distance education only. This is no fly-by-night startup, but is accredited by the South African Council on Higher Education. It offers bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctorates in theology.

And at pennies on the dollar. The school intends to educate African pastors who can't afford to leave their ministries, move to greater Johannesburg, and study for two to three years. In addition, the programs have to be affordable. Affordable indeed: An M.Th. degree is a two-year program that costs $2,000 a year. At a typical American seminary, that is about the cost of two classes.

Naturally, students from the West could enroll—at a fraction of the cost of attending schools on their own continents—and still receiving a degree recognized by a national accrediting body of a developed nation.

Compare this with the situation in North America, where the cost of tuition at American colleges (public and private) rose from 23.2 percent of median annual earnings to nearly 39 percent between 2001 and 2010, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the rise in tuition apparently is not keeping up with the cost of a traditional on-campus education. A 2012 Bain Brief study "The Financially Sustainable University" found the a third of all American colleges and universities were not sustainable. The list of financially troubled schools includes some major Christian colleges. Critics have argued that the Bain Brief is needlessly alarmist, but no one disagrees that we have a problem.

For people in the pews, many of whom are swimming in debt from their own college and seminary days (or from their children's education), the response is often: "Good! Maybe they will finally get the message—tuition has just gotten out of hand." Or, "Well, they have a problem, don't they?"

They certainly have a problem, and they well know it. But what many local churches don't fully recognize is that their problem is actually ours.

We in the local church tend to think of Christian higher education as a service industry. We look to it only when we have a student ready for college or seminary, or when we have a staff opening and need the schools to give us the names of qualified candidates. Christian higher education is there to grant accredited degrees and vet pastoral candidates.

Yes. And so much more. Many churches don't get the "so much more."

In Chicagoland, I've attended churches that have taken full advantage of their location: They have regularly invited professors from local Christian colleges and seminaries to preach and teach. This has enriched the biblical, theological, and practical understanding of these congregations in palpable ways, even if the impact can't be charted on a graph. This has not only matured disciples at the local level, but professors and their institutions walk away more deeply appreciating the challenges and questions of Christians in the pew. This, in turn, only enhances the relevance of their scholarship.

But what can the local church, a far distance from such institutions, do? First, even distant churches can create budget line items to at least once a year fly in a teacher to give a daylong seminar or even a week of classes—this is well within the reach of even modestly sized churches. And certainly local churches should consider using some of their benevolence giving to support Christian higher education.

Today we have an unparalleled opportunity. Distance is no longer the obstacle it once was. From video lectures burned on dvds to live streaming to chat rooms, more Christian colleges and seminaries are the proverbial click away from every church in America.

Here is our hunch: If churches began asking schools for such resources, financially strapped schools will figure out how to make this education happen at an affordable cost. Many are already taking steps in this direction. Some will probably offer some classes for free as a way to market their school. The point is that many schools won't invest in such an effort unless there is some inkling of demand.

As noted, this sort of thing can greatly enrich both discipleship and scholarship. To be sure, this is not all that can be done to increase the bonds between the local church and the not-so-local college or seminary. This alone won't meet all the daunting educational challenges we face together. But increase those bonds we must, or else it's not just the schools that will falter, but also the local church.

- More from Mark Galli

Church Life

‘Crazy Talk’: How We Characterize Mental Illness

Amy Simpson

Our careless language reinforces stigma.

Porschelinn / Flickr

As a writer, an editor, and an advocate for people affected by mental illness, I was deeply encouraged to learn of a new entry in the Associated Press Stylebook, offering guidelines on how to describe and characterize mental illness. As the definitive guide to using language in American journalism, the AP Stylebook guides most professional news media and others to at least to some degree. It's significant to see the stylebook offer guidance on how (and when) to address mental illness.

The entry calls for journalists to "avoid unsubstantiated statements by witnesses or first responders attributing violence to mental illness. A first responder often is quoted as saying, without direct knowledge, that a crime was committed by a person with a 'history of mental illness.' Such comments should always be attributed to someone who has knowledge of the person's history and can authoritatively speak to its relevance to the incident."

It's about time.

This is a hugely valuable step toward a national conversation that treats people affected by mental illness with dignity and respect—and accuracy. Irresponsible journalism is culpable for perpetuating myths and misconceptions about mental illness, particularly the widely held, erroneous belief that most people with mental illness are more violent and dangerous than the general population.

Studies consistently show this is not true. As with the general population, substance abuse does increase tendencies toward violence, but mental illness itself does not make people significantly more prone to violence than others. In fact, according to the U.S. Surgeon General's office, "There is very little risk of violence or harm to a stranger from casual contact with an individual who has a mental disorder…the overall contribution of mental disorders to the total level of violence in society is exceptionally small."

The guidelines also say, "Do not use derogatory terms, such as insane, crazy/crazed, nuts or deranged, unless they are part of a quotation that is essential to the story."

Journalists sometimes do use common derogatory terms that perpetuate the stigma attached to mental illness. But to be fair, when they do so, they're simply reflecting the speech most of us use without thinking. While journalists' voices may be amplified, their words are no more important than anyone else's. And the rest of us reinforce stigma with our own language, too.

How often do you use terms like these in everyday conversation:

psycho

demented

crazy

maniac

nutcase

headcase

insane

schizo

wacko

lunatic

Have you ever referred to yourself as "a little OCD"? Unless you have obsessive-compulsive disorder, you're not OCD… at all. Have you ever described a project, a team, or an experience as "schizophrenic"? By speaking flippantly about real and sometimes debilitating disorders, we undermine the idea that they should be taken seriously as medical conditions. By using the names of symptoms and diagnoses as insults, we reinforce the idea that people with such conditions are less than the rest of us and worthy of our derision. By whimsically attributing our character quirks to mental-health diagnoses we don't have, we suggest that such conditions barely exist. They are the stuff of legend and myth, like zombies and werewolves, and dismissing them isn't really hurting anyone who has enough awareness to know the difference.

But it is hurting someone. It's hurting a lot of people, some who keep their conditions hidden and some who are too afraid to even acknowledge them. It's hurting the families and friends on whom shame rests as well. And ultimately it hurts all of us, who pay a high price—both medically and socially—for the consequences of that shame.

Our careless language reinforces stigma. Stigma is automatic mindless, irrational rejection of people who are "tainted" by mental illness. They are labeled, stereotyped, misunderstood, and dismissed. Stigma discourages people from seeking treatment, and in some cases even acknowledging their disorders. It marginalizes people and makes it easier to dismiss them as less than others, not fully deserving of understanding, compassion, or friendship. The U.S. Surgeon General's office called stigma "the most formidable obstacle to future progress in the arena of mental illness and health."

We'd never consider it acceptable to casually mock an able-bodied but limping friend by calling her "paraplegic." We don't refer to ourselves in a self-deprecating way as "a little diabetic" or "a little cancerous." Is that because we realize that we know people who have such conditions and that our casual use of such language would trivialize their challenges and undermine their sense of value? People with mental illness are all around us—and deserve the same consideration.

All Christians should take a cue from the Associated Press and watch our own language. In fact, when it comes to treating people with compassion and speaking of them the way we would want to be spoken of, the church should be leading the way.

This is not simply about using politically correct language. It's about understanding the power of our words, as Scripture calls us to. In the most strongly worded description of this power, the apostle James wrote, "People can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, but no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison. Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God. And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right!" (James 3:7-10).

It's about remembering that the words we use reflect what's happening in our souls. As Jesus declared, "A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart" (Luke 6:45).

It's about choosing words that show love and offer healing and grace. After all, "from a wise mind comes wise speech; the words of the wise are persuasive. Kind words are like honey—sweet to the soul and healthy for the body" (Prov. 16:23-24).

Amy Simpson is author of Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church's Mission (InterVarsity Press). She also serves as editor of Christianity Today's Gifted for Leadership. You can find her at www.AmySimpsonOnline.com and on Twitter @aresimpson.

This article was originally published as part of Her.Meneutics, Christianity Today's blog for women.

Pastors

Five Reasons to Love Today’s Church

David Staal

In a critical culture, it’s good to focus on the good things that are still happening.

Fifteen years ago, I left a corporate career and joined a church staff team as the communications director. Acting as the church’s spokesperson served as my spiciest responsibility. In this role, I never knew what conversation would take place any time the phone rang.

Abundant trial and error, mostly the latter, impressed upon me two truths. First, “No comment” is actually a strong comment. And second, the church attracts many critics. Based on the number of articles, columns, and blogs that take swipes at churches, the second truth continues to abound today.

Last week one writer chastised churches who try different approaches to grow, while another offered biting comments about a congregation stuck at the same size for years. A quick search will yield many articles that describe churches’ lack of participation in social justice issues as wrong, and a growing number now claiming that concentration on social justice is resulting in churches avoiding their true mission. Huh?

As my daughter says, folks need to “chillax.”

Today I work for an organization that works with hundreds of churches across the country, of various sizes, denominations, and affiliations. So as a counter-opinion to the critics, I offer five reasons to love churches. Warning: Cynics and others with platforms built on revealing “what’s wrong with today’s churches” will pick apart these points and eloquently express disagreement/disdain. To them I’ll say it now: No comment.

Now, the five reasons I love the church:

A rapidly increasing number of congregations serve their local communities in ways that involve building personal relationships. Many pastors deliberately work to understand the needs of those who live close by and then position their people to extend their hands, words, and smiles—not simply their wallets. Our organization works with over 800 churches who mentor at-risk public school children, and a healthy 90 percent of those congregations go beyond the program to serve families, teachers, and the broader school community. In other words, when aware of real needs, churches do a great job being the church to people in need.
Passion for spiritual formation in attendees is on a steep rise. Yes, this topic attracts critics like a streetlamp attracts mosquitoes. Not sure why. Many pastors today earnestly search for ways to lead their people and themselves into deeper relationships with God. At the same time, individual parishioners’ appetites are driving the hunger for spiritual formation. While methods get debated, the right motive seems to be in place. I believe this is, in part, a result of the first point. Why? Hearts beat fast and strong for God when someone serves others in his name—creating a desire to know him more. A tough point to criticize (though many still will).
The Bible remains at the center of churches. While the interpretation of a few key passages varies, to varying degrees, everyone still seems to agree on the overall centrality of the Bible. Funny, the only person who doesn’t interpret a book—who knows exactly what was meant—is the author. Every reader interprets. That’s the rub; people interpret the Bible differently. We’ll find out the real answers in heaven. Until then, though, is it possible to believe in a church’s best intentions? Without going into details about the circumstances, I remember an issue that arose when I worked as a church spokesperson that prompted me to offer this response: “Is it right to form an opinion of the theology of a church based on what’s reported in a major metropolitan newspaper?” Substitute the word blog, column, or tweet and that question deserves to be asked still today.
Churches offer a wide range of styles. Simply venture outside of the U.S. and church style changes dramatically, so why not mix things up here at home? If a person doesn’t appreciate the approach a church takes, many options exist to find a different church to feel comfortable in and to become actively involved. Plenty of people attend no church at all, so variety is a good thing. Contrary to some opinions, churches don’t compete with one another. Instead, they compete with any other option available to people on Sunday morning (or Saturday night).
The biggest reason I love the church: Lost and wounded people can still go to a church and find Jesus. The evidence for this truth is three-fold: my father-in-law did it, my brother-in-law did it, and I did it too. Three very different churches. Three radically changed lives. One reason: we found Jesus. Or did Jesus find us? Let’s not debate.

Instead, let’s “chillax” and love the church. After a couple thousand years of serving as the hope of the world, it’s doing just fine.

David Staal, senior editor for Building Church Leaders and a mentor to a Kindergarten boy, serves as the president of Kids Hope USA, a national non-profit organization that partners local churches with elementary schools to provide mentors for at-risk students. David is the author of Lessons Kids Need to Learn (Zondervan, 2012) and lives in Grand Haven, MI, with his wife Becky, son Scott, and daughter Erin.

- More from David Staal

Near-Earth Objects, Part 2

Science in Focus: Lee Clarke

A clear and present danger.

In February 2013, a space rock about 20 meters in diameter (the dinosaur-killer, 65 million years ago, was 10 kilometers) exploded over the Ural Mountains, releasing about a half a megaton of energy. Most of that energy was released sideways rather than downward, so the damage was limited to broken windows and about 1,500 people being injured. It could have been much worse. In July 1993, a huge comet was broken up by Jupiter’s gravity. Some of the scars from the pieces of that comet were larger than the radius of Earth. The next time there’s a full moon look at it carefully. Its cratered surface is the result of asteroids banging into it.

Near-Earth Objects: Finding Them Before They Find Us

Donald K. Yeomans (Author)

Princeton University Press

192 pages

$19.95

The threat from near earth objects is clear and present. That’s the premise of Near- Earth Objects, and I share it. Indeed I share nearly every policy conclusion Donald Yeomans draws: that we should be looking more closely for asteroids, that we should be planning to deflect them, that we should be willing to use nuclear weapons in that effort, and that we should spend more money on the problem. If we can spend trillions of dollars invading countries that pose little threat to us, we can certainly spend a few billion on a hazard that might kill Chicago, or worse. Experts who work on the NEO problem like to say this is the only natural disaster we could prevent. (“Natural disaster” isn’t a very useful descriptor, but the point is still a good one.)

There are few people better positioned to make the case that the NEO hazard is important than Yeomans. He’s a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and has been working on NEO issues for many years. He’s won many awards, has a PhD in astronomy, and can write well (for an astronomer). For all these reasons I recommend this book to anyone who is a novice to the NEO problem. You will find in it almost all you need to know about the space-related science concerning NEOs, in more-or-less accessible language.

This is the first book-length treatment (that I know of) of the NEO problem that aims to describe that problem to audiences not familiar with it. It only partially succeeds in doing that, mainly because the writing shifts between popular and technical voices. In one breath planets are anthropomorphized (Neptune is a wimp, Jupiter a bully), while in another there’s a long, complex sentence that’s hard to follow because of technical jargon. (For one example, see page 130: “If we then imagine a plane drawn through the Earth and perpendicular to the object’s flight path with respect to the Earth, the three-dimensional uncertainty ellipsoid will project onto the Earth’s impact plane as a two-dimensional uncertainty ellipse.”).This will limit the book’s audience, I fear, mainly to those already familiar with NEO issues.

Yeomans marshals every reason I’ve heard of to study NEOs, to visit them, and to generally move them higher up on everyone’s political agenda. NEOs are interesting because they’ve been around since the beginning of the solar system. They’re dangerous because they can kill us. They could be mined for precious metals. They could be a way-station on the trip to Mars. They may tell us something about the origins of life on Earth.

Yeomans argues that asteroids larger than one or two kilometers in diameter—which could do a lot of damage—are the “greatest long-term threat” even though they can be expected to happen only once every 700,000 years. What should we do? Study NEOs, be prepared to nuke them (think of Bruce Willis in Armageddon), attach a gravity tractor to them, or maybe run a spacecraft or two into one we think might hit Earth.

Near-Earth Objects lays out very well the space-related science concerning NEOs. It neglects all the people-related science, but that’s not Yeomans’ purpose or area of expertise. We can’t fault him for not writing about things he doesn’t know about. What we can legitimately complain about is that we don’t get careful arguments against Yeomans’ favored positions (which, remember, I share). This detracts from the book’s effectiveness because we need explicit consideration of alternatives to justify the shifts in resources and thinking required to confront the NEO threat. To mention a few of the obvious ones:

Given its abysmal performance leading up to and following Challenger and Columbia, why would we trust NASA to oversee something this important?
The costs of sending people to asteroids will be enormous (Yeomans acknowledges this). Who can afford it?
The risks to human life of mining asteroids will be very high. Why bother?
Going to Mars isn’t feasible (NASA says it takes 8 months for robotic spacecraft to get there) and solves no problems we currently have, though it would be interesting. Why is it worthwhile to spend attention on this?
Why isn’t it reasonable to think something that happens once every 700,000 years is so rare that it’s trivial?

Of course, if an NEO with “our name on it” blows up over Paris tomorrow, we’ll decry the folly of neglecting the NEO risk. Thanks to Donald Yeomans, we’ve been warned.

Lee Clarke, professor of sociology at Rutgers University, is the author of Worst Cases: Terror and Catastrophe in the Popular Imagination (Univ. of Chicago Press).

- More from Science in Focus: Lee Clarke

Pastors

Making the Invisible Kingdom Visible (part 2)

by Skye Jethani

Learning to see a God-with-us world will completely change the way we engage it.

This post is from my keynote address at the Wilberforce Weekend hosted by The Chuck Colson Center in Washington DC on April 26. My actual remarks may have differed slightly from this transcript. You can read Part 1 of the talk here.

PART TWO: FROM EXILE TO INCARNATION

So what is the solution? If the Exile model, derived from Jeremiah 29:7, is a sub-Christian model of cultural engagement, what is the alternative? Just as the church shifted from the Exodus to the Exile model 40 years ago, I believe we need to shift again. But this time we need more than a new strategy. We need new eyes to see the world in a fundamentally different way. If we don’t then our efforts to manifest the kingdom will remain flawed because we will still be driven by fear and control–by a vision of the world as an unsafe and dangerous place. But to see the world differently, to see with new eyes, requires a supernatural encounter with the grace of God.

In 1956, Martin Luther King Jr. was a young Baptist minister in Montgomery, Alabama. After Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, King found himself leading a bus boycott against the racist policies of the city. He lived under constant threat to his life. On Jan 27, he was woken in the middle of the night by a phone call. The voice said that if he wasn’t out of town in three days they were going to kill his family.

King couldn’t go back to sleep. With his wife and infant daughter in the next room, he made himself a cup of coffee and sat in the kitchen trying to figure out how to escape Montgomery. He later admitted that he was “scared to death” and “paralyzed by fear.” Like Thomas Aquinas’ city under siege, fear had caused King to turn inward in a posture of self-protection.

But then something happened, something unexpected. King felt something stirring within him–an inner voice that spoke to him. It said, “Stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth, and lo, I will be with you, even until the end of the world. “The voice promised “never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No, never alone. He promised to never leave me, never, to leave me alone.”

That night King experienced the presence of Christ and it changed the way he saw the world. It took away his fear. He saw with new eyes. He saw a God-with-us world. After that encounter in his kitchen with God he said, “I can stand up without fear. I can face anything.” His new view of the world was about to be tested.

Four nights later he was speaking at a rally when someone ran in and shouted that King’s home had just been bombed—with his wife and daughter inside. He ran out to find an angry mob assembled in front of his still burning home. His family was ok, but the mob of angry African-Americans, with guns and bats, were ready to riot. King stood up on his still smoldering porch and addressed the crowd. He said:

He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. I want you to love your enemies. Be good to them. Love them and let them know you love them. For we are doing what is right. We are doing what is just. And God is with us.

The mob put down their guns and bats, and starting singing a hymn–”Amazing Grace.” Historians look back at that night as the turning point in the civil rights movement. It was the night that nonviolence and love were put into practice and it changed our nation. I think they’re wrong. The real turning point in the civil rights movement was four nights earlier in King’s kitchen when he encountered Christ and had his vision of the world transformed. God gave him new eyes–eyes to see not a dangerous world in which our activism must be driven by fear and self-interest, but a God-with-us world in which we are freed from fear, freed to serve, freed to love even those who seek our harm.

This is the higher call of Christian cultural engagement. We are not called to seek the welfare of our society so that things may go well for us. We are not called to make the best of our exile. We are called to the way of Christ. We are called to Incarnation. Incarnation differs from Exile in three important ways.

First, Incarnation is a choice. Both Exodus and Exile are circumstances that God’s people find themselves in against their will. They are trapped in a pagan land that they did not choose, and if possible would flee in a moments notice.

But Jesus’ Incarnation was different. Jesus chose to empty himself, take on the form of a servant, and dwell among us. He willingly came to this world, to those he knew would hate and reject him. So, as his people, our call is not Jeremiah 29. We aren’t simply to make the best of an unfortunate situation. We are called to embrace this world, this day, this culture, this community where God has put us.

Consider the messages our society hears from the church. They either hear us speak of an idealized past that wasn’t as immoral or ungodly as today, or they hear us talk about the future–about heaven or the perfection of the age to come. But when we focus on being somewhere else, or we complain incessantly about the world today, we are arrogantly questioning God’s wisdom and his call. He has called us to this time, to this place, to this culture. And we have the choice to embrace our call as Jesus did, or kick against it.

You may be thinking, I didn’t choose this time or this culture. You’re right, but as Jacque Philippe reminds us, true inner freedom comes when we learn to choose what we did not choose. Consider Simon of Cyrene, the bystander forced by the Romans to help Jesus carry his cross. Like Simon we did not choose the challenges of our age, but under this heavy beam we now have a choice. We can complain or we can embrace our call. We can choose to bear the burden of another and fulfill the law of Christ; the law of love. Or we can grumble at our lot. Incarnation is a choice.

Second, Incarnation is for the sake of others and not ourselves. We’ve already seen how the Exile model is rooted in self-interest and self-preservation. But Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. He came to lay down his life. To surrender it. To offer it as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. Such a posture is only possible when we are set free from fear. Such service for others can only occur when we are free to love.

This other-focus was one of the most beautiful aspects of Martin Luther King’s activism. Of course his work was about rescuing his own community from oppression and injustice, but again and again King went beyond that obvious goal. He articulated a kingdom ethic. He recognized that the evil of racism not only hurt black Americans, but it also enslaved the white Americans who practiced it. He wanted to free them from the clutches of hate as well. Unlike some civil rights leaders of his day, King wasn’t interested in vengeance or reciprocity toward whites. He wanted their freedom and redemption as well.

We live in a cynical culture, and that cynicism extends to the church. The world perceives our activism and political engagement as self-interested. They think we’re driven to preserve our families, our churches, our institutions, and our values. And if we’re following the Exile model, they’re probably right. But if we are to break through the cynicism, then we must be the people who engage not primarily for our good, but for theirs. The church should be the one community in our culture that genuinely exists for the sake and the welfare of others rather than itself. Incarnation is always for the sake of others.

Third, the goal of Incarnation isn’t merely survival, but flourishing. Remember, the Exile model was predicated on surviving an undesirable situation–captivity in a foreign land. But Jesus didn’t say he came to help us “get by.” He didn’t take on flesh and dwell among us so that we could survive this broken world. He said that he came that we might have life, and have it in abundance. Everywhere Jesus went he didn’t just make things better, he made them fantastic. He gave the crowds more to eat than they could consume. He didn’t just make sure the wedding at Cana was acceptable–he made it the best party they’d ever seen.

Incarnation isn’t about survival until we can escape this rock and get to heaven. It’s about flourishing–cultivating all of the order, beauty, and abundance of the Kingdom we can here and now. This world matters to God. It’s not just his first failed attempt that he’s planning to throw away so he can start over. We do not worship a God who replaces, but a God who redeems. To follow the Incarnation of Jesus means to seek the flourishing of this world and our neighbors within it, and not simply survive an unfortunate circumstance.

CONCLUSION

Friends, in the last century we have seen the church move beyond the Exodus model of cultural disengagement toward the Exile model of cultural activism. But we cannot remain there. We must continue forward to a model rooted in the New Testament; one that is centered on Christ. We must become people of Incarnation. That means choosing this world; embracing this time and this place as our calling from God. It means engaging not to preserve or advance our community, but engaging for the sake of others. And it means seeking more than mere survival, but the flourishing of all.

But this kind of cultural engagement can only happen when we see the world with new eyes. Not as a dangerous and threatening place that drives us through fear; that contracts us inward in a posture of self-preservation and control. But as a God-with-us world in which he will never leave us or forsake us; a perfectly safe world in which neither a Roman cross or an assassin’s bullet can snatch us from God’s hand. We must see a world in which we are set free from every fear so that we can give our lives in love even to those who call us their enemy.

How do we receive these new eyes? Exactly as the hymn says–by God’s amazing grace. It is only as we draw near to him and experience his presence that we will come to see the world differently. So, while we are here to talk about making the invisible kingdom visible, amid our strategizing and planning, let’s also be in prayer for ourselves and the Church. Let’s call upon God to shed his grace upon us, that we might be freed from fear, transformed by his love, and be given new eyes. Only then we will be able to truly sing, “I was blind, but now I see.” Amen.

- More from Skye Jethani

News

Are Christian-Muslim Relations in East Africa Going the (Violent) Way of Nigeria?

Melissa Steffan

(Updated) Explosion by Islamists at Kenyan church follows similar church attack in formerly safe Tanzania.

Update (June 13): Morning Star News reports that Islamist terrorist group Al Shabaab is behind a church explosion that inured 15 people in Kenya.

Kenya is the latest East African country thrust into Muslim-Christian turmoil and attacks, especially since jihadists have begun recruiting ex-Christians, as CT reported in January.

––-

Update (May 10): The result of a two-day interfaith dialogue in the Tanzania capital Dar-es Salaam is a ban on all types of religious hate speech, Sabahi Online reports. Religious leaders reached the decision as a way of easing religious tensions in the country, which World Watch Monitor says is “no longer being considered ‘safe,’” even though it once was a model of African peace.

Meanwhile, Sabahi also reports that courts have dismissed charges against one suspect in the bombing at an Arusha church last Sunday.

––-

A bomb exploded during a high-profile church service in Tanzania last Sunday, raising fears that the violence perpetrated by militant Islamists in Nigeria could be spreading to other parts of Africa.

The attack during the inaugural mass at newly built Saint Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Arusha killed two people and injured 30 others.

Morning Star News reports that “terrorist groups have not been active in Tanzania since the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in 1998, but President Jakaya Kikwete termed Sunday’s explosion a terrorist attack.”

Eight people already have been arrested in connection with the blast. Officials say the motive behind the attack remains unknown, but tensions between Muslims and Christians have been high lately.

Earlier this year, disagreement between Muslims and Christians in Tanzania over the slaughtering of animals for sale led to the beheading of a pastor. In addition, on Tanzania’s semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, a Catholic priest was shot and killed by Islamists, the second attack on the island’s Christians since Christmas.

In neighboring Kenya, masked gunmen attacked two churches last July, prompting some analysts to suggest that Islamist extremists are seeking to copy Boko Haram’s terrorism campaign against Nigerian churches.

CT also recently reported that Tanzania ranked 24th on the 2013 World Watch List of countries where Christians face the most persecution. African nations have surged up the ranks to take many top spots on the list in recent years.

- More from Melissa Steffan

News

The Tech Poverty Fighter

Eileen O'Gorman

How Andrew Sears at TechMission harnesses the Web to fuel urban ministry.

"If you ask the average person on the street right now what's changing the world more than anything else, the response will probably be technology," said Andrew Sears. "But Christians often resist technology. We are fighting battles against injustice, but are using antiquated tools. It's like the other side has tanks and jet planes, and Christians are fighting with sticks."

By using internet-based technology to connect people and resources, Sears and the organization he helped found, TechMission, are finding new approaches to overcome systemic poverty in the United States and beyond.

All of this is a far cry from Sears's upbringing in inner-city Kansas City, Missouri. He spent most of his childhood living on the streets because they were safer than his home.

As a teen and self-described hoodlum, he saw the destruction woven into his community and funneled all of his energy toward launching out of it. Upon enrolling at the University of Missouri, he decided that he would make straight As and become student body president—and he did. After graduating as valedictorian, while a graduate student at MIT, he co-founded the Internet Telephony Consortium with one of the "fathers of the Internet," David Clark.

With a proven track record, Sears was on a road to follow Bill Gates. But he woke up from 100-hour workweeks and realized he was on the run. It was at that point the gift of his technological brilliance was combined with a gift of personal and biblical insight. The faith he had embraced in childhood began to take root. During this period, Sears began to deal with scars from an abusive past, and for the first time started imagining how modern technology could be used to overcome poverty in Jesus' name.

Starting with a church-based computer training center at Bruce Wall Ministries in inner-city Boston, Sears saw one provision after another propelling him and his partners forward to use technology to respond to the issues woven into impoverished communities.

While the initial computer training work connected urban youth with skills for viable employment, Sears realized that much more than technological training was needed to overcome the hurdles the youth were facing.

So in 2000, in partnership with other Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) leaders, Sears founded TechMission. Its primary programs today are a volunteer matching service for individuals and organizations (ChristianVolunteering.org), distance learning for urban ministry professionals (City Vision College), an internship program (City Vision Internships), and a web portal to share teaching resources and connect urban ministries across the country (UrbanMinistry.org). TechMission also runs Safe Families, an educational tool designed to help parents and churches keep children safe online (safefamilies.org).

Sears, his family, and the TechMission staff live and operate out of a three-story home in inner-city Boston. Their most recent project was to create a website in a matter of hours to help hundreds of local churches support victims of the Boston Marathon bombings.

TechMission has served a vital role in connecting under-resourced individuals with technological training, and also in connecting a sometimes disconnected group of urban ministry practitioners with each other.

CCDA advisory board member and TechMission founding board member Rudy Carrasco says that Sears "is a person with huge tech credibility who also is a hard-core incarnational and relational urban ministry leader."

Carrasco, who served for many years in Los Angeles and now works with Partners Worldwide, shares Sears's passion for building on the intersection of poverty and technology. "If you say technology and poverty to most Christians, thoughts move toward, How can I get a cheap mobile phone to a poor person?" said Carrasco. "Andrew is trying to address the systemic issues involved in poverty such as: Can a kid get access to the kind of education he needs and have the support of his community, family, and church?"

Sears says he learned a formative lesson about addressing systemic issues of poverty while working briefly with a children's shelter in South Africa. Years after his time there, he learned that many of the children from the shelter had died violently. And then there were the children who never made it to a shelter. The shelter's leaders shifted from serving a few children with limited long-term impact to battling the causes of children living on the streets. Over 10 years, shelter leaders reduced the number of children living on their streets from 10,000 to 1,800.

"We list our values as Jesus and justice to emphasize both meeting the needs of the whole person and our affiliation with the social justice tradition of the church, like the Salvation Army, Gospel Rescue Missions, and the Christian Community Development Association," said Sears. "The problem is that our society is structured in a way that those with the greatest physical needs are often segregated from those with the most resources."

Corey Hicks, director of Urban Reach in New Orleans, is one of hundreds of graduates of TechMission's City Vision College. Born and raised in New Orleans' ninth ward, after high school Hicks became addicted to drugs and alcohol. When he came to faith in Christ, his passion grew to reach others who faced the same desperation he once did.

Hicks said that City Vision gave him confidence to serve as a nonprofit leader, describing it not only as an educational resource but also a forum for people serving in similar contexts.

While TechMission may seem to have a hands-off ministry approach, TechMission Corps has placed more than 500 full-time interns in Boston, Los Angeles, and Denver in AmeriCorps–type programs primarily focused on educational tutoring for inner-city youth. (Funding for that program was provided through AmeriCorps, and TechMission has recently chosen to end that nine-year funding relationships. The TechMission Corps program will now be transitioned to City Vision Internships.)

"We've taken the archive of the past 20 years of the major urban ministry conferences—CCDA, Urban Youth Workers Institute, Association of Gospel Rescue Missions—and we've made about a 100,000 resources available online," said Sears. "We also have an iPhone and Android app for people can listen to the sermons."

More than 15 years after Sears stopped running from his childhood, his organization has equipped and sent thousands of people to reach children and adults in the kinds of circumstances he once faced.

"Jesus said the summary of the Bible was to love God and love others," Sears said. "Paul used the latest technologies to do that—Roman roads and letters—and we want to do the same."

"Andrew is leading an area that today's church is weak in," Carrasco said. "This is technology as mission."

Eileen O'Gorman lives in Phoenix, where she works in communication for Food for the Hungry, an international relief and development organization. She is a member of Christ Church Anglican and holds a Master of Divinity from Covenant Theological Seminary, in St. Louis, Missouri. She has written for This Is Our City about Phoenix entrepreneur Jade Meskill.

This article was originally published as part of This is Our City, a Christianity Today special project.

- More from Eileen O'Gorman

News

Did a Display of Faith at Finish Line Disqualify a Texas Track Team?

Melissa Steffan

(Updated) New statements suggest that student’s disrespectful behavior, not his gesture toward the sky, warranted the team’s disqualification.

Update (May 8): According to a statement, the University Interscholastic League (UIL) has investigated the relay team’s disqualification from the state track meet and found “no evidence to suggest that the disqualification took place as a result of the student-athlete expressing religious beliefs. The basis for the disqualification was due to the student-athlete behaving disrespectfully.”

The UIL press release also includes a statement from Derrick Hayes, the disqualified athlete, who now says, “‘Although I am very thankful for all God has given me and blessed me with … my actions upon winning the 4×100 relay were strictly the thrill of victory. With this being said, I do not feel my religious rights or freedoms were violated.'”

––-

Four high school athletes in Texas have been disqualified from the state track meet after one runner violated district rules on excessive celebration.

His celebration? After winning the 4×100 relay race with his team’s best time of the year, Derrick Hayes “pointed up to the sky. His father believes he was giving thanks in a gesture to God,” KHOU reported.

Yet school district superintendent Robert O’Connor says Hayes’s gesture “violated University Interscholastic League (UIL) regulation barring excessive celebration,” which includes raising the hands. As a result, the entire team is disqualified and cannot run at the state championship meet.

Critics say the district’s decision violates the athlete’s religious freedom. O’Connor said that Hayes’s gesture wasn’t “technically a terrible scenario as far as his action, but the action did violate the context of the rule.”

The team is not being given additional opportunities to qualify for the state meet.

- More from Melissa Steffan

News

Billy Graham Plans to Lead His Largest-Ever Crusade

Melissa Steffan

As 95th birthday approaches, evangelist preparing message for “My Hope” campaign.

Billy Graham is planning to preach publicly one last time–and he wants to do it in homes across the country.

This fall, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assocation (BGEA) will launch “My Hope America with Billy Graham,” a video evangelism course that “combines the impact of video programs with the power of personal relationships.” The series will allow churchgoers to host small groups and view videos culled from messages that Graham has recorded throughout his career.

But Graham says he is currently taping a message specifically for the My Hope series, and the BGEA is framing the video as Graham’s last public event. In a standing column on the BGEA website entitled “Billy Graham’s My Answer,” a reader recently asked, “I heard the other day that you were planning to preach one more time before God takes you to heaven. Is that true?”

Graham responded: “Yes, it is true.”

But although “My Hope” could signal the end of his public ministry, Graham plans to finish well, stating that the “My Hope” campaign “may be the biggest crusade we’ve ever held.”

And that’s saying something, considering the numbers from Graham’s New York City crusade in 2005: It took “$6.8 million, 20 languages, 1,424 churches, 81 denominations, 6,000 volunteer counselors, 93 acres, … 70,000 chairs, 43 preparation seminars, [and] 30 paid staff” to pull off.

Graham, who founded CT, is known as the “evangelist of our time” and has been in ministry for more than 60 years.

- More from Melissa Steffan

Runaway Mom and the Madness of Midlife

Jennifer Grant

After 40, life doesn’t have to fall downhill.

Lititz Borough Police

In one picture, Brenda Heist smiles, with round cheeks and dark brown eyes. In the next, taken 11 years later, her face is sad and sunken, framed with stringy blond hair. As disturbing as these side-by-side photos appear, more chilling is the story that catapulted her into the headlines last week.

In 2002, Heist dropped her children off at school and then mysteriously disappeared, leaving family and friends to think she had been abducted and likely killed. But no foul play had come to Heist. None, that is, except of her own making. Awash in self-pity over her broken marriage and finances, she hitchhiked with strangers from Pennsylvania to Florida, where she lived for the next decade, using the name "Lovie Smith," working as a day laborer and, later, a housekeeper. She often resorted to sleeping on the street. Last week, reportedly in part due to mounting health problems, she turned herself in at a Key Largo police station.

Her age at the moment when she erased her identity as a tidy suburban mom and became what some describe as a "beach-bum hippie" seems vital to this story. She left her family and her old life behind at 42.

Ah, to be an American woman in her 40s!

Admittedly, there's a lot of good that comes from four decades of experience. Our skins are thicker; we are more fearless. We prune our list of friends, keeping only the ones who make our spirits sing and no longer feeling the need to be liked by everyone. We don't worry quite as much about our appearance and just sigh with recognition when we are told that we are "more beautiful than we think." If we are mothers, we begin to see the adults our children are becoming, and there is deep joy in that. Plus, it's often in our 40s when the random, misshapen puzzle pieces of our professional lives can come together into a coherent whole.

But, make no mistake; being a woman in her 40s is no walk in the park, no matter how many articles declare "40 is the new 30" or even "40 is the new 20." In our 40s, our marriages change. The honeymoon is long over – as is the blur of activity that caring for very young children requires. It's in their 40s that more people get divorced. Mothers watch their children edge toward and enter adolescence. Month by month, we are forced to concede that those curmudgeons who warned: "Little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems" actually were right on. And it's in the decade of our 40s that college costs suddenly loom large and retirement no longer feels so far away.

In our appearance-obsessed culture, the effects of time become harder to ignore at 40. We gray. Our eyebrows and lashes thin. We start lingering in the drugstore aisle perusing expensive eye creams. Whether or not we've experienced childbirth's effects on our bodies, perimenopause wreaks mischief – sometimes havoc – on our moods, sleep patterns, and physical selves. As Paul Simon crooned, wrangling with midlife: we find ourselves asking "Why am I soft in the middle? The rest of my life is so hard!"

So it makes a tragic sort of sense that Heist was 42 years when she ditched her life. But what was her key mistake? Did she feel like she had permission to hurt others because she'd been hurt? Did the indignities of stretch marks and the unseen, everyday tedium of carpools and emptying the dishwasher overwhelm her? Did she not realize she was more beautiful than she thought?

Even before the people began to look for her, Heist was already a missing person. When she met a few homeless people at the park the day of her departure, she says she was crying and "feeling sorry for herself." Given the opportunity to leave the first half of her life behind, she said she "just snapped" and took it.

In his book Falling Upwards: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, Richard Rohr writes that after spending the first part of our lives defining ourselves and setting ourselves up for a happy adulthood, we will experience crushing disappointment and loss. It might the loss of a job, a marriage, treasured friendships, or an identity that we have carefully wrought. Many of these changes may become the root of our "midlife crisis," particularly a struggle over identity. Rohr says, however, that what appears to be a falling down is actually an opportunity to fall upwards, deepen spiritually, and find new purpose. We aren't forced to take this opportunity; we are free to remain bitter, frustrated, and upset. Even at 40, many of us will have another 40 years ahead of us, though the final half a lifetime will be much different than the first. Brenda Heist's disappearing act 11 years ago broke her children's hearts and thrust them into a new part of life. In interviews since Heist re-surfaced, her ex-husband appears to be a person who has "fallen upward." He says he's forgiven her and describes his gratitude for his children and family in this second part of his life. Now it's Heist's turn – and all of our turns – to surrender our disappointment, self-pity, and fear to a loving God who desires to bring all of us missing persons home.

Grant is the author of Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter and MOMumental: Adventures in the Messy Art of Raising a Family. Disquiet Time, a book she is co-editing with journalist and author Cathleen Falsani, will be released in autumn 2014. Find her online at jennifergrant.com.

This article was originally published as part of Her.Meneutics, Christianity Today's blog for women.

- More from Jennifer Grant

Share

Share

Share

Share

Share

Share

Share

Near-Earth Objects: Finding Them Before They Find Us

Share

Share

Share

Share

Share

Share

Share

Share

Share

Share

Share

Share

Share