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Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. (I John 3:18 ESV)
For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (II Peter 1:8 NASB)
Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. (I Cor. 9:26 NIV)
Your Christian students can be generally unfruitful while they’re doing “good things.”
Is this a terrifying, purifying truth you’ve wrestled through with them – and especially with those students who presume themselves “leadership material” and/or “mature”?
Christian collegians can love… but not in deed and truth. They can run fast… but aimlessly. They can box… without actually landing many punches. They will be “judged more strictly” (James 3:1) and may yet be found wanting. It is very possible for your students to live apparently-solid, others-affirmed Christian lives… without bearing a large portion of the fruit God actually intends for them, without accomplishing the “works prepared beforehand” for each of them.
How often do Christians really assess whether we’re really bearing fruit and achieving what God intends? Do your students ever take a serious look at this?
Your college ministry can be generally unfruitful while you’re doing “good things.”
And is this terrifying, purifying truth something you’ve dealt with in the context of your ministry?
You can “love on” students without much actual, lasting impact. A “great message series” or an “excellent event” can be run aimlessly (i.e., without deciding your aims beforehand and then running straight toward them!). You can institute neat plans and still have terrible actual follow-through, not landing a strong percentage of the punches you throw.
And while you “are keeping watch over [their] souls, as those who will have to give an account” (Heb. 13:17), you can indeed be found not to have fulfilled your ministry.
This is a topic worth the tussle, for your students and perhaps for your ministry as a whole.
Check out other “topics worth the tussle” right here.
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“Topics Worth the Tussle” is a series of themes students (or leaders) may need to wrestle with inside your ministry. They’re not always popular, but that’s one reason they’re all the more needed.
And today’s topic is especially important as students head into the summer.
Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted… (II Tim. 3:12 ESV)
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? … No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Heb. 12:7,11 NIV2011)
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4 ESV)
Then Satan answered the LORD, “Does Job fear God for nothing? … But put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse You to Your face.” (Job 1:9,11 NASB)
Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. (Rom. 12:15 NKJV)
Is your college ministry full of people who know how to suffer well? Have they come to recognize the amazing value suffering has in their lives and in the lives of those around them? Do they even – though through tears – welcome suffering, chalking it up (“reckoning”) it pure joy because of what God produces in it and through it?
Do your students recognize that cleansing, strengthening, glorifying suffering doesn’t only come in cancer diagnoses or deaths or earthquakes, but also when “I so wish that girl was interested in me,” “I wasn’t picked for that leadership position,” “My roommate and I aren’t getting along”?
Has God “shown off” in the midst of suffering within your college ministry, as He did with Job?
And do your students – unlike Job’s friends – know how to “weep with those who weep”? Do they suffer with others well?
This is a topic that may very well be worth the tussle in your ministry – or at least in your mind, as the leader of your campus ministry.
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Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. (Rom. 14:13 NIV2011)
For if your brother is hurt by what you eat, you are no longer walking according to love. By what you eat, do not destroy that one for whom Christ died. (v. 15 HCSB)
For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself… (v. 7 NASB)
But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. (v. 23 ESV)
I mentioned a few weeks ago that there are quite a few “topics worth the tussle” in the later chapters of Romans – the portions that more theologically minded collegians might wrongly consider “more shallow.” But I wanted to return again to one chapter – chapter 14 – which I believe has some of the biggest potential for impacting our students of any chapter in the Bible.
Really.
So whether you teach on Romans 14 or just use it to evaluate your ministry, I do encourage you to consider how well your college ministry’s members (and you yourself!) live out this chapter. Its demands are difficult and even surprising, but Paul here also makes it very clear that he saw this as rather central to BOTH glorifying God and living in Christian community… and those are probably our top two priorities for our college ministries, right?
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Three little notes to get you started on Romans 14:
1. Walk slowly through this passage. If you only observe the overarching theme (Dealing with Disputable Matters) through a normal skimming, you’ll miss the profundity of many of the individual commands and comments. By paying close attention, too, you quickly realize that “faith” here means “conviction” or “confidence” more than general “trust in God” – a key to understanding the whole chapter.
2. Compare with Corinthians. I Corinthians 8 and 10 parallel this far too closely to be ignored, and they even provide more concrete examples.
2. Recognize the many applications. On that note, I count at least five applications that can turn our lives (and our students’ lives) upside-down. (One verse for each appears above, although there are several for each scattered throughout Romans 14.)
- Handling disputable matters well. This is the main topic, obviously, but what Paul writes isn’t “obvious” at all. Read it in concert with I Corinthians 8 and 10, and Paul’s awkward demands become impossible to deny.
- Love bends over backwards. If this is love, it’s a much more dramatic version than we usually see. This isn’t just noble sacrifice but – in a sense – ignoble sacrifice.
- We’re supposed to strive to please people(!). Most vividly, this is prescribed in Romans 14:18-19 and the first two verses of chapter 15 (there weren’t chapters in the original, remember!). Of course, this isn’t an unqualified command…
- “Do all for the glory of God.” It’s no coincidence that I Cor. 10:31 and Rom. 14:7-12 both occur in discussions of how we eat. If we’re supposed to glorify God in everything, then that means glorifying Him in the necessary, the daily, the very very normal.
- All actions from conviction. Romans 14 knows nothing of “I can do it unless God shows me it’s wrong.” Perhaps the most counter-Christian-cultural application of all comes when we realize that Romans 14 actually demands the opposite – even down to the final verse.
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“Topics Worth the Tussle” is a series of themes that might be useful to wrestle with. Whether it’s to teach these topics or just to consider how well your students are living them out, these often undervalued themes might be worth another look!
I appeal to you therefore… (Romans 12:1a ESV)
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. (Romans 12:17 NIV2011)
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. (Romans 13:1 ESV)
Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. (Romans 13:13 NASB)
Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. (Romans 14:13 ESV)
My community group at church has been marching through the Book of Romans, and this week we turned the corner from chapter 11 to chapter 12.
If you’ve forgotten the structure of Romans, chapters 1-11 mostly present very complex theological issues. While it’s not fair (or accurate) to describe those chapters as strictly “Theology” and the last five chapters of Romans as strictly “Application,” the book’s structure does lean that direction.
Theology is, of course, extremely important. The problem is, these days plenty of our students think they’re solid Christians because they’re “Romans 1-11 Christians.” They know what to believe, they know theological terms, they know “deep thoughts” from the likes of John Piper or C.S. Lewis or Matt Chandler or A.W. Tozer or Don Miller or Relevant Magazine or the more “complex” parts of Scripture. Wherever they are on the theological spectrum, these students place a lot of stock in what they know.
But we and/or our students need to wrestle with the Therefore of Romans 12:1. Urging us to become living sacrifices, Paul appeals to us to “by the mercies of God” – the same mercies he’s just spent 11 chapters describing. If these eleven chapters are true, then this is how you’ll actually live, he says. So if we’re not up to the task of Romans 12-16, then we apparently don’t grasp “theology” at all. Or, as Peter puts it, “whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins” (II Peter 1:9).
Romans 12-16 isn’t really the “shallow” part of Romans, though our students sometimes think that way about “little things” like hospitality and harmony and humility and honoring others… just four of the twenty-seven-or-so commands in the second half of Romans alone.
The “topic worth the tussle” here isn’t just Romans 12-16 (though that could be a phenomenal text for a message series!). What’s worth tussling over is whether our college students realize that “deep Christians” are the Christians who live out our theology, not the ones who can only debate it skillfully.
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My general approach for this “Topics Worth the Tussle” series has generally been presenting a few key verses to present a biblical topic that might be worth “tussling over” with college students. Please don’t think me unspiritual to take a slightly different approach today; I planned to present the topic and then realized that this, too, is a very collegiate topic that might be worth bringing up… even if that’s plenty awkward, too.
The topic?
How we – as Jesus followers – connect to sports.
I have made it very clear that I get really excited about the NCAA Tournament. And I also believe it’s a great chance to see the unique wonders of our particular mission field, the college campus (including in my “Sixty-Eight: A Vision Trip” essay, which apparently some people are even using with supporters and others! Hooray!).
At the same time, there have been some Christians who have (rightly) tried to examine whether our current “sports culture” in America might be at odds with what we profess as Christ followers. So I think that’s great for us – as college ministers – to wrestle with, and it might be great to bring up with your students, too.
Collegiate church planter Russell Atherton sent me the link to a CNN article highlighting some college ministry activity at Duke this week. While I personally have no idea if this thing was a valuable ministry event (but it certainly could have been), it’s definitely an interesting event. AND it was fun to see college ministry discussed at CNN and connected to March Madness. (The line at the end about the “tribal” nature of campuses was pretty interesting, too!)
Here’s the article: Amid March Madness, some Christians decry sports worship
There are several links in that article to people who have written about sports-and-Christianity. It’s definitely worth checking out.
The dangers of Christian obsession with Sports was also a Christianity Today cover story last year, so I’ll close out with some links to a few of their articles.
- Sports Fanatics: How Christians have succumbed to the sports culture—and what might be done about it.
- A Response to “Sport Fanatics” (above): Sport Is More Than Play
- The Joy of Sports: There are a lot of Christian athletes who care about the Cross, the gospel, humility, joy, and sanctification.
- My Top 5 Books on Sports: Picks from Andrew Parker, professor of sport and Christian outreach at the University of Gloucestershire
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“Topics Worth the Tussle” is a series of themes to look at in light of your campus ministry. Whether it’s to teach these topics or just to examine how well your students are living them out, I bet they’re worth the tussle. (And in many cases, they’re topics that don’t always receive too much attention.)
A man of many companions may come to ruin,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. (Proverbs 18:24 ESV)Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. (Rom 12:9-10 ESV)
How good and pleasant it is
when God’s people live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
down on the collar of his robe.
It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the LORD bestows his blessing,
even life forevermore. (Psalm 133, NIV2011)
Every one of your students will have more friendships in their life than they’ll have romantic relationships. (Go ahead, think about it. That’s true, right?)
But as college ministers, most of us (me included) talk about Dating more than we zero in on Friendship. Sure, Dating will catch our students’ attention better, and in some senses it’s probably fraught with a little more peril (or the peril can be a little more… perilous?) Our students’ minds aren’t preoccupied with finding “a friend” quite like they are with finding “that special someone.” So it’s easy to ignore this very vital topic.
Friendship also seems… easier, right? But is it really? Is the average student in your ministry doing what it takes to be a good friend?
It seems like our campus ministries should be factories for good friends, people who live out Romans 12 or I Corinthians 13 or all of Proverbs not only with spouses but also with pals. I figure this topic is one that’s worth the tussle – and to really go where we need to go, teaching biblical Friendship may indeed involve some tussle!
What in the world might happen if your students really did “outdo one another in showing honor” or really, regularly obeyed the commands to bear one another’s burdens, encourage, admonish, pray for each other, and everything else that being a good friend means?
The happy statue above from Colorado School of Mines is actually called “A Friend to Lean On” (by Robin J. Laws).
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I first posted this Fridea a few semesters ago, but it ties in well to Tuesday’s post. In the series “Topics Worth the Tussle,” I wrote about addressing a theology of enjoying life well. If you didn’t get a chance to read it, check it out here. And if you need tips along these lines, keep reading today’s Fridea…
What if we taught our students how to make really, really common things God-glorious? That’s this week’s Fridea: Teaching our students to live beautifully within the natural, daily elements of their lives.
I Corinthians 10:31 is of course a key verse here:
“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (ESV)
Paul’s summing-up of I Corinthians 10 is honestly a little unnatural. The whole chapter is a deep theological discussion that dives into complex places (places modern, freedom-loving Christians aren’t too comfortable with). It reveals a hard, very specific way to love others. So he could have summed up only with, “And that’s how much we’re called to love others – even laying down our very freedom to do so.” Instead, Paul reveals, “That’s just ONE of the crazy ways that we get to glorify God in the day-to-day, common aspects of our lives.”
But how often do we actually teach students how to do that? I can’t remember ever hearing an “eating-to-the-glory-of-God” message in church or any other ministry. Even though that one thing takes up hours of my week. Even though there’s plenty of biblical wisdom on, or connected to, that topic.
If that common task is brought under the reign of Christ, might it trigger other forms of obedience to the command to “in all your ways acknowledge Him”?
What if we occasionally provided biblical wisdom and wise counsel about
- Eating
- Sleeping
- Studying
- Time Management
- Personal “Beautification” / “Grooming”
- Casual (and other) Conversation
- Multi-tasking
- Driving
- Clothing
- Planning
- Social Event-attending
- and other “common” events in the life of an American college student?
A teaching series? Small group topic? One-on-one discipleship material? “Position papers” available to your students? A database of verses and wisdom on your college blog? A message series you advertise to the campus at large?
If, on the other hand, we (accidentally) teach students that biblical truth, prayer, and the counsel of wise Christians are only pertinent to BIG theological questions and BIG life choices, then we can’t complain much about segmentation or cafeteria-style Christianity. Right?
But provide a Theology of Party Attendance or a Theology of Sleep, and your students (or the whole campus tribe) might better realize how God requires we acknowledge Him – and find out how deeply abundant life can go.
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“Topics Worth the Tussle” is a series about themes that might not always receive the attention they deserve – but that can be paradigm-shifting for college ministries and their students. They might take a little bit of energy to worth through – thus the name of the series – but if they’re topics your students need to hear about, it’s worth it!
Go then, eat your bread in happiness and drink your wine with a cheerful heart; for God has already approved your works. Let your clothes be white all the time, and let not oil be lacking on your head. (Eccl. 9:7-8 NASB)
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (I Cor. 10:31 ESV)
For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving… (I Tim 4:4 NIV 2010).
Another topic that takes more mulling than might be first assumed: The “permission” – even the command – to enjoy the world God has given us.
I recognize that some college ministries out there don’t need to encourage their students to “enjoy life” as a general rule; in fact, they need to rein in or redirect their enjoyment! But plenty of college ministries do have students – like I was – who need to hear that glorifying God can happen while eating and drinking, that God even commands us to wear party clothes and cologne in our approach to life (the gist of Eccl. 9:8, above).
But as I think about it, I think both groups – the unwise partiers and the unwisely-solemn – will both be helped by a healthy, biblical Theology of Enjoyment. Or even a Theology of Fun.
Have they heard one? I can’t imagine a more collegiate topic.
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Today’s post starts an occasional series on “Topics Worth the Tussle” for college ministers to consider. They’ll be some passages and biblical topics that seem, at times, to be overlooked or undertaught – but that have a particular importance for college students. And yes, it’s likely you, your students, or both will have to struggle a little bit with these tricky topics.
Whether you teach on these, use ‘em in small groups, or just wrestle with how well your students practice these principles, hopefully they are indeed worth the tussle… for you and your students!
My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins. (James 5:19-20 NIV 2010)
Rescue those being led away to death;
hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done? (Prov. 24:11-12 NIV 2010)If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. (II Thess. 3:14-15 ESV)
I recently heard a college minister deliver a message on the use and abuse of the tongue, springboarding from James 3 to discuss several ways college students need to think about what they say.
I so appreciated that he included in his message the clear biblical call to confront their friends as needed. Throughout Scripture, confrontation – including even varying “degrees” of confrontation and separation – is revealed as a required part of true community. Wow.
So if we want to assess the “community” angle of our campus ministries, one question we should ask is, “How ready, willing, and able are our students to confront sin in others’ lives?”
It’s definitely a touchy subject. But I think it’s worth the tussle – and a community that does this well is bound to be a pretty strong college ministry indeed.
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