Finishing Well, Part 3: The Trailhead

May 10, 2012

Megan Hackman

You know you’re graduating seminary when:

1. Someone’s looking for a word to describe nasty tea they just spit out. Appropriate words would be lukewarm or tepid and all you can think is like Revelation.
2. A prospective student is looking for a specific kind of church—church plant, charismatic-friendly, and with opportunities for discipleship—and you not only know which church he’ll love, but you know who to connect him with. Low and behold, they’re old college buddies.
3. You’re supposed to be journaling reflections about a missions class, but the content quickly becomes the thesis for your exegesis paper in Isaiah 56.

All these things actually happened in one day. So I guess it is time to settle into the idea that my husband and I are graduating seminary in just a few days, which means we probably should already have applied to a ton of jobs and know what we are doing next. But we haven’t, and we don’t know. Well, we don’t know exactly.

See this journey that we are on originated for me in a rejection from a choice college that then became a pursuit of Spanish and a passion for Spain. Then we went on to pursue missions which led to seminary (see Part 1 and Part 2 if those appear as the tremendous jumps they are). We are fueled with a passionate desire to see people love Jesus and to live as followers of Jesus their whole life. We believe this means living as individual members of the body of Christ, the Church. We are passionate about serving the Body as a whole and its individual members. So really, that could lead us anywhere on this planet.

But that doesn’t necessarily make the job search any easier. So we are thankful for alumni who have gone before us and are married couples serving the church together. We have begun to meet with them in hopes of gaining a language and a vision for living out this passion in a way that can be articulated in job interviews. We plan to apply to EPC churches all over the United States to serve as pastors. We keep our hearts and ears open for unconventional opportunities to serve that might not yet be known to us.

We had an experience in April that led us to both this step-by-step pursuit as well as this open-handedness. We were in our favorite getaway of New England, the Adirondacks of New York. We had planned to climb a nice, short mountain. We knew how long it was (.5 miles), we knew what skill level was involved (a nice junior hike, said the book), and we knew it would have a “nice” view from the top (said a friend). And it was all those things, and it was nice. We prayed and read Scripture and enjoyed the view:

Then we ventured to the next trailhead. We knew the name. We didn’t bother to look at the trail guide, so we didn’t know how long it was (way more than .5) or the skill required (steep gradients, as it turns out). We didn’t even know if the summit would be worth it all. But oh my, was it ever:

It was a hard hike. I dealt with significant fear involving ice slides, encroaching darkness, and physical pain. But Jesus met me in the fear and taught me a lot about the fears I have about the next steps of life. I was overwhelmed with God’s abundant creation glory at the top of the mountain. This was no “sit and enjoy the view” kind of mountaintop. It was a “come-to-Jesus, awe-struck, laugh and cry at the same time” kind of view.

So should I anticipate Plan A, the Owls Head mountains of life with predictable, relative ease and nice views? Maybe. Those are really nice sometimes! But I long for the come-to-Jesus, awe-struck, laugh and cry, Cascade-style ventures.

So to find the “End of the Story” at this point, we are in the application process, preparing for ordination, and finishing our final 2 classes. We have our eyes peeled for those trailheads. We anticipate meeting God both in the struggle of climbing the mountain and in the glory to come on the top.

Megan Hackman and her husband, Larry, are M.Div. students at Gordon-Conwell's Hamilton campus.

Tags: Author: Megan Hackman , equipping leaders for the church and society , spiritually vital , student blogger , student life , thoughtfully evangelical

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What if Christians were not afraid to look foolish from time to time?

April 10, 2012

Something happened the other day that made me wonder if I take advantage of the opportunities God gives me to live a more expressive life for him.

The day did not begin well. The sun obviously was trying to make a point, because it must have risen half an hour too soon. Maybe it wanted to knock off early that evening. Whatever, I woke up with a sore throat and a generally bleak disposition. Life was definitely not the bed of roses it should be. The kids were feeling the effects, too, because getting them out of bed was no walk in the park. Someone had replaced my normally charming little girl with a creature that Tolkien would dream up when he was writing the particularly scary passages of The Two Towers. Only with more teeth.

I had about a chapter and a half of Theology to get through that morning. No quiet time with the Bible and me and God today! After shoving the kids out the car door at school, I headed to the study room at the library. When I no longer cared if it was “transcendence” or “immanence,” I closed the book, grabbed my gym bag and headed off for my favorite part of the day: the workout. I didn’t have to read, write, or do arithmetic, just pedal.

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Tags: equipping leaders for the church and society , guest post , student blogger , thoughtfully evangelical

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Learning from Our Church Fathers: Part 4

March 16, 2012

Dr. Donald Fairbairn

Why should evangelicals care about the early church, about the first several centuries after the end of the New Testament? Another reason why we should take that period seriously is that the church fathers had a very different way of reading the Bible from the way we are taught to read it, and we may have something to learn from their interpretation.

Modern Bible study methods focus on “reading out” the message of each passage by focusing on the context to that passage—the history, the culture, the language. Such study methods implore us to avoid “reading in” any pre-conceived ideas that might corrupt the message of that text. In contrast, the church fathers read every passage of Scripture in light of the major thrust of Scripture, the single story they believe the Bible is telling. And that story, according to the vast majority of the church fathers, is the story of Christ. So they see the whole Bible—down to every last passage of the Old Testament—as a story about Christ. To state the contrast simply, we read from the narrow to the broad—from the meaning of each individual passage to the whole message of the Bible. They read from the broad to the narrow—reading each passage in light of what they think the whole Bible is about.

In light of this difference, we might accuse the church fathers of reading their own ideas into the texts—and we would be right in this accusation (at least in some cases). But before we are too quick to criticize, we should recognize that our narrow-to-broad method of Bible study emerged among modern scholars who did not believe the Bible was a unified book. They saw—and still do see—the Bible as a series of rather disparate stories that are not necessarily consistent with each other. So those scholars do not consider the big story of the Bible to be relevant to the question of what each individual passage means. Only the historical, cultural, and literary context of that passage is relevant to that passage’s interpretation.

When we look at the matter this way, we recognize that we evangelicals share the early church’s assumption and disagree with the modern liberal assumption. Unlike our colleagues in the liberal academy, we believe that the Holy Spirit inspired the Bible, that it tells a single story, that it is a unity. It is thus ironic that we sometimes use a method of biblical interpretation unwittingly borrowed from scholars who do not believe the Bible is a unity, a method that focuses narrowly on the background to each passage, without as much attention to the broader context of the whole Bible.

If we do in fact share the church fathers’ assumption about the unity of Scripture, should we not take another look at the fathers’ interpretation of the Bible? When we read their interpretation, much of it seems very far-fetched, like finding Christ in minute details of the Old Testament, and I do not for a moment want to condone such exegetical excess. What I do want to commend, though, is the fathers’ attitude toward the Bible. It is a single book, given by God, telling a single story, and that story is ultimately about Christ. They believed that, and so do we. Because they believed that, they proceeded from the big picture to the details, from Christ to the individual passages, in their interpretation of Scripture. We usually do not do that. But should we?

Whether we adopt very many of the fathers’ specific interpretations of Old Testament passages or not, their focus on Christ can remind us that we too can and should make Christ the center of all our biblical interpretation. And the church fathers can also open our eyes to the possibility that there are more connections between the Old Testament and Christ than we typically see, even if there are not as many legitimate connections as they find. Thus, early church biblical interpretation has some important lessons to teach us about the Bible, lessons we might not learn without paying attention to the church fathers.

Dr. Donald Fairbairn is the Robert E. Cooley Professor of Early Christianity. His responsibilities include further developing the Robert C. Cooley Center for the Study of Early Christianity at the Charlotte campus, which explores the historical foundations of the Christian faith.

Tags: Author: Donald Fairbairn , biblically-grounded , equipping leaders for the church and society , faculty blogger , thoughtfully evangelical

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The Seminary Wife: Here I Am; Send Me

March 13, 2012

Jessica Haberkern

I never imagined that I’d call New England home, and yet this morning I am here. The sun greets me by melting the frost gathered like crystals in the corners of my windowpane and casts shadows from the birch trees onto my bed. A few weeks ago, the scene was different—I had a job and friends and a loft situated in the heart of a concrete jungle. Now I am living on the campus of a seminary, which is as foreign to me as taking up residence at a convent.

I remember the day my husband told me he wanted to quit his career as a motion graphic designer and go to seminary. We were on an afternoon stroll through the park behind our street. The heat lingering over the sidewalk rivaled the stagnancy of our marriage. Not seeing eye to eye was new to us, and the summer had felt like a disaster. Seminary, I said, us? I fumbled over the words strung together, but I sensed that my husband was right.

We were both frustrated with detaching our Sundays from the workweek—Christian one day and ordinary members of society another. Sure, we read our Bibles, a lot in fact. We engaged in ministry and attended small groups. We prayed together and occasionally brought food to the homeless and jobless on our street. Still, something was missing, and its gaping hole was growing wider.

We had assembled our lives like giant puzzle pieces, arranging the God-piece where we thought it fit. Our foundation was in Christ, yes, but the rest of our puzzle created a picture of us. How do I want to follow Jesus? What does God want me to do? These questions were legitimate, but through trying to serve God on our terms, we were only serving ourselves.

In his book Radical, writer David Platt says that if you ask the average American Christian to summarize the message of his or her faith, the response will go something like this: God loves me enough to send His Son Jesus to die for me. Sounds good, right? But that’s not all, Platt argues. “The message of biblical Christianity is not ‘God loves me, period,’ as if we were the object of our own faith,” he writes. That account of the Christian narrative stops short of the full story. Instead, the message of Christianity is “God loves me so that I might make Him—His ways, His salvation, His glory, and His greatness—known among all nations.”

God loves me so that I can make His name known. How simple of a truth. I am not the end of the gospel, God is. And yet how often do I need to be reminded that all of my puzzle pieces should reflect the glory of Christ Jesus.

My husband and I are not the first people to have uprooted our life to attend seminary. We are not special in that sense. Nearly every family in our new home has experienced some sort of reckoning, either by leaving a job or church or simply abandoning their plans at the feet of Jesus. I pray, though, that as my husband and I enter into community and classes and begin to reshape our life around God’s word, that we would do so in the crux of the gospel truth. Every circumstance in my life up until this very moment has occurred to make His name known. That is my story. It is my husband’s story, and it is yours.

Sometimes I’m prone to think that the writers of scripture wrestled with different questions than I. Surely the fathers of our faith weren’t surrounded with uncertainty about their direction or purpose! And then I page through their words and discover that they were often just as lost. Though there are many stories of encouragement in the scriptures, I find Isaiah’s particularly pertinent to my current season of life. In Isaiah 6, God is holding court with His angels. They are in intense discussion. “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah overhears God (6:8).

Notice that God did not single out Isaiah and beg—His will illuminated in flashing lights—or even charge Isaiah with the call to go. Isaiah is privy to God’s heavenly conversation because he is still and quiet and found in prayer. “Whether or not [we] hear God’s call depends on the state of [our] ears,” Oswald Chambers says.

Lend an attentive ear to the throne. What plans does God have in the works? Are you willing to say, here I am Lord, send me? The gospel, after all, does not end with you or me. It ends with Christ, His name glorified.

Are you listening?

—The Seminary Wife

Jessica Haberkern is a creative writer and violinist once local to Atlanta. She teaches writing for Ashford University’s online program and writes for The Oxford American, In Touch, and Scoutmob, among other publications. She chronicles her and [her uber cool] husband’s eats + beats on their blog, thehaberkerns.tumblr.com.

Tags: Author: Jessica Haberkern , current students , thoughtfully evangelical

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Finishing Well, Part 1: Open Books

February 13, 2012

Megan Hackman

I love to finish things up. I receive such an overwhelming satisfaction from the last cup of flour used, the final paper turned in, and the final chapter of a book read. So great is my joy that a friend recently brought to me her mangled tube of toothpaste so that I could share in its completion. Part joke, part gift, I received it and took a photograph before throwing it away. Now I get to the share it with you! Aren’t you lucky. Ha!

I like to see everything come to an end. I like things tidy and filed. So when I see that something isn’t going any further, I write it off and file it away. I assume that’s the end, and I need it to be done so that I can open something new and see that thing all the way through to its end.

Last night, my husband called my attention to how that framework of open or shut, being used or finished, just does not work in life.

God opened the call to spread the Gospel to the world to me in March of 2006. Right before leaving on a short-term missions trip to Bolivia, I heard him speak to me from Isaiah 43. I promptly interpreted verse 5 very personally, Fear not, Megan, for I am with you… bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth… Of course! God was sending me to Bolivia in just a few days! I should break up with my boyfriend, graduate college, and then go overseas for the rest of my life!

I’m not saying that God can’t call someone that definitively or that my experience hearing God’s voice was illegitimate. But what I’m beginning to discover is that March 2006 was an invitation to begin holding before the Lord the willingness to be his witness wherever he would send. His call on my life wasn’t something to “use up” or “complete.”

I didn’t break up with Larry then. He helped me to see that a calling to ministry didn’t necessitate the end of our relationship (Whew!). I went to Bolivia and spent the entire week sick. I did not open any blind eyes that week. After we married that fall, Larry and I pursued joining the staff of an international missions organization. We were all set to train and move overseas when as a team with the folks we were going to work with we all recognized that we did not share the same vision for the country. We had a vision more for church planting than hostel ministry, but we were completely unqualified to start a church. So I closed the “Spain story” in my mind and opened the “seminary story.”

The point is—I thought that coming to seminary meant that the story of overseas missions work was over. In my mind, I had interpreted Isaiah 43 wrong. I had misheard the voice of God. We had pursued going overseas, but when we squeezed out the last hope of moving, it was time to throw that vision away. But I was wrong. I’m beginning to see that God does not view our lives as books that are written one at a time, finishing one before beginning the other. Instead, he can handle a whole lot of pages and chapters in process at the same time. He sees the end result. He knows where the stories merge and flow, interweaving and bringing us to the place of ultimate completion in his story, his eternal story. I like neat and tidy endings, but I’m a work in process, and our lives are ministry in process. There’s more to come…

Megan Hackman and her husband, Larry, are M.Div. students at Gordon-Conwell's Hamilton campus.

Tags: Author: Megan Hackman , biblically-grounded , equipping leaders for the church and society , student blogger , thoughtfully evangelical

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