Scot McKnight seems to have stirred up quite a conversation over at Jesus Creed, with his posts on Grace Grinding. He follows up this post with Grace Grinding: Some Concrete Examples. From all the comments as well, it appears that some people love being grace grinders.

I think that we are all guilty of being grace grinders, whether it is something we do frequently, or rarely at all. I think this is why this conversation hits so many people, so close to home. The tragedy of it all though, is that those who truly relish in being grace grinders, will probably never ever be aware of what they do. By proclaiming the letter of the law, they kill the spirit of it, and injure those in the process. Rather than give life, and extend grace to others, they claim the law, or what they see as the moral high ground II Corinthians 3:6.

It reminds me of something my professor used to say in class. He would remind us of the moral smugness of the comment, “I love the sinner, but hate the sin.” And just how ungracious that comment is to people. We cannot claim to hate someone’s sin, but love them. Their sin, their pasts, though clean, and renewed, is a part of who they were and are. He would tell us that we cannot claim love as a moral highground while holding the object of love, or that other person at a distance. Jesus did not do this, so how can we. I think that those people who want to be grace grinders, are these same people who want to claim a higher moral ground, yet not get themselves dirty by interacting with sinners…they would prefer to keep them at a distance. That phrase is our attempt at extending grace, but wanting others to know that there are strings attached. It is not grace freely given.

As I continue my little series on advice to college student and their parents, there is one issue that rears its head time and time again, and in which I feel must be addressed.

Success
It is the idea of what constitutes success. Usually for students that means, good grades, make some friends, find a significant other, and then find a job when you graduate. For parents, they are similar: good grades, good grades, don’t spend too much money, find a job…most parents are a little weary if their student gets too committed to another person in college…they often feel it inhibits their child from certain ambitions, and having the freedom to go anywhere, no strings attached.

How a student and a parent defines success during the college years is very vital, I believe.

Re-Defining Success
I tend to work with a very committed, passionate, hardworking student. The students I get from UCLA, USC, LMU, SMC, music and acting schools, tend to be high achievers. Success in their eyes is the end result…the final product…making it! Having a career, pulling in a good salary…that is how success is often defined, whether they, or we admit it or not. And over the course of a student’s career in college, and over the course of a typical school year, I see this burden and strain begin to weigh heavily upon them. Success in their eyes is all about the end result: Get good grades, so I can please the parents; so I can get into grad school; so I can get a good job. Once I get these things, then I’m ready. I think this is success in both the parents and students eyes at times. I hear this story, time and time again.

I would like to see success defined more wholistically. Success as defined by not only grades; but one’s social life; meaning, do they have good friends, a good community, a good social support; are they well-rounded; do they get involved in extra-curricular activities; do they go to church, or have a small group Bible study; do they have time to have fun, and relax; do they have time to serve the community? I think these are things that we don’t often think about enough, until we have already graduated.

I would like to see success defined in the journey, in the progression from year 1 to year 4 or 5. Not defined only by getting through to get to the end result. I would like to see students and parents have the mindset that life is happening now…it’s not on hold until they graduate, then they are adults, and can live life. Too many students wait and wait, and postpone things, hoping that once they graduate, well then, they can do the things they want.

I work with lots of students. Those who are bookworms, and pull down the 4.0′s. That’s what defines them. I work with student-athletes, who run from practice to rehab to training, and from game to game, in and out of season. They are defined by that. I work with those in the Greek system, who have one event after the other, from the beginning to the end of the school year, and I rarely see them. They are defined by that. This is a stereotype, but this is what I often see, whether they see that or not. But the students who seem to be the most well-rounded, are the ones who are involved in more than one thing; who see their life, and success, as defined by more than the one thing they are known for, whether it be grades, athletics, socially.

The students who I often witness as being the most well rounded and healthy are the ones who study and find grades to be important; but they make time for friends and community; they make time to get invovled socially, go to sporting events, and volunteer in the community; they make time for worship and Sabbath. They strike a good balance between work and play and rest.

This is something that we are not usually good at as people. Living a balanced life. And this is something we are not always good at as parents…helping model this life to our students, or helping them achieve it themselves.

This is something I need to achieve in my own life as well. And too often do I hear the regrets from those who have been all consumed by one thing during their four years. They have missed out on a lot. And not often enough, I am able to see the ones who have lived a more balance college life, finishing up with no regrets, and with a hunger to move out into the world.

So how will you define success for yourself this next year? How will you as a parent define success for your student?

These are impportant questions to begin asking, so that you both have the freedom to explore them together.

I’m telling you, there is a growing conversation and movement taking place in Christianity. And it is this return to urban renewal, communal living, and a monastic lifestyle. Not one that is done in solitude, but in community. This concept is the cover story in the new Christianity Today issue, “The New Monasticism: A fresh crop of Christian communities is blossoming in blighted urban settings all over America.”

I am beginning to ask myself questions that I have never thought about as well. Like, how do my wife and I, live intentionally, and missionally in our new neighborhood? What is our role in that community? That seems like a good place to start. Instead of leaving, and retreating to some other place to live missionally, maybe we have been called there.

In fact, I think I am already beginning to see a shift in the ministry I oversee, as more and more students are having questions about community, and how they can live more intentional lives.

Wow! You leave town, cell phone and internet coverage for the weekend, and so many things happen. Actually, I’m glad I was out of those coverages, but there are some great and interesting articles from other bloggers. I definitely recommend you check these out, as they survey a wide variety of topics. And these are definitely articles that you have opinions on…or would like to give your opinions on.

Here are some quick hits of what you will find….

Great weekend at College Briefing. 58 years and kicking strong. All this began with Henrietta Mears. Amazing woman, who was an early mentor of Billy Graham and Bill Bright.

It was an all-around good weekend from the speakers to the seminars, to time with friends. I was especially touched by Something Like Silas, who led us in worship. They are amazing, and I was blessed by their words, their music, and their gifts.

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Tony Campolo in the article Katrina: Not God’s Wrath–or His Will takes issue with our understanding of how we interpret tragedy. And he takes more issue with our understanding of how we understand God’s omnipotence. This will definitely ruffle some feathers. I found this linked over at Mike DeVries blog, which to me is one of the best blogs out there, and one that I return to time and time again.

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Ryan Bolger has an excellent post on “Teaching Mission Strategy”. I would love to have him for a professor. This is a great post. This gives me hope that others, like Ryan, are looking outside of the business and corporate models in developing mission strategies. I saw Ryan up at College Briefing over the weekend, in which he gave an excellent seminar on emerging churches, summarizing his many years of research which you can read in his new book, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures. My students, as well as many others, were very challenged by his seminar. Thanks Ryan.

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My college buddy and friend, Brent Thomas, definitely didn’t agree with what I said (to say the least) about Hurrican Katrina in relation to God’s sovereignty, as well as my comments on John Piper. You can read his thoughts over at Colossians Three Sixteen. This is definitely a case of friends not agreeing theologically…not even close…and probably never ever coming to an agreeable center or position. I actually, and probably, would have been worried if Brent and I had agreed on this issue. Because I would have ended up in his theological camp, of which I do not want to be a part of. And Brent probably would have worried as well, since it’s obvious he does not probably want to be in my theological camp. But on another note. Brent, I look forward to sitting down over a cup of coffee with you someday and talking about our differences, and how we can do our best, as brothers in Christ, to live out the gospel message.

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In what is becoming a very interesting conversation, I found over at Andrew Jones’ blog, some thoughts on the issue of what is being called “Grace Grinders. Jones quotes Scott McKnight saying,

There is a kind of writing, preaching, and talking about grace that instead of offering grace and extolling the goodness of God, seems to use grace as the backhand of God that is used to grind humans into the ground as it talks about grace. I’m having a hard time being gracious about this.

This is Scott McKnight’s post on Grace Grinding. Here is a sample:

These people can’t talk about grace without emphasizing that we are wretches;
they can’t read Yancey’s What’s So Amazing…? without saying it isn’t the whole story;
they can’t preach obedience without saying this isn’t works;
they can’t talk about grace without talking about all those who are on their way to hell;
they can’t preach love without showing holiness is behind it all;
they can’t talk about grace without reminding us that it is all for God’s glory and that God didn’t have to do this and that we ought to consider ourselves lucky;

This conversation is growing large over at JOLLYBLOGGER.

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Will Samson has a great post on his time at the Greenbelt Festival, specifically a seminar where Richard Rohr spoke. Here is a sample:

Developing what he termed a “two-container” theory of life, Fr. Rohr suggested that there are two stages for all of us, particularly in the Western context. The first is where we learn to be certain of things. We learn that 2 + 2 = 4 and that gravity will hold things in place. The second container is one that many of us never enter. This is the Way of the Cross; a way that is not certain and definitely defies logic. Laying down ones life for ones friend, advancing through service – these are all counter-intuitive steps, and some of us never even begin to enter this part of our life.

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Smart Christian is continuing to post excellent articles, and this question that he cites from Christianity Today, seems to be a growing one. The question:

Would a Protestant form of monasticism help liberate evangelicalism from its cultural captivity?

Christianity Today explores this growing issue in the article Remonking the Church. The first paragraph:

John R.W. Stott, the elder statesman of British evangelicalism, has stated recently that if he were young and beginning his Christian discipleship over, he would establish a kind of evangelical monastic order. Joining it would be men vowed to celibacy, poverty, and peaceableness.

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My friend Brian Colmery has a link to an interesting article over at Relevant Magazine, called, A New Kind of Hipster. Hipster Christianity. Interesting subject, especially living in Los Angeles.

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Churches Embrace New Urbanism as Antidote to Isolation. An interesting article on something you don’t read about everyday in Christianity. Something that needs to be explored more.

I will not be blogging for the next several days, as I will be at one of the most amazing college retreats, College Briefing.

It will be a great weekend with about 1,200 students, college pastors and directors. This is usually the springboard that launches many ministries into the new school year. So please be in prayer for us.

Yesterday, I stated that when I woke up, I was completely in awe, and horrified at what I was seeing on the news in the Gulf States. I wasn’t sure what to think; what to feel, etc. Grief? Anger? Pain? Confusion? I was experiencing all these things, and because of that, I knew I couldn’t go into my college group last night, and preach on something I had been preparing all week, forgetting about what has happened in our country. And I knew that there needed to be more than just an acknowledgement of what had happened. So at about 9am yesterday morning, I decided to scratch the talk I had prepared, in order to focus on a message that was more relevant to the current circumstances. Not that what I had planned was not current, but at times, I wonder if we are more concerned about getting off courses from our leccionaries and teaching schedules, than we are about addressing some of the immediate concerns, fears, struggles, and more of our community? How do we proclaim God’s Word in the midst of such brokenness and pain?

So yesterday afternoon, there was only one passage that I could not get out of my mind. In the book of II Corinthians Paul paints a beautiful message of what it means to live in a broken world. A beautiful picture of what it means for us to be broken people, groaning under our labor, as we await for eternal glory. And in the midst of this brokenness we are given a job, a mission. We are given the job of being ambassadors for Christ. What a beautiful message for the church of Corinth. I find it sad and disheartening all the Christians talking about this hurricane being God’s judgment upon New Orleans. This decadent city, destroyed by a hurricane. It’s ironic, because Corinth was so much more decadent than New Orleans could ever be, yet Paul, in the midst of them, gives them a message of hope. He gives them a message of Christ’s renewing work in their life. Paul could have judged and condemned them. Hoping that they would get what they deserved. But thank God that we all don’t get what we truly deserved. Thank God that we have people like Paul who remind us of Christ’s work in our lives. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us” (II Cor. 5:18-19).

In the previous chapter, chapter 4, Paul reminds us of our earthly state: “Be we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you” (II Cor. 4:7-12). Paul paints this wonderful image of us, having this extraordinary treasure of Jesus Christ in our lives, this message of hope and salvation. But it is a message that lives in jars of clay. It is a message that experiences troubles, trials, affliction, pains. We are these jars of clay, who go through life, suffering at times, but through our suffering, identifying with our Christ who suffered. This is the message we proclaim.

As I watched the news, and looked at all the suffering, I was reminded that as a Christian, this is not my home. That though I make my dwelling, here on earth, there is a permanent, more eternal dwelling that I hope to one day live in. And Paul’s words in II Corinthians 4:16-5:10, remind me of this, not-yet state that I live in. I live in this present reality, here on earth, groaning at times under the burden of life, but knowing that one day I will be with God in heaven. Paul says:

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”

Sometimes I wonder how I would really respond if I was living in these circumstances. Would I have the courage to pick up the pieces and move on? Would I give up? What would I do? I cannot imagine, therefore, I try not to pretend that I would behave differently than what I see on tv at times. I hope that I would respond how Christ would want me to respond though. And what is that response? How are we to respond in the midst of disasters? Whether we are there physically in the presence, or far away, removed from any immediate disaster. And then I came across these words of Paul:

“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin[a] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

This idea of being ambassadors for Christ. That Christ is making his appeal, through us. The enormity of that is staggering. That in Christ, we have been reconciled to God. That our trepasses were not counted against us, but instead we were made new. And we have been given a task. Us. Broken people. Jars of clay, in the midst of a world groaning in pain, we have been given the ministry of reconciliation, and the task of making an appeal to others on behalf of Christ. Why would Christ even allow me to be a part of this? Blows my mind.

And he goes on further to say, “We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”

We are to be ambassadors for Christ, and in our ministries, our lives, we are to not be a stumbling block to others, or to hinder them from knowing Christ. Rather, we are to be the ones that Christ uses, to make his appeal to the world. And in this ministry, we will suffer all kinds of things, but we will not be crushed. Rather, our own present suffering is just a small part of our identification with our LORD. And one day, we may live with him eternally, in glory.

New Orleans. What a disaster! I can not even imagine. But as a follower of Christ, I believe that I am to be an ambassador for Him. I am to live my life in such a way, even through the sufferings around me, and my own sufferings..in such a way that others are given hope…that they are given a glimpse of what a new life in Christ is like. I am to be ministering to others, and the world, in such a way that I do not hinder them from seeing Christ.

I expect the world to be in pain…Paul reminds us of this. But we, broken people, are given the chance to play a huge role in the unfolding drama of redemption. My hope in the midst of suffering, is not only a way of identifying with Christ, but is a pathway to show others how their own pain and suffering is transcended through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

As I watch the news, I am both distraught and hopeful. I am distraught at the many ways that Christians behave. Pointing fingers. Judging. Putting up obstacles in front of others who are seeking for God. Who wants to follow Christ, if it is Christians who are calling this hurricane God’s judgement? Who wants to follow Christ, if we as Christians can not live in hope as a new creation? But I am also hopeful. I am hopeful at all the loving and gracious Christians and ministries who are down there, in the midst of suffering, being ambassadors for Christ. Putting up no obstacles, but rather opening doors.

For an awesome blog about the hurricane, and the brokenness of nature, check out this post by Mark D. Roberts. Great stuff.