It feels so good to finish, doesn’t it? I love fresh starts, but fresh starts are twice as delicious when you’ve just finished the last chapter, and finished it well.

Last night I had the wonderful honor of sitting at Multnomah Biblical Seminary graduation and watching my husband receive his Master’s degree.   It has been a long 5 1/2 year journey for both of us, amidst working full time, giving birth to two kids, living with my parents, commuting, ministry, you name it. It’s been a wild ride and I am SO thankful that we did it.  And ahhhh it feels so good to finish.

So as Jeff finishes this leg of the race, I have to take a second and celebrate a few things:

Thank you for the things that go ungraded:

• Standing neck-deep in a “live” sewer line in the pouring rain, covered in mud (and other stuff!), doing your construction job faithfully day after day, month after month, so we could pay for seminary.
• Getting up at 5am every morning, getting an early start at work so we could leave early for class.
• Putting aside your studies to snuggle the kids, change a diaper, tuck into bed.
• Being willing to live with your in-laws so we could afford to keep going!
• Giving up your beloved Jeep when baby came along.
• Camping in the dorms during your week-long intensive class so I could have the car.
• Making innumerable between-class runs to the quickie-mart to get me crackers (or whatever I craved) to stave off morning sickness!
• Making oatmeal for us every morning, even when you leave too early to eat it yourself!
• Living out what you study and learn by the way you love me and lead our family.

Yes, I’m glad he has his degree. I’m glad he finished. I’m glad that from now on we might actually have date-nights that don’t include reading theology books and writing research papers!  But most of all I’m thankful for the things that go ungraded. Thank you, my husband, for finishing well in every way.  I love and respect you.

 

Many of the topics studied in seminary aren’t necessarily issues we deal with in our everyday lives.  Very rarely am I stopped on the street and asked if I’m a premillennialist.  In fact, I can’t remember a single time the grocery cashier has asked me about demon possession while scanning my coupons. Of course I believe these issues are important, just not as commonly interacting with the day-to-day happenings of life.

But one seminary topic seems to pop up everywhere I look: The role of gender in marriage, the church, and the world.  The specific issue in seminary, of course, is Can a woman hold the office of Elder/Senior Pastor?  But this is one small tip of an enormous iceberg that is Gender Roles & Equality, and how we interact with this issue will greatly affect how we interact with the gender issue at large.

I’ve written before, at length, about Why I’m a Complementarian.  Believe me, I’ve tried not to be.  Consider–I love to preach, teach, and be in charge. Hmm…all the things I supposedly cannot do.  Tricky.  But more than ever I am convinced that there is no better and more beautiful plan than God’s specially designed complementarian relationship between the male and female genders whom He created in His image.  I’ve already noted the key scriptures and issues in the post above, so here are just a few more thoughts, in general, on the topic:

1. The Trinity.  We would be in big trouble if the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were all in a huge fight about who had to die on the cross.  We know from all study of the godhead, that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all fully God. They exist in relationship with each other, making up the Almighty One God.  Jesus cannot be the Father. The Holy Spirit could not die on the cross.  They are all fully equal, yes distinct in person and purpose.  To say that creating a distinction of role implies a hierarchy of value is contrary to the trinity.

2. The Body.  Every time we read of the Body of Christ, and specifically spiritual gifts, Paul emphasizes over and over that just as we are not all eyes or noses or feet, we all are different parts of the Body and we all play different roles.  Greater modesty is required for some parts of the body, and not all are particularly beautiful parts, but all are equally important and necessary.  The most basic understanding of the body of Christ makes this clear.  Therefore, to say that a distinction of role implies a hierarchy or value is contrary to the clear teachings of the Body of Christ.

3. The Creation Account. If it is true that God’s original intended plan were that there were “neither male nor female”, then why on earth did he create them male and female?  Adam is created first, from dust. Eve is created second, from Adam.  Adam names her.  She is called his helper.  Adam is given the responsibility of hearing and carrying out the mandates of God.  Before the fall.

Responsibility

Here’s what I see missing in both side’s arguments.  The key is responsibility.  Just this past weekend, Joel’s message on marriage addressed the key to leadership: responsibility.  And responsibility is key to this debate.   Though Eve was the one who listened to the serpent, ate of the fruit, and influenced her husband to do the same, who is held responsible?  Adam.  Through Adam came the curse.  Adam is responsible.  This tells me that God has chosen the man as the one who bears the primary responsibility to carry out the mandates and directives of God.

But this word responsibility isn’t used much.  Instead, we all toss around the world “authority” (because it’s used in 2 Timothy–Authentein). But while Authentein is important, true leadership isn’t about authority, it’s about responsibility.  There is no authority without responsibility.  The reason that I have authority as a parent is that I’m responsible as a parent.  I choose to take the reins, without apology, with my children because I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am responsible for training up those precious children.  God will hold me responsible, which means that with humility and confidence and great seriousness I assume the authoritative role in their lives.

What men and women are fighting over is authority. They’re fighting over authentein and what that means. No one is fighting over responsibility.  When was the last time you heard someone insisting, “No, I want the responsibility! I want to take the blame!! I want to carry that load! I want to bear the brunt of that problem!”  Hardly.  No, we are fighting over who gets to tell the other what to do.  (Now I understand that not everyone engaged in this debate is fighting over authority. I know a great many men and women of God, whom I love and admire who wholeheartedly embrace egalitarianism, and I respect them greatly.  I’m speaking of the Battle-of-the-Sexes at large.)

I believe that God has laid the final and ultimate responsibility for the spiritual well-being, in the home and in the church, on the shoulders of men.  I don’t envy that.  Of course they aren’t responsible for the rest of us using our free will to go against their leadership. But there is a huge responsibility there.  So many of the papers I read and grade (on this issue) simply talk about “who gets to have the highest level of authority in the church.”  That’s not it!  You’re missing the whole point!  The issue isn’t the hightest level of authority, it’s who bears the greatest weight of responsibility. If men assumed their God-given responsibility, shouldered that burden with courage and humility, and if women took the role of helper in order to come up under those men and help them, encouraging, cheering for, strengthening, praising–imagine how much stronger we’d be!  We’d actually lift some of these burdens instead of fighting over who gets to stand behind the podium.

Whew!  Good thing I”m not allowed to be a preacher because I’d be too long-winded!  Those are my thoughts and now naptime is over…

I just thought I’d tell you that at this moment Dutch is sitting on my lap tying a giant lobster around my neck.  Someday I believe he’s going to be a mighty man of God–today, it’s lobsters around my neck.

 

I am today overwhelmed by realizing how privileged Jeff and I are.  He just called from school, elated because he passed his Greek exam, but even more elated by the Seminary Chapel he attended this morning.  As commuter students, we’ve rarely had the opportunity to attend Seminary Chapel on Tuesday mornings, but now Jeff has made a commitment to attend this term.  They someone dwindled in recent years, but apparently there is a new resurgence of God’s Spirit taking place.  For the five or six chapels of the semester, each one will embrace and a different worship style, expressing the variety of ways that God’s people can worship Him through song, scripture, and response. This mornings was a more liturgical style, which some students have likely not been exposed to.  They sand responsively and read scripture responsively, and were blessed by how God’s Spirit moved over them, even while in this more “constrained” style of worship.  Jeff loves the idea of demonstrating different styles–helping students realize that there isn’t “one right way” to hold a worship service.

FOr the message, each chapel will have a different professor share.  The topics? They are asked to share what is their one message, if this was the last thing they were ever able to share with students before they die, what would it be.  Wow. Powerful.  These are men and women of God who have loved and labored with Christ for 20, 30, 40, 50+ years (Dr. Reeve is 92 and just retired after teaching at Multnomah for more than 40 years.  She has served Christ as a single woman her entire life.)  These men and women have wells of knowledge, wisdom, and grace to impart to us as students.  And the amazing thing is that they don’t just love to teach, they love us.

So today Dr. Blom shared a story, which I’d heard before.  He explained that is was through his mentors that he learned the most about loving Christ.  When he was a young pastor, he’d finished preaching a message and many people around him were telling him how good the message was, etc.  He was beaming, of course, and exclaimed, “I love preaching!”  His mentor responded, “‘Tis good to love to preach. ‘Tis better to love the people.”  Dr. Blom hadn’t done anything wrong, but this was a powerful reminder that we can fall in love with what we do more than who we serve.  “Tis good that I love to write.  “Tis better that I love the people I write for.  ‘Tis good that I love to speak at retreats.  ‘Tis better I love the people at the retreats.  ‘Tis good to love to minister and serve and do good deeds.  ‘Tis better to love the people, all of them: nice, grumpy, young, old, sweet, smelly.  ‘Tis better to love the people

Jeff and I are so privilege to be at a school where professors truly do love the people.  My mentor, the professor I mentioned earlier in “Being Believed In” amazes me about how she always makes the aim of our time to serve me.  I am her intern, which means that I will do anything she asks me to do, but she continually returns to what would be best for me, as her follower.  She loves what she does as teacher, scholar, researcher, but most of all she pours her life out for me, the person.  I’m so thankful for the men and women at Multnomah.  Jeff and I are privileged indeed.

So my prayer is that whatever we love to do, that most of all we would love the people.  ‘Tis good to love to _____, ‘Tis better to love the people.

 

I can point to several specific points conversations that have shaped the entire course of my life.  And I’m marveling today how influential teachers, leaders, coaches, and role models are in our lives.  I can remember, as clear as if it were yesterday, sitting across a little table in JavaStop at OSU from my Writing 224 teacher, and going over the fiction story I had written.  I was the only freshman in the class, my first semester of college, and scared out of my wits about writing for this man I considered a literary genious.  I will never forget the comments he wrote.  This is probably bad, but he wrote “*Explitive* this good!” on one portion of my paper and I will never forget that as long as I live, not because he wrote an explitive on my paper, but because I sat there in awe realizing that he really meant it.  He really meant it was good and I was shell-shocked.  He was seeing something, identifying something, calling something out that I was scared to show.  His encouragment bolstered my courage enough to keep writing.

My Honor’s English teacher, Majorie Sandor, was the one who asked me to come see her in her office, and shared with me some of the most profoundly encouraging things, urging me to pursue an English degree (I started as a Psych major) because of what she somehow saw in my writing and literary discussion.  This was another moment I will never forget–her tiny little frame and messy hair, over-sized glasses and cowl-neck sweater.  I can still smell the old books in her office.

The President of Multnomah, Dan Lockwood, sitting across the dining table at Elmer’s across from Jeff and me, sharing words of encouragement that I still keep locked in my little heart because I don’t know exactly how God will fulfill or use them.  I can still see his gentle eyes and feel the vinyl seat under my legs.

These moments are rare, I know, but when they come, they can be some of the most powerful things we will ever experience.  It’s one thing to get encouragment from a parent or spouse or close friend.  Those things are necessary and so powerful as well, but there is something about a teacher, a professor, an outside party who has no obligation to you whatsoever, nothing at all to gain by building you up (and perhaps even something to lose if you prove to be better at something than they are!), taking the time to set you aside and call out what they see in your life.  And it is even more powerful when that person actually sets aside his or her own life in order to invest in yours.

I experienced a fourth of these rare moments yesterday, and probably the most significant one to date.  It brought me to tears.  I’d sort of got into my mind that I just needed to cross my t’s and dot my i’s in order to fulfill an internship and graduate in May with my Master’s.  Pregnant, with a toddler at home, my only goal at this point was to finish my last class and settle down into mommyhood for, well for as long as I could see.  And I’m still going to do that to a degree, but this professor, my beloved professor, who is what I want to be when I grow up , she set me aside and had this talk with me, and not only had this talk with me, but committed to walk with me along the journey.  I hope to share more later, as the semester goes on, but I left her office and walked around campus, just shaking my head and marveling at God.  “Why?  Why me?  Why are you so good to me?”  My dreams and vision are so small, so limited, and His is so vast, so beautiful.  His dreams are so much bigger than me, and yet He lets me play a part in the beautiful production.  I feel like after a long season of disappointments, God is beginning to put some pieces into place, pieces that take all the brokenness, and miraculously form them into a beautiful picture that only He could have fathomed.

What I take from this, and what I hope you will hear, is this:  We will never know how much our words mean to others, especially those who look up to us (and you never know who looks up to you!).   I’ve also had a few conversations that were devastating.  I had one last year that almost made me never want to share my heart for ministry again.  But yesterday I did, for the first time since that discouraging conversation, and risked again being vulnerable.  And I will tuck yesterday’s conversation away in my heart, to cherish and remember during times of discouragement, just as I have the others along the way that have so shaped my life.

Please hear this:  What you say to others can change the course of history.  Speak life!  Speak encouragment. And if we are in a position of authority, don’t be threatened by those underneath!  It is our responsiblity as leaders, parents, teachers, mentors, to raise up the younger generation.  Our goal is that they would be better, smarter, and more influential than we are.  If our goal is simply to protect our status, to guard our carefully constructed identity, we will miss out on raising up the next generation of leaders who will change our world for Christ.  As a youngster, who has just received one of the most encouraging talks of my life, I can attest to the fact that being believed in is one of the most powerful things in the world.    I pray that we would look for ways to encourage, build up, and call out the valuable gifts we see in others.  You never know how God might use your words, and who He might raise up in the process.  And don’t forget to thank those along the way who have believed in you.

 

This morning was bittersweet.  This is my fourth year of seminary.  I’ve officially spent more time in graduate school than I did in undergrad!  Almost all of the students that Jeff and I started school with have graduated and are long gone.  New faces have popped up, really young ones, and I notice a few small changes around.  There is a new microwave, which is a huge improvement on the old one which took five minutes to warm a bowl of soup.  There is a plant shelf in the woman’s bathroom, and a pump of Trader Joe’s lotion by the sink.  I know, not a big deal but I notice these things.  The biggest change in the school is not visible-they’ve gone from Multnomah Bible College and Seminary to Multnomah University.  Doesn’t affect me that much. Tuition has gone from $407 a credit to $423 a credit (which does affect me, unfortunately).

For the most part though, nothing is new. I am pregnant, but I’ve done that before too.  Two years ago I started a fall term pregnant as well.  And this isn’t my first time as a seminary mom, we did that last year as well.  I guess the one thing that’s significant is that this is my last first day of school…I think (more on that later).  As I look around, waves of memories roll over me.  The smells, the sights, the familiar voices.  I have too many memories of throwing up in the bathrooms when morning sickness overtook me that first spring term.  I remember hysterically crying in the stairwell when a traumatic family event took place.  I remember first meeting my friend Liz, and awkwardly conversing about degrees and programs.  I remember (and am beginning to even feel) laboring up the staircase 8 1/2 months pregnant, wondering how they they seemed to add more stairs every week.  I remember the first day I went to school without Jeff, crying in my car trying to muster up the courage to go it along.  I remember hundreds of trips driving to and from McMinnville.  In many ways Multnomah University has become a second home to me.  The professors are friends, mentors, spiritual parents.  The students, though perhaps not many are close friends, are familiar, sharing the common goal of desiring to serve the Lord, and sharing the common struggle of work schedules, homework loads, obscene school loans, and family commitments.

But this Monday was my first last day of school.  Strangely though, I don’t really want to be done.  I’m not sure what lies ahead, but more on that later.  Tonight I’m just reflecting on what an amazing place Multnomah has been for me.  More than an education, it’s been a place of refuge, growth, challenge, safety. A place where I can risk, fail, hurt, be vulnerable, ask questions, doubt, challenge, and love.  It’s been a place where I feel valued, invested in, and cared for.  I could never ask for anything more than what Multnomah has been for me. So tonight I just say thanks, thanks to the professors, counselors, janitors, president, and people who have made Multnomah home for me.  On my last first day of school I’m thankful.

 

I won’t always be linking to every article I write for goingtoseminary.com, but I think this one is applicable to wives whose husbands are undertaking any adventure, leap of faith, or even any wife who wants to support her husband more fully than before. Check it out here…

 

My friend Caila has a fabulous quote by Mark Twain on her blog:

“Write without pay until somebody offers to pay you. If nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for.”

Well, I’ve been writing my whole life, but not very seriously until last July, so it’s safe to say that I’m still within the 3-year window where I can write without pay. I suppose in late June of 2010 I’ll be sharpening my saw… At any rate, right now I’m a volunteer freelance writer (!), so when Jeff saw an opportunity to be a contributing writer on a blog which focuses on students attending seminary (goingtoseminary.com), he signed us up. Jeff had actually already been featured on this blog, in an article about transitioning one’s soul at the end of a long day (read here) so it was no-brainer. We’re also highly qualified because…uh…we go to seminary. Click here to check out our bios.

At any rate, if anything brilliant manages to make its way through the gerbil wheel of our minds and out our fingertips and onto that blog, I’ll keep you posted. And I know several of you readers have contacted me because of your upcoming plans to attend seminary. Goingtoseminary.com is an excellent resource with humor, advice, money-saving tips, and reflective thoughts.

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On a personal note, we have a praise that Jeff did get a 1/2 time job working at our church for the summer. We’re thankful for that! And, thanks to a heads up from a friend (see Muni Diaries, right), I applied for a fantastic half-time job doing Community Relations and Development for a non-profit agency in Salem. No word yet, but we’re excited by the possibility. Until then, I’m a happy volunteer freelance writer staying one step ahead of the saw mill. Enjoy your weekend…