So for the past six or seven weeks on campus, each large group meeting we've been casting vision for what we think a Christ-Centered Community looks like.
We've talked about a community of grace and forgiveness, a community of faith, a community of hope, and a community of love. And last week, after four weeks of positive vision, we talked about what we don't want to be.
And last week I got a chance to speak into a sickness at UNC: the sickness of busy-ness. Student life at UNC presses students to do so much. As an InterVarsity community, we long to go against that grain. We are not going to be too busy for significant relationships.
The problem is that my students got to UNC by being over-achieving, stressed-out high schoolers. Then they come to UNC. And of course, it doesn't get any better because now they're surrounded by 17,000 other over-achieving, stressed-out people.
One startling realization for many freshmen: if you skim the top 12% off of every high school and put them in the same context, not everyone's going to be in the top 12% any more.
This can either bless them with the realization of their limits, or it can drive them to an even greater degree of frenetic activity. Alas, many choose the latter path: pre-med/pharmacy/nursing/business/law, must-have a 3.9 GPA, must save some whales, tutor some kids, keep some sort of social life....and for the Christian kids, add on leading a freaking Bible study to top it all off.
This, of course, is simply a mirror-reflection of our frenetic culture. My students just have more free-time to cram more stuff into their lives because they're not working in one place from 8-6.
But here's the deal: nobody had more significant work to do than Jesus. Nobody. And he made the time and space for significant relationships.
So if the volunteering/Bible study leading/major path/work habits of your life mean that you do not have time for significant relationships, then it is almost guaranteed that you are not doing what God would have you to do. You are over-committed and out of step with the Spirit. If Jesus had time given his responsibilities and the nature of his calling, so must we.
That's not just a word for my students, is it? It's been ringing my own ears for most of the past week...
2 comments:
You pit Jesus' "significant work" against (or at least, contrasted to) significant relationships. But I wonder if it's that his significant work is those significant relationships.
Now, I'm a relationally oriented person, emerging (haha...) from a postmodern culture that stresses relationships maybe even to a fault (?). Am I imparting a postmodern, Jon Douthit perspective onto Christ if I make a statement like his work is relationships? And does it follow that if Christ's work is relationships, that's what our work should be too?
I think the answer is yes, in some way, to all of the above. Makes for very muddy waters...
Jon
jon,
good thoughts!
i think you're right to say that jesus work was relationships...i would say that his work was to restore right relationships.
but obviously he had 'stuff' that he did--healing, teaching, traveling. and these could have impeded relationships--they do all the time in people who do this same type of ministry!
and obviously he had one final work to do: die and rise again. not time-consuming work, but still something that could be a bit of a distraction from relationship!
so yeah, i'd agree that in some ways his work was relationship. but there's more going on that could have easily over-shadowed that work. and jesus didn't let it. i guess that's the point.
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