The First Week: Relationships

Issue No. 3 Dec. 2007/Jan. 2008


“Hi!!!” (Hug and/or hand shake.) “How was your break? What did you do? I’m so glad you’re back!” Kenyon has been in session for just over one week now, and the above is a typical ‘first conversation’ of the semester that we have with returning students. Some students visited new places over Winter Break, but most were home for the majority of their vacation. ‘Home’ for students we work with could be forty-five minutes away, three time zones away, or continents away! However far they’ve traveled, Kelly, Ana, and I are very excited to have them back. But we don’t have them all back. You see, Kenyon Juniors have the opportunity to study abroad for a semester or a full year, depending on their program. This semester there are ten Juniors abroad with whom we would normally spend time! But Ruth*, who was supposed to be abroad this semester, is back here in Gambier.


The first Monday night of classes, I went around campus visiting some students in their Residence Halls. I left a ‘welcome back’ note on some students’ door because they were not in their room when I knocked. I knew two of the students who were supposed to be in that room, but there was also a name I didn’t expect to see on the door. It was Ruth*, so I thought it was a mistake! But I saw Ruth* a few days after I left that note, and she shared with me that she had been abroad on her program for a week, but ended up withdrawing and is now back at Kenyon. She shared this with mixed feelings. She definitely thinks it was the right choice, though she really would have loved to have studied abroad for the semester. However, the sudden decision to not be abroad this semester has caused some tension with her friends on campus. Ruth* told me that she went to a dinner last Tuesday night where she expected Kelly, Ana, and I to attend, which we did not. She was disappointed. I told Ruth* that we’d love to have her over to our apartment sometime, and that I was surprised she hadn’t been over yet. She said that she would love that and it was good to know that there was at least one person glad that she was back on campus. This breaks my heart, but I thank God for the opportunity to love her. Ruth* is not in any Christian groups on campus; in fact, Ruth* is a non-practicing Jewish student. Please pray with us.

I am a Board Member of Kenyon’s inter-faith Board of Spiritual and Religious Life (BSRL). A student approached us last semester with an idea to promote and foster spiritual and religious conversations on campus. The first Thursday of classes, I met with three other BSRL Members and this student to start planning what the training process will be for this ‘Spiritual Advisers’ program. The purpose of the program is not to convert anybody to any of the represented faiths, but to foster a safe space for spiritual and religious conversations on campus. That being the case, the training must be very general. This is not specifically a Christian program, but I do believe that it holds great potential to glorify God. Please pray for that!

Koinonia had its annual Winter Retreat the first weekend after classes began. We brought 20 students on the Retreat. Rev. Jonathan Fettig, the pastor of our church, was our speaker for the weekend. He spoke to us about relationship with God, with our neighbor, and about being relational as part of the Body of Christ.

After the Winter Retreat, a sophomore named Alex, said about the Christian Community at Kenyon, that he wants to try to “really make it about relationships with one another.” Another student said they wanted to work on “being more authentic in all of [their] relationships” and “remembering that worship is about acknowledging who God is.” Please pray with us.

Jonathan reminded us that, though we crave relationship, sin separates us from God and our neighbor. “Shame” (see Gen. 3:7 in contrast to 2:25), he said, “is Pride turned on its head.” Shame whispers ‘it’s all about me.’ Donald Miller is a writer and a speaker who often talks about relationships and community. He says in his book Blue Like Jazz, “The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: Life is a story about me.” Don Miller will be one of the Main Speakers at Jubilee this year.

Jubilee is the CCO's annual college student conference. Jubilee is a catalytic event created to provide ‘a vision of and for life’ to help followers of Jesus grow in living out their faith in every area of life and what it means to be faithful to God in their college years and their vocational pursuits.

Also, I hope to begin a group for non-Christians who are curious about investigating Christianity. I’d like to start a book group that will read and discuss together Blue Like Jazz, which is a collection of memoir-like essays by Donald Miller, honestly looking at his journey of relationship with God. Relationships can’t be forced; they begin with an introduction between different people. I cannot force people to follow Jesus Christ; it’s a relationship that must be developed. Don Miller talks about how he used to not like jazz music until he witnessed somebody passionate about jazz. In the Author’s Note of his book he says, “Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.” I have no power to convert people, only Jesus can change people’s lives, but I can show others my love of Jesus Christ and try to explain the love God has for us. God desires to be in relationship with us, and perhaps by introducing others to Jesus they may desire that relationship as well. Please pray with us.

*Ruth is not the above noted student’s actual name.

Practicing Hospitality

Issue No. 2 Oct./Nov. 2007

I want to take the opportunity to share with you some things that Kelly and I have been doing this semester to try to love Kenyon students by being hospitable and creating space for them to freely speak, move, and be. This is an endeavor that we’ve been pursuing for awhile, but because I just recently read Henri Nouwen’s book, The Wounded Healer, I will include quotes about hospitality from it at the end of each of the following paragraphs.

We now live within walking distance from campus, which makes us much more accessible than last year when we were a ten-minute-drive away. We have been able to have students over to our apartment almost every single week this semester! Sometimes it’s for things like Bible Study preparation, or for discussions of a book I’m reading with a student, but many other times it’s to have open discussion about whatever the student is thinking about. As the weather gets colder, we offer students tea or hot chocolate to drink while they’re here. We welcome them into our lives to know us better, and we intentionally try to carefully listen to them. Someone once said that the closest thing to feeling loved that many people experience is being listened to. “Hospitality is the ability to pay attention to the guest. This is very difficult, since we are preoccupied with our own needs, worries and tensions...”

In Sophomore Bible Study (SBS) we are sharing our stories with each other. We’re modeling our sharing after the structure of the Un-Game, which calls for thoughtful listening by everyone. Over the remaining weeks before Christmas Vacation, each SBS participant will share their faith journey, and how they have currently come to be at SBS in order that we may know where each other is coming from, learn how to listen to each other better, and to just overall know one another better. I hope that this will greatly benefit SBS, and I pray that it will strengthen
the entire fellowship at Kenyon. “Hospitality becomes community as it creates a unity based on the shared confession of our basic brokenness and on a shared hope...Community arises where the sharing of pain takes place, not as a stifling form of self-complaint, but as a recognition of God’s saving promises.”

Lastly, the Freshman Bible Study (FBS) leaders and I asked the freshmen for suggestions for topics or scripture to study for FBS. As usual, there were many great suggestions, however, unlike past times that I’ve done this, there were a few faith questions written down in addition to study topics. All of them were questions that most Christians ask themselves at some point, and these were all questions that I asked after accepting Christ during my college years. Two of the questions asked, for example, were: “What happens to people of other faiths?” and “How can we reconcile the condemnation of homosexuals with unconditional love?” So the last Monday night of October, during the time that we normally meet for FBS, I gave them my answers referencing many biblical passages. I told them that my answers were not “canned” answers, but they were the answers that I came to after much discussion, prayer, and contemplation. I also told FBS that my answers should NOT be the end of their conversation about these things but just the beginning. I’m so grateful that FBS felt comfortable to ask these tough questions. Too often, some Christians feel like they are not able to ask questions, because they think that if they don’t have everything perfectly figured out they have somehow failed. Jesus calls us to follow him (Matt. 16:24). He does not say that we have “arrived” once we acknowledge him as Lord and Savior, but in fact that we have just begun a journey. Practicing hospitality and creating space allows for real questions and real conversation, and it allows all who enter in to be themselves and be loved where ever they are in their journey. “The paradox indeed is that hospitality asks for the creation of an empty space where the guest can find his own soul.”

Seeing God at Kenyon

Issue No. 1 Aug./Sept. 2007

I’d like to reflect on some specific ways in which I’ve noticed God working at Kenyon so far this year, particularly in the Bible Studies. Firstly, the first year students have already started to jump into the Fellowship here at Kenyon with both feet! There are already seventeen first-year students involved in Freshman Bible Study (FBS)(see pic.), Saturday Night Fellowship (SNF), and Koinonia! Furthermore, one of the FBS student leaders who is a Sophomore made the comment that “they’re already talking and participating in the Bible Study; I remember last year it took us several weeks to get into it and feel comfortable enough to talk!” Praise God for how these students have been prepared to be involved in his work at Kenyon!

Because Jesus Christ’s timing is perfect (Rom. 5:6), I know that God is behind several situations that might otherwise seem like coincidences regarding the other Bible Studies. Keep in mind, neither of the following examples had anything to do with me prompting the student leaders...

For Sophomore Bible Study (SophBS), the students requested that this semester we begin studying what it means that Jesus came not to abolish but to fulfill the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 5:17). As I always tell the students, I certainly don’t claim to have all the answers; my role is to facilitate discussion and lead inductive group study of the Bible. However, this past May, through the CCO’s partnership with Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, I was able to take a course on Biblical Theology, which deals with this very question! The question the SophBS posed is intricately connected to one of the larger questions Biblical Theology is concerned with: “What is the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament?” A fantastic book I read for the course was Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament, by Christopher J. H. Wright. Praise God for giving me this preparation for SophBS that I could never have foreseen or planned!

The first week of classes I was given a stack of five-page packets entitled God Time. The introduction said that this was a guide to facilitate “quality, quiet time with the Lord.” I was told that somebody found them and thought that I might be able to use them. I took them and set them aside without reading further. Literally three days later, at my first JBS Preparation meeting, I asked the student leaders if there was anything on their hearts that they wanted to explore during JBS this semester. Without hesitation, both leaders said, “Prayer!” I told them, incredulously, of the resource very recently given me about prayer. We will be utilizing God Time during JBS this semester! Praise God for his perfect timing!

Please join me in praising God for his goodness in these matters and also – especially – for the things of which we are unaware! Christ Jesus is certainly at work here at Kenyon through his Holy Spirit, whether or not we notice, but when we do witness God we can do nothing but marvel at his glorious workings, and declare with the Psalmists, “Hallelu Yah!”