It has been a season of transitions and a season of trying new things again. We are thankful for God’s presence with us and how God has been working in and through the ministry.
To view our end-of-year newsletter, follow this link.
It’s that time of year again when we tell the stories of how God is working in and through the ministry. We share stories of hope, as a way of encouraging ourselves and others about how God uses our efforts and our presence on campus and in people’s lives. We also try to acknowledge what has been hard and where we are still waiting. At a recent gathering of regional Christian Reformed campus ministers, people’s sharing about the challenges of this season were especially encouraging. It is helpful to hear that we are not the only group that is discerning how best to reach out to a student population that is exhausted and overwhelmed, looking for community and struggling to connect and commit. It is good, in the middle of those struggles, to both hear and tell of glimpses of hope found in good conversations where there has been a sense of God’s presence: conversations that sometimes happen only once but sometimes continue over time, conversations where learn more of God’s grace and open themselves more fully to the Spirit.
The following story from Richard Mouw is one of those stories that resonated with me as a campus minister: it is a story of being God’s presence to those around us and a story of hope, even as the story feels unfinished, or at least without the clear ‘happy’ ending many of us long for.
Mouw describes a letter he once received from a recent graduate of Fuller:
[She had lost her faith] in her senior year at the evangelical college she attended. It wasn’t the fault of anyone at that school. She had received a good education there and had made many friends. And now also at Fuller—she had learned much, but with the same result—still no recovering of faith.
She had not shared her loss of faith with any family or friends, and she was now thinking about how best to do that. Writing to me was for her a first step. During her senior year of college, having realized that she no longer believed, she decided “to give Fuller a chance” at helping to restore her faith. Nor did she regret that decision. While her faith had not returned, she wrote, “Fuller gave it a good shot!” And then she said something that brought a gasp from me, followed by many tears. She wanted to thank me especially, she said, because, in a philosophy class that I taught, she came close to believing again. “It was in a lecture on Nietzsche. You laid out the issue of a living God versus a dead God, and for a moment—a moment!—I felt like I could believe again. But the feeling went away. But thank you for giving it a try!”
I still shed tears over her words to me. I often pray for her. I think much about what I, or the school that I served as president, should have done differently.”
Mouw continues by reflecting on what it might look like to make space for people asking questions and for people to be honest about how and what they believe. I pray that campus ministries and the wider church might provide that kind of space.
Advent is upon us. In a few weeks, many of us will begin the long journey home to see family and friends, and maybe even get a bit of a break (from school, not from our families). Things may be getting busy or winding down, but it’s never too late to begin an advent practice unless it’s already January. That might be too late.
For those of you looking for some advent direction or devotionals, the GCF staff have compiled a list of our favourite advent resources.
GCF staff favourite Kate Bowler, author of Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved) has a new Advent companion for 2023 that meets us at our most okay. With blessings, readings and activities, this is a rounded devotional to work through on your own or to share with your family.
God please start it now:
The promised healing,
Restoration,
Redemption.
I can’t wait much longer
For When You Feel Forgotten by God, from The Lives We Actually Have, as quoted in Good Enough: Advent and Christmastide
Year after year, I genuinely hope to slow down and engage deeply in the Advent season. And year after year, the weeks fly by faster than I can catch them. Before I know it, it’s the New Year, and then next thing I know, we’re nearing Christmas again. I know I’m not alone in my longing to slow down and savour this time of year, so I decided to put together these pages to help myself and others cultivate rhythms to anchor in the Advent season.
This online womanist devotional from Unbound – Intersections of Faith and Justice a free online journal that looks at the intersection of faith and social justice.
Mary births baby Jesus into an economically and politically fraught world. Besieged by Roman colonial power and imperially backed governors, Israel ached for liberation, justice, agency, and getting above the throes of financial insecurity. Her radical song about the time and her sense of Jesus to overturn them is well documented (Luke 2). National and local governments not only ignored the needs of the people but exploited them—their labour, their health, their time, and their resources. The testimony and prophetic witness of Isaish was just as relevant to them as it was for their ancestors. This is made evident by the fact that the Gospel writers quote Isaiah more than any other scripture.
Advent’s Gope Fuels Possibilities, Bridgett A. Green
A new compendium of reflections, art and poems, Richardson’s quiet approach particularly appeals to Carol, who has one of Richardson’s previous books. The ebook is available on Amazon for $9.99
Always I return. No matter where I have traveled in the past year, no matter how far the journey or the turns the path has taken, I keep finding myself here at its door: the season of Advent, this space in the Christian year that invites us to anticipate and prepare for the celebration of Christ’s birth. Made of nothing more substantial than hours and days, Advent exists only in time. But each year, as I draw near to its beginning in the waning days of November, Advent seems as much a place as a season.
Through the Advent Door: Entering a Contemplative Christmas, Jan Richardson
