Diary of a ministry apprentice (Part 4): June-July 2008

This is the fourth instalment of a six-part series by Guan, who is the kind of person who is difficult to describe in one sentence. He is married to the singular M¹ and, by this episode, has done ministry training (MTS) at the University of New South Wales for about six months. In the previous instalment, he and the other apprentices, in the midst of coping with the stress of starting out in ministry, learned that Paul ‘Grimmo’ Grimmond, the university pastor, is leaving. In addition, it’s almost time for Mid-Year Conference (MYC), the big student camp in the middle of the year. But first, holidays.

Holidays

This is how MTS-ers holiday: they go to the crannies of safety that this country tucks away. Here, the sea breeze plucks at your worries, ruffling the edges, setting them flapping like bits of old black and white film, then finally lifting them, setting them free. The sky is gentle and deep. The sun is steady like a hand on your shoulder. Laughter and conversation—both musical—echo through the holiday house.

This is how we rest with other people doing ministry—in a solemnity of shared responsibility, a sort of zone of exclusion.

“We’re not allowed to talk about MTS. So we’re not allowed to talk about people.”

“And I’m not going to read the Bible for more than 15 minutes”, someone jokes. Well, half-jokes.

After lunch and unpacking, by mutual unsaid consensus, we drift towards deck­chairs and lie in the sun. Some of us read.

Later, we go for a walk. At the end of the path, we duck down a hidden way, and there’s a cave that becomes a tunnel. We clamber in, and kind of crab walk and kind of crawl. There’s a crack beneath our feet—inches deep—and as we follow it out, it widens and tumbles and deepens into a crevice you can’t see the bottom of. At the top of the cliff face, there’s this platform on the rock, dotted with tiny holes and boasting a view of the ocean that stretches from end to endless end.

We take up positions a little way from each other on the platform. We dangle our feet and watch the ocean like we’re waiting for something, but would be content if it didn’t come just yet. It’s so open and peaceful. There is nothing you can do to matter here. Here, there’s the chance to breathe in deep—to get rid of existential hiccups you didn’t know you had. The sky shines with metallic glee. Clouds float by like disinterested partygoers, holding cocktails, edging past one another, exchanging polite small talk.

“My physical-ness … We’re pretty small”, someone says after a while.

Maybe we like the reminder of these things—the sky and the sea—because they tell us again that if this is all we are before the vastness of creation, how great is the privilege to be so much more before the creator.

MYC

At the other end of the holidays lies MYC. MYC, which stands for ‘Mid-Year Confer­ence’,² is a bit like this:

• It’s a camp held over five days and four nights. Over those five days, we spend about 25 hours soaking in the Scriptures.
• Attendee numbers clock in at several hundreds of students—of Christians, mostly.
• The aim? To be honest, it’s to take your average 18-19-year-old Christian and show them that they don’t really know how to do theology. Not really. It’s to challenge them with the Bible until they fall apart a bit, and then put them back together armed with biblical theology and exegesis. It’s to teach them to think God’s thoughts after him, and then set them up for a lifetime of following Jesus.

But it’s more than that too. From an MTS perspective, sometimes it’s crowd control, navigating burgeoning boy-girl relationships,³ and trying to defuse preconceptions or biases. Sometimes it’s talking to non-Christians about who Jesus is. Sometimes it’s leading silly get-to-know-you games because sometimes people have to be silly before they can let down their guard and read the Bible with you. And sometimes—all the time—it’s relational, because real ministry is only ever relational, and at MYC, relationships are multiplied and intensified.

Manuscript discovery

This is how it goes: there are all these people. Everywhere you look, there’s people. Being students, many of them are late for breakfast and only arrive just as the kitchen is shutting down. Those cursed with particularly good waking habits have already done quiet times on the grassy hills in the papery sunshine. Here, there is an experience shared—like this look that says, “I am with you. I am here. I am sharing this together. Yes, it is a little weird, but I hope it goes somewhere good. Let us hope together.”

After breakfast, you go to small group Bible studies—peculiarly named, in this particular case, because the entirety of the camp involves the study of the Bible. These are the ones with a group of four to eight other people—as opposed to the groups of 30 or the big group of 500.

In these small groups, you read a book of the Bible, but it’s printed without headings or chapter or verse numbers. This too is a little analogy of what MYC is—stripping back the preconceptions (and misconceptions) about the Bible to get at what the Bible actually says. It teaches you that this too is something anyone can do: a child can read it; so can an Engineering student.

As you read, the group asks a set of questions of the text and of each other. What are the themes? What are the repeated words? If you were to break this into sections, where would the sections be and what sort of headings would you give them? Sketch the flow of the logic of the passage. What are your questions? What are your questions? What are your questions?

By the end of it (really, by part-way through the beginning of it), you have a lot of questions—questions you never thought you could expect to ask of the Bible, much less answer.

Seminars

After group Bible study, you go into seminar time. The seminars are more directed but also more hazardous. You’re working out the biblical answers of a certain topic—like the cross, sin, worship or the resurrection. But the topics teach the ‘how’—the ‘how’ of systematic and biblical theology—just as much as the ‘what’. You’re taught this even as you get overwhelmed in the flood of what the Bible is, and even as you realize studying the Bible is like trying to observe the bigger scope while keep every significant detail in focus. To use another analogy, it’s a bit like trying to see under the water and above the water at the same time.

In addition, you’ve never realized this before, but any one of those questions tugs with the weight of at least half a dozen other questions or prior assumptions, which we hope you are no longer happy to assume. To understand the cross, you need to understand sin, and to understand sin, you need to understand the Old Testament sacrificial system and atonement, and to understand that, you need to understand who God is—Lord and creator and righteous Judge. And you’ve only got five days.⁴

What all of this actually means is that in seminar time, you trawl through the biblical data, looking up every Old Testament reference for death, for example. It’s like doing arduous detective work, scouring every inch of the floorboards for the tiniest of clues. But eventually—amazingly—just as you’re at the point of frustration, the mystery begins to unravel, piece by piece.

Then there’s meals and free time when everyone can decompress from the high pressure stuff together.

Main talks

The final piece of the MYC puzzle is the night-time sessions. They’re essentially a spectacular church service every night. In this draughty, cavernous hall, we sing—a few hundred voices bound together in chorus and compassion; we laugh together; we meet guests from around the world and the word—guests who have passed from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light—and the sermons go for over an hour and nobody complains; how could you when the word is so well-preached, it’s lit up like a spotlight?

Except that’s the wrong metaphor. It’s us who are lit up by the word. It’s us who are gradually, stumblingly being unblinded by the Spirit. It’s us who are being remade into another more perfect image—as if a sculptor were chiselling away at stone.

One-to-one

And through the five days, there are more than a handful of one-on-one chats with people—sometimes joyous, sometimes reflective and sometimes carrying the difficulty of rebuking.

One-on-one ministry is like this. To be honest, sometimes it’s a one-way ticket to Awkwardsville.⁵ You sit across from someone who you may not really know, and you ask uncomfortable questions. And while you do this, you randomly and haphazardly receive guidance from a thousands-of-years-old book that’s widely reputed for being misinterpreted and even abused.

Yet the word is important because it speaks so truly. I once read that what writers are always trying to do is to surprise their audience. That’s why they need to write the truth: the truth is always surprising. Can you imagine the disaster that would result if we were given instructions that were as changeable as clothes—as subject to whims as choice of confectionary?

One-on-one ministry is like this:

• You start with the Bible, of course. One way to start is by reading it on equal footing. You don’t need preparation time or a degree to get the gospel. You start by guiding them with questions: “What does verse 1 say?”, “How would you put that in your own words?”, “How does that link to verse 2?”, “What strikes you from this passage?”, “Is there anything you don’t understand?”
• Conflicting advice to hold in tension: it’s okay to not know what to say. Also, you shouldn’t regard the responsibility of a teaching position as irrelevant. Here’s a great tip: you only ever need to know one more thing than the person you’re reading the Bible with.⁶ If you’re really not sure what to say, just ask one more question. Usually, it’s “Why?”, or “What does that mean?” and, yes, even occasionally, “What do you think?”
• Ministry is honesty. Grimmo once said that “So much of ministry is asking things that most people are afraid to ask”. I think I know what he means now. Real ministry is unfailing omni-directional honesty—honesty with yourself, honesty before God and honesty in how you treat others. It’s honesty that will enable you to change by the Spirit before the word of God, and it’s honesty that helps you to admit the reality of that change to others. Furthermore, here’s the rub: it’s honesty that will help you to clutch your ticket stub for Awkwardsville and ask the questions that might be a bit socially uncomfortable—all so you can get to a point in the relationship where you might be able to present others with the option to change.
• Change is, of course, driven by the gospel. When you meet up with someone who you think is not quite a Christian, at some point, you need to let the gospel confront them with all its immediacy—all of its call to action—all of its power and unfolding grace. Our temptation is to soften it: “You don’t have to lay down your whole life …” We must try and restrain ourselves, and let them feel the full weight of it. Only then will they too be able to feel the full effect of grace as well. We can only be fully saved as we’re fully judged.

The hike

The week goes quickly even as each day is a saga. Later in the week, I ask one of the shyer first-year girls how she’s going. I expect her to say anything—things like “I’m having a terrible time and I hate the food”, “Nobody will talk to me” or “I want to go home”. I expect everything but her actual answer: “Great!!” Her eyes are two exclamation marks.

In contrast, leading the seminars is like going on a mountain climb, whinge­ing and moaning as you take an arduous, circuitous route. “Rather than go ourselves, couldn’t we just look up the result on Google?” someone complains. Some people have done the walk before, but you go at the pace of the slowest person. You’re not just teaching how to climb this mountain, but how they might find their way on any mountain. But there’s no disguising that it’s plain hard work.⁷

I barely have a second to chat to friends who are there; I’m too busy trying to have ‘a chat’ with ‘my’ people. It’s amazing that this too is preaching. I have a quiet word with them after supper, or during a barely heard conversation through the dinner hubbub. I let doubts settle, or if they’ve settled too much, I stoke the fire some more. I dialogue with the Bible before breakfast and preach it to myself.

Then suddenly the week is over.

Bigger

After MYC, it’s right back into the semester. It’s like starting a marathon as soon as you’ve finished a sprint, but there is this redeeming feature: you look up, and around you, there are all these other people you’ve gotten to know better on account of just having gone on a sprint with them.

The constant reminder is that some things are bigger than you. The people of God, when they are gathered together as a church to praise his name and encourage each other, are bigger than you. Jesus Christ, in his amazing life, terrible death, beautiful resurrection and sovereign reign that stretches out in an unbroken line until now and now and now—he is bigger than you. God, the creator God, powerful, mystifying, loving and just—ruler and personal Father, who made a plan for all of creation—he is bigger than you. You have been saved and bought by blood to continue as a living sacrifice. You have died so that death is now no more than a stepping stone to a time when time itself will run out, and you will know and be fully known by the Father you’ve wanted to know for all time.

All this, too, is bigger than you.