I was asked to reflect on our time together at Bethel Seminary and my time at the seminary in specific. As many of you know, I entered seminary through the back door. Prior to moving back to Minnesota (where my wife and I grew up), I had completed a Master of Arts in Biblical Archaeology of the Old Testament. I spent three years applying to PhD programs in Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. I always imagined that I would serve the church in ministry but, in my head, that would come after a long Academic career. When I wasn’t accepted to any of the top five schools for that field, and job prospects following a second-tier education were less than ideal, I spent a good amount of time grieving what I thought my life would be.

Perhaps some of you also know that I grew up as an atheist. I used to pick fights with Christians. One of those people that I used to pick fights with, told me in the last year, that she couldn’t believe that I was in seminary to be a pastor because I used to make her cry following our discussions. It wasn’t until my heart was softened at a regular youth group meeting that I came to know Jesus as my lord and savior. I quickly found myself thrust into leadership roles and I could think of no better way to spend my life than studying God’s redemptive history. Not from the moldy basement of a library but where it happened, in the dirt of Israel and the ancient near east.

While I could spend the remainder of my time talking about how impactful Bethel seminary was on my faith formation, I think that the texts chosen for our reflection this evening call us to focus on each of our futures in ministry and therapy instead. I am so thankful that the story of Esther was chosen for our reflection this evening. As we graduate from Bethel Seminary tomorrow we are entering one of the toughest church climates to be faced by the American Church. By almost every measure the religious “nones” are increasing among the youngest generations. Millennials and Generation Z (the current batch of freshmen over at the college) have serious reservations about the importance of the church and faith in their daily lives. Racial tension is at a significant high and the world faces the largest refugee crisis since the end of World War II.

We have spent these years at Bethel Seminary “for such a time as this.” While the biblical text may not have been written to us, it was definitely written for us. As the unchurched and post-churched “nones” increasingly question the relevance of the Church in the world today we need to take what we have learned here: How to approach the text in a rigorous and theologically informed manner, drawing on our own experience of spiritual formation, in order to influence the church and culture through virtuous leadership.

Easy, one-line answers aren’t enough. Those who are on the margins of church and faith want to be listened to and they want to be called into a mission and vision that is greater than themselves! In response to those needs, I pray we, as the future church, begin to reclaim a robust praxis of Christian hospitality that seeks to see Jesus in the “least of these” around us – whether inside or outside the church. I’ll be honest, a praxis of hospitality is dangerous. It calls us to invite “others” into our lives of faith risking not only our possessions but the relationships closest to us. Fortunately, we need not look any further than Jesus for the normative practice of hospitality as both stranger and host. Hospitality calls us to engage the stranger and guest, but it also calls us to allow ourselves to be changed by that relationship as we practice presence with them. Hospitality demands that we listen to their story of pain and hurt, empathizing with their alien identity, for we are all seeking a homeland, all guests in the kingdom of God, subject to God’s gracious benevolence towards us. We have all been well-trained for the individual vocations that lay before us. While the challenges of graduate school are great, our greatest challenges lay in the future and we will have to draw on everything we have learned here to navigate that future well as we rely heavily on God’s grace through those challenges ahead.

As you face those challenges may you be sustained by God, in Jesus through the power of the Holy spirit. May you listen well, seeking to connect and empathize with those both inside and outside the church. And May you ever grow deeper in your life of faith as you lead others into deeper discipleship of Christ; for you have been trained “for such a time as this.”

Recovering the the art of hospitality has weighed heavily on my heart over the course of the last year. When we think of hospitality today, normally we think of professional services: hotels, hospitals andrestaurants. But it wasn’t always that way. Hospitality was one of the distinguishing marks of the early Christian communities. It set them apart from the rest of the Roman world that was dependent upon classism and patron/client relationships. The hospitality of the church meant that all waited for one another to share the Lord’s Table, regardless of class or ethnicity, and share they did – a full meal. If you would like to know more about the nature of Hospitality in the early church I can think of no better resource than Christine Pohl’s Making Room.

Most people who have a high regard for the biblical text and the truths it communicates want to better understand what it is actually trying to communicate. A lot of the time, when people ask how they can accomplish that goal, they are told to simply read the bible more.

That’s all well and good! I think everyone would benefit from reading their biblical texts more (especially the texts of the Old Testament) but if you really want to supercharge your understanding of the text you need to get some perspective. You need to get information from outside the text that will allow you to better interpret what is inside the text.  For most of us, the best way to get that outside information is through reading!

As for me, I read books about the biblical text and it’s context in order to close the gap between the modern western culture I grew up in and the foreign culture of the bible. Besides actually touching the physical remains of the lands of the bible, reading is the best way to bridge that cultural gap. 

Like many of you I set out to read more in 2014. While I didn’t approach this systematically, I did succeed in reading more books than I can remember having done in previous years.

One of those books was Tony Reinke’s Lit! a sustained explication of the theological foundation of reading both biblical and non-biblical texts. In Lit! Reinke rightly points out how daunting the task of reading can become. If we can only read one book a week for the next fifty years then, as Reinke notes,

For every book one that you choose to read, you must ignore ten thousandother books simply because you don’t have the time (or money!).

His solution? Prioritize the books you’re reading based upon your reason for reading them. If the book doesn’t fit in with your priorities pass it by! Ultimately, you can prioritize the books you read in any way you wish. But by creating priorities you give yourself a mechanism by which you can filter out those thousands of books that aren’t worth your time.

When I wrote out my priorities I realized that I read a fairly balanced diet of books in 2014. That wasn’t always the case! By understanding my priorities I hope to be more intentional about my reading in 2015.

My Reading Priorities

Here’s how I will be prioritizing my reading for 2015 (lightly based upon Reinke’s own priorities) and how the books I read in 2014 stacked up against those priorities (with occasional annotations).

1. Reading the biblical text

• I’m not good with “a little bit each day.” I like to read entire books of the bible (or poems)  in one sitting to get a better feel for the greater context the story or argument. In 2014 I really focused in on the Pauline epistles.

2. Reading to better understand the movement of God in redemptive history

• Make Your Mark: Getting Right What Samson Got Wrong by Brad Gray. This is the best book I read this year. Gray’s work is a perfect illustration of how knowing more about the cultural backgrounds of the bible not only affect how you read scripture but also how the interplay between the text and context can alter how you should live your life today. It epitomizes Biblical Remains’ mission to encounter the ancient world of the bible that we may live better today! Check out my interview with the author here.
• Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewish Words of Jesus Can Change Your Life by Lois Tverberg.
• Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today by N.T. Wright.
• 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric Cline.
• Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation by Bill Nye.
• The Science of Interstellar by Kip Thorne.

I include Nye and Thorne’s work here because I like to read a few books each year which ponder the natural world. If God works through the everyday banal moments of our lives, then he is also working in the the banal everyday motions of the universe, both big and small. Understanding that universe helps us to understand the largest context there is.

3. Reading to better understand the movement of God in our lives today

• The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming by Henri Nouwen
• A Many Colored Kingdom: Multicultural Dynamics for Spiritual Formation by Elizabeth Conde Frazier, S. Steve Kang, and Gary Parrett
• Becoming Whole and Holy: An Integrative Conversation about Christian Formation by Jeannine Brown, Carla Dahl, and Wyndy Corbin Reuschling

4. Reading for personal development

• Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books by Tony Reinke
• Streams of Living Water by Richard Foster.
• A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life by Donald Miller. The second best book I read all year. I didn’t want to end my runs just so I could listen a bit longer.
• The Peacemaker by Ken Sande.
• The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God by Timothy Keller.

5. Reading for professional development

• Great by Choice by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen.
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t by Jim Collins.
• Who Runs the Church?: 4 Views on Church Government with individual essays by Peter Toon, Roy Taylor, Paige Patterson, and Samuel Waldron.
• Deep and Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend by Andy Stanley.

6. Reading for personal enjoyment

• Dreamers and Deceivers: True Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America by Glenn Beck.
• Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffigan.
• The Lion’s Gate: On the Front Lines of the Six Day War by Steven Pressfield.
• Miracles and Massacres: True and Untold Stories of the Making of America by Glenn Beck.

Join the Conversation below: How do you prioritize your reading schedule? How do you plan to read more in 2015? What one book are you most looking forward to reading this year?