An Interview with Becky: The Girl Behind the Blog

This is kind of a interview with myself and kind of a made up FAQ video. I thought it'd just be nice to do something different and get my face out from behind the words. 

Hope to catch you all up on what I've been doing and give you some more of my thoughts sometime soon! Until then, I'll talk to you later!

An Interview with a College Pastor

So, here at Western, I have been super blessed by the Christian community I found and became a part of my freshman year. I can honestly say, I don't think my faith would be in a good place now if I hadn't found this group. They have challenged my thinking in so many ways, asked my tough questions, kept me accountable, and loved me very well.

One of the things I admire so much about this group of people is their openness. The staff is not afraid to talk about things that many churches stay as far away from as possible, and they stick to their convictions about what the Bible says, even if it may be unpopular.

But most of all, I admire about CCF and those who run it is the genuine love and respect for students. They really do care deeply for the students of WWU.

Geoff is one of the people at CCF who has decided that he cares enough about college students here at Western to commit his life to be a full time missionary to the campus. He went to Western, was a part of CCF, and now he is on staff. He has a wife, whom he met through CCF, two little boys, and another little one on the way.

Here is my email interview with him:

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Question: So, you are campus pastor/missionary - for people who don't know, what does that mean? What do you actually do?

For me, college was a time of crazy searching - what's the point?  Who am I?  What's life all about?  Why do I value what I value, and does that make sense?  What or who should I build my life around?  And it seems like everybody's asking those questions in college.  And as I looked into a lot of different answers to these "existential" questions myself, I discovered that what Jesus said seemed to make the most sense, seemed to satisfy my own deepest questions, and that the worldview He proposed actually has the potential to change the world in a way that other messages don't.  

So I joined His movement, and now I get to hang out with other college students asking the same questions, and I try to help make Jesus a part of the conversation.  For the last 8 years, I've met with other students who are exploring life questions.  I mentor student leaders in our community who are helping their friends walk through those same issues.  For students who have decided they want to follow Jesus, I spend lots of time with them helping them grow, studying the Bible together (which is the dynamic source text for the Jesus movement), and helping students with other ways of connecting with God (like prayer, singing, starting spiritual conversations with people, etc.).  I do a fair bit of teaching in a classroom setting, which is sometimes mixed in with worship and prayer so it looks like a more traditional church service.  I also work on a team, so some of my time is spent planning and strategizing for how to do our job better, together.

Q: You're a pretty smart guy and you have a family to take care of - what made you choose this career?

That's a nice thing to say :)  Basically, I love college students.  I love the time of life that it is, I love the intellectual rigor of the college campus, I love that it's the cutting edge of where the culture for the next 20 years takes shape.  So when I was trying to figure out what Jesus wanted me to do after I finished college in 04, I took a year to explore the possibility of being a full-time campus missionary by DOING it for a year with CCF (which is the student community I was a part of, and now help lead).  And over the course of that year, Jesus made it pretty clear that this was gonna be a good vocation for me.  

As far as taking care of my family, so far I've found campus ministry to be a terrific context to raise kids in.  It keeps me on my toes and gives me a chance to stay in touch with the culture my kids are gonna be raised in.  As far as finances go, that was something that I told Jesus, "If you want me to do this, I'm gonna have to make a living somehow."  And what's amazing is that I do!  Like other missionaries, I travel around to friends and family who are excited about seeing college students explore the Jesus movement and join up with it, who believe in what I'm doing so much, that they're willing to pay me for it.  So every month, committed people send checks in to our organization with our names on them, and that's how I get a paycheck.  It's a little different from how the rest of the world makes money, but not very different from how most non-profits function, actually.  And it's a month-to-month exercise in trusting Jesus to provide for me and my family - and He has never failed to take care of us.  

Q: What is unique about the college setting as far as being a minister and reaching out to Christians and non-Christians on a college campus? (Challenges, Benefits, etc)

College is a really strategic place to help people get interested in Jesus.  I've already mentioned how curious and inquisitive college students tend to be, because we're branching out and becoming adults on our own in college, right?  But even more than that, a college campus is like a super-condensed collection of all these searchers for truth in the same place!  It's like a mist of thousands of water molecules, that condenses for four years into a single droplet, and then disperses into mist again after graduation.  If you want to get the word out about something - whether it's politics, or advertising, or spirituality, you're gonna want to go where people gather to communicate what you want to say, right?  College campuses are those places.  

Another really cool opportunity to "communicate where people gather" are the residence halls.  Almost 90% of WWU students spend at least 1 year living in the res halls, which means, if you want to influence a campus culture, focus on the dorms, because you have the chance to connect with 90% of the student population - they all pass through those buildings for at least a year.  That's why we really encourage our students to think seriously about living in the dorms.  If they think Jesus makes a positive difference in their lives, and want to see Him do the same for others, then it just makes sense that they would live in the res halls to explain what He's like to people, with how they live, as much as what they talk about.  

Another thing that's important about the Jesus movement is that it claims to be true for all humanity.  So I have true Christian friends who are Kenyan, Ugandan, South African, Canadian, Mexican, Brazilian, Chilean, French, British, Dutch, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Sri Lankan, Australian - the list goes on.  The Jesus message is cross-cultural - it's always been able to jump over cultural barriers (like when it went from being Jewish only, to welcoming non-Jewish members too, right at the very beginning of the movement) without losing its "spine", its "essence".  The fundamentals of what it means to be a Christian are true in every people group, language, and part of the world.  Which means that college campuses are also a strategic place to get the Jesus message out to hundreds of non-American cultures!  Because countries send their best and brightest students to get an American education.  So there are countries where it's illegal for me to talk about Jesus openly - and those very same countries are sending us students who are hungry for friendship and want to get to know what the American culture is like.  What an opportunity to see if they're interested in exploring Jesus too!

One of the more challenging things about being a missionary on a college campus is the growing hostility and skepticism of spiritual or religious pursuits at a university leadership level.  I really think that college and education should be a free exchange and exploration of ideas - all ideas.  But there's an increasing pressure to exclude religious curiosity from the world of academics.  Which is interesting, because the world is not getting less religious - in fact, spiritual interest is rapidly expanding, especially in the 3rd world at the moment.  So why should the university be afraid of allowing religious or spiritual exploration to happen in a class setting?  At least, if the people who would teach it wouldn't pressure people into believing one way or the other, but would invite honest exploration of the different faith claims that are out there.  So while the university and residential systems seem to get less and less comfortable with spiritual or religious pursuits, it gets harder to help students explore spirituality in a formal capacity. 

Q: In your experience working with college students, what would you say is the biggest, most prevalent struggle faced by young people (Christians or not) in this stage of life?

Wow.  That's a big question :)  I don't know if I can boil it down to a single struggle.  

I think a big one is the struggle against distraction.  I think good learning takes focus,  And deep, honest exploration about the most important things in the world take time.  You need to read good books from different perspectives, you need to have space to think, and reflect.  But I don't think our culture gives us that space - in fact, with our smart phones and social media and immediate access to entertainment, we stuff our time with distraction.  I don't think distraction is bad - I love watching a good movie.  But when that's all we do with our spare time, when we're always on our phone or checking Facebook, or when we're always gaming when we're not in class, then we're not gonna have time to explore the deep things in life, or read the books that have shaped humanity up to this point, or wrestle through really difficult issues that we face in our culture, or in our personal lives.  We're just going to default to agreeing with the opinion we just watched on The Daily Show about politics, or on Glee about what we think Christianity really is.  Or we ensure our minds are never quiet b/c our earbuds are in all the time, with a constant (and usually very cool) soundtrack drowning out our thoughtfulness about important things.  So I think we need to elbow room more space into our lives to just think, and process, and to relate with each other personally about this stuff, rather than online.  

Another big struggle, I think, is the hyper-sexualization of our identity.  People are so wonderfully complicated, but in our culture right now, the most important ingredient in "who I truly am" often tends to be "who I like to have sex with".  Which means, that to resist or restrain our sexual desires has become the same as resisting, or restrating or very selves.  But I think sexual restraint is the way to love, and that controlling and appropriately focusing our sexual desires is a much healthier way of "truly being yourself" than simply doing whatever you desire.  When people talk about "who they are" they often resort to sexual definitions, which I think is such a diminished way to define anyone.  For example, when people say, "I am gay," it makes me want to say, "I understand what you mean, but why limit the description of who you are to your sexual attractions?"  Because my gay friends are so much MORE than who they prefer to have sex with, as we all are!  We're smart, funny, sexual, moved, screwed up, lovely, clever, and complicated beings, and I think when we focus too much on the sexual part of who we are, it skews our self-understanding.  And when we pay as much attention to our sex drives as we do in our culture, it just makes sense that we would be obsessive about it, right?  So it's what we build our love stories around, it's what we joke about, it's what we hook our hopes and dreams to (that "fulfilling, passionate sexual experience"), it's what we try to satisfy in part if we can't satisfy it fully, etc.  Which is why I think we have such a casual sexual culture (hooking up for a night is no big deal), why pornography is such a normative experience for many guys, and a growing number of girls, and why there's so much confusion out there about what it means to be sexual beings.  I just think we think about it too much!  I just don't think sex is as important to living a healthy and whole human life as our culture makes it out to be.  Even in a healthy, committed, sexually active relationship like I have with my wife, sex just isn't the most important thing in our relationship.  There are much more important, deep parts of who we are that we need to focus on for a rich life together, that are far more consequential than what we like about sex.  I think people would be really enriched by lessening the importance of sex in defining who they are, in trying to find happiness, and in trying to live a healthy life.   

Anything else you want to talk about/tell me readers about faith, college life, the importance of asking questions? Go ahead!

I think I would just want to invite people to honest, ruthless explorations for truth.  There are a number of fascinating world views offered to us in our culture right now - but they can't all be true at the same time, because many directly contradict each other.  Which world view makes the most sense to you?  What do you build your own moral behavior around?  What explains human behavior most clearly to you - both the good behavior and the awful stuff we do to each other?  What do you assume is true enough about the human experience, that you think everyone would benefit from living that way?  And where do you get those ideas from?  These questions that we all really wrestle with end up being what we build our lives around, and toward.  So I would encourage everyone to examine each world view in front of them for all they're worth!  

I remember telling my friend in my own world view exploration during college, that I was afraid to ask my questions because I was afraid of where the answers might take me.  But he said, "Geoff, if something is TRUE, if something is REAL, then it will stand up to the most rigorous intellectual questions you can ask it.  If it's NOT, then don't build your life around it."  I've found that to be the case with my understanding of Christianity - it's a spiritual community that invites questions, skepticism, and curiosity, that also claims to be intellectually sound.  You don't have to turn your brain off to be a Christian - in fact, Jesus demands you turn it on!  So be eager to explore, and to think things through to their conclusions, and make sure that what you build your life around makes the most sense of the most data.  For me, Jesus of Nazareth has been a satisfying, enriching leader to follow, and I'm still just figuring out everything He's up to. 

The Future of Faith in College

Hello readers!

As you may or may not know,  I started Faith in College in January because I was taking a class about online literature, and we were required to create our own blog.

When I first started this, I really wasn't sure what to expect. Without this class, I don't think I would have ever thought of writing a blog. I just had never seen myself as a "blog" kind of person.

I have been so surprised to see how much I enjoy it, though. It's been a neat medium to just talk about the thoughts I've been having and hear what other people think.

And, I have been so surprised to by all your positive responses! So many more people seem to be reading this than I thought would. As I walk around campus, people have approached me and said, "Hey, love your blog!" or "Can't wait for your next post!" Plus, you all have left such interesting comments. I'm always eagerly checking my email after I publish a post to see if anyone's responded.

Well... this class is coming to an end in a couple weeks. Therefore, I am only required to write a couple more posts. Hypothetically, I could be done for, like, forever.

So, I'm faced with a choice: Do I continue, or do I stop? Was this just a fun adventure into the land of blogging, or should I take up residence here?

Will I choose to be a blogger?

I don't mean to be fishing for compliments, but I would love your input! If no one's interested, why should I waste the time, you know?

So, if you would read more "Thoughts by Becky" in the future, let me know!

And any suggestions and constructive criticism would be welcome! Feel free to say things like:

• You should do more ______.
• I liked it when you wrote about ______.
• Have you ever thought of including _____?
• Why don't you try ______?

 As always, I want to hear from you!

Boys, Dating, and Crushes Part 2

So, where did I leave off in Part 1...

I think I was reflecting on the possible reasons for the fact I had never dated.

I wrote that I realized all types of girls could get a boyfriend, so unless I was way more repugnant than anyone else, there was most likely something in my attitude and beliefs that played a role in my singleness.

But, as I said in part 1, I believe that is only half the reason. I think this because there have been boys in my past that I would have dated, had they been interested.

You see, I've like boys for as long as I can remember.

When I was probably 3 years old, I remember promising to marry a family friend named James. His twin brother was going to marry my cousin, and I believe there was talk of a double wedding.

My "betrothed's" brother and I

In kindergarten, I was madly in love with a boy named Matthew, and I remember pretending to elope with him. (I don't know how I knew about "eloping," but I distinctly remember using that word.)

I wouldn't say I have ever been boy crazy. I can count on one hand the number of full blown crushes I had during the whole seven years of middle school and high school. But there has hardly been a time in my life when I haven't been crushing on someone.

Now, as I entered into college, I felt a good amount of pressure to start dating. In high school, having a boyfriend hadn't really made sense because there wasn't much of a chance that that relationship would go anywhere. However, many people I know, including my parents, met their spouses in college. I now had no reason to object to dating, so it seemed to me like the right time to "start shopping."

So, while my standards about who I would date did not lower, I began to look at every guy I met as a potential boyfriend. I began to develop a series of mini-crushes or "crushlets," as I like to call them.

It's like I had a constant checklist at the front of my mind that I would compare every guy I met to - Single? Christian? Similar Interests? etc. - and if he passed the preliminaries, I would begin to imagine that we might begin dating.

This went on for a while, until one day, I felt God convicting me. I realized that this way of thinking about guys was absolutely selfish! 

As a Christian, I believe God teaches us to love one another with a disinterested, self-sacrificing love, and all I was thinking about in regards to these guys was how they might fulfill my longing to be loved and feel beautiful. I was so selfish that every time a boy I knew started dating I would think something like, "Well, crap. There's another one out of the pool of potentials."

Slowly but surely, I have been praying that God will help me change my view of the men in my life so that I can love them well, a sister of brothers.

This has been a really great metaphor for me to cling on to because, you see, I grew up with three brothers.

I may not be the best sister in the world, but it's definitely something I know how to do.

My siblings and I in 2010

Anticipation and Contemplation

I know, this isn't Part 2 of my "Crushes" post. Don't worry, it is coming! I promise.

But I thought I'd tell you about something else you can look forward to on my blog!

I just sent an email interview to one of my campus pastors, Geoff Mumley, that I will post on here in a week or two! I thought as a guy whose career is all about "faith in college," he might have some interesting ideas to add to to my blog. I'm super excited to see what he has to say and share his (hopefully) wise words with you all.

In the mean time, as you all are anxiously anticipating that post and my second installment in my posts about dating, I thought I'd give you an interesting quote to chew on:

"Heads are neither open nor hollow. Heads have lids, screwed on tightly, and no amount of pouring can force ideas inside. Minds only open when their owners sense a need to open them. Even then, ideas must still filter through layers of experience, habit, prejudice, fear, and suspicion. If ideas make it through at all, it s because feedback operates between speaker and listener."

                                               - Haddon Robinson, of Gordon Conwell School of Theology

Boys, Dating, and Crushes Part 1

So, depeding on who you are, this may shock you or it may be old news but...

I have never had a boyfriend. Ever.

Never been kissed. Never held someone's hand. Not even really been on a date.

While there are probably many reasons this is true, I've narrowed it down to the two which I will explore through this series that I think are the biggest reasons why this is so.

     1.  My beliefs and standards about dating
  
             and, if I'm being honest....

     2.  No boy I've liked has reciprocated

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My first exposure to peers dating (if you can call it that) was in 5th grade. Yup, barely out of single digits, and we thought we were so grown up.

Me in 5th Grade

A couple of the coolest kids from the four 5th grade classes at my elementary school "asked each other out," which meant the "couple" would spend the two recesses we had a day walking around the playground holding hands. If your relationship was especially advanced, you might convince a some friends to be your lookout as you sneaked behind a tree to steal a kiss.

Some couples professed their eternal love to one another, saying they would never break up.

Yet, none of those relationships lasted the year. No surprise there.

I'm not proud to say it, but I was one of those lookouts more than once. Inside, I remember thinking it seemed silly, but I wasn't brave enough to say so.

In middle school, I began to compose a more concrete personal belief about dating, especially in the young, 10-15 age range. That belief: It's STUPID!

As I looked around and saw the amount of drama and heartache caused by these romantic relationships that could not really develop into anything substantial and always ended, it seemed a logical and simple solution to decide not to date.

This attitude continued on into high school. While I was maybe a bit more open to the idea of having a boyfriend, I didn't believe in dating just for fun. I thought any boyfriend I would want to have should have marriage potential.

I wasn't desperate for a boyfriend, but sometimes I would look around at everyone holding hands in the hallways and wonder if there was anything wrong with me.

I thought I was fairly average looking, but could I actually be hideous without knowing it? Was my personality repellent? Did I smell awful?

But then I'd look around and see all types of girls with a boyfriend, and I knew I bathed with relative frequency, so I knew that it had to do with something more than that.

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Well, I think I'll end this post here for now. I know I haven't really made any points yet, but it's already a good sized post. I'll pick it up again next week.

For now, here are some questions:

What did you think about dating when you were younger?

Looking back on them, do you still think that way?

What's one thing you know now that you wish you knew then?

Some Ways College Got Me Thinking

I want to take a minute to thank my readers. I’ve loved all your input! Thanks for all your honest thoughts on these complex issues. I love the furthering questions many of you have posed, and I really appreciate the points that some of you have contributed more to or expanded upon. That is exactly what I want this blog to be about. 

I will do my best to answer your comments, but I want to apologize in advance if I don’t have the time to get to something you posted or don’t address them as extensively as you might like. I’m taking a full load this quarter, plus working as a nanny, so I don’t have a ton of free time.

Now, let’s get to the subject of today's post. I thought I’d write a bit more about how being in college has forced me to start asking myself some of those “big questions” about life and faith.

Me (far left) with some cousins at a birthday party.

 

I “asked Jesus into my heart” when was 3 years old, and I have no memory of it. I have, however, been told the story on numerous occasions. It was my older brother, Josh’s, Christian birthday (the date he became a Christian). I don’t remember my family normally having a party or celebration for our Christian birthdays, but I guess that year, Josh was getting cake.  

I liked cake. 

Now, I’ve been told that my parents explained to me the reason why he was getting cake, and I said I understood, but I’ve never been quite sure whether I became a Christian more for Jesus or for cake.

But that’s another point for another post. What I'm saying is, I have considered myself a Christian for a long time. But in my 18 years following Jesus, no stage of my life has involved as much critical question asking as the past three years at college. 

Psychology classes made me ask whether guilt I feel is really God’s spirit inside me, or if I only feel badly because my parents and culture have trained me to feel that way.

Literature classes made me consider if the writings of Apostle Paul (author of much of the New Testament) really align with the teachings of Jesus, or if they are actually in conflict with each other.

Anthropology classes made me wonder if the God of Christianity was a god that could transcend culture, or if he was merely a “rich, white, American” god.

 

Some of these questions, after prayer, research, and much thought, led me to the answers I held all along. Other forced me to change my thinking.

An example a point on which my thinking has changed is about the first chapters of Genesis. (One of the reasons I use this example is to answer a question that was posted in response to my last blog entry).

Four years ago, I would not have tolerated anything but a completely literal interpretation. There was a physical place called Eden, a man and woman named Adam and Eve, and a real snake. 

Then in college, I heard sound, logical, fact based arguments that didn't seem to fit with my understanding of creation. I thought a lot about them. I wondered changing my mind would mean invalidating my faith. I talked with other wise Christians and listened to their views.

Now, I am ok with the Creation Story not being literal. I actually am leaning towards thinking it is most likely not literal.

The author was not an eyewitness. In fact, he lived thousands of years later. I’m ok with Adam being an archetype. In fact, his name is a play on words.  God made Adam out of dirt. In Hebrew “Adam” means mankind, and "adama" means dirt. Adam out of adama.

The writer also used imagery from cultures around him, but changed it in significant ways to show how this God is different. In those days, idols where created in the image of gods and they were believed to have that God’s spirit living in them. Man was made in God’s image, and he breathed the His spirit of life into them. In addition, the Sun was a very common god in many surrounding nations. I don’t think it’s any mistake that God created light and day before he created the sun. It’s like the author is saying, “Our God is so powerful, he doesn’t even need the sun for there to be day.”

 

The man who wrote Genesis was using human words, written in was his current culture would understand it. He was striving to tell the story of an event that no human witnessed and is probably so extraordinary that it is beyond human comprehension. I think his main concern was to establish Yahweh God as the Supreme Being and Creator of All Things, setting him apart from the gods of other nations.

I now believe that that is the important part of the story. The “how” behind creation, while interesting to think about, is not as important to me as the “who.” Too often, I think Christians cling onto one detail, while not looking at the big picture.

Just look at Galileo, almost excommunicated because he challenged the "fact" that the earth was the center of the universe.

What do you think? Are you comfortable with my take on Genesis 1-3?

Do you have any beliefs you’ve had to reconsider after asking yourself some tough questions?