My students and colleagues enjoy teasing me about my "devotion" to Ray Anderson.  Yes, I use his writings as required texts and have given away numerous copies of his books to others.  I also confess to playing the "Ray Anderson card" probably more than is fashionable in academic circles where too many references to another person's work suggests a narrow neophyte; mea culpa.  Despite whatever theological idiosyncracies Dr. Anderson possessed, his way of doing theology and his modeling of the pastor-theologian have had indescribable impact on me.  I will forever be in his debt and grateful to God on his behalf.

I first came across his name in the mid-late 1980s through a pair of articles he wrote for the TSF Bulletin where he argued for the resurrection as a hermeneutical criterion.  I had never seen evangelical theology done like this, didn't really know what to make of it, but knew that there was something there worth a lot of probing.  I have come back to that pair of articles several times in the years since.  Through them Ray Anderson started me on a lifegiving theological journey.

In 1991 a Fuller Seminary D.Min. student resurfaced his name and gave me a book entitled The Praxis of Pentecost, a pre-publication manuscript of what IVP later picked up and titled Ministry on the Fireline.  Reading it was probably the first time I ever fell to my knees in worship while reading a book of challenging theology.

Early in my own pastoral ministry experience, when facing some daunting challenges and questions, I dared to write to Ray Anderson though I had not personally studied under him or even met him.  I was stunned when he wrote back quickly, speaking to my questions with personal warmth and more than perfunctory answers.  He took me very seriously and gave wise, theologically-informed pastoral counsel.  I still have all the letters and emails he sent to me.

That inflamed my quest to grapple with this man's supple and inquisitive theological mind.  His books On Being Human, On Being Family (with Dennis Guernsey), Historical Transcendence and the Reality of God, Living the Spiritually Balanced Life, and Unspoken Wisdom have been among the most influential volumes of my life.  Rarely has someone written so powerfully across the spectrum, from intense and probing scholarship to earthy wisdom.  I will never forget sitting in my office as a young pastor, reading the stories of his upbringing and alternating between laughing out loud and sobbing almost uncontrolably.  He could touch places in my soul I did not even know needed healing.

In 1996 (I think) I had the delight of meeting Ray.  A friend and I attended Sunday morning worship at the little church he pastored.  They met in an elementary school multi-purpose room.  Most of the folks there were quite elderly; an unusual sight in a rented school facility.  Ray was kind enough to let us take him to lunch rather spontaneously.  He gave me some good feedback as I was trying to find a Ph.D. program and topic.  Afterward, my friend took our picture together then secretly sent it to Ray to sign.  It's now framed and hanging in my home; a treasured momento of sacred time with a mentor.

I could go on, but others who knew him better have already covered the territory in their own tributes.  [http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/2009/06/ray-s-anderson-1925-2009.html] Suffice it to say that I my life, relationships and connection to God, as well as my theology, are vastly different and better because of Ray Sherman Anderson.  Yes, there were times when I thought, "OK, Ray, you've gone too far now.  I just don't buy that."  Yet, over time I would often come to place of saying, "Well, who knows?  You might be right."  At any rate, topics like the Incarnation and grace came alive to me like never before through his theological provocations.

Ray wrote candidly and theologically about the subject of death.  If my facts are correct, one of his reflections was about the grave plot that he had prepared for himself next to his parents in S. Dakota.  I suppose that is where he will lie in anticipation of the resurrection.  His passing is sad for so many like myself.  Yet, I think all of us share an unusual comfort because the path he took to that resting place has been so carefully and richly paved with a theology worth both living for and dying for.  My own anticipation of that Day is now heightened.

Thanks, Lord, for the gift of Dr. Ray S. Anderson.

My wife Sharon is an incredible mentor, but she hates mentoring!  Let me clarify.  Sharon is the consummate right-brained, spontaneous, creative, theatrical (need I go on?) person.  Among God's many graces to me through her has been the freedom to get outside my comfortable, sometimes tightly prescribed grids.  When she thinks of mentoring (probably because of the way I speak of it), she only sees plans and charts and goals and checkpoints.  And she bristles!  She thinks she is not a mentor.

This has forced me to think more deeply about what counts as good mentoring and what counts as "focus" and "goals".  I called Sharon an incredible mentor because I have seen how influential she has been with countless people.  How?  Well, she has an uncanny way of loving and affirming them.  That is so uniquely her that I can’t really describe it beyond that.  She also listens to people and empathizes with them so well that they find hope and healing (and she has no counseling training at all).  People feel so very seen and valued by her.  They grow!

All this exposes something deeply human about mentoring.  When we touch the core of each other’s humanity, something very holy takes place.  We actually move toward a humanity for which God created us when He made us in His image.  So, perhaps there are goals or horizons embedded in our humanness even if we can’t name them or write them on a goal sheet.

On the surface that may appear to undermine the emphasis that so many of us place on identifying clear growth goals for mentoring relationships.  Not really.  When I look at it a bit closer, it occurs to me that clear (even written) goals are only as good as their consistency with the goals embedded in our humanity.  At its best, stating clear goals brings into clearer view something we already need.

When we move toward others, stay alongside them, enter their world, love them well, make our wisdom and experience and faith and courage available to them, we are mentoring at a deeply human level whether we set specific goals or not.  I remain committed to importance of self-awareness and clear (even if flexible) goal setting.  Whatever one’s personality and style, it can be an important exercise in learning to think more clearly about our lives and growth.  However, let’s not polarize focused, overtly goal-driven mentoring with those forms that seem to have no goals.  Something powerful is happening in those relationships, even if it’s difficult to explain.

This might be worth a conversation.  Your thoughts?

This raises more issues than any single blog, book, or budget can address.  Yet, anyone with a modicum of conscience (which is about all I have at times) can hardly face such a tragic circumstance without experiencing a measure of sourness at the injustices and brokenness of our world.  One strange feature of that injustice is that people like me can walk away from these visceral stories and, after a bit of time and a good cup of coffee, functionally forget about it.  In fact, I write this while sitting in a really cool coffee shop with upbeat music playing in the background and fun people all around me.  What makes it all even worse is that today is my wedding anniversary and I'm filled with joy and gratitude for twenty-eight years with the same wonderful woman!

Yes, after taking in that gut-wrenching story Haitian story from yesterday’s evening news, we awoke to a day of celebration, enjoying a gorgeous drive to Evergreen for brunch at one of our favorite restaurants.  A walk around Evergreen Lake in near perfect weather capped off the morning.  What do I do with all this from a theological perspective?

When wrestling with this and similar dilemmas over the years, I have been thrown back, not to a philosophical theodicy (an attempt to reconcile suffering and evil with God’s sovereignty and goodness), but to the theology of grace.  It takes a working theology of God’s grace for any of us to genuinely enjoy and celebrate life while facing the stark realities of human suffering without turning aside or anesthetizing ourselves.

Grace alone can free us to engage and make whatever difference we can make without the burden of long term, sustained progress.  Grace alone can allow us to receive the gifts of our own lives, whatever those may be, without feeling a measure of guilt for being born into conditions where we don’t have to eat dirt to survive.  By grace alone, sola gratia, as the Reformers insisted, are we saved.  Grace saves us in a lot of ways – every way that really matters, even if we spend our lives puzzling over that and exploring it. 

I’m captured today by one particular aspect of that salvation.  I’m saved from the burden of explaining the world and its brokenness.  I’m saved from the burden of saving the world.  I’m saved for engagement with the worst that can be experienced, as an agent of God’s grace, whatever God does with my little part.  I’m saved for receiving and reveling in God’s gifts as tokens of His goodness and without the pressure to reconcile “Why me?”  I’m saved from guilt for having it so much better than so many others.

Without this particular expression and function of grace, the moral structure of the world continues to work against me, chipping away at my spirit in the name of God, eroding my ability to love and trust God in a world I often can’t explain or change or even face.

A developed or developing Christian conscience will easily lead us into a particular form of seriousness about the world.  That seriousness can indeed stimulate powerful and important action but easily masquerades for godliness when it ultimately and insidiously works against the very life that Jesus died to give.  Perhaps it’s a contemporary version of the spirit Paul battled in the form of Jewish Christians who sought to return to the Law (see Eugene Peterson’s reflections on Galatians in his book Traveling Light). 

We err grievously if we polarize God’s command to care sacrificially for the broken with the capacity for exuberant celebration and enjoyment of life.  Those may seem incompatible at times.  Only by grace, a sheer act of God’s initiative and unexplainable goodness, can we navigate that tension, “traveling light” with a sober and realistic and engaged spirit.  That type of grace-ful seriousness frees us to hurt and grieve and engage intensely.  It also frees us to receive good coffee and walks around the lake without jadedness.

Easier said than done?  Indeed.  But having said it, I want more than ever to do it.  So, may God bless the children of Haiti (and all they represent) through me somehow while I receive the goodness of this day with unfiltered delight and gratitude.  That feels strange at times, but only God’s grace can make that possible with integrity and without insanity.

This morning my own mentor, Wes Roberts, reminded me of the power of one-degree change.  He commented on this in a passing reference to something else, but it stuck with me in regard to this stress I so often feel as a mentor.  As I probed this metaphor I began to feel the stress dissipate and the joy of mentoring return. 

When mentoring is focused on fostering one-degree change (and we all know the exponential impact of one-degree shifts), it is liberated qualitatively, not merely quantitatively.  That is to say, it is not merely that mentors don't bear the burden to do as much (pardon the double negative), but that the responsibility lies elsewhere.  It's directional. 

As a mentor, there is much more that I don't know about another person's life and problems and needs than there is to what I do know.  There is much more that I cannot do for a person than there is that I can do.  Those are the quantitative aspects of mentoring and they can be crushing.  Qualitatively, however, I can come alongside a person to help them ask better questions of their journey and lend them some courage to face those questions.  This alleviates enormous pressure from what I have to provide as a mentor!

The metaphor of one-degree change creates a free space where answers and solutions may come, but cease to be the primary burden of mentoring.  The directional character of one-degree mentoring implies that mentors open possibilities for people.  We believe in them.  We confirm or massage their hunches (in either case, providing a safe place for those hunches to be explored).  We help them name fears and overcome those fears.  Those acts of mentoring are lifegiving, whereas providing solutions and answers can actually be crippling both a mentor and a mentee if that is seen as the primary responsibility of a mentor.

So, here's to the modest work of mentoring; mentoring that aspires to little more than one-degree change and, thus ends up being WAY more influential than mentoring that struggles under the weight of grandiose vision.

Of course, that means going through the uncomfortable and sometimes unnerving process of complexity.  Sometimes things become more confusing before they become more clear.  Sometimes a new clarity is the result of a painful stripping so that what is true or truer can replace it.

I still believe that Holmes' statement offers sobering hope and vision as we move through life's perplexing experiences and seek to tether ourselves to the triune God who saves us through Jesus Christ.  That's where my life is still tethered.  Yet, I have discovered over the years that that lifeline constantly acquires barnacles that must be painfully scraped away.  In many cases, those barnacles are assumptions and expectations that I have inherited and projected onto God.  It can be difficult to distinguish the barnacles from the lifeline at first.

A few years ago one of our students, a man with a few more years of life than I, really latched onto my quote from Holmes.  Over the course of his seminary education he said to me more than once that he was still looking for that simplicity on the other side of complexity.  This forced me to realize that it's easier said than done and that I need to think more deeply about what that desirable simplicity really is . . . and what it looks like when we have it or have more of it.

How do you envision that?  What has it been like . . . or looked like for you?

Dr. Orrino and I hold to the same historic Christian faith.  He also holds to several additional convictions, for example, that the King James Version of the Bible is the only acceptable translation.  On this and other points, he and I would disagree.  He happily locates himself in the arena of "fundamentalists," a moniker that many evangelicals would find embarrassing.

However, I want to publicly recognize the mentoring debt I owe him.  He taught me that little things are important, even if it's making sure that the bathroom is thoroughly clean and the chairs are precisely the same distance from each other.  More than that, he was perhaps my first model of a truly studied approach to ministry.  At that time in my life, his was the most impressive personal library I had ever seen.  And he used it!  Now, I'm certain that he owned and valued some books that I don't, and vice versa.  Yet, he studied like no pastor I had ever known.  He recommended books to me.  He even gave me a few as gifts.  I have no doubt that his influence helped pave the path I was later to take.

I have known many people over the course of my life, but not many as intense as Gary Orrino.  His fierce, Italian personality came through when he a boxer in the Navy and in his passionate defense of the gospel.  He has an incredible mind and seems to have devoted every last cell to his calling.  I have been pulled along by his draft.

Thank you, Dr. Orrino.  You and I would find it quite difficult (maybe impossible) to serve on the same staff or faculty, but I look forward to sitting next to you at the same table in God's Kingdom.

He had a few lines that he used constantly.

"Everything rises and falls on leadership."  I've heard this from a few other sources since, so I don't know if he originated it, but you could not be around Dr. Roberson very long without hearing it.  This continues to challenge me.  It impacts even those who are not enamoured of leadership as a discipline or who think leadership is merely the preoccupation of CEO/corporate ministry types.  Despite all the caveats, disclaimers, and qualifications that might be in order, this truth should be faced squarely by all who influence others.

"Critics are a dime a dozen."  It's always easier to dissect when one has nothing at stake.  Complex matters almost always seem more clear from the outside than from the inside.

In addition to these lines, Dr. Roberson was renowned for wearing only navy blue, double-breasted suits.  This has influenced neither my wardrobe or my fashion sense.  Yet, it was an embodiment of his insistence on steadiness, faithfulness, and focus.  I don't remember exactly how he said it, but he was all about staying the course.  Most people never saw him in anything but a navy blue, double-breasted suit.  He was never a slave to popular opinion or the crosswinds that so easily blow the rest of us off our mark.

Dr. Roberson had many other opinions and emphases that I have gladly chosen not to take with me (of course, I could very well be the one shown as wrong in the end!), but for these I am in his debt and thankful to God.

This past weekend my wife Sharon and I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, an interesting and highly embellished rendition of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story by the same name. Sidenotes: The irony is the inverse relationship between the length of the short story and the length of the movie. My irritation is that the screenplay seems to have been designed to put Brad Pitt in as many sexual encounters as possible (perhaps accounting in part for the length of the movie!). Still, it was a very interesting story told in an entertaining manner. If you have not seen it, it's the story of a boy who is born as an old man then grows younger as he ages.

To mentoring; a conversation this morning with one of my mentors surfaced a new challenge in his life, the mobilization of the "gray haired" generation to be mentors (at fifty-one I still like to think of "gray hairs" as a generation beyond myself even though I have an increasing amount of the stuff). We puzzled over the challenges of instilling in the retirement generation a vision and passion for investing in younger adults who need and want their company. The imagery of Benjamin Button came to mind. We need a whole generation of mentors who, in their latter years, start all over and find a new horizon of service in front of them as mentors just when they thought their most productive years were completed. It's not too much of a stretch to suggest that in a very real sense they will die younger than when they began this venture. I have seen this happen and it's thrilling.

What stands in the way of the currently retired generation getting engaged as mentors? Talk to me.

In regard to that last category of mentors I need to come out of the closet.  I was raised in and my faith groomed in one of the most extreme forms of American fundamentalism that exists.  This was a rather loose network of independent Baptists who considered Southern Baptists a bunch of liberal compromisers (if that helps you locate us on any kind of spectrum).  My father was a pastor in that movement and, ironically, he was actually a key influence in my moving away from that in some sense.  He had a level-headedness and sanity about him that put a lot of the extremes and goofiness in perspective.  I have spent the better part of the past thirty years processing, rejecting, and in some cases reacting against that heritage while trying to retain a healthy grip on what was essentially good and right.  Still, I must admit that reaction has often trumped retention as far as my attitude.  I don't think I'm alone.

To this day I bear my share of internal scars and hang-ups that in one way or another trace back to that heritage.  I have consciously sought to dissociate myself from that from fear of enduring theological and social disgrace.  Now I realize that at age 51 I'm a big boy at last (or should be) and can afford to publicly own and give thanks for the mentors in that movement who gave me great gifts in one way or another - regardless of any other disagreements I might have with them (after all, they could turn out to be right on some of these issues and I may be the one who looks silly at the judgment; stranger things have happened, you know!).

That's enough for right now.  In coming blog entries, I'm going to profile and thank some of my fundamentalist mentors.

Dr. Jim Means, his predecessor in that role, spoke poignantly of Jerry's faithfulness in ministry and particularly of his remarkable ability in and commitment to preaching.  Jim drew attention to a fact known by many long time attenders of Southern Gables, but probably not by the masses.  While Jerry is well-known in the Denver area for the depth and power of his expository preaching, it is less well-known that preaching has been an incredible struggle for him for many years.  Simply put, he does not like to preach.  I was serving on his staff when in the early 90s he admitted to hitting the wall, not knowing whether he could continue in that ministry role because preaching was so intensely stressful for him.  He took a sabbatical from preaching, rested, even sought out assessment feedback that (as I recall) said that preaching was not the area where he should focus his efforts.  Yet, he returned to the pulpit and persevered despite repeated and chronic battles of the same sort, all because he was called to that ministry and preaching was part of that calling.  Time after time, people now testify to how profoundly God shaped their lives through Jerry's preaching.

To some, that may sound like an old school, "suck it up" mentality that we have long since moved past (or should have) since our theology of spiritual gifts has been "enlightened" by the world of vocational assessment and the (almost sacred) value placed on vocational fulfillment.  However, this resurfaces a question that has puzzled me off and on for a long time.  Are "spiritual gifts" necessarily those activities that energize and fulfill us?  There is a strong corpus of literature, seminars, and curricula that argue so.  Yet, I find no biblical warrant for that claim.  I'm still drawn to Frederick Buechner's notion that our calling resides at the intersection of the world's greatest need and our deepest gladness, though that notion of "deepest gladness" is quite nuanced and may encompass acts of service that are intensely costly and painful.  Such was the lifegiving preaching ministry of Jerry Nelson.

Don't get me wrong.  This is no argument for a grim-faced return to the days when a person's abilities and passions were overlooked and considered irrelevant when making ministry decisions.  It is, however, a call for suspicion about the notion that our ministry commitments should hinge on our inner sense of fulfillment and whether our ministry activities inherently energize us.  Now there are indeed some important questions to be addressed when we consider the vital subject of sustainability in ministry.  I would like to take up some of those questions in future blog entries.  For now, I invite a reexamination of our obsession with fulfillment as the lynchpin criterion for making ministry decisions.  Most Christians in most parts of the world for most of human history have not enjoyed anything close to the range of options that occasion our ability to even have the conversation about spiritual gifts, and ministry fulfillment in the way we do.

More on spiritual gifts later.  I think I'm just getting cranked up!

Jacob Firet is a name you ought to know. At the least, Firet’s thought needs a wider circulation among those involved in mentoring. While he did not overtly address the subject of mentoring (as far as I know), his book Dynamics in Pastoring (1986) offers a rich theological framework that both explains and focuses some of mentoring’s power. I devoured Firet’s book soon after it was originally published and it fired in me a theological vision for ministry that continues to ripple.

Theologian Ray S. Anderson summarizes one of Firet’s key points on how God touches our lives through others.

The Spirit of God comes directly to persons as movement on the human spirit, says Firet. The motive power for change and growth does not come from the human spirit alone. Instead, in response to the mediation of love and grace through the presence of another, motive power is induced in the self to move toward health. . . .

Firet suggests that the mediation of spiritual resources must go beyond . . . the proclamation of Word of God (preaching, sermons) and the teaching of truths concerning the Kingdom of God. Persons who hear and understand truth as proclaimed and taught can integrate new ideas and profound truth into their belief system without undergoing transformation and change [Spiritual Caregiving as Secular Sacrament, 142].

Firet compares the role of a person who touches the core of another’s life with such transformational agency to the role of the Holy Spirit as paraclesis, “one called to the side of another,” or what we often simply translate as “encourager.” “To be this person, Firet says, one must go behind the professional role of being a teacher/preacher so as to encounter the other person at a basic human level” [Anderson, 143]. Stated this way we can easily see why encouragers like Barnabas have such a powerful role with those (like Saul) facing an entirely new future with no bearings and no relational currency among those whose support they desperately need. Barnabas touched the core of Saul’s humanity with love and grace, facilitating God’s “motive power” to move forward in faith against great odds. I recall that Firet calls this “equi-human address.” It’s opening our humanity to each other so that God’s lifegiving Spirit has passage to shape and heal.

I suspect that a number of mentoring implications could be unfolded from Firet’s comments, but I’ll conclude with only one. Some of the best mentors I have known seem to think they have very little to offer because they lack education and/or formal experience as a mentor. The irony, however, is that when they mentor by “simply” coming alongside, they are ministering in a profoundly theological fashion. They are actually occupying a privileged role of spiritual agent – perhaps even an “undercover agent”! These mentors are all the more powerful in God’s hands because of what seems to them so utterly ordinary. What Jacob Firet calls “equi-human address” turns out to have a power similar to the undertow of an ocean wave. It’s not visible or impressive, but it can change your life. In this case and in God’s hands it can give, rather than take away life!

Mentoring is seen by some in scholarly circles as residing in the domain of ministry methods; the interest of pragmatists.  Indeed, many of the conversations and resources related to mentoring are found in such environments.  There are methods involved in mentoring.  Yet, I have very little interest in methodological discussions per se.  At its heart, however, mentoring is a deeply human endeavor, rich and complex.  Therein lies the living connection with theology.

If you know anything about how clutches work to transfer the power of an engine to a transmission and drive train, try to envision the relationship in the following way.  Theology functions something like a clutch that is directly connected to the power of the gospel (Rom. 1:16).  Yet, theology is impotent unless it expands or moves so to touch and engage the ways in which we live (a pressure plate).  When those two engage, something wonderful happens.  When clutches wear thin or lose their grip, we all know what happens.

Mentoring allows for the transfer of deeply human knowledge, what Michael Polanyi calls "tacit knowledge."  This is knowledge that runs deeper than and prior to our ability to articulate and analyze.  Yet, it is genuine knowledge.  This may be the subject of another installment, but this is one reason I am so committed AS A THEOLOGIAN, to the ministry of mentoring.  It allows God's redeeming truth more avenues into the texture of human life than the merely analytical can ever provide.  And one is just as theological as the other, if the doctrine of the Incarnation is to be taken seriously.

Today while in my garage exercising I was listening to Eric Clapton sing "My Father’s Eyes". It reminded me of my own dad and the many times I have found strength from his and my mom’s endurance through some almost indescribable losses and crises. Some of those hard times are now decades past, but when I think of them I am still rather stunned that they made it through them. I’m sure they don’t know that their example is still working. On any random day they may be sitting in their living room reading and enjoying a cup of coffee while unbeknownst to them I am feeling overwhelmed, without answers and energy. Only as I stop now to think about this am I aware of how many times their example has just skimmed the surface of my mind and somehow reassured me that I, too, can make it. In both some quiet ways and some intense ways they leaned hard on God and made it through. Yes, there are some scars from the process but those serve as markers of grace. They are mentoring me while they think they are only drinking coffee and talking with each about a football game!

I realize that I have been blessed with parental mentors that not everyone enjoys (this is the other side to the problem of God’s sovereignty; what right do I have to the blessings in my life?). Two notes of encouragement are in order, though. Find mentors who have made it through indescribably tough times. Probe their example and let it shape you. Second, if you are the one who has endured, don’t take the power of that endurance lightly. Realize that you have mentoring strength to give. You need not parade those experiences or glamorize them, but somehow let those stories get into others’ journeys. If you want to know how significant this type of mentoring is intended by God to be, review Hebrews 4:14-16; 12:1-3, and James 5:11. In a number of ways this is the type of mentoring example provided us by our Lord Himself (though I suspect He knows about it) and by the many who have gone before us faithfully.

Recently, I picked up a clue to my own question when our graduate Ian Morgan Cron gave our annual Spiritual Life lectureship.  The second day of the lectureship he spoke on the eucharist ("communion" or "The Lord's Supper") and described the significance of being given the bread rather than reaching out and taking the bread.  That, he suggested is a metaphor for how the bread of life actually comes to us from God.  The problem in the Garden of Eden, he pointed out, was "taking."  In striking contrast, we once again receive life through Christ.

I hope it's not too much of a stretch to draw a parallel with the "lifegiving" function of mentoring when, in God's hands, a mentoring relationship draws us forward toward the people God made us to be.  However intentional we may be in pursuing and engaging mentors, a mentor's time, wisdom, presence, attentiveness, and love are gifts that cannot be demanded or grasped.  They can only be received as gifts from God Who has chosen this scandalous pattern of often manifesting His healing presence in our lives through others.  All this makes me wonder whether the giving and receiving of gifts might be a paradigm for just about all genuine healing, growth, and transformation that we can experience.  If so, we are wise employ disciplines that help us be attentive and engaged  receivers.  Yes, we come to the table, but we come because we are first invited.  And we come with open hands that can only faintly mirror the depth of our need and hunger for God to meet us, feed us, touch us, heal us, guide us.

Mentoring is only one expression of that, certainly, but when held up in the light of that giving-receiving paradigm, it reaches further and deeper into our lives than any mere development methodology could ever do.

Allow me a few musings on this question. Beginning with Scripture (always a good idea), Paul instructed Timothy that overseers "must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience" (1 Tim. 3:9 - TNIV). That is, leaders of God's people must have sufficient confidence in the reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ to rest in it confidently even when exposed to stretching challenges to their faith. Of course, Paul does not overtly use the language of "enjoying God." Still, delight in the Lord is a weighty and magnetic motif in Scripture, close to core of why God made us. Why can that be so difficult for those who are training for ministry?

This line of thought probably deserves more than one installment, so I'll save some for later. For now, consider how seminary can be the occasion for expanding our capacities to delight in God and in the gift of life that He has given. A quick story to illustrate. I heard this on a recorded sermon by the famous Scottish theologian T.F. Torrance some years ago and use it periodically with my students.

Edgar Curtis was a gifted, young American music student who moved to Basel, Switzerland in the early 20th century to study with two well-known masters of the day: Adolf Busch and Rudolf Serkin.  Curtis approached Busch and Serkin, seeking their tutelage.  They rejected him, considering him too old (at only age twenty-seven).  Yet, he stayed in Basel and they saw that the young Edgar Curtis had unusual talent.  So, they called him back and asked to look at his hands.  Something they observed in Curtis’s hands prompted them to change their minds and offer to work with him one condition – that he move to Vienna for six months and let a colleagues of their work with his hands.  Curtis took them up on their offer.  For the next six months he endured agonizing exercises that literally altered the shape of hands, allowing him to receive mentoring from these two masters, Busch and Serkin, and achieve a level of musical excellence that delighted others (and, I’m sure, himself) for decades.

None of us come naturally or easily by the capacity to deeply, richly enjoy God and the life to which He has called each of us.  That capacity comes through experiences that at the time seem antithetical with joy!  Seems like that is something of what James had in mind when he said, “Consider it pure joy, by brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4).  I don’t think James had seminary in mind when he wrote those words, but they work for any experience that pushes us past superficiality and limits so that we can find satisfaction in the powerful realities of God that require more developed sensibilities and spiritual muscles.

We frequently use the language of “formation” and “preparation” when describing the purpose of attending seminary.  At the same time, seminary is about developing one’s capacities to enjoy God and lead others to that mature enjoyment, too.  I certainly want those who care for my own soul to have learned how to enjoy God when life is complex and overwhelming!  Otherwise, they cannot help me do so.

Of course, when failures of any type occur we need others (like wise mentors) to help us process those experiences and grow from them.  Mentors of this sort help us not repeat our mistakes.  I wonder, though, how a preoccupation with mistakes and failure may carry a hidden price tag, part of which is a fear of success (however that is to be defined), an underdeveloped ability to grow from and build upon success, and perhaps even an inability to celebrate and integrate success into an authentic holiness.

Hence, one underdeveloped aspect of mentoring is helping people process success (and I use the word "success" unapologetically, despite its baggage).  By "success" I have in mind both success at what we DO and success (including progress, faithfulness, growth, etc.) at who we are.  I'm often struck by Paul's comment in Romans 15:14: "I myself am convinced, brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another."  This, after fourteen chapters of teaching and, in some cases, correction.

What do mentors do that helps us deal well with success?  Here are a few ideas.  They help us know how to integrate successes with humility and gratitude to God while not moving into a false, cheesy piety.  They see the good that God has built into our lives that, for whatever reason, we can't see.  They bless that good work of God and call us to move forward with courage and confidence.  They keep us from taking our successes too seriously while giving us the freedom to enjoy and celebrate them.  They help us see all success and progress as a gift of God for which we need be neither ashamed nor embarrassed.

Last week I saw an exuberant example of Wes's chain in action.  One of his long time mentees, Russell Verhey (another Denver Seminary alum from somewhat less than a hundred years ago) dropped by the seminary and told me of a group of men whom he has the privilege of walking alongside as they find the storylines of their lives captured and retold by Christ.  I don't know any of these guys, but I know their lives are larger in Christ because of Russell.  What also grabbed me, though, was how lifegiving these relationships are to Russell.  His own storyline in Christ is gaining nuance and texture because of the men he mentors.  They stretch him and ask him questions he can't answer.  Yet, he's having a blast!  Why is that?  Perhaps it's similar to the thrill and satisfaction of being around something that is alive.  And isn't that what we all really want - to really be alive?

That mentoring chain runs in two directions.  Whatever mentors may give, they receive as much or more back.  I have heard that time and time from literally hundreds of mentors over the past ten years.  Next time I look at the Wes Roberts chain on my own key ring, I'll see more there than I did at first.

Laughter derives from surprise.  Why did my children laugh at "peek-a-boo" or any of the other silly games I played with them?  It was because everything was new to them.  They could be surprised by countless experiences that have become ordinary and even dull to me in adulthood.  Why do I roll my eyes when I hear a joke for the umpteenth time, when I was breathless with laughter the first time I heard it?  I am no longer surprised.  With age and experience it's sadly common to become jaded, having little time for the light-hearted affect so common to youth and naivete.  Intense suffering and loss can also (quite understandably) dull our ability to laugh.  For many, life does not contain much to laugh about.

So, what's at stake here theologically?  Simply put, it's the ongoing capacity of our hearts to be surprised by God.  God's redemptive work in both our personal lives and in all of creation regularly confronts us with the unexpected.  No matter how many times God brings life out of death or hope from despair, the next iteration of that redemptive work still surprises me in some way.  Frankly, though, faith, hope, and love easily slip from being life-giving connections with the living God into little more than words . . . abstractions.  Problems, risks, and failures become larger than God.  The capacity to laugh is either suffocated or trivialized.

Of course, laughter itself is not the point since with it we can anesthetize ourselves to the inappropriate, trivialize the tragic, avoid looking deeply, or harm others.  Sarah laughed in unbelief (Gen. 18:12).  However, aside from extreme circumstances that legitimately and tragically rob us of laughter, our capacity and willingness to laugh can reflect our capacity for surprise - including God's surprises!

So, consider the following theological diagnostics that laughter provides: (1) Does my belief in God's faithfulness and unchanging truth translate into a compulsive insistence that God "behave" predictably in our lives?  (2) Do I REALLY [functionally] believe that God's grace is more defining and active than all the forces of evil at work in the world?  (3) When was the last time that I experienced the lightness of heart that comes with a glimmer of hope that God gave?  (4) Has the Holy Spirit ever caught me off guard or corrected me in such a way that I felt more loved and lighthearted as a result?

These diagnostic criteria only illustrate.  I invite you to suggest others.  Hopefully, the point is clear.  We need not TRY to laugh or be silly (some personalities just don't work that way, which is fine).  Abraham's laughter of astonishment at God's promises (Gen. 17:17) says nothing about his personality.  It speaks volumes, though, about how Abraham's spirit was somehow still open to surprise . . . and open to God.

Sayers contends that genuinely artistic expressions create, not from nothing, as only God can do, yet still they bring into being something (whether through images, sounds, or words) that did not previously exist.  For example, a painting may not depict any actual scenerio though it is recognizable.  A poem may not portray a specific experience that a reader has had, but still allows the reader to see his or her own experience through the poet's words.  Something is brought into being that is connected to life and yet is also new.  Sayers suggests that this is a more genuinely Christian approach to art because it stems from our bearing the image of God.  We create because God creates.  Sayers also makes the case that on this theological basis "art" done for the sake of moral formation is not really art, though it may be driven by noble intentions.  I encourage you to read the whole essay.  This nutshell summary does not come close to grasping the nuance of her case.  It really is brilliant, in my view.

I find Sayers' perspective clarifying and challenging for several areas of life and ministry in addition to my understanding of art.  Take mentoring, for example.  Too often and too easily, mentoring is undertaken in the same way that Sayers says some ancient Greeks treated art, as technique.  Technique-oriented mentoring, as with some attempts at art, focuses on precise duplication; the "this is how to do it" and "this is what it should look like" approach.  While technique is essential for mastery of almost any endeavor, the richness of our humanity in God's image is reflected when precision of technique is eclipsed by what is created.  It's doing what has been taught to us and modeled for us, but in a way (however subtle) that captures or reflects something more - something of what it means to be human.

As a mentor, have you ever thought or said about someone you mentored, "She credits my influence but I never could have done that or done it that way"?  That is Sayers' theological aesthetics of art in action, whether it's with preaching a sermon, designing and managing a project, resolving a complicated dispute, or building a birdhouse.  The work of art takes from what exists, like what a mentor knows or gives, and goes further with it than the mentor could go.  Some would call this standing on the shoulders of mentors to reach higher than the mentors reached.  True, but there is more.  When we grow with and from mentors, we don't merely reach higher, know more, or do more (though we might).  We create.  We reflect our creative, triune God by bringing into life the fruit of our own abilities, our own experience of God's presence and redemption.  From this fruit, others are nourished and the creating can continue.

So, even if mentors think they "don't have a creative bone in their body," they can be involved in creative, aesthetic work that they never realized.  What difference does it make?  As a mentor, give to mentees what you have and what you know, then turn them loose to see what they can do!  Believe in them that simply because they, too, are made in God's image, they have perspectives, experiences, and abilities in a unique combination that will create distinct paths for God's glory and grace into the world.  As a mentee, realize that being creative is not merely for those with more "right-brained" inclinations.  Being creative is for ALL because it is a fruit of being made in God's image, whether we are counseling or finding a better way to build a bridge.  Draw out from mentors what their creative process and challenges have been.  They know more than they know they know (on that note, read Michael Polanyi's Personal Knowledge to further develop your epistemology of mentoring).

Actually, I must admit that I am not much of a blogger, contrary to what my opening claim (borrowed and butchered from Rene Descartes) suggests.  So, rejecting the self-imposed and suffocating pressure of having to regularly drum up profound things to say, I plan to chart a new course with this blog!  Especially since this is a Denver Seminary sponsored project, I will do my best to write only when I have (or at least think I have) something to say.  You, of course, can be the judge of whether I have succeeded.  Caveat lector - "Let the reader beware."

Here follows my periodic reflections on a number of subjects in which I have keen personal and professional interest: theology, theological education, and mentoring.  All three of those hang together for me in important ways, even though they can also be discrete discussions.  Given the parameters of my task and the dignity of my employer, I will avoid (if at all possible) my other favorite topics like hunting and 4x4 trucks.  Forgive me in advance if a metaphor or allusion periodically sneeks in from those other parts of my life.  And please interact with me if you have time and interest.  I would appreciate the opportunity to learn from you.

A bit of context might be in order.  Though I don't assume any general or particular public interest in the idiosyncracies of my life, it is important to know that I teach theology, oversee Denver Seminary's mentoring process, and get involved in many other types of administrative projects here.  Sometimes this fragmented vocational scene makes me crazy, but it also scratches (on good days) the multiple itches and interests that drive me.  Additionally, I immensely enjoy my colleagues here at Denver Seminary.  They are a wonderful and fun group of people.  As a Denver Seminary alumnus (M.Div. '88), serving God at and through my alma mater is a privilege for which I'm quite grateful.  I hope that the musings to follow will somehow contribute to your own movement into places of blessing that enlarge your heart toward God and others.