2 Peter 1:3-9 3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
10 Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Physical laws regarding entropy have social, and dare I say spiritual applications. If we are not actively growing, there is a very good chance we are diminishing, and any system left to itself for enough time will diminish. Summer is a great time to recharge, to develop skills that will serve in the trenches, build fellowship and love that is different than the World's when tested during rough times, to get past the routine and into the hows and whys of the routine, past ministry to God Himself ..... or it's a great time for entropy to take hold and for foundations of faith and love to wear, to forget that we were cleansed of our former sins. Summer is a weird time to sow, but in our context, it is a great time because we (as a team committed to the dorms and the ISU campus) want to be reaping during the school year.
What can we sow? We can connect closer to God with the disciplines of reading of the Word and prayer, and train ourselves in routines that allow us to continue doing so into the Fall. We can practice reaching out to people, try finding and infiltrating groups of people with God's Truth, and developing that into techniques in the dorms. We can even train ourselves in practical skills that will enable us to either meet and build into people during the school year, or even allow us to serve the church more. And possibly most importantly, we can take a deeper Sabbath rest from our engagement in the world and seriously revel in the fact that we are saved from all of this, in but not of it.
Some of you are going to be in exotic locales actively engaged in ministry (Decorah, West Lafayette, exotic enough for me). Some of this is going to be easy enough, and I would just say to make sure you are looking for ways to take the things you are learning and doing and tools for your Dorm Ministry Toolbox.
Personally, some of my goals are a little worldly, but apply to being able to get into groups of people. I want to jump into the Chinese language (using CDs so I can do it during my commute), and I want to improve my jump shot in basketball. Both of those eventually involve interacting with people, and can open up opportunities. Admittedly, both may be a touch selfish. I also would like to spend some extra time on some work projects to give me slack on my workload during the Fall.
I would also like to improve my routine of getting into the Bible after getting home from work. I used to do it during lunch, but my new job kind of made that difficult, so the routine kind of slipped some, and this is a good time to recharge. Finally, I do want to interact with those still in Ames on a deeper level this Summer and bank that time in fellowship for the Fall.
Admittedly, I'm probably not going to get to all of it. That's the fun thing about goals: they're a target, and sometimes you hit and sometimes you miss. But I'm ready for God to bless the next 3 months.
How about you? What are you going to work towards this Summer?
What? No comments? A few of the things on my list (besides the obvious of helping with the Decorah church plant): learn calculus, begin memorization of John, get more intentional about studying the Bible, and review all the Chinese I'm liable to forget otherwise. :)
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