I had the best night. My good friend, Natalie, came and spent some time with me here at school. We went on a walk around the pond, we sat and watched the sun set, we looked at lichens and duck beds and red-winged blackbirds. Then we went to the worship part of a friday evening church service, and then we sat at Starbucks and talked. It was the best time!! We didn't talk about anything specific, but the conversation got me thinking about a lot of things, and it got me asking a lot of questions, but one in particular stands out.
Has higher education taken the place of discipleship in our society?
Think about it...
How did Jesus do discipleship? He had lots of disciples, but there were a core few. Jesus lived with those 12 men for about 3 years before he sent them out to do all that they would do to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth. How many Christians in America today live with people they are discipling, or being discipled by? How may Christians see the people they are discipling more than once a week? How about once a month? How many Christians are discipling nobody?
Now, think about this...
How many years did Jesus and his disciples go to college? What were their degrees in? What was their GPA?
Does it matter?
I think it does matter, and here's why. If you look at the majority of sending missions organizations, you'll see that they have stringent requirements on who can and can't be a missionary. Most places require at least a B.A. or a B.S. and increasingly more places require or at least request graduate work to be sent by them... How many of the disciples would be denied by a modern missions organization. Would Jesus himself even meet the requirements?
This is all very fresh, and not thoroughly thought through, so any feedback is welcome, but it seems to me that a higher education degree has become the qualifyer of a disciple of Christ. Shouldn't it be availability over ability, and shouldn't passion outweigh a piece of paper??
It seems to me that being in the trenches with Jesus and being in desperation for him would be far more qualifying. What ever happened to the value of character, integrity willingness and passion for Christ, and how do we get those back?
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3 comments:
I miss having chats like this with jessica seaweed!
I feel like there are some great points here. Is there a flooding of people that are trying to get into the mission field? Could that be why they are so strict on letting people in? I do agree with you though. Just look at Tozer and brother Yun who had little to no aplicable GPA to speak of but have been very influential in our world. They have probably had a much stronger impact on the Christian world than 99.9% of those 4.0 with doctorates. Preach on sister.
Keep up the good work.
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