Imperishable Inheritance

The watch is a sym­bol of our insa­tia­bil­ity to know what time it is and where we are sup­posed to be. Some use it only as dec­o­ra­tion, and some fore go them all together. There are some who buy cheap watches, and there are those who just as eas­ily will pay thou­sands for one. There is a watch for every style and desire. With such evi­dence of a social sym­bol, what is it like to lose it? There was a sum­mer that I lost my watch.

I left to go to Pasadena, Cal­i­for­nia this sum­mer only know­ing that I was ready for a change. After the tire­less pur­suit of reli­gions and worldly philoso­phies I was ready. How I was to be changed was out of my con­cep­tion, but I was con­tent with not know­ing. Arriv­ing the first night, and look­ing into the hum­ble liv­ing con­di­tions I was to have was a reminder of what was not impor­tant on this trip.

After many days of ori­en­ta­tion, we started our jour­ney through Per­spec­tives on the World Chris­t­ian Move­ment. The first speaker (Jeff Lewis, who was the best I heard all sum­mer) walked through the first les­son on the Bib­li­cal basis for mis­sions, and I for the first time I saw the Bible. Under­stand­ing doc­tri­nally the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of the Abra­hamic covenant in terms of the redeemed in a sote­ri­o­log­i­cal sense was some­thing very dif­fer­ent from see­ing the Abra­hamic covenant as some­thing that would spread to all nations. How odd was it to see Scrip­ture in such a new light!

We pro­ceeded to go through all fif­teen lessons intro­duc­ing us to many mis­si­o­log­i­cal con­cepts. The mate­r­ial ques­tioned the way I per­ceived, not only the gospel, but shep­herd­ing a flock of believ­ers out­side of a west­ern sphere of influ­ence. It blew sys­tem­atic ecclessi­ol­ogy (doc­trine of the church) right out of the water. It was some­thing to spend less time defin­ing the gospel and more time refin­ing how we help the recip­i­ents of the gospel grow.

Dur­ing this time we did many things such as Jew­ish focus which we did a Mes­sianic Seder which was an incred­i­ble cul­tural expe­ri­ence. We also learned of and vis­ited the Mor­mons. How sad it was to see such deceived indi­vid­u­als. We con­tin­ued to grow as a com­mu­nity dur­ing this early time. It takes a while, and which iron­i­cally cul­mi­nated at the end, to become open toward a com­mu­nity. As I grew, the growth did not come the most from doc­tri­nal stud­ies but through the other believ­ers on the project. It was see­ing their hearts and minds set upon fol­low­ing their Mes­siah to the ends of the earth that inspired the most growth.

We heard many speak­ers dur­ing this time about issues such as dis­ci­ple­ship, church plant­ing, spir­i­tual war­fare, plu­ral­ism, dis­cern­ing God’s will (the best I’ve heard on the sub­ject), and var­i­ous wor­ship nights with dif­fer­ent speak­ers. We did many com­mu­nity nights with my small group vis­it­ing such places as down­town Pasadena and Hol­ly­wood. I also got the oppor­tu­nity to visit with Christy, Simon, and my Dad. I also man­aged to spend 20 hours writ­ing an open­ing state­ment on the com­pat­i­bil­ity of divine deter­min­ism and moral account­abil­ity for a for­mal­ized debate I’m hav­ing with Simon.

We had the oppor­tu­nity to grow through small groups and indi­vid­ual dis­ci­ple­ship. My small group was of much encour­age­ment. I grew expo­nen­tially with four other men with gen­uine and open account­abil­ity, induc­tive study through the Ser­mon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7), and time social­iz­ing. We went on a small group week­end to Tijuana, we climbed to the top of a moun­tain, and we got to spend much time just learn­ing of our indi­vid­ual ambi­tions and strug­gles. I have never felt closer to a small group than dur­ing this trip.

After Per­spec­tives, we spend time with focuses on var­i­ous reli­gions and vis­it­ing their respec­tive tem­ples. We stud­ied Islam, Hare Krish­nas, Bud­dhists, and Hin­dus. Hear­ing a speaker who spe­cial­ized in the var­i­ous reli­gions fol­lowed by actu­ally vis­it­ing those who prac­tice the actual fol­low­ers of the reli­gion made the mate­r­ial come alive. It was see­ing those who were far away that breaks you for them.

I got the oppor­tu­nity to tackle var­i­ous doc­tri­nal issues per­son­ally and then have con­ver­sa­tions with those on the project. I tack­led issues such as Dispensationalism/Covenant The­ol­ogy, Ces­sa­tion­ism, Escha­tol­ogy (the 4 views), apolo­get­ics, var­i­ous sote­ri­o­log­i­cal con­cepts, polit­i­cal, and church issues (this is all in addi­tion to the mis­si­o­log­i­cal con­cepts). Strug­gling through those issues while remain­ing open to those of dis­sent­ing opin­ions aided in the dia­logue and search for truth.

I leave with a feel­ing of con­tent­ment, but I’m home not feel­ing as though I have returned home. For 50 days I felt full of pur­pose at every moment, at every prayer, through every thought. Being home is a chal­lenge to remain in the same mode of seek­ing pur­pose in all I do when work, school, and rela­tion­ships pull down on you.

So, why the watch anal­ogy? I, much like many Chris­tians, wore the faith as a cos­metic addi­tion. I was eagerly seek­ing Christ dur­ing my last year of belief, but my heart wasn’t quite there (in terms of God’s redemp­tive pur­pose). I also did very lit­er­ally lose my watch about 5 days before I left. I spent those 5 days think­ing way to much about what that could mean. Did it mean I should spend less time wor­ry­ing and more time doing (Matthew 6:33–34)? I saw it as a sign to renew my focus, and that I had started the process of shed­ding cul­tural identity.

But, on the way to the air­port to leave, I lit­er­ally did find my watch again in the cup holder of the van. I put it back on remem­ber­ing why the watch was impor­tant. It isn’t for me to worry need­lessly about what I will do, but it is for me to worry about not pro­cras­ti­nat­ing fol­low­ing and glo­ri­fy­ing Christ in all that I do. So, I put the watch back on, got on the plane, and I decided that I’ll never for­get what it was like dur­ing the sum­mer that I did lose my watch.

“But seek first His king­dom and His right­eous­ness, and all these things will be added to you. “So do not worry about tomor­row; for tomor­row will care for itself. Each day has enough trou­ble of its own.
Matthew 6:33–34