Following Christ at Greenville College

In recent months I have been prompted to reflect on the way Christian faith permeates the campus and community of Greenville College. One might suppose that this goes without saying as our college was founded over 110 years ago by devout members of the Free Methodist church committed to Christ and in the words of our first president, W.T. Hogue, “Education for Character.” But the history of higher education in America is replete with stories of institutions founded on strong Christian principles that gradually lost that distinctive over decades and even centuries. So it bears reaffirming our passion at Greenville College for Jesus Christ, His unique saving and sanctifying role in our lives and those of our students, and our desire to participate in the work of His Kingdom.

As an educational institution, we are called to a particular part of that work. We are not a denomination or a local church. So while we enjoy public worship, and occasionally reach out in social service and evangelism to the needy world around us, those are not among our main purposes. In an important sense our worship is expressed most distinctively in the attitudes we bring to the life of the mind and our life together. When our behavior and attitudes fall short of excellence in the one or of love and even civility in the other, we dishonor Him.

Scripture affirms our calling to community in many places, including especially the High Priestly Prayer where among His last words on earth, Jesus repeats Himself over and over, reminding us that He wants us to love one another so that the world will know He was indeed sent by the Father. The Great Commandment exhorts us to “love our neighbor as yourself.” But Scripture also affirms a special calling to the life of the mind. The Great Commandment begins by saying we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind. In the Great Commission our Lord makes clear that he calls us to a multi-faceted work of “making disciples.” Discipling requires proclamation of the “Good News,” what we today think of as evangelism. And it includes service within the Body of Christ and to the world. But if we are to take Christ’s own work among his disciples as our model, teaching and learning must thoroughly pervade any effort to fulfill the Commission.

These elements in the life of the mind are often overlooked in our action-oriented society. In a familiar passage in John 6, Jesus’ disciples ask him what they must do to do the work of the Kingdom. In a response somewhat surprising in our culture He suggests that the work of God is not primarily about doing. It is about “believing in the One He has sent” and belief is significantly a matter of mind. Finally, in Romans 12, Paul may express best what I believe is Greenville College’s small yet crucial role in discipleship. We are exhorted to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds.” So as followers of Jesus we must stand against the view expressed recently in the New York Times that pits faith against the intellectual life. Christians rejoice in the life of the mind as our “reasonable worship.”

Transformation is never easy, and at times it can be painful. God’s people have recognized this since even before their liberating journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. The sanctifying process always strengthens us, but as with the tempering of steel it requires stress and heat and sometimes even softening before the final results are achieved. Of course the transformation of spirit and that of mind are not necessarily the same. There are certainly many who have matured in grace through hardships that have had little to do with formal education. Hardness of heart, not illiteracy, is the chief obstacle to faith. But it is our belief that Christ values the worship of our minds just as he values the worship of our lips and hands and feet. We also believe that worship must be of the most excellent sort we can offer. So for those He has gifted in mind, and has called to worship Him in this special way, the transformation of mind will often require tempering stresses, and even softening of brittle convictions before His Spirit can complete His work. At Greenville College we pray we may be that crucible in which his people are transformed by the renewing of our minds.

But how does such a crucible function? What is the environment suited for such transformational forces to do their work? First and foremost, it must be a place full of the Holy Spirit. While no human community can be perfect, we pray frequently and fervently that Greenville College will be a place pervaded by His presence. Second, it must be comprised of individuals who minister in His name as vessels of His Spirit. This means they are called, shaped, and equipped to serve His purposes, regularly allowing themselves to be tempered, stressed, and softened by that Spirit rather than assuming their role is fixed once and for all. Third, it is a place that can be dangerous. The stretching, heating, and shaping forces at work are powerful, and the student raw material is vulnerable. So fourth, it must be a place of safety, protecting and containing those whose lives which are being tempered by hammering and molding into His glorious art or His glorious instruments; vessels purged of impurity, and thereby made capable of flexibility in the pressures of the world. In short, although sometimes mistaken for an assembly line factory, it is a wonderfully exciting and stimulating sometimes unpredictable place to serve our Lord Jesus Christ.

So what does this crucible produce? We pray our products are to His glory whether in the divine beauty of His character design they reveal, or in the effective service they produce as His instruments in the world. We want our graduates to be men and women with personal faith in our Lord Jesus. Because of our special calling to the life of the mind, we want that faith to be a rare and precious combination of passionate commitment and self-critical humility. It is a high calling to serve our Lord in this way.

Our Free Methodist heritage wholeheartedly embraces the life of heart and mind. While some traditions abandon the heart for the mind, and others abandon mind for heart, the example of John Wesley and the history of our denomination stand out as models for both. We cannot fail to allow our hearts to be moved and to act in service to the needs of the world. Historically we have been leaders in racial and gender issues. But we also cannot fail to worship God through the excellence of our thought lives. For Wesleyans, Scripture stands as the authoritative guide for all matters of faith and practice, interpreted as we recognize it always must be, through the work of the Holy Spirit in our experiences, our community traditions, and the life of our minds. The Gospel is to preach healing, liberty, and sight not only of body, and heart, but of mind as well. That Good News came into the world in the person of our Lord Jesus. It is extended to the world through the members of His Body now, including those engaged in the life of the mind at Greenville College.

When we fall short, we pray for His mercy. When we are criticized we pray to see what good we may learn. When we are afraid, we ask for His courage. When we disagree we pray for the humility to do so in ways that honor our Lord Jesus and the profound calling He has placed on our lives. I am convinced that the faculty of Greenville College are as committed as ever to this calling, and to the person of Jesus as Lord and Savior in their lives. May God break us, purge us, temper us, and make us His art, and His instruments.