As some of you know, it has been my habit for the last several years to take these opportunities in chapel to say something about the virtues of character that I believe are an important part of what we try to teach at Greenville College.  Of course our mission to educate for character and service is accomplished mostly in classrooms, residence halls, and in ongoing relationships with faculty and staff.  But I also want to try to do what I can to articulate what it means to be people of character.  At various times I have talked with you about patience, discipline, courage, faith, hope, and the pursuit of truth.  Today I would like to say a few things about another character virtue.  But the problem is I’m not sure which virtue it really is!  I think I want to talk about love.  But then again, it seems I’ll end up talking mostly about knowledge. 

Of course in the Bible we are accustomed to hearing that to love someone in the most intimate sense is to “know” them.  In the Greenville Free Methodist Church this has recently become a topic of reflection and preaching.  The question is what our priority should be.  It is, as Pastor Newton said recently, a kind of “chicken and egg question.”   Must one first know God—or anyone for that matter—before you can love him, or does the Scriptural mandate to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength” suggest that if you love first, the knowledge will come. I think the answer is that Love IS first. 

Whether in hobbies or careers, in marriage or faith, if there is real love, the knowledge of what is loved will come.  But there are obviously plenty of places where we know a lot about someone or something without loving at all—except perhaps in some detached obsessive way.  So love comes first if we’re asking which leads to the other.  Still, I’m afraid there are times when the desire to love is there but needs a means or a channel.  I think that’s true for you as students as well as for me and other faculty and staff.  Love sometimes gets stuck; it needs help.  So for lack of better inspiration then, I’d like to borrow from the musical “The King and I” and entitle my remarks today, “Getting to Know You!”

PRAYER

Today, January 23, is my son Jim’s 30th birthday!  Thirty years ago Saturday night, his mom Ellen and I entered a tiny hospital in Grove City Pennsylvania, where she began hours of painful labor.  This kid had contrived to get himself turned around so his back…not his head, or for that matter even his feet…was facing down.  Now you don’t have to be a mechanical engineer to know that’s not a good way to squeeze yourself down a tiny flexible canal to enter the world.  For 36 hours, this not so tiny baby squirmed and twisted, giving his mom no end of lower back misery.  Having gone through Lamaze training, Dad’s job was pretty much just to encourage and push on mom’s back when the contractions came.  But by midnight of the second night…30 years ago last night…even Ellen, who I’ve come to know as the Queen of Pain, asked for pain killers. 

In such a tiny town, that night the entire wing of the hospital was empty and dark save the small light in our little room, and the nurses’ station was in another ward several hundred feet away.  So while mom slept between contractions, this 26 year old exhausted dad just wedged my arm between the side of the bed and her back and pushed.  To this day even Ellen sometimes says that labor might have been harder on me than on her!  Eventually it happened of course.  Vincent James IV shrieked his head into the light and now 30 years later, we have almost forgotten that night.  But Jim’s wife, who turned 30 a year ahead of him will probably NOT let him forget it today as they celebrate…or mourn as she is likely to rub it in.

But Jim’s turning 30 reminds me how old I am; and particularly it reminds me how little I can claim to really understand or know young people.  In my days at college we had a saying, “Don’t trust anyone over 30!”  Others would say that now, even my SON is “over the hill.”  Well if my son is “over the hill,” then maybe I’m on another planet!  Of course I don’t feel that way.  I’ve told some of you, that sometimes I feel like I’m still not grown up myself, and wonder when someone is going to discover I’m really a “fraud,” just pretending to be grown up. But to be realistic I probably don’t really know you that well.

All of this to say, that I really try to work at “Getting to Know You.”  Over the past year or so many of us on campus have read a book about the “Millennial Generation;” that’s most of you!  We’re told you are individualists, traditionalists, flexible, consumer oriented, and have usually led lives heavily structured by what the literature calls your “Helicopter Parents.” 

But the past three days have given me even more to consider.  First, on Friday, the Chronicle of Higher Education (the primary newspaper about higher education in America) published an article about a brand new survey.  Called the National Survey of American College Students (NSACS), it was conducted recently among 1800 students at 80 two and four-year colleges and universities in America.  In the Chronicle piece entitled “Literacy of America’s College Students,” the author reports on how graduates of colleges in America do in tests of their skills in three areas of literacy: Quantitative, Prose, and Document literacy.  These refer to the ability to do things like calculate a tip in a restaurant, balance a checkbook, read a food label, compare loan offers, fill out a job application etc.  Surprisingly, on a scale that ranged from “proficient” to “intermediate” to “basic” to “below basic,” fewer than 50% of college graduates were proficient in all three forms of literacy, and 20% were at basic or below in quantitative literacy.  Ouch!  It sounds like high schools, colleges, and/or students just aren’t getting the job done.

But then later on Friday I began to read a book I have promised to read by next month. It is a book I understand Dr. McPeak uses in one of his courses on Youth Ministry. It’s entitled “Soul Searching” by Christian Smith, a Christian sociologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  The book is mostly a report on another recent survey of young people.  This one, called the National Survey of Youth and Religion, was conducted over the past several years, among 3400 teens across the entire country.  As the name suggests, it focused on assessing the religious attitudes of young people.  The results were cut, chopped, and sorted as good sociologists always do, into multiple subgroups.  Self-reported Jews, Mormons, Catholics, Black Protestants, Mainline Protestants, Conservative Protestants, and those claiming to be Non-religious were tracked separately. 

The results were interesting and sometimes surprising.  For example, among conservative protestant teens, the group probably most like most of you, only 62% definitely believed there is life after death!  Only 65% of the same group report they have experienced a definite answer to prayer or specific guidance from God.  Thirty percent have never experienced worship that was very moving and powerful and only 54% have been baptized.  Sadly, I think, 35% of the conservative Protestants who do attend church say they cannot turn to even one adult (not including their parent) for support, advice, and help.  But perhaps most surprising to me in regard to religious faith, only 46% of these conservative protestant teens believe only one religion is true, nearly half believe many religions may be true, 36% say it’s ok to pick and choose beliefs from a religion without accepting them all, and 64% say one does not have to be in a religious community to be truly religious and spiritual. 

In summarizing their findings, these sociologists noted several that sound much like those of the Millennial Generation.  First, in regard to religion they said, for American teens, relationships with adults, especially their parents, play a powerful and the most significant role in their faith—though most teens would not say so consciously.  Second, surprisingly, and perhaps because of the importance of relationships with older adults, teens are quite conventional in their beliefs.  This is despite the apparent looseness of their convictions as illustrated by the surprising answers I have just mentioned even for conservative Protestants.  According to Smith they clearly are tolerant of those who we might call “seekers”—those who separate religion and spirituality—but they themselves are not like this.  Finally, in what may be a related result, Smith notes that American teens are remarkably confused and inarticulate about exactly what it is they do believe.  Often they unable even to give the simplest accounts of their faith.

As if these two surveys about you were not enough, the day before yesterday, Saturday, I spent two hours in a seminar offered at the local Baptist Church by Josh McDowell a well known Christian apologist.  McDowell shared yet another set of statistics about Christian youth.  He told us, that the differences between Christian and non-Christian young people have progressively eroded to the point where the two groups are virtually indistinguishable in areas ranging from behavior to beliefs as basic as whether there is truth.  He reported that among those young people who call themselves ‘Christian,’ only 51% believe Christ rose from the dead, that only 63% believe He was the Son of God, that 65% believe there is no way to tell what’s true, and 58% think all faiths are equal. 

Now of course, as usually happens these days with such findings, many of us immediately begin to challenge them, asking legitimate questions about samples, question wordings, and so on.  But McDowell went on to say, and accurately I think, that there has been a profound shift in the way young people understand knowledge.  There has been a steady turn to the subjective.  By this is meant, that we are now—all of us, not just young people—more likely to see truth as something we create rather than something we discover.  And we are more likely to conclude that if something “works” it must be “true,” rather than insisting that if we get the truth right it will work, and if it doesn’t work that’s evidence we have the truth wrong! 

This subjective turn results in a loss (re-definition) of moral knowledge.  Right and wrong become more a matter of what one believes.  It becomes just a matter of “taste preferences” like strawberry versus chocolate or peppermint.  In its extreme it becomes existentialism where “everyone does what is right in their own eyes.”  One result McDowell stressed, echoing the national survey of youth, is that even Christians who DO still claim to know God’s truth succumb to this subjective turn by failing pitifully in our ability to articulate why we claim Christ is the Truth.  Instead we fall back on post-modern excuses like, “It’s true because I believe it!” or “…because I have faith!” or “…because it changed my life!” 

So how have these three days helped me in “getting to know you?” In two ways.  First, I have been reminded of how important it is to help you better understand and articulate exactly what it is that you believe. Both Smith and McDowell agree that young American Christians are confused and limited in their ability to articulate what they believe.  And the survey of college student literacy may further support this.   

Some of the greatest moments of growth in my faith have come when I’ve been challenged to articulate what I claim to believe.  I remember my freshman year in college.  One roommate was a non-practicing Jew, and the other was a hard-drinking, aggressive, but smart and articulate Texan atheist.  Despite a solid Christian education (as a missionary kid I heard more sermons that you can imagine!) I found myself consistently frustrated.  After our studies were done at 1 or 2 in the morning this Texan would mix himself a gin & tonic, perch himself casually on his desk and in a slow smiling laconic drawl would proceed to play with me verbally like a cat with a mouse.  I soon realized that one generally does not “win” arguments about faith. 

But my frustration also forced me to recognize that my understanding of faith was full of jargon.  It was jargon that everyone had always taken for granted in my church and family circles but they were words which others did not understand and which I could not helpfully unpack.  Painfully, I had to begin to “translate” my faith into terms that communicated “cross-culturally” to peers that did not share my world and life view.  No doubt you will too.  It was one of the healthiest times of spiritual growth in my life.  It forced me for example, to come to terms with whether I really believed in Jesus Christ or Jesus as Christ…a tiny apparently insignificant difference that opened up worlds of new perspective like the first time I heard stereo sound, saw color TV, or imagined the physical world might not exist outside my mind.   

I’ll also never forget the night I spent flipping through my multi-version New Testament trying to find passages where Jesus made personal claims to divinity himself.  I had been challenged by someone who claimed that while others called him God or Son of God, he himself only called himself Son of Man.  And of course I will never forget the occasions when I have led friends and even strangers to Christ.  I wanted so badly to get it all just right; wanting to be sure I captured the Good News in a way that made it really SEEM like GOOD News, rather than just a sterile formula for joining some institution.  Learning to articulate both the basics and the nuances of faith was and continues to be crucial to my spiritual growth.  In fact, as I learned as a young professor, often it wasn’t until I had to explain something to my students that I really came to understand it myself.  

So I have come to suspect that I really didn’t know what I claim to know until I am able to express it to another person.  This doesn’t mean of course that you have to be a theologian; to be able to “beat” the next guy in an argument.  Rather it just means as Scripture reminds us that we are to be ready at any moment to give an answer for the hope that is within us. Can you do that?  Can you articulate your faith to those who do not agree with you? 

If so, does that expression use jargon others reject or do not understand?  Does it sound like this?  “I have accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior through faith in his atoning work to forgive me for my sin and give me new life?”  Friends, what a wonderful confession that is; but we’ve got to do better.  What do these words mean to you?  What difference do they make to your life?  When someone asks, “If it’s faith you have, then why faith in Christ instead of Allah?”  Or if they ask why you believe at all, and you just say, “Because it’s changed my life” how do you respond when Buddhists or Muslim point to their changed lives too?  If we say that Truth is based on the Bible, how do we respond when others reply that other religions have their “bibles” too, and besides, isn’t the Bible full of contradictions?

But the second thing I have been reminded of again this weekend about you as young American Christians is that relationships are powerfully important in shaping you, and not just or even primarily relationships with peers. 
This suggests first, as even long-time “apologist” Josh McDowell stated rather controversially this weekend, that it is wrong to say “truth transforms lives.”  Instead, it is relationships that transform lives.  Second, this claim about how much young people value relationships suggests, that rather than dismissing relationships with older adults, young people value them and want to learn from them.  Whether with parents, or mature adults in the religious community, these connections have a profound impact on your faith.  It is easy for us oldsters to assume otherwise.  Christian Smith uses his surveys to suggest that “any generational gap that exists between teens and adults today is superficial compared with and far outweighed by generational continuities.” That is a hopeful claim…both for young people and for older adults in our business. 

We must be careful not to assume that relationships of this transforming sort will occur when and where we think they will.  We must be open to surprises.  Just as I will never forget being forced to articulate my faith to my Texan roommate, I will also never forget the Sunday my pastor, Dennis Wayman in Santa Barbara, asked me if I’d be willing to meet with a “coke-head” surfer and surfboard designer who had inquired about faith.  I had assumed the relationships that would change my life and where I might change others’ lives would be with the doctors and lawyers in our church.  After all, I had a Ph.D. in philosophy and the Lord would never be a poor steward of His resources in us right?  WRONG!  He doesn’t especially need our resources; rather, he needs our willing obedience. 

When I first met with John Perry, he was usually so strung out he could talk for 10 minutes without finishing a sentence.  If I couldn’t piece together what he was talking about after 5 minutes or so I’d have to have him back up and start all over.  But despite separation from his wife, and virtually nothing in common with me, he arrived faithfully at my home at 8pm sharp, week after week for months that became years.  Today, 25 years later, John and his wife are together, and he calls me regularly, sometimes several times a month, as he has done wherever I have lived in the world. He calls to tell me the wonderful things the Lord is doing in his life.  He is co-director of the Santa Barbara Free Methodist church youth group, leads a men’s’ Bible Study on Tuesdays, launched a ministry on Sunday afternoon among Christian surfers in Santa Barbara, and despite having only a high school diploma, recently invited a professor friend of mine at Westmont College in Mathematics and Computer Science to become his accountability buddy meeting weekly for mutual support in Christ.  When he lost his 16 yr old son in a tragic accident two years ago, his relationship with Jesus deepened even more.  And our relationship grew as he reached out to encourage me in the midst of that painful experience and grows every day in knowledge and understanding.  He is my brother in Christ.

When I stand, the Lord willing, at the gates of heaven to give account of my life, I truly believe my relationship with John will be among the most valuable things I have to show; and I am confident John will stand beside me as my brother and witness.  Relationships transform lives.

So as I have “gotten to know you” better this week, I have found myself rejoicing!  Why?   If you as young people need to learn to articulate your faith; and if as young people you value relationships with adults so much, then you and I are in the right place!  The good news is that Greenville College is a place dedicated to both!

We are, after all, an educational branch of the Body of Christ!  Yes Dr. Iller cares about you learning chemistry, and Dr. Dunkley hopes you’ll fall in love with biology.  Dr. Ulmer may hope you’ll one day win an Oscar, and Dr. Blue wants you to be the best teachers in the State of Illinois…and beyond.  Dr. Kwon would love to see you performing in Carnegie Hall some day, or in your church.  But what they all also care about deeply, or they wouldn’t be at Greenville, is to help you learn to articulate your faith and grow in that faith by warm personal relationships with them! 

Yes of course, Drs. Hartley, McPeak, Culumber, and Smerrick may make the articulation of your faith a primary focus of what they do in class, but I believe the rest of our faculty are also interested in helping you know your faith by expressing your faith better.  And the Student Life staff wants very much to help you learn to put your faith into words through Bible Study and Jabok River and E Café. Students I invite you this semester to practice articulating your faith.  Speak it out loud to your friends. Write down what you believe and invite a “prof” to coffee to talk about it.  Take a risk to teach a Sunday School class in your church, or lead a Bible Study on campus.  Or at least attend one!  And let us help.  If we are to overcome the apparent confusion of understanding about faith reported by teens in America, we must begin by talking about it.  And Greenville is a place to do it.

But Greenville is also a place about relationships. Many institutions may pledge to help you learn to articulate what you know, and in the case of faith, to grow in faith by learning to express it.  But few colleges are as explicitly committed as this one to using relationships to transform lives.  Help us make that a reality.  When older adults on campus seem afraid to engage you, invite them into relationship.  Invite them to coffee; take them up on their offers to visit their homes.  Meet with them regularly in their offices to talk about faith and life.  Cook them dinner at your place as the Luzader guys did for me last fall.  Invite them to Pokie for an “ooey gooey” as Justin and Jared and the gang did for me last year.  Come and talk with me when there are chats scheduled.  I love these occasions. 

And consider the Mentoring Program.  Ask Lori Gaffner to assign you to one of the many mature Christian mentors from our local churches who are waiting to connect with you as often as you wish.  To our faculty and staff I say, all it takes is for you to get over your fear that our students do not need you or do not want you in their lives.  Take a chance.  To you students I invite you to look deeply inside your hearts and ask what you value, then get over the rampant “whateverism” that keeps you from taking advantage of the resources you already have in this place.  Make this semester different! 

So what has this talk been about?  I guess it’s about my getting to KNOW you better.  It’s been about remembering that you need to KNOW better how to articulate your faith and that we want to help you KNOW us better because relationships are valuable and influential in your lives.  But in closing let me explain why I think it’s really also all about LOVE.

In I Thessalonians 2:8, Paul articulates what I believe Greenville College hopes to do; and in so doing captures both of these things I’ve been reminded of about you.  If that familiar verse in Romans 12:1 about being “transformed by renewing of our minds” expresses the mission of this place, then I Thessalonians may well capture our method.   Speaking to the people at Thessalonica he says, “We loved you dearly. Not content to just pass on the Message, we wanted to give you our hearts. And we did.”
Do you see here the two parts I’ve been describing?  Paul wanted first to pass along the Message to those friends in the church.  We too want to pass along to you the Good News, to help you understand it, to articulate it, in short to help you KNOW it!  But Paul also wanted to enter into relationship with them.  Like you they needed it for growth.  So, like Paul, we also want to enter into relationship with you, to give you our very hearts. 

Yet both of these are tools of love.  According to St. Paul himself, to give both the Message and our hearts together, is evidence of love.  “We loved you dearly.  Not content to just pass on the Message, we wanted to give you our hearts.”  So in the end, getting to know your need to know how to articulate your faith and getting to know you value and want relationships with us, places demands on all of us called to Greenville College.  We want to fulfill them by loving you enough to give you not only the knowledge of His Message, but also the transforming effect of relationships from our hearts. 

May God Himself bless us at Greenville College as we know and love one another.

Jim Mannoia
Greenville, Illinois