I am always amazed how threads of experience keep reappearing in my life. Perhaps when in the midst of an endeavor I simply look back for connections with the past. Perhaps I want, no, need to see that life is more than a collection of disconnected experiences of happenstance. Perhaps as a student of and believer in Narrative Identity Theory I am constantly seeing plot and character connections across my life story, constantly remembering, re-telling, and even editing my memories to make meaning of the present. Perhaps any of those could be true, but I also believe that life is not mere happenstance, that somehow there is a mystical connection between all humans, that somehow God is working in small and big ways through the choices we make, experiences we have, and things we recall to bring about an ultimately good ending.
As a collegiate minister who works with incredibly intelligent and gifted students who are "working out their salvation with fear and trembling" while negotiating the expectations of professors, parents, and peers, I get a chance to see and hear amazing faith stories. Wan alumni come back to visit or when I run into them by chance at a wedding, a sporting event, a mall, or while rushing through an airport I get to hear "the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey would conclude. Today I'm bound for New York City to continue to build upon several seemingly disconnected story lines and relationships that have converged in this metropolis.
A few months ago I received a call from John Ramirez, an associational missionary with the Metropolitan New York Baptist Association (affectionately known as MNYBA). I first remember meeting John in the early 1990s soon after I had moved from being the campus minister for the Middle Georgia area to work as the Collegiate Missions Coordinator for the Georgia Baptist Convention. My boss and I traveled to New York and New England to plan some mission trips and John was one of the folks we met. At the time he was working in New England. Over the years I would send missionaries to work in the New England area and would communicate with John to set up those projects. When I moved back to the campus in 2000 i lost touch with John since i no longer sent missionaries there to work. we would occasionally see each other at national gatherings of campus ministers, but those are rare. Then two years ago I accompanied a team of students to New York for a spring break mission trip. Under John's direction, we worked through the association to help with a variety of mission sites and new church starts in all 5 boroughs. Several student on our team began to develop a love for the city and the ministries occurring there. It was fun to watch them begin to wrestle with a calling to move to NYC to work. Kyle Herring was one of the students on that trip. I wrote about him and his move to NYC in an earlier post. But Kyle is not the only alumni from UGA currently working in ministry in New York. When we returned from that mission trip we quickly found Season Helms, a student destined for a summer mission experience in the city over that next summer. Season not only worked over the summer, but extended her employ and stayed a whole year. She and Kyle live in the MNYBA complex.
John Ramirez's call from New York was prompted after he met two additional Georgians who were also in our campus ministry. Aaron Hursey, a current UGA student graduating this semester, contacted John about working with Kyle at Connection Church in Queens as a summer intern. He knew Kyle & Season from college and was excited about the possibility of working with them in ministry. Aaron will be moving to NYC for the summer at the end of May. Just as the details for Aaron's adventure were coming together, John and Kyle attended a meeting of folks who were working with new church starts in the city. Both were surprised to meet Trey Eitel, another grad from UGA who had moved to NYC with his wife Kaitlyn and their new baby to help with a new church in Brooklyn. Trey and Kaitlyn met at the UGA BCM while practicing for our annual dinner theater. They developed a love for NYC while on a college mission trip for senior students led by Franklin Scott. Over the past few years we have also had several other connections with churches and ministries in the city. A few years back our intern, Vaughn Calquitt planned a mission trip for us to NYC to work with her brother-in-law at Gallery, a new church in the Flat Iron district of Manhattan. We were surprised to discover that some of our alumni who lived in NYC were members there! Several students have gone back to Gallery to serve as interns since that trip.
After meeting so many UGA BCM alumni working in his city, John and the other staff marveled that God must be up to something. He called me to inquire about the possibility of formalizing some sort of partnership that could serve as a pipeline for our students to learn about the city and make connections to help with the vital church planting strategy the association has developed over the past few years. Kyle and Season knew about and encouraged the idea before John ever called me.
I am excited about this trip for lots of reasons. First, I feel like I am a part of something much bigger than myself, something that God has initiated and with which we have the privilege of being a part. Second, I get to see two of my favorite students (OK, they are all my faves) actively involved in ministry as young adults. This evening I will attend worship at Connection where Season will be leading the music while Kyle has a night off to celebrate his birthday. Third, I get to see the continuation of story lines with each of these alumni, stories that began long ago, continued while in college, were honed through leadership experiences in BCM, and which will continue to be written long into the future. I have asked each of them to take me to some of their favorite places while I'm there. Fourth, I get to be apart of setting the stage for current and future collegians from UGA to meet NYC and to possibly find a future of ministry there. Fifth, I get to be involved in God's kingdom work of salvation, healing, and redemption even if I am not the one living in NYC and doing hands on ministry there. I love helping students make connections by practicing what Wayne Oates, a former seminary professor of mine called "the ministry of introduction." Sixth, I have gotten that incredible feeling of expectation that "God is up to something" in my own life and ministry, something that I know will only come into focus for me in the future. In the past when I have had this feeling a new chapter of life has begun for me soon after - adopting our first two children, embarking on a PhD program, moving to Athens, Karlie being born, just to name a few. Seventh, I get to help with the Send Me Now collegiate summer missions program, a program I coordinated for 10 summers. Some of what I will discuss with the MNYBA staff and local church leaders is how student missionaries from Georgia can be involved with summer missions through the partnerships we form. As a summer missions venture, any students who serve in the city during May through August will do so funded and sent by Send Me Now. Eighth, I will restart the tradition of senior spring break mission trips to NYC as we make plans for next year. Ninth, (perhaps the most obvious reason) I'm going to NYC, one of the coolest places I've ever visited!
No comments:
Post a Comment