This End Down

In the past month I’ve found myself telling the same story over and over–the story of my last nine months of self-discovery. After describing it three times in as many days, I realized that I might do well to write it down.

It’s a two-part story, the first (long) part beginning in high school and the second beginning at Urbana 09. The first part isn’t quite as important, so feel free to skip it if you’re in a rush.

Part 1: It all began with Mrs. Marsh

I’ve always excelled in math and science. By the time high school rolled around my older brother (I’m the second of four) was already enrolled at the University of Michigan studying some form of Engineering and breezing through his classes. I aspired to study engineering because I was good at it and it paid a lot–and because I didn’t really think to consider anything else.

My dad sat me down one day and said, “Matt, I think you should decide what you’re going to do with your life based on what you want, not what Ricke’s doing.” This was a shocker, and threw my life plans around for a while. I loved art and computers, and my creative writing teacher, Mrs. Marsh, strongly encouraged me to pursue English, so when I considered colleges–UofM, MSU, Hope, Calvin, Northwestern, Duke, SCAD, and eventually UF–I was applying for journalism or graphic design.

A series of events, decisions, financial situations and scholarships led me to the graphic design program at UF, and two years of frustration led me to leave it to study English Education. While in the English program at UF I realized I loved English at a university level more than I loved the idea of teaching middle schoolers, and several professors urged me to continue on to further education.

At this time, I was reading Irresistible Revolution and considering joining InterVarsity staff. I shunned the suggestions to study further with disdain for the “Ivory Tower” and the desire to be “on the ground.” I even fought the call to InterVarsity staff, saying, “I don’t want to just minister to spoiled Americans who’ve heard the Gospel their whole lives–I want to work with people who really desire and appreciate what the LORD offers.” Berry, my hiring supervisor, said only this: “Where would you be without an InterVarsity staffworker who was ministering to a spoiled American who’d heard the Gospel his entire life?” Understandably, I joined staff soon afterwards.

I’ve spent my staff career sending out funding requests and prayer letters adorned with a quote from Charles Malik, the former President of the U.N. General Assembly: “Change the university, and you change the world.” I believed that college students and the things of the university would change the world, and I even spoke often about sending students to redeem the university rather than trying to rescue them from it. Yet I had been captured by a sort of Christian anti-intellectualism (one so prevalent in the American South), and even scoffed at theological and intellectual conversations held by my peers. This attitude continued for years.

Part 2: It continued on a very, very cold street corner

At Urbana 09, I was assigned to stand on a very cold street corner with my friend Dave Paladino, InterVarsity staff at the University of Michigan, and to pass the time we shared about much of our lives. I was for the first time considering taking some distance education seminary courses, and mentioned that I hoped to have time to look around the conference to learn about different seminaries. Dave spoke of a seminary I’d never heard of called Regent College, where they train laypeople for ministry. Everything about it, from its connection to a major secular university to its integral ties to the arts and the businessplace, sounded amazing. I wanted in.

Tereva and I visited the booth and I was even more in love: J.I. Packer, Gordon Fee, Eugene Peterson, and Bruce Waltke as former/occasional professors; the beauty of Vancouver’s skyline and ocean view; the cultural and creative climate of the college; everything I saw made me love it more. It didn’t hurt to hear Regent receive glowing recommendations from Roger Anderson (National Field Director for InterVarsity’s Campus Ministries), Mike Hickerson (Associate Director for InterVarsity’s Emerging Scholars’ Network), and other friends and colleagues.

At the same time a friend told me the story of an InterVarsity staff who developed such a close relationship with his university that they actually invited him to teach religion courses there. My desires to use my mind, change the university from the inside, and engage with non-Christians about matters of faith in a way integral to my own intellect were all sparked by hearing this.

The combination of hearing this story and falling in love with Regent jolted me awake to the realization that I deeply desired to reconnect my brain and my heart. Tereva encouraged me to consider us moving to Vancouver, and I’ve spent the last nine months having every conversation I can about my future and calling and gifts and interests.

I’ve spoken with many people, but here are a few:

• Gainesville’s Christian Study Center‘s Richard Horner
  Dr. Horner runs the Christian Study Center, a place for Christians and the University to collide in beautiful ways. Richard provides a place for intellectual discovery for Christian students and faculty, for the networking of Christian scholars, and for the development of a conversation between the University of Florida and the Christian community within and without the University.
• ESN’s Mike Hickerson
  ESN’s Stan Wallace
  The Emerging Scholars Network is a ministry of InterVarsity called to identify, encourage, and equip the next generation of Christian scholars who seek to be a redeeming influence within higher education. They are collecting, connecting, encouraging and training people who want to be a redeeming influence in the academic community.
• C. John Sommerville
  C. John is a former professor at UF who wrote, among other books, The Decline of the Secular University. He has much to say about the roles of Christian intellectuals and Christians in the University, and it’s all powerful and fitting.

I’ve spent much time dreaming about my future–about possible careers, paths of education, and about where we’ll live–and much time thinking about whom I want to emulate–C.S. Lewis, John Stott, N.T. Wright, Tim Keller, and in many ways the gentlemen on my list above. I don’t know where everything will end up, but I know a few things for certain:

• I would love to stay tied to (and, if possible, working with) InterVarsity as long as I can. I’m extremely motivated to find a way to work with IV in whatever I do with my life.
• I feel a very strong tie and call to Regent. Something significant will have to happen in my life to convince me not to seek to attend there.
• I’ll most likely pursue a Masters of Christian Studies there. I’ll most likely fight to take as many classes from John Stackhouse as I can cram in.
• I have no idea when this will be. It could be as early as next fall; it could be as far out as five or ten years from now.
• Despite my desire to attend Regent, Vancouver’s ethnic makeup (and in part the less temperate climate) makes it not a viable long-term living situation for Tereva and me, so we will most likely only take a short trip through there (around two years) for the purpose of education.

The end results of all of this remain too far out in the future to be seen. I could imagine what they could look like, but things change so much and so quickly that such imagination is hardly beneficial. I will just say one thing: a lot of my dreams include a certain city in the midwest that lies between two lakes. Just saying.

Postscript: The blog Wondering Fair is created, I think, by Regent alumni, and they all, I think, have ties to the aforementioned John Stackhouse. Almost every post they’ve ever written has been strongly influential in encouraging and developing these thoughts, and the things they’re writing and doing are a lot of the things I hope to do one day. I strongly encourage you to consider joining this community.