Tomorrow, my wife and I head back to our ol’ stomping grounds. It was where we met each other. During the impoverished and nomadic years of grad school, we occasionally visited Wheaton College and felt unsettled, like college was so recent that we didn’t feel fully graduated. Now, however, since I have a job and toddlers who have walked the halls of my alma mater, and I’m being formally invited to Homecoming (it’s my 5-year reunion), I feel like an official alumnus. For the first time.
Dwelling on and anticipating the reunion, I know I can’t sum up the themes of my education. No doubt a lot has happened since I set foot on Wheaton’s campus as a timid and insecure music nerd, anxious to make new friends. I’d had enough relatives who had graduated from Wheaton to tell me that it isn’t perfect. I dined on a feast of musical education and my creativity blossomed. There were a few regrets and unpleasant experiences, though, where I feel Wheaton and I share the blame.
This post isn’t against Wheaton, however. These are important life lessons for the Christ-follower that the Wheaton experience taught (and can also be learned in many other ways), but I didn’t learn until later. This post, therefore, is a grateful thank-you to Wheaton and an encouragement to all wishing to educate and qualify themselves (in all senses of the word).
1) Scripture first. Period. The Truths and applications of the Bible take first priority in how we live in every aspect of our lives. Not just in how we choose candidates to vote for and what we do on Sunday mornings, but also how we answer telemarketers, obey traffic laws and treat people that don’t agree with us. In college, I was falling in love with the depths of essence of the Bible, but I wasn’t quite brave enough to live and speak opposed to the cultural status quo or even the unbiblical ways of parts of the Church on Scripture’s behalf.
2) The Church should never be complacent. It should always be growing in maturity and numbers, and should never be resistant to constructive criticism. Otherwise, it’s ignoring its biblical mandates. I’ve seen students grow up in mission trips overseas only to misunderstand both cultural exegesis and spiritual need in our very own country. Our own backyard needs the work of the hands and feet of Christ, and it will take more than the suburban and seeming lethargic approach we’ve been having. I didn’t hear these facts as much as a music major, but when I did, at chapels and from more mature friends, I stubbornly denied them.
3) You are not what you do. My journey to learn this nugget actually started at Wheaton, as I had a mildly-depressing quandary during my seeming failures in a very competitive program. I thought I was redeeming myself by trying to get better grades in grad school. I still hadn’t learned. Defining your existence and purpose on something earthly is precarious, at best. That foundation will crumble. Why not define your existence in the love and purpose of God? Many Christians today, though, have given into the temptation of defining themselves by their successes, even their work and sanctification in God’s name.
4) College is education, not a way of life. I know this applies, certainly, to many twentysomethings out there who treat life like a frathouse, but that’s not what I primarily encountered at Wheaton. There were students (myself included) who interpreted Jesus’s gift of “life to the full” as a call to make the most (practically and academically, not socially and recreationally) out of their college experience, and, for many, this turned into unhealthful and stressful over-production. Much of the strive was to counter the inevitable. There was likely never going to be another time, in my life, where I had so much resource, time and opportunity to qualify myself in so many ways. For example, I may never be able to write music like I did when I was studying at a Conservatory. But that’s okay. I’m using so many things I learned in college in my daily work and life.
5) Your college is like a family member. You aren’t perfect, and neither are any of your relatives. Despite faults, there’s gotta be the smallest degree where you’re grateful for them. How you treat them speaks a lot about you and how you emanate the grace of Jesus Christ. Myself, there were times I wanted to walk away from Wheaton and never look back, but now, as an alumnus, continually striving, by God’s grace, to be more mature and less complacent, I’m looking forward to the reunion.
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