I was on Greenville College\u2019s<\/a> campus yesterday to preach their Convocation and kick off a great senior seminar they have here on \u201cabundance and need.\u201d Was reminded of why I\u2019m so glad I went to a Christian liberal arts school and why I continue to think they\u2019re important today: they create the possibility of a lively conversation between young people and older adults about what God wants us to be doing in the world. As I talk to students on campuses like this, the question of vocation is always at the forefront of their mind. And what I find myself saying, over and again, is that I think it\u2019s more important to figure out where you belong these days than to know just what you\u2019re supposed to be doing.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not that what you do doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n It\u2019s just that without a place in this culture, most of us don\u2019t have a people. And without a people we are left with ourselves. We become too easily what Benedict called \u201cslaves to our own will.\u201d<\/p>\n These conversations reminded me of an exchange I had recently with students from Westmont College<\/a> who\u2019d read my book The Wisdom of Stability<\/em><\/a>. Thought I\u2019d share it here.<\/p>\n My question is, \u201cWhat does stability look like for you currently?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, if you want to be held accountable, write a book about what you believe. Then someone will ask a question like this and you\u2019ll have to keep thinking about that thing that you said was so important four years ago.<\/p>\n I still live in the same house in the same neighborhood with more or less the same people (we always have new interns and guests, but the core of our community is the same as it was four years ago). I\u2019m a member of the same church, work the same job, have most of the same friends\u2014and, I suppose, some of the same enemies. A lot of my life feels pretty stable.<\/p>\n But one of the things I realized reading all that literature on stability is that getting your rhythms stable and your body in one place creates a space for you to explore the tumultuous seas of your soul. You have to do the hard work that comes up in every real relationship of knowing yourself and those who are close to you. All of that isn\u2019t easy. But there\u2019s an incredible beauty in seeing how grace sustains us, even when we feel how vulnerable we are. I think that\u2019s what stability looks like to me right now\u2014like leaning on the everlasting arms.<\/p>\n What are the most common objections that people make to what you write about staying in one place?\u00a0 Where do you get the most push back?<\/strong><\/p>\n Good evangelicals always say, \u201cBut wait a minute. Didn\u2019t Jesus say, \u201cGo into all the world\u2026? Aren\u2019t we supposed to leave everything to follow Jesus?\u201d And my answer is always, \u201cYes. Absolutely.\u201d The wisdom of stability doesn\u2019t deny God\u2019s call to mission. More and more, I\u2019m convinced that the church cannot recover the misio Dei<\/em> without it.<\/p>\n It\u2019s fascinating to me that the organizations that have connected with this book the most strongly are missions organizations. Their leaders tell me that it speaks to a deep need they\u2019ve felt for some time. Because there\u2019s a huge problem in American missions. The average stay on the field is something like two years. American Christians want to go, but when they get there they find it hard to stay. Having inherited the habits of a hyper-mobile culture, they can\u2019t connect to the places where they\u2019re going to share God\u2019s good news. Conversations with these mission agencies have helped me to see that we need the wisdom of stability whether we stay or go.<\/p>\n What would you say are the biggest factors in choosing where to \u201croot\u201d one\u2019s self?<\/strong><\/p>\n There are lots of things to think about, of course. Where are God\u2019s people needed? What gifts do you have to offer? Is this a place where you could raise your kids? Are you called to be single in community? But, ultimately, I don\u2019t think we get to \u201cchoose\u201d in the since that the market teaches us to choose as savvy consumers. Because faithfulness isn\u2019t about figuring out what the best deal is for you. It\u2019s about opening your life to God\u2019s call and saying, \u201cYes. Here I am. Use me.\u201d<\/p>\n I will say, though, that this is a choice in a very different sense. I don\u2019t want to over-spiritualize God\u2019s call\u2014as if we all have to sit around with our heads bowed and our eyes shut until we see a neon sign that says, \u201cStay here.\u201d No, God speaks through the circumstances of our lives\u2014especially, in my experience, through the interruptions. We learn to listen by paying attention to the interruptions, reading them in light of the story that Scripture tells, and doing something about it.<\/p>\n What is the role of the church and what does the church look like in your community? Is the church interchangeable with your community or is it something separate?<\/strong><\/p>\n The church is a holy mystery\u2014the living body of Christ in the world. I\u2019m not going to try to nail that down in a definition. But I believe in local congregations. I believe in gatherings of God\u2019s people that worship together on Sundays and host pot lucks on Wednesdays and marry and bury people from one generation to the next. My friend Phyllis Tickle calls this \u201cinherited church.\u201d I\u2019m a member and a minister at the St Johns Missionary Baptist Church, and that\u2019s an important part of my life.<\/p>\n But I\u2019m also a member of Rutba House, and I\u2019m deeply grateful for this small community of people who are trying to be the church together 24-7. No, it\u2019s not for everyone. I\u2019m not saying every Christian needs to live in this kind of intentional community. But I think communities like ours have their place within the mystery of Christ\u2019s body. Historically, these communities have been called \u201cmonastic.\u201d Which is why I sometimes talk about what we\u2019re up to as a \u201cnew monasticism.\u201d<\/p>\n How do you go about finding and exploring new things about the place you live in? Does it get old\/exhausting?<\/strong><\/p>\n I suspect there are some things you can\u2019t begin to notice about a place until you\u2019ve been there ten or twenty years, just as there are things I didn\u2019t know about my wife until we\u2019d been married for a decade. Of course, you can live in a place\u2014or live with another person\u2014and miss these things. But if you\u2019re trying to pay attention, particular people and places seem infinitely fascinating to me.<\/p>\n If I were a different kind of writer\u2014of I had the imagination of Flannery O-Connor\u2014I\u2019d write a novel about Walltown from the perspective of our mail man. His name is Jose, and he\u2019s a great mail man. But he\u2019s good because he pays attention. He notices when people move from one house to another in the neighborhood or when someone is on vacation. He brings mail that\u2019s addressed to me at the church down to my house on days when he knows I\u2019m at home. You can\u2019t beat that.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s also a great example to me of how interesting a place becomes when you pay attention. I\u2019d love to read the story of this place from his perspectice\u2014from the vantage point of someone who\u2019s watching who\u2019s coming and going a few blocks in one place. We\u2019re tempted to think that the really exciting stuff is always happening somewhere else. But what every good artist knows is that the universal is buried in the particular. The only way to get to it is to dive in where you are.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was on Greenville College\u2019s campus yesterday to preach their Convocation and kick off a great senior seminar they have here on \u201cabundance and need.\u201d Was reminded of why I\u2019m so glad I went to a Christian liberal arts school and why I continue to think they\u2019re important today: they create the possibility of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[79,226,175,227],"class_list":["post-421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-christianity","tag-place","tag-stability","tag-vocation"],"yoast_head":"\n