Executing Ideas

Dear Nick,

I saw your op-ed that came out last night.

First, I will say something that’s difficult for me to acknowledge:

I am an evangelical.

I try to not use vocabulary that is so squishy, used very differently by different people. I also never really say I’m “saved” to my friends who don’t follow Jesus, and I never use the term “born again.”

I self-describe as a “Christian” because it’s broad and invites further conversation:

“What church do you go to?”

“What denomination are you?”

“What kind of a Christian are you?”

“You mean like Falwell?”

And however the conversation goes, I’m sure to explain my words by telling a bit about what I believe and how I live as a result. I want to make sure I’m not lumped in with the reactionary, myopic, anti-intellectual and immoral “evangelicals” that you mention. (And yes, I know they exist. In fact, having acknowledged my own failures, weaknesses, and need for Jesus, I likely am one of “those” evangelicals on certain days.)

When meeting people, I explain that my wife and I went to live in a mountainous village in Nicaragua—without water or power or transportation—to figure out what Jesus meant when he said, “Blessed are the poor.” We lived there for a year and tried to help. We taught English in China for two years. We got additional degrees in international economic development. We directed a pilot microfinance project in South Africa and taught local church leaders about leadership, intercultural communication, and development.

I am compelled to tell people all this, as it opens a space of respect from the most skeptical people I talk with: “If you’ve done that, you’re probably not ‘reactionary, myopic, anti-intellectual, and immoral.’” I’m one of your “tens of millions of (evangelicals) who have actually become increasingly engaged in issues of global poverty and justice.” You write of John Stott, to whom I’m connected through my work with InterVarsity and Urbana.

We evangelicals give money to some projects that resonate with you. We sacrifice to make good things happen. We “go to the front lines, at home or abroad, in the battles against hunger, malaria, prison rape, obstetric fistula, human trafficking or genocide…some of the bravest people you meet are evangelical Christians (or conservative Catholics, similar in many ways) who truly live their faith.” It’s immensely encouraging to hear from such a public figure that I deeply respect that this has not gone unnoticed. Thank you.

But I’m writing because of the end of your piece:

“Because religious people and secular people alike do fantastic work on humanitarian issues — but they often don’t work together because of mutual suspicions. If we could bridge this ‘God gulf,’ we would make far more progress on the world’s ills.”

Yes, we would. I’m hearing and having conversations daily with people who note the shift in the past fifteen years in the evangelical churches—justice is on the agenda that God has set for himself and therefore for us. More and more of us are seeing our faith to include working on justice issues like you mention. And a lot of us are thrilled to work together with secular people on the issues mentioned above (and others). And like you, we are “sickened” when we are mocked or sidelined because of our faith.

However, we are bound and compelled by our ancient text. We know that some parts are anachronistic, and (truth be told) we might prefer to excise some bits. But our integrity demands that we be obedient to the God of the Bible.

And here’s the rub—Jesus is our king, not all our orthodox doctrines are politically correct, and yes, we want you to believe in and follow Jesus, too. The living God who we have met and know calls us to do the good that you admire and also work toward. But this same Lord calls us to proclaim the truth we have in our ancient text. This is not because we’re mean or bigoted. Rather, that is the logical result of concluding the Bible actually is true and that, crazy though it seems, we believe Jesus was dead and raised to pay a punishment that we will pay if we do not accept his sacrificial love. We need to be able to talk openly about our worldview, even as we collaborate with you on justice efforts. But we promise to listen to yours, too.

If secular people doing good work can be tolerant with our attempts to be faithful to our King, I’m sure the collaboration we both love will increase. The “God gap” will not disappear, but if we can have open and caring dialog, we will be able to do more that both helps others (and honors our God).

Grace, peace, and joy to you,

Adam Jeske

I cannot tell you where she’s from.

As North America is waking up, I’m talking to a young woman at the World Assembly of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students in Krakow, Poland. We are in a group from several different countries.

Today, we read John 12:20-36 which includes “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

We talked around the table about our homelands—Croatia, Belgium, Zimbabwe, Serbia, Australia, the U.S., and two countries that cannot be mentioned because of security concerns. Together, we considered what it means for Christians today to “hate our lives,” to give them up to “take up our crosses” and follow a king who was killed on his.

The conversation went around about giving up our lives and “carrying our crosses.”

It’s standing up for Jesus and his ways. (Ukraine)

It’s giving up the superficial and materialistic. (Croatia)

It’s offering your full self to people, being real and vulnerable, accepting your lack of control. (Belgium)

It’s getting kicked out of your church for a desire to live out what you read in the Bible. (Zimbabwe)

It’s inviting young people to consider the cost of being a disciple of Jesus and still say yes. (Serbia)

It’s using your mind for excellence in your field to have a platform to serve others. (U.S.)

It’s not being very secret despite real dangers, but loving your neighbors in tangible, visible ways. (Nation A)

And then she spoke.

With wide, fierce, young eyes, she began in halting English.

Carrying the cross like Jesus is hard. When they arrested me and my husband. We separated by them. The man teased, ‘There are no problem with your faith. Maybe you had a dream or something, and you are confused. The problem is why you share that news with other peoples? You say, “OK, I don’t share Jesus any more.” Why don’t you say it? Then I let you go, free.’

At that time, God say to me, ‘If you don’t want to share this good news, if you don’t want to tell others about Jesus, you are not following me.’ I know what I do and don’t do, what I say and don’t say.

Yesterday, I visited the Auschwitz Nazi camp. It was horrible. Many die. I think of my friend—he’s in jail. Eight months.

God say to me, ‘When you have problem because friends are in cell, in a bad situation, I never leave you.’

When students in my country come to Christ, they know they will have problems. They will go to jail. They stand and follow Jesus. They know one day they will get a knock on their door. They will go to jail. But they still follow. They still tell other peoples.

God gives us power. There is a verse in the Bible about standing before the judges and do not worry what you say because the Spirit will tell you what to say. I know God cares for me in every hard situation. He will do work for me. People’s hearts are soft. But we have another problem. With that problem, God helps us.

Jail for women is terrible in my country. Nobody ever knows anything. It is a big fight in your mind. But we know God is with us every day, more in jail than outside.

When I was arrested, that man also say to me, ‘You know when I release you, no one will talk to you. They know the danger of you now, of talking to you now. You are now like death to them.’

No.

Life.

And prayers are streaming down my face.

No one doubts the prevalence and therefore the importance of social media generally and also particularly in college culture. A few of my notes, observations, and questions from the World Assembly of the IFES:

1. Data Dangers. Some people are deeply concerned about the security of our data, especially how it’s used by governments and corporations. While most nod a bit, we mostly scoff. In a generation, we may herald their prophetic attempts to get us to see what’s happening.

2. That’s a problem. Social media (@jamesdoc on Twitter called it “immersive media”) can be problematic for some people. It may be that someone has an addictive personality, as one person I chatted with mentioned. Or it may be that such a medium can release internal and social sin in a way that is unique in human history. Or maybe there’s nothing new under the sun.

3. Some students are well ahead of older leaders in their media savvy, management of different relationships and spheres (or acceptance of the impossibility of doing so), and theology of socially mediated relationships. One student pointed out how many more relationships one can begin and even maintain well with Facebook.

4. Social media permit us to put out soft and intriguing invitations to dialog, through quotes, observations, links, and the like. The “weak links” of social media are wide (and yes, often shallow), but they can lead to significant conversations both online and face-to-face.

5. With Skype, Apple FaceTime, and Google+ Hangouts, what does “face-to-face” mean anymore? There’s general agreement that there is great value in actually being in the same physical space, but why exactly? People have flown in from 130 countries for this conference. What is it about being together that makes it worth such a significant investment? Further, we have commented dozens of times how amazing it is to sit with biblical texts in the middle of ten people from ten countries here at the World Assembly, hearing different perspectives brought to bear on it (and being born by it). We can do this every week online if we so choose. That didn’t exist at the last World Assembly in 2007.

6. “We have lost control. And that is good.” @Andy_Shudall said this during his presentation, explaining that it is no longer possible to moderate—let alone manage—any large, long discussion online. The question was raised, with concern, of starting students in discussion online and then not being able to be there, with the result being wrong answers given, hurtful things said, and (in this case) the Bible being misquoted. I found myself explaining the two options in this scenario. First, you don’t facilitate it and make it happen. It either occurs elsewhere and you may not even know about it, or it doesn’t happen at all and you can’t ever deal with whatever would have surfaced. Second, you facilitate it and deal with all the wonkiness that arises. The latter is preferable for the student ministry that IFES does.

7. It’s not so different. Several times in the social media sessions, we found ourselves talking about new scenarios and saying, “But hold on—how is that different than this analog situation?” For example, the conversations and the lack of control is no different than those had after an event by students as they walk back to their dorms and apartments. Technology gives us an illusion and expectation of control, and it scares some people to release that.

8. We value being together more. Andy Moore, acting head of communications for IFES (@lovingmercy on Twitter), opened the plenary session on new media by having us turn to our neighbors and acknowledge how good it is to really be together. By having socially-mediated relationships, the contrast of our incarnate friendships makes us cherish the latter, perhaps.

9. Nothing is private anymore. And maybe that’s a good thing. Someone raised a question about online deception and false identity. I suggested that it’s actually harder to deceive others on Facebook than real life, given the interconnection evident through that medium. (Andy Moore recommended the movie Catfish.)

10. The potential needs our attention. While concerns and questions arose in abundance, I really wanted more careful thought and discussion of the potential of social media in the work of the IFES. Who are our best thinkers on relating well to people on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the rest? What are the bleeding edge students trying and is it working? How do we share insights between Brasil (Portuguese), Hong Kong (Cantonese), and the South Pacific (several languages)?

It’s here and we’re going to be surfing for a while, just barely staying up on an unstable but exciting platform.

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In Krakow, Poland!

Today, I sat down to lunch with new friends from Belgium, Zimbabwe, Serbia-Montenegro, Croatia, Australia, Ukraine, and two closed countries (one in the Mideast and the other in Asia). And I’ve also just met folks from Lesotho, Nigeria, Malawi, Tanzania, Puerto Rico, Greece, Armenia, Canada, South Korea, Israel, Mauritius, Poland, and Tonga.

That’s at least 16 countries in 24 hours (and only a couple of those have been spent in conversations with people).

Where is this possible?

I am at the World Assembly of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Christians (IFES). in Krakow, Poland. Daniel Bourdanne (pictured here), the head of this organization that serves 500,000 students around the globe, grew up in a village in Chad (and is a leading PhD on millipedes)! Last night, Darek Bigosz, chairman of the national board of the Polish IFES movement, said, “There’s no place like this on earth!”

Hyperbolic, perhaps, but I think he’s right.

We are 650 people from over 130 countries, about as diverse of a group, culturally, as you will find. But we are united by a common vision. We all want “to see students built into communities of disciples of Jesus, transformed by the gospel, and impacting the university, the church and society for the glory of Christ.”

At the World Assembly in 1999, Serbians prayed together with US citizens as their homeland was bombed by the US military. At another World Assembly, leaders of Christian groups from Palestine and Israel goofed off together in a photo booth. Name a divide, and it’s likely being crossed here.

Such reconciliation marks IFES. People are brought together across hard lines.

Jesus does that.

On August 11-12, I’ll be one of the official bloggers for the Willow Creek Association Global Leadership Summit in Chicago. Since they’re in 35 countries and IFES is in 155, I wonder which one should be called “global”!

On Sunday, Carl Medearis wrote a blog post for CNN titled “Why Evangelicals Should Stop Evangelizing.” A lot of people have been reading—it’s been shared 10,000 times on Facebook and has 3,400 comments.

I write this as I sit at the World Assembly of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Christians (IFES). I work for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, an unapologetically Christian organization. I rarely say it this way, but I am evangelical. I want people to hear and receive the good news of who Jesus was, what he did, and what his death and resurrection offer each of us. I help lead the Urbana Student Missions Conference, which calls young adults to give their whole lives for God’s global mission, whether based in the US or overseas, in whatever sphere of society. I have spent years as a “missionary” on three continents, though I often don’t use that word, either.

I know and have steeped in the tension Medearis explains. Some friends love it and think I’m like the apostle Paul (in fact, someone said that to me in an elevator today). Other friends are very skeptical about “all that Jesus stuff,” though they’re generally happy that I try to serve people in hard places.

Medearis points out that some people view missionaries as “pious heroes performing good deeds that are unattainable for the average Christian.” Maybe so. But the Church today has started to realize that living for Jesus and his priorities is not a part-time job for anyone. Jesus said you had to give up everything in order to follow him. It seems we thought he didn’t mean that part, but it’s changing.

As for those who think of missionaries as “right-wing extremist who destroys cultures, tears apart families and paves the way for neo-colonialist crusaders to invade, occupy and plunder the resources of local populations.” He’s right (at least in many historical cases). But missionaries have built a lot of schools and hospitals and wells (both in other historical cases as well as today, through organizations like World Vision and a slew of others). And besides, everybody thinks their worldview is right—that’s why it’s their worldview.

Evangelism itself has come on hard times. I don’t usually use the word myself, partly because of the associations that it brings for many people. Medearis says it carries an “us-versus-them mentality.” At its worst, yes. But the word comes from euangelion, Greek for “good news.” Ought Christians tell one others good news? Of course. And I think the same for orthodox Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and the rest. If you hold to any of these faiths, you believe there is something true and something false and what you believe (and thus how you act) matters significantly, now and after you die. How dare anyone not offer that to others if one truly believes?

I’d say the same thing to the crowd of atheists commenting on Medearis’ piece. If you’re my friend and you think I’m wasting my time and life on something terrible and missing out on what is truthful and good, then I sure hope you tell me! However, I think how we converse about serious and personal issues is incredibly important, and it’s key for the next couple decades.

I agree with Medearis that we are not trying to convert people just to some new system or “religion” but rather to an actual connection with a supreme being. But he seems to think that can happen without a fundamental identity shift.

Nope.

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die,” wrote Bonhoffer. The call to be a Christian is to give up all of one’s self and to attempt to live for Jesus and his priorities, by God’s grace and enablement. That’s a big deal for everyone, even if you’ve grown up in a family that does just that, though it’s certainly a bigger deal if that runs counter to all those closest to you!

“Jesus the uniter of humanity, not Jesus the divider,” Medearis writes. I do think that Jesus transcends cultures and works within them. But he did come to bring division, as I’m sure Medearis is aware. I wonder how he reads Matthew 10:34.

He goes on:

“Encouraging anyone and everyone to become an apprentice of Jesus, without manipulation, is a more open, dynamic and relational way of helping people who want to become more like Jesus — regardless of their religious identity. Just because I believe that evangelicals should stop evangelizing doesn’t mean that they should to stop speaking of Jesus… Instead of trying to figure out who’s “in” and who’s “out,” why don’t we simply invite people to follow Jesus — and let Jesus run his kingdom? Inviting people to love, trust, and follow Jesus is something the world can live with. And since evangelicals like to say that it’s not about religion, but rather a personal relationship with Jesus, perhaps we should practice what we preach.”

It doesn’t sound at all to me like Medearis thinks evangelicals should stop evangelizing, he just wants those words defined differently or carefully. Why the misleading title? His book steps in the same direction: Speaking of Jesus: the Art of Not-Evangelism. He still wants to tell people the good news about Jesus, and he would be thrilled at a friend becoming a Christian. My concern is that we’ve been duped by Medearis or by CNN or by publisher David C. Cook. Medearis does think some changes are needed in how we think about (and do) evangelism, but it doesn’t seem like he actually wants evangelism per se to stop. So why the title?

To get 10,000 shares on Facebook and 3,400 comments on the blog and who knows how many hits on his own site, that’s why. That makes me feel icky.

So, as I’m spending the next week and a half with evangelicals from 155 nations in at this World Assembly of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, I continue to chew on Medearis’ points and the ensuing maelstrom of discussion.

But I’m pretty sure I’m going to keep telling other people good news and living in such a fashion as to demonstrate it.

Anybody with me?

With years of living in Nicaragua, China, and South Africa and now traveling for work fairly often, I’ve had plenty of time to think:

-hours standing in security lines,

-hours sitting in airports,

-hours standing in customs lines,

-hours sitting on planes,

-hours standing in immigration lines,

-hours sitting in tiny lavatories…

But fear not, dear reader, I have been investing all those hours for you—yes, you! Here are my top tips for international air travel. Please use caution—your beverage may be hot.

1. (Men only) Buy yourself a purse. Security slows you down a lot, and it’s because your cargo pants are filled with passport, wallet, keys, pen, random paper, a yo-yo, and “Crap, where’s my boarding pass?” Just get a purse, empty your pockets and breeze right through.
2. Wear pants that fit. Or at least get a belt that’s all plastic that you don’t have to remove at security. No moments in my life have been more embarrassing that dropping my trousers in front of a hundred other travelers those three times.
3. Hang loose. By not tying your shoes, you will save several seconds on either end of security. Just hang loosen them enough that they’re big casual loops, otherwise, you might get eaten by the moving walkway.
4. Forget that Jetsons contraption. Unless it’s a doublewide moving walkway, there’s always someone who is just standing there blocking it. And you can walk faster than that anyway. And if you can’t walk faster than that, you really shouldn’t be riding it.
5. Label your laptop “LAPTOP.” And carry it by itself, not in a case. This will indicate your importance by having such an important device, and you may get “upgraded” to a “lounge.” I’ve never been in one of these mythical oases, but I think they’re like a spa but dimmer and less naked. Oh, and about your “laptop”—if you need to use the restroom, just set it by the sinks. I’m sure it will be fine.
6. Make it like home. Have loud, emotional phone conversations via Bluetooth while frantically pacing. This will make other travelers in the terminal feel like they’re at home.
7. Chee-ahs! Fly British, Lufthansa, or KLM. They have nice accents. And free alcohol. The colors on Thai Airways are pleasant and Buddhish. (That’s not a typo, I just coined a term. Someday, someone will write, “The first recorded usage of ’Buddhish’ was by Adam Jeske in this blog post in 2011.”
8. Love on your flight attendants. Make sure you slurp your beverage loudly to show the crew your pleasure. They may be far away, so try to make eye contact, too. And remember that the nearest crew member may be behind you. You can also encourage them by frequently voting for your favorite flight attendant by pressing the button that turns on a light in the rear.
9. Try something new. If you’re on the rare flight under 12 hours that still has meals, it’s a great chance to try the vegetarian option. (Always take the vegetarian option. Where is that meat from? Probably from baggage handlers that couldn’t keep up. Except if you’re on Southwest. They seem to have happy handlers. I bet you could eat meat on a Southwest flight. On their flights, try something else new, like a foreign film.)
10. Be a memory maker. If a bad kebab from that street vendor is coming up on you, just let it go. That way everyone has something to say when people at home ask, “How was your trip?”

What are some other ways you’ve found to have a great trip?

I am small.

But I serve the staff members of InterVarsity/USA who train and develop 35,000 US college students each year. These students learn who Jesus was, what he did, what it means for us, how to share that with others, and how to engage positively with every sector of society. And they send up doing great things in education, business, politics, media, families, the Church, and elsewhere.

But we are small potatoes compared to the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). The IFES is a group of movements similar to InterVarsity. Based in Oxford, IFES movements serve in all but 16 countries of the world (and that number is decreasing). Between all the sister movements (including InterVarsity in  the US), we serve half a million students, 500,000.

When you consider the global population of six billion (six thousand million, folks), half a million doesn’t sound all that grand. But the 500,000 young leaders that are serving together to offer good news to their fellow students graduate and head out, just like InterVarsity students in the US.

They lead families.

They lead businesses.

They lead universities.

They lead churches.

They lead neighborhoods.

They lead countries.

They lead.

And they lead in the style and model of Jesus, as servants, to increase human flourishing, justice, grace, truth, love, beauty, and joy.

I am en route to the World Assembly of this International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. While I’ve lived and served in Nicaragua, China, and South Africa, my exposure to the IFES is very limited. For the next 10 days, I’ll be hearing stories of these 500,000 students and those that have gone before them, from all around the Earth.

I am small. But I’m happy to be part of something big.

Stay tuned.

Campus Crusade for Christ is dead. Long live Cru!

Or so went the thinking this week, as the organization unveiled their new name that will take effect in 2012.

It’s been a bumpy ride—there have been over 1500 comments on their site (they’ve edited them down) and another 500 on Facebook, including a flurry of threats from donors to pull their funds. Plus, inflammatory media headlines have fanned the flames of fiery discourse. The VP who led the renaming process was interviewed today because of the controversy.

What can we learn from the process, all this hubbub?

1. Input, listening, and buy-in are extremely important. They generated 1600 options for names. They paid top-shelf consultants. They prayed. They surveyed their staff. Names carry personal identification, so messing with them is nothing to trifle with.
2. You can’t satisfy everyone. Despite a very careful process over the course of two years, there’s still a lot of resentment and outrage, despite careful explanations of why they’ve done what they’ve done and that their purposes have not changed.
3. Lots of people don’t understand how to communicate. I was very surprised to see outrage over the change. Cru did their homework and knew that their name was an impediment to the conversations about Jesus they wanted to have and the work they aim to do. The result of their name change will be more of the same work they’ve always done, as it allows more conversations to happen. The first rule of good communications is to know your audience. For Christians, the biblical concept from Paul being all things to all people applies.
4. You need to allow the discussion to happen. Cru has had hundreds of negative comments on their site. They know it’s better to have them there than somewhere else. They are showing themselves to be open, listening, and responsive to all perspectives, even the vitriolic.
5. Controversy can be good. Brian Barela posted today on how their work is not changing and the name change is opening significant interactions with all kinds of people, and more discussion about our dearest values is rarely a bad thing.
6. You need to keep perspective. Given the 25,000 staff that Cru has worldwide, and the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of donors, the number of very squeaky wheels amongst the couple of thousand comments is actually very small. They’re noisy but they are definitely not the majority. People who are upset scream a lot louder than those who are happy.
7. You do what you gotta do. It’s untenable to have “crusade” in an organizational name in this millennium. The organization’s ministry  has expanded (drifted?) from “campus.” So there needed to be a major change. A lot of the frustration and outrage stems from the name not having “Christ” in it. But I know that the people involved are not ashamed of Jesus or their faith, but sensed the best name to accomplish their work as being Cru.

So that’s what it’s called. What are you learning this week?