My Audience
"A
farmer went out to sow his seed. …some
fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some
fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly,
because the soil was shallow. But
when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they
had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up
and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good
soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. He
who has ears, let him hear." Matthew 13
As a college
teacher, I face an audience just like preachers do. In
some ways teaching has an advantage (I can make assignments and I give grades)
but in other ways I have a disadvantage over preaching (students seldom attend
voluntarily and they have little life experience to test what they hear.) I started teaching at IWU
as an adjunct professor 1974, and have taught almost every semester since, 13 of
those years full time. My students in that first Youth Ministry class are now
in their 50’s! I’ve
had a lot of students during those 33 years and it occurred to me today that
they are pretty well represented in Jesus’ parable of the soils.
1. Some never got it.
Some students put
in their time and left unchanged. These pathway hearers can’t even recall the
name of the course two years later, let alone ten years later, or even if they
had me in class, or even if they got anything at all from college. They came to
college because they liked the youth camp atmosphere of campus life. They came,
they saw, they dated, they played video games and left unchanged. These
students are the “missed ducks” of my hunt. They graduated unaffected by their
four years and never even took a first job in the church and they don’t care that they didn’t. They were impervious to chapels
and classes and their calling evaporated (if they ever had one). I have not had many students like because
they seldom make it through the four years. But I’ve
had some. I try not to think of them often or I will get depressed.
2. Some responded with “passion” then fizzled.
While pathway
students are depressing, my shallow-soil students were an absolute delight
(when I had them in class)! They loved
the courses, they love the truth, they engaged in discussion, they loved chapels, they were leaders on campus and got involved in
local churches and in campus mentoring. They exuded passion for ministry
(“passion” is a big thing with students) When teaching them I came to believe
these students were going to make a big difference in the world and the church.
However, within a few years of graduation they faced the
hot sun or dry times of real life and their passion evaporated and nothing was left.
They left their church jobs, left the church, and some even left their faith. I
grieve about these students and wonder how I could have turned the soil deeper
so their lives could be based less on “passion” and
more on deeper rooting in the soil. I often blame myself for my shallow-soil
students.
3. Some got too busy to keep what they got.
I teach many
part-time students. By this, I don’t mean students who work full time jobs while taking
classes, but I mean students who are taking courses as a sideline. These are well-intentioned students who simply are trying to grow
too much on their soil. They are
promising and they love preparing for the ministry, but they also love many
other things. Eventually
the “other things” choked out their commitment and calling. These
graduates wanted to grow a crop of service to the church but they also were
just as passionate about growing too many other crops in their life. If controlled they could have had “balanced
lives.” When uncontrolled, the other crops choked out their calling and they
plunged into a life of fun-seeking and entertainment-chasing
that is completely focused on themselves and their children. Church got sidelined and their calling got relabeled a childhood
fantasy. They were promising but their too-busy college life led to a too-busy
regular life where ministry and calling got sidelined
among all the other pleasures of life.
These students don’t depress me. They are
the ones who get depressed. Eventually they write to me saying they “missed it” or “somehow got sidelined” and they rue
their inability to find a way back to their original calling. I don’t always know
how to answer these emails.
4. Some become steady soldiers.
Most of the
students I teach produce a 30-fold or 60-fold crop. For instance, I’m thinking of a guy who came to school with two kids and a
full time job. He “just passed” my courses then. Yet he is surviving just fine
in his church decades later. He is a “plodder.” He does enough administration
to keep the church afloat, and preaches adequate sermons that help people grow
and about once a year a new person comes to faith
because of his ministry. He won’t win
any denominational awards or get inducted into the
“world-changers hall of fame,” but he sticks to his calling and ministry. These
are the “faithful” servants. The longer I teach the more I appreciate this kind
of student. The passionate flash-in-the-pan campus leaders who fizzle in a few
years impress us in the moment, but these steady plodders will produce huge
results throughout their entire lives, year after year, person after person. Just
think of the results of even one new Christian throughout a ministry of 50
years! They are not an Apostle Paul or Peter, but are more like Bartholomew or
Philip. God does His unfamous
work through them every day. Their ordinary emails tell me about their ordinary
ministry in ordinary towns with ordinary people. They often apologize for
bothering me by writing but I love to hear from them They
are the unknown soldiers of God’s army and I love them dearly!
5. A few become great
multipliers.
A few students I
teach multiply a hundred fold. They took their four years in college, turned
them on end and stood on them to reach far higher. They send me attachments I can
use in classes that are better than our textbooks. They take my old lectures and revise and improve them and return them for me
to use in classes. They use their head to figure out new solutions for new
problems the church faces and they write up strategies that make me say, “Why
hasn’t anyone thought of this before?” They go to big and small churches and
bring their passion and abilities to bear on making the church a godly
people. Others copy their ideas and
admire their creativity—I do too. They are as rare as all-star basketball
players but they remind me that (at least once in a while) students will stand
on my shoulders and do things than make us professors seem like pygmies. I
mostly hope to produce steady soldiers for God’s army—but when one of these
all-stars come along it makes me proud.
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Keith Drury