In 1966 on August 23, fifty years ago, a NASA spacecraft captured this first-ever photograph of Earth from the moon!
This “worldview” could not be observed at sea level or even from the peak of Mt. Everest five-and-a-half miles above the sea. It could only be viewed from outside our orbit and typical frame of reference.
More and more, I am both convinced and convicted of the critical need for Christians to have a solid understanding of a different kind of worldview. This view cannot be seen in a photograph or with the human eye but everyone has one of these views. And just like the atmosphere around us it is unseen and often goes unnoticed. I asked a group of 25 students if they were able to explain what a worldview was, and their response was mostly silence. No one was quite sure what a worldview was or how it may have an impact on their actions, convictions and life decisions.
As I think about their response, I can’t help but wonder if the same question were to be asked within some of our churches on any given Sunday… would the same echo of silence and uncertainty be present? As you’re reading this, you may even be thinking, what exactly is a worldview? If you’re curious… I hope you’ll take the time to keep reading. If you’re not curious… perhaps you will be as I use Tom Brady (Quarterback for the New England Patriots) and the current Presidential election to help explain this idea of a worldview… are you curious now?
Campus Ambassadors is a national ministry. So I have the privilege of working with other great campus missionaries from across the country. When I talk with someone locally about the Patriots there is a consensus that the four game suspension Brady served was unjust or at the very least more than what was warranted. However if I were to talk to some of our staff in Buffalo NY… there is a different consensus. In fact I’ve even heard the unthinkable word “cheater” invoked! How is that possible?
In the current Presidential election I’m more concerned than ever at the number of people willing to overlook an issue involving their candidate, while condemning an action of impropriety involving the opposing candidate. And perhaps, what I find the most alarming… is that by and large I don’t think there is an intentional double standard, the double standard is unnoticed from both sides! How is that possible?
A worldview is essentially a complex internal “point-of-view” system that either consciously or subconsciously is used to provide answers to life’s fundamental questions. And at the same time these fundamental questions are used to create and develop the worldview. If that sounds confusing, you’re right, it is confusing. It’s like the philosophical dilemma of which came first the chicken or the egg? For this discussion the initial cause is not important. What is important is to understand the cycle or loop in play. An egg produces a chicken and a chicken produces an egg. Or in our case the answers to the fundamental questions of life create the worldview, and the worldview is used to answer the same fundamental questions of life. Questions like: Is there a God? Why are we here? What is our purpose? What is right, wrong, good and bad?
To help us understand what a worldview is let’s use Tom Brady’s suspension as model for what I’ll call a micro-worldview. In this case the fundamental questions that could be asked might look like this: Who is the best quarterback of all time? Why is he the best quarterback? And, what does this quarterback do when not on the field? Answering these questions from my own point-of-view as a Patriots fan looks like this: Brady has led the Patriots to four Super Bowl championships, and six Super Bowls (more than any other quarterback). He has led his team to more division titles (13) than any other quarterback. And he has appeared in more playoff games than any other player in any position. When not on the field during press conferences Brady does not talk smack or make excuses for lost games. And in our local area there is mostly positive coverage from the media often highlighting his involvement with numerous charities and causes. And so these answers create and develop my “Tom Brady worldview.” In addition this worldview causes me to reject the idea that he is a cheater or lying about the infamous deflate-gate scandal. In the same way… my Tom Brady worldview continues to cause me to answer the fundamental questions with Tom Brady as the answer. Meanwhile my friend in Buffalo has a different worldview based on different answers to the fundamental questions asked and answered.
So, think about it… what would it take for a New England Patriots fan to transfer loyalty and adopt a different favorite team? And let’s not even mention a Red Sox fan becoming a Yankee fan! At another level what would it take for a committed voter to vote differently in the upcoming elections? If you can see these complexities perhaps you can you see how much more difficult and complex it might be to unlock the vault of obstacles, doubts and skepticism currently preventing the Good-News from being heard, understood and accepted? More and more we no longer have a Christian worldview as the starting-point for evangelism and we need to understand and deconstruct someone’s existing worldview.
Deconstructing someone’s belief system in hopes of reconstructing it with Christ seated on its throne is a careful-prayerful process involving the work of the Holy Spirt, good listening, being prepared, and a believing community.
In the same way this historic photograph of Earth had to be taken from outside our orbit. We must offer and invite others into a safe and authentic vantage point to examine their worldview from. And from that vantage point in unity with the Holy Sprit embrace areas of common-ground while revealing inconsistencies and obstacles that may stand in the way.
Living out faith on campus often results in uncommon connections and friendships. These friendships are not projects or potential trophies, even though it is my hope, desire and prayer to see them embrace Jesus as Lord and Savior. My testimony (in word and deed) is rooted in love and sincerity.
One such friend is Wayne-Daniel, a Professor of English and Humanities. When we first met, I joined a meditation group he was leading on campus. By his admission he was very skeptical of me as an evangelical Christian. Over time we have become great friends and I am truly blessed by this friendship. I help him with computer and technology questions, we’ve gone for long walks in Boston, visited a monastery in Vermont, gone out to dinner, had coffee and many lunches – always mixed with great conversation about life and faith. I have helped his parents move and visited his Mom to pray over her when she was ill. I have been invited to speak in his classroom to talk about the buddhist practice of “right speech” and “right livelihood” only from a Christian perspective. I have shared about Jesus on a retreat in a Buddhist temple, and just last week I was invited to share for over an hour in yet another class answering the question, “What does it mean to be saved?” For years we have team-taught a three credit course along with a Muslim professor (sometimes a student intern). In this class Christianity, Islam and Judaism are explained, compared and contrasted openly in an environment where students can ask pointed questions of all three of us. We have traveled as far as San Diego to lead a workshop at a faculty development conference on how to team-teach a religion course and get along while doing it! The workshop description begins like this, “A Christian, a Muslim and a Jew walk into a classroom…” How cool is that!
It is just amazing the opportunities God has continued to provide as I strive to be prepared, while living and proclaiming the Gospel to everyone around me in the same way Jesus did, with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15).
As I was finishing this letter I sent Wayne-Daniel a text message explaining what I was doing and asked if he would send a quick note so I could share with you how his worldview of evangelicalism has been shaped by our relationship. Here is what he sent back a few minutes later:
It has been my great blessing to know and work with Joe on campus for a number of years. I have found him to always be “the real deal” — one who lives and teaches Christianity in the openness and accepting heart of its founder. I must admit that my view of Evangelical Christianity was based mostly on what I had seen on television; I suspected that there was an intolerance and a forced nature to this form of Christianity. Joe has shown me that Evangelicalism has many more facets than I’d realized, and that it can be a force for incredible kindness, love, peace, and true joy — especially when it is embodied by someone like him! In short, Joe is the most Christ-like person I know. If he is an Evangelical, then the movement must be doing something very right! Peace.
Thank you again for enabling me to be a worldview shaper for Jesus on campus, as well as an Area Director – recruiting, training and supporting a great staff of eighteen other worldview shapers across nine campuses in MA, CT and NY!
=== JOE ===
What do Sheets, Magnets, Ministry and Christmas have to do with each other? Well if you’re not following my logic… read on… there is a design connecting them together…
We were living on St. Anthony Street at the time, so I could’t have been more than five years old. I was laying on my parents’ bed and my Dad came in with a basket of newly washed sheets that had been drying on the clothesline in the fresh air outside. He raised the basket up over my head and slowly emptied it out on top of me. I was buried in a sea of clothes and could smell the incredible fresh air locked inside of them. Like a sponge that soaks up and holds water, somehow clothes dried on the line capture the essence of a warm breezy day. He then laughingly helped me resurface and he picked up one of the white fitted sheets – the ones with the elastic sewn in – and he made something that looked like a sail by stretching the corner portion out with both hands and he said, “Now this would make a great parachute.” We talked about how neat it would be to have a parachute like that… the following day we cut up an older fitted sheet and made one! I remember playing with it for such a long time. Over and over again I would throw it off the back porch and watch it sway like a pendulum, floating my army figure now promoted to paratrooper safely down to the ground below. But for me the real joy was not playing with it, but rather the feeling associated with the “idea” of making it. It was the idea of taking something that was not meant for something and creatively turning it into something new. I believe it was at that moment the creative side of me was ignited! At that moment … an engineer was born!
Fast forward a few years to fourth grade. We were studying electricity in our science class and I had just learned how to create an electromagnet. I made one for myself at home by wrapping a wire around a large spike nail in tight coils and connecting each end of the wire to the terminals of a dry cell battery. This produced a magnet capable of picking up small paperclips. I remember playing with it at the kitchen table amusing myself pretending I was a crane operator picking up paperclips from a pile and then dropping them onto another pile by disconnecting one of the wires. I was so amazed! As I sat at the kitchen table doing my thing, my mom was in front of me at the kitchen sink washing dishes with her back facing me. My dad was in the living room next to the kitchen watching television. It must have been winter because shortly after dinner it was already dark. So… here I am picking up paper clips when this idea pops into my head… “If this small battery is capable of picking up small paper clips….. what would happen if I jammed each end of this wire into the wall socket behind me? I had visions of pots and pans flying out of the cabinets toward my massive device. Even the pan in my mothers hand would not be held back from the powers of my super magnet! I didn’t realize I was about to discover something in electronic theory, something I wouldn’t completely understand until years later in college when I was taking classes in electronics. But to put it simply, when using direct current (DC) like my battery, a coil has an inductive-reactance that produces eddy currents that act on the iron in the nail and creates a magnet. But to an alternating current (AC), the current found in household wall sockets, there is no magnet because it becomes a direct short circuit! So here I am with my dreams of a super magnet… I jam one end into the wall socket and then the other. Immediately there were quick flashes like lightning and sparks shooting out followed by complete darkness. The lights are out, the TV in the living room is out, and I am sitting completely in shock (pun intended). My father calls out from the dark, “What happened?” I responded like any fourth grader… “I don’t know…” My Dad checked outside to see if the whole neighborhood was out, but it seemed to only be impacting our house. He headed downstairs to the fuse box to check things out and soon the lights come back on. As Dad was making his way back up the cellar stairs he called out to my mother, “There was a fuse blown, were you running anything?” “No,” she replied. When he got to the top of the stairs and stood in the kitchen with the lights on, it was obvious to him my magnet setup had something to do with it. “What happened?” he asked directing his attention toward me. Again I proclaimed, “I don’t know…” But the evidence behind me said different, a scorched and blackened wall socket and a small burnt section of wallpaper forced me to revise my answer to be more in line with the truth. I don’t remember any kind of punishment metered out, but I do remember the stern warnings about the danger of electricity. Something I never forgot!
I did become an engineer, and for many years satisfied my need to design, and redesign while never forgetting the danger that can accompany the misuse of a design. And now having left high-tech so many years ago to bring the Gospel to students and faculty on college campuses… I am still an engineer of sorts… I’m still thinking of new ways to creatively paint the Gospel on the canvas of our culture and individual hearts, in ways that resonate and touch the broken and hurting world all around us. Whether we realize it or not we all have the desire to create, maintain and appreciate a good design. It’s the natural outcome of being created in the image of a God who creates.
In the beginning when God created, He created with a God-honoring purpose to exalt and glorify each person within the trinity selflessly. And from that first design spoken into existence every other design was intended to be in sync with that divine purpose. Like the dangers of my revised electromagnet there are dangers when we skew away from a God-centered design. When sex, money, power and fame are driven by a design aimed at self gratification there is a misuse of the original design. However when those things are in sync… we find love and intimacy, we find charity and generosity, we find injustices made right, and we find role-models worth imitating. So what would happen if you were to close your eyes right now… and imagine your Heavenly Father has just poured out on you a full basket of pure white sheets, freshly washed and dried by the Son – resources for you to design with… You breath in the freshness of the Holy Spirit embedded in the fabric, you feel energized and full of hope and great joy… You pray about what new ways you might use these resources for God-honoring designs. And you smile… because now you are ready for Christmas!
Every design and design implementation has associated costs. December is an important month for us from a support raising perspective. For the first time in over 15 years our account balance actually bottomed out in October. It has since come back some, but the trend is not as favorable for sustaining a positive balance. Increased costs and expenses this past year have simply drained our account. When looking at our support needs from a committed perspective (individuals and churches who support us on an ongoing basis) we are receiving approximately 75% of what is needed. The remaining 25% comes from intermittent and one-time donations. Raising support is hard work and time consuming but so valuable to the ministry we do! It’s through our support raising efforts that a solid prayer base is established. It’s through support raising that unchurched students begin to grasp that there are individuals, churches, and businesses who actually value and care about them. It’s through support raising that some individuals are challenged and receive the call to campus ministry (happened to me!). And lastly it’s through support raising that our supporters are blessed to see this “generation in need” being reached and transformed by the Gospel. Support raising is indeed ministry!
So would you please join us financially and prayerfully, either with an ongoing commitment or an end of the year (tax deductible) donation? If you’re already supporting us, perhaps there’s a possibility to make an increase? An average increment of 10% from churches and individuals could set us back on track. Please understand that I do not ask this in any way that diminishes my gratitude for your current generosity, and I am not asking with any expectations, only prayerful consideration. Thank you 🙂
Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!!!
=== JOE ===
Be part of it:
To join us in financial support just fill out the envelope enclosed with this newsletter including a check made out to Missions Door. If you don’t have an envelope please include a separate note that you would like to support Joe and Annie Shea and how often in faith you plan to donate and mail to the address at the bottom of this page or simply go online to our website.
Where did the idea of the synagogue come from? There is no mention in Scripture of God giving a command to establish them… we see detailed instructions concerning the building and operation of the Temple but nothing about the synagogue? So why were they constructed? What was the reasoning and purpose behind them?
It’s early morning and I’m sitting on our deck pondering about just how intricate God’s plan is. So often it escapes us until we take the time to prayerfully ponder and so if you know me… pondering and thinking is something I am all about. I’ve even spent time pondering about pondering… So as you read this please join me in my pondering, as I think about this ministry and how it relates, connects and interacts with God’s design for the Great Commission that is ever unfolding in all its beauty.
Most scholars would look to the timeframe of the exile as the beginning of the synagogue system. At that time the Temple was in ruins and in need of repair, and Jews were scattered across great distances. After the temple was rebuilt the synagogue system remained and continued to grow as a complement to the Temple. They became a place of community and influence, a place of teaching, the exchange of ideas and debate. They were located at major crossroads and cities all connected by a network of Roman civil engineering genius which at the time of Christ consisted of over 50,000 miles of connecting roads throughout the Mediterranean world!
So ponder with me… Galatians 4:4-5 reads this, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons (ESV).” So Christ came to us according to Scripture at the “fullness of time.” That means prior to that, God was actively preparing and setting the stage for His Son’s arrival and for the spreading of His Good News. So when the first temple was destroyed and the Jews were in exile, God was setting the stage with the synagogue system! When the Roman Empire expanded and built literally thousands of miles of roadways connecting the synagogue system, God was setting the stage for there to be a launchpad for the Gospel. And so we find that Jesus and His disciples first entered the synagogue. It was the perfect starting point! It was the place of community and influence, a place of teaching, the exchange of ideas and debate, and people went out from the synagogues to all areas of commerce and society. Think about the beauty of all this! In the marketing world this is called a distribution channel. Through the sovereignty of God at just the right time in history, God set up the perfect means to spread the Gospel and reach the world… mind-boggling!
So ponder with me… Is there a similar distribution channel today? Has God set the stage again for there to be a launchpad for the Gospel message… a strategic and beautiful network of influence, teaching, the exchange of ideas and debate… a place that has great impact on both society and commerce… a place that can be found in all major cities and rural areas… and is there something comparable in magnitude to the advent of the Roman highway system where information and communication can be made and transferred across great distances at speeds never before imagined, bringing a global view into focus?
So ponder with me… The college system began mostly through the Church. There is no command found in Scripture to establish these institutions that were originally chartered to train, prepare and equip those called into ministry. And like the synagogue system, colleges began with a deep spiritual emphasis that over time became more political in nature. And yet they remain to be a major place of influence, teaching, the exchange of ideas and debate. The internet has more virtual roadways to connect society and commerce than we can probably count… and I believe that once again God has setup a distribution channel for the Gospel, a launchpad if you will, so strategic that only God could have had the foresight to bring about.
It’s hard to imagine any position of influence that is not touched by the college system. Can you think of anyone in Congress, the Senate, the office of the President, or any official in a foreign country who would not have been to college? Can you see a future where lawyers, judges, police, doctors, nurses, teachers, scientists, engineers, business owners, or investors have not been to college? Currently there are over 880,000 international students in American colleges, representing an increase of 72% over the last fifteen years! In what many call the 10/40 window, a geographical area identifying the most unreached with the Gospel, we find that these countries, are sending their students and future leaders to our colleges!
So ponder with me… Can you imagine the impact for God’s kingdom when students graduate and enter into politics with the conviction to love both God and neighbor, can you imagine future world leaders returning to their countries with an understanding of His grace and justice, can you imagine scientists, lawyers, judges, teachers, police, doctors, business owners and investors basing their ethical decisions and behavior on principles rooted in Scripture? Can you imagine the college-age segment who have walked away from their faith returning to serve locally? Can you imagine the student who has never been to church getting plugged in and inviting their friends… are you seeing what I am seeing…? God has setup a new distribution channel and once again it is mind-boggling!
In Matthew chapter nine we find Jesus going to different cities and villages entering the distribution channel of the synagogue system to proclaim the Gospel. “When He saw the crowds he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd…” then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Today as I labor in this new distribution channel of college campuses and encounter the crowds… like Jesus I am filled with compassion, I am broken because they are like sheep without a shepherd and my heart echoes the same prayer request for harvesters to be called and funded to reach this strategic mind-boggling distribution channel. The stage is set, the need is great and the stakes are high.
Thanks so much for pondering…
=== JOE ===
Be part of it:
To join us in financial support just fill out the envelope enclosed with this newsletter including a check made out to Missions Door. If you don’t have an envelope please include a separate note that you would like to support Joe and Annie Shea and how often in faith you plan to donate and mail to the address at the bottom of this page or simply go online to our website.
If you are currently supporting us, thank you. Perhaps you know someone or a business looking for a ministry to support? If you have been supporting our ministry with one-time gifts perhaps you could start making a commitment to donate regularly. If you have never contributed but have thought about it, please, now is the time. Any response of any amount really makes a difference.
Thanks again so much for enabling us to be incarnational on campus sharing Christ, training and overseeing area staff, expanding ministries to more campuses and helping the local church connect with this “generation in need!”
A Generation In Need