An Ordinary Purpose
Virtually every college or university touts its capabilities to produce leaders, men and women who will provide vision, energy, and competence to transform society and culture in some way or other. In recent years, Christian colleges have been especially interested in this focus, and some have even made this the centerpiece of their mission statements: “________ College produces leaders!” The underlying idea is that the church and the cause of Jesus Christ need more characters such as William Wilberforce who take on the challenges of living and leading Christianly in the broader culture, so that the values of the Kingdom of God would permeate every dimension of human life and work.
In one sense this is clearly acceptable and laudable: Christians throughout the ages have been God’s instruments in bringing profound impact for good. We rightly take joy in Wilberforce’s relentless drive to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire, and we also rightly acknowledge others across the centuries who have provided leadership not only in government but also in the arts, in business, in education, in significant religious movements, and in justice and mercy.
At the same time I am increasingly concerned as I listen to the rhetoric of some PR for Christian colleges – including Covenant’s own! Who gets most commonly profiled in alumni publications, put up as paragons of the fruit of the educational programs colleges provide? To which grads do we often point to persuade prospective students and their parents that our institution is the one they should attend?
Recently I asked for an appointment to see someone who I thought might be interested in learning more about Covenant and perhaps supporting us financially. The response was that this individual was more interested in what he called “colleges with a special purpose,” and his further comments made clear that he meant colleges that were bent on producing “leaders” in government, media, the arts, etc. He has been impressed by the opportunity to focus on what he called the “high end” of opportunity for graduates of such institutions.
My temptation was to tell him about Covenant’s high-impact graduates – you know, the “real” leaders, the ones who are making a big difference in the culture. But at that moment Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 popped into my mind:
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
And so, instead of touting the “big names,” I told him that, while Covenant has produced some extraordinary alumni in his sense, what really excited me was the opportunity we have to turn out generations of graduates who will faithfully pursue the mind and heart of Christ in every nook and cranny – most of them rather ordinary and even mundane. I told him about the remark of one of the angel hosts in C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, when a visitor to heaven asked to see the “famous people”: the host replied, “Everyone’s famous here.”
Of course the jury is out about whether the intentional purpose to “produce leaders” will actually be successful. How did our heroes come to be our heroes? What were their actual paths, the experiences and influences that shaped their lives and work? What did they do to become what history has made of them – David shepherding his sheep, Joseph serving faithfully in prison, Peter diligently fishing and mending his nets? In our engineered efforts to manufacture cultural impact, could we be missing the point? What if, instead of aiming for the glories of leadership, we were to aim for the hard, daily work of shaping students into godly, biblically thoughtful men and women who will shape their corners of the world in reformational and glorious ways!
Please don’t misunderstand: I love William Wilberforce, and I am grateful to God for raising up such men and women about whom books are written and films are made. I love the fact that God has called many Covenant College alumni to roles that fit the common pattern of leadership: business owners and corporate executives, those working on Capitol Hill, leading scholars and authors, pace-setters in medicine and law. And I pray that God will see fit to raise up a Wilberforce – or two or three or more – from among the thousands of our Covenant grads.
But such folks will be the exception and not the rule; that’s not how God primarily works his purposes in and through and by his people in his world. God’s pattern is not most profoundly seen in our extraordinary heroes, as important as those heroes are. God’s pattern is much more commonly, and perhaps in the long run more powerfully, found in the ordinary lives of ordinary people – who of course are not ordinary at all! They are fathers and mothers faithfully raising up their children to think and love and live for Christ. They are school teachers and college professors who nurture wisdom and understanding day in and day out, over decades of devoted and sometimes tedious work. They are accountants and carpenters and pastors of small churches; they are youth ministers and missionaries, shopkeepers, salespeople, deacons who care for the needy, and office workers who show up every day to do what is expected of them and much more.
My hope for Covenant is that we would be an “ordinary purpose” college – not ordinary in the sense of boring or not noteworthy, but ordinary in the sense of honoring the centuries-long calling of faithful, persevering, patient Christ-centered education which has proven its worth again and again and again in serving God’s redemptive purposes. Most often it’s not flashy, it doesn’t get headlines, and it doesn’t fit the pattern of hero-worship that consumes not only the broader culture but also the church. But it is God’s main way, and I rejoice to be part of it.
Published on 26 Nov 2007 at 8:32 am. 4 Comments.
I couldn’t more heartily agree with your perspective! God has created good works in advance for each of his children to do and our job is to be faithful to his calling and complete that work in his strength. We need to recognize that it is God who raises up those who do extraordinary (at least in our eyes)things,that he empowers them and he does so that he might receive the glory and be praised.
Art Spano on 30 Nov 2007 at 2:09 pm.
Here, here! It’s easy for a capable young college student to go after the high end things, to be “important.” Perhaps in the end — and this is a conversation I’ve had with other alumni — integrating our faith with learning has less to do with intellectual brilliance and more with learning a life of humility, service, and sacrifice.
tom on 2 Dec 2007 at 9:19 pm.
My Grandmother always told me to go make myself useful. I now know that she wanted me out of her hair! However, as a retail store owner-manager, I wish I could always hire people that made themselves useful. It is the primary building block you want and need. Good service is the magnet that draws customers to a business and likewise to Christ. People will pay more for goods if they are receiving good service. When people see the service that Christ has provided them, they will also pay more with their lives,as did your heros with humble beginnings.
Jim Petrey Jr. on 21 Jan 2008 at 10:51 pm.
Bravo.
In the same line as your thoughts here, I hope you’ll visit:
http://kuyperian.blogspot.com
Thanks.
-alum ‘96
Baus on 3 Mar 2008 at 9:06 pm.