While it’s been a couple of weeks since we hosted Andrew Marin on campus, some of the things that he talked about continue to swirl about in my head.
One of the phrases that he repeated, in several different conversations, was that we needed to be people who build bridges… and not armies.
Armies are groups that are made up of people who look, think and act the same. There is nothing different about its’ members, everyone believes the same, and the group ultimately thinks that everyone should believe all of the same things, and act in all the same ways, that they do.
This creates an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality and serves to divide — and not unite.
It can be incredibly harmful.
People, and ministries, that are about bridge-building are looking to do the hard work of connecting with, and relating to, people who are DIFFERENT from them. Bridge-builders will intentionally seek out the perceived ‘other’ with the desire to INCLUDE them as a part of their shared effort.
This is obviously much more challenging than building an army.
It necessitates respecting the ‘other’ and their beliefs — no matter how different from your own they might be.
It requires validating the journey of the ‘other’ and believing that God can work in ways that are outside of what we expect.
It does NOT demand that we discard our convictions and personal beliefs for the sake of coming together, but it does beg that we keep them in proper perspective, recognizing that we likely have much more in common than we do uncommon.
Yet when we’re trying to get students to ‘choose’ our ministry, over another, we likely point to those things that make us unique — different — or ‘better’.
And as a result we end up creating armies.
Whether by intention… or not.
And so I find myself wondering…
- WHO are the perceived ‘others’ on our campus?
- WHO are the people we distinguish ourselves from… and in so doing, create an ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ mentality with students?
- WHO are the people that God might be calling us to start building bridges WITH (not to — we cannot build bridges without people from the ‘other’ camp).
Andrew Marin’s work is primarily focused on helping to bridge the Evangelical and GLBT communities… and this may very well be some of the bridge-work that your ministry needs to engage in.
Maybe for you it will entail reaching out to some of the other ministries on campus — crossing denominational lines — and making allies with other ministry leaders. I know that students on a couple of the campuses I have worked on have been shocked when they’ve seen me eating meals with ‘other’ ministry leaders on campus… some even remarked thinking that they didn’t think we liked each other — even though they had never heard or seen anything that would give them reason to believe such a thing. They had assumed that because we represented ‘different’ ministries that we must not like each other. I think this is sad.
Maybe your rift is with members of the faculty. Sometimes we can be a landing place for students who are struggling in a class, because professor so-and-so is too hard, or they are against Christianity, or they are pushing them beyond their comfort zone in their faith… and how we respond to those students will ultimately make its way back to the faculty. I have my own experience of trying to rebuild bridges with faculty members that were destroyed by ministry leaders that came before me. This is not the kind of divide we need, only adding to the challenges of our ministry efforts on campus.
Or maybe, for you, the tension is with the Office of Student Affairs or Student Development. While I believe they can be some of our greatest allies and resources on campus, they can also feel like competition. The students who are involved with us are often involved with them as well. Great students and student leaders are noticed all over campus, and sometimes we can put them in a place where we are asking them to choose: ‘us’ or ‘them’. Again, this isn’t healthy or helpful.
While we may never have set out with the intention of building an army… you can probably see how easily it can happen. And how different it is from being a ministry that builds bridges.
So, what do you think?
- Is your ministry building bridges OR an army?
- Are you willing to do whatever it takes to become a bridge-building ministry?
- What, if anything, is holding you back?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this! Please take a moment to share a comment in the comment section below.
8 thoughts on “Is Your Ministry A Bridge-Builder?”
Perhaps one of the saddest realizations I’ve had after being on campus in Cincinnati for nearly two years is how disconnected the campus ministry community is here. I would imagine many university campuses would say the same thing. And the analogy you’ve used is certainly appropriate…we have a lack of bridges. Another word I’ve come to use lately is synergy. There is a definite lack of synergy when it comes to the Christian communities on our campus. I’m working on being a part of that solution. 😉
That’s awesome Chris! Can you tell us what this looks like for you… how are you (and your ministry) working to be bridge-builders or catalysts for synergy on UC’s campus?
Guy,
Good post on the need for people to build bridges.
I’m going to come at it from a different angle. What if, instead of trying to reach people with the gospel and then turn them into bridge people, we tried to reach people who are already bridge people with the gospel?
Looking at the Bible it seems that God does this a lot. When He wanted to rescue the Israelites from famine and send them to Egypt, He created a Bridge person (Joseph) to do it. When He wanted to rescue them from slavery, He created another Bridge person (Moses) to do it. (Other examples: Esther, Daniel, Nehemiah)
In the New Testament, God had to give Peter a vision from heaven to try to convince him to be a Bridge person, but that didn’t really work that well (Paul had to keep calling him out years later). But when God reached Saul and Barnabas with the gospel, they were already bridge people who could take the gospel to the world. They were already equipped.
I read a great article last week on how these Bridge people that span two different cultures really will be the MVPs of the 21st Century: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663081/the-21st-century-mvp-bridge-personalities-who-happily-span-cultures
On our campus we’ve specifically started with the goal of reaching Latino students, the bridge peoples who can easily go between cultures. We’ve gone after them with the gospel because we’ve found that easier than reaching mainstream students and trying to convince them to cross cultures.
De, thanks for your good thoughts here!
It seems to me that all of the people you’ve described above were already, in some shape or fashion, in relationship with God — and readily available to serve as bridge-builders. In these instances it seems that God selected the individual(s) who could lead the needed ‘bridge-building’ effort because of the fact that they were already prepared and equipped — sure, some needed a little more convincing (like Peter) but because they followed God/Jesus they were ready.
Even in your description of reaching out to Latino students, instead of reaching out to mainstream students and trying to get them to cross cultures, it’s still you (or someone from your team) leading the charge in the attempt to start the construction process — right?
So maybe what we really need to do is to make ‘bridge-building’ a central part of ministry leadership training/development (personally, with our staff and with our student leaders).
I don’t know that we could expect to find someone who just happened to be “out there”, kind of half way between the two sides, ready to serve as the central support (or even initiator of construction). Does that make sense?
What do you think?
Guy,
Thanks for your response.
I would argue that because Peter was not a bi-cultural person he was unable to truly serve as a bridge person. He didn’t grow up with his identity being in two worlds. Fundamentally he was Jewish and that was it. (That’s why it was so hard for him to go to Cornelius) That’s why he couldn’t serve as a bridge person, it wasn’t core to his identity.
Paul on the other hand grew up as a bi-cultural person. He was a Jew from Tarsus, so he could identify with Jews and with the broader Mediterranean culture of the time. When he was reached with the gospel it was a no brainer for him to serve as the bridge person because he already lived out of that role. (And I would say that he serves as the main example of someone who was a bridge person before he was in a relationship with God, though there are others)
Acts 11 is probably the best example of this. Persecution forced the Christians to Antioch in v.19. As they went they shared the gospel, but only with Jews. It wasn’t until bi-cultural people from Cyprus and Cyrene (Libya) began to share with Gentiles that the gospel actually moved to the Gentile world. The bi-culturals were the bridge people necessary to see the gospel cross ethnic boundaries.
I would say that todays ethnic minority college students are already positioned to be Bridge people because they are bi-cultural. They just need the gospel.
I’m a bit confused by your last paragraph, could you clarify it a little more? Are you saying that it would be difficult to find people that are already bridges?
Thanks for the dialog.
Hey De! Thanks the clarifying your position and thoughts… your previous comments make a lot more sense to me now. =)
I think what you’re describing above IS, actually, the process of building bridges. Identifying peoples across the spectrum of belief who need to come together… as well as some strategic individuals who will be better positioned to help in the bridge-building process (as you have identified in your comments).
While it still might take someone from “one side” to serve as the catalyst for the bridge-building process, just as significant will be identifying the ‘bridge people’ who are uniquely positioned to best assist in the process.
Good stuff De!
Yeah, I realized after reading your comment that I hadn’t communicated very clearly.
Thanks for the post. Good question to be asking.
Comments are closed.