Type:
The WSC family believes that community and fellowship is an integral and necessary part of seminary. This community brings to heart what is being studied in the classrooms as our students, spouses, families, faculty and staff care, grow, and pray with and for one another as we live Life Together.
by Evan Gear, WSC M.Div. student
Sitting in the student lounge unseen I watched through the window as two men approached each other. One a retired cop the other once a drug dealer; both faces alight with excitement. They heartily greet each other and turn to walk together toward the library. I am encouraged knowing both these men. I know their faith. I have seen their struggles and I am reminded in this moment of the fellowship, unity and encouragement we have in Christ. These two men who in another life could have met in vastly different circumstances here come together to serve the God who has set them free. They will experience a comradery that reaches deeper and is far more profound that that known between police officers in the field. They will both provide an escape from the sorrows and struggles of this life that make paltry the effects and appeal of any illicit drug.
Returning to the reading in my lap. I find that I am encouraged and challenged in my prayer life from a slim book that represents the end of my assigned reading for a Practical Theology class. In it I read these words,
“No, said Jesus, we no longer simply hope for the promise of God’s name to be hallowed. We rejoice that the promise has begun to be fulfilled: the kingdom rule of God has become the kingdom rule of the Son… The power of the kingdom of God has been unleashed, power before which demons bow. People are astonished at the word…” [1]
Struck by the truth of these words and my own failure to integrate such realities in my own prayer life, my thoughts turned toward God in prayer as students started trickling into the lounge having just completed a final exam. One of these men noticed me on the couch and said, “Hey, I have been praying for you.”
“In fact, just the night before I had received great encouragement serving to ease my struggle and chase away my lingering anxieties filling the void with faith and hope.”
I had recently confessed to him my own struggle and sense of anxiety about my future. He had patiently listened and promised to pray for me. Apparently he was faithfully carrying out that promise. In fact, just the night before I had received great encouragement serving to ease my struggle and chase away my lingering anxieties filling the void with faith and hope. Here, as he interrupted my thoughts about the power and efficacy of prayer, his words served as a testimony to that very power. Again I was further encouraged to pray.
With these thoughts silently filling my mind two others came over to chat. They were in a celebratory mood. Their last exam done they announced that it was high time they “get barreled.” I had never heard of such a thing, so I asked them to explain. They laughed and said they were going surfing. At that we all parted ways.
I write the above sketch because I think it captures the life of seminary here at Westminster Seminary California. It is a life of intense study yes, but, also and importantly, fellowship with brothers and sisters who are all seeking to better equip themselves that they might edify the church. We all come from different backgrounds with different stories to tell about how we got here. Yet, here we are gathered for this task, studying and caring for one another. We pray for each other. We share meals together, at school and at home. We bear one another’s burdens, spiritually and physically. We help each other move. We babysit each other’s children. Strangely, providentially our studies find a way to integrate into these realities. They become more than simply tasks to check off a list (although, to be honest sometimes they devolve into that); they become a spring board for reflection and devotion. The books and classes, the fellowship and the fun all are in the hands of our God instruments to shape us. Our studies come alive all around us in community. The books are not our life here but the books become alive here. The doctrines of grace live and breathe. The confessions speak. As we learn we live and the two are not separate. Hard study? Rigorous academics? Definitely, but not cold and distant. Instead warm, near, and at times catching you unawares in the middle of your study.
[1] Harvie M. Conn, Evangelism: Doing Justice and Preaching Grace, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1986), 81.
