Something I shared with a lifelong friend of mine, while reflecting on our Christian college journey days as well as a couple thoughts on leadership:
"Jordan (name changed for privacy and confidentiality) likes to say that Bible school ruined us. Not just any bible school though, a non-denominational one, which means they taught you all the denominational views with the supportive scriptures and let you decide on your own what you believe, with little bias or preference to any one view point." (Quoted from my friend) - Well apparently, to an interim pastor who has pastored my old church for the past couple of years, they're pretty much heretical (not biblical) for advocating for women in leadership because he somehow researched that Wanda Walborn was the campus pastor back we went there and has never let me live that down, amongst other things that he "jokingly" bashes Nyack about which I don't appreciate but I've let go, being that while at Nyack, I've made various observations of my own - good and bad but with any place comes the good and the bad. I recently found out that C&MA does allow for women to be in leadership when it comes to campus ministry amongst other arenas.
Nyack is the place where I got an even heavier dose of exposure to the topic/area of Women in Leadership via Wanda Walborn, Linda Warren, and hearing about and seeing Amy Davis on campus, not to mention other things like Divine Healing (which I got an even heavier dose of at the NYC campus when I took a class on this as well as Womens Gifts/Callings), Charasmatic-ness, and our chapel experiences where one coming from a non-denominational, bible church that has more fundamentalist roots, mixed in with Chinese culture, really was just ripped a new one simply by virtue of exposure and in some cases, massive exposure. I still remember by the end of my Fall semester, when I was back at my old church and raised my hand quite quietly, not bringing any attention to myself and after service and later on that night at home, my mom kind of semi-apprehensively asked me if I was Charasmatic, sort of looking at me like I was being oppressed by demonic spirits or something (that was because of her lack of knowledge and information or misinformation or skewed/biased information by our fundamentalist-rooted church background).
All this to say, a non-denominational school has somewhat "ruined" me in terms of stripping every little bit of what I thought I knew, ripping into things, tearing them down, certain notions, concepts, ideologies, and when I moved to NYC, I pretty much unknowingly entered a period of the last 4 years of intensely searching and studying things out going from being closed and rebellious to becoming more open and free in yielding to the Spirit's direction and guidance instead of man's own (most of the time) biased and agenda-based leadership ... There are rare few whom I've observed for a good amount of time and interacted with on more than a surface level that I would say don't fall into that category. The need for more of those Spirit-led leaders is GREAT because I have come to find that just because there are Spirit-filled leaders doesn't necessarily mean that they're Spirit-led. They could very well be self-led or flesh-led ... The fruit (humility, character, integrity) or lack of fruit shows. I think true effectiveness comes with time in collaboration with humility, character, and integrity before any type of act or service. For me, leadership is primarily about character development, character building, along with humility and integrity development and building. If those are not being worked on or are not in focus, then any type of service is being done in vain. Those may be very strong words, but it doesn't make it any less true in my eyes.
No comments:
Post a Comment