Experience Reflected

I have just completed the Community Analysis course at Moody Graduate School. This course is designed to provide research and analysis experience relating to understanding a local context and making strategic ministry decisions. With my completion of this course, only three courses remain to complete my Master of Ministry program for which I anticipate graduating in May 2010.

A very interesting feature of the class was Dr. John Fuder's dissertation he did in training urban ministry students in field work. His book, Training Students for Urban Ministry: An Experiential Approach, is engaging and convicting. A penetrating analysis of the emotional one takes when experiencing first-hand the tragedy of extreme urban need, the journey from an inward self-absorption to motivated compassion and conviction is palpable. He takes various experiential learning models and customizes it with the ministry training that so often lacks the down-and-dirty.

The process itself incorporates classroom theory and presentation and then moves out of the classroom to enter the street-level reality of urban life. This experience jolts the learner and creates a myriad of emotional responses, which are largely dependent on prior experience and the predisposition of the student. God himself enters the process at various points to draw from the experience a powerful, affective learning response. Extending far beyond theoretical knowledge is the possibility of wisdom and conviction that can be seasoned with the spices of compassion. From this learning experience, the student is now positioned to make conscience decisions to take the Good News of Jesus Christ to a receptive and broken world.

I feel my role as an associate pastor is to help comfortably middle-class believers take a few steps in the journey. With my current educational career in its final stages, I foresee many years of the journey in my current context in Chicago to inculcate a motivated compassion for the lost--a journey centered on the biblical gospel. I know that my own feeble efforts will yield little. I pray God takes this seed and waters it with the Holy Spirit and produce much fruit.

Pastor Jared