"Remembering"

I’m writing this message on Maundy Thursday. We’re in the midst of Holy Week and it seems that everything we do this week through Easter Sunday is to remember.  Earlier this week I was in Pasadena for a regularly scheduled Regional Campus Directors meeting.  For the two days I was there, I remembered what it felt like to be in 78 degree weather and what sun felt like on my skin!  You see, it’s still pretty cold, rainy and dreary this week in the Northwest.  Remembering what warmth and sun actually feels like will carry me through the rest of our cold and wet spring.

While we were in our Pasadena meetings, one of the other regional campus Directors, Curt Longacre, shared with us a meditation about how important it was for us to remember significant days in our lives and in the lives of others.  He spoke about secular holidays and those that are important to different religious faith traditions, and then brought us right into our time of remembering during Holy Week.  It’s important for us to remember the events and people who have shaped our country, our faith, our beliefs.  I find that Holy Week keeps me charged up for the better part of the year, or at least until Christmas when we remember the beginning of the story of our Christian faith.

I’m at an age where my memory is fading on certain things.  I call them my Lipitor moments.  However, just like the day when Jack Kennedy was assassinated, the Challenger blew up and when Mt. St. Helens blew its top, I can tell you exactly where I was on February 21, 1991.  That was the day God finally got my attention and called me to His ministry.  I think about that day often and reflect on it when I meet with prospective students, just as I do when I take part in the Fuller NW commencement and participate in the ordination services of our graduates.  When I began my classes, graduated and was ordained, each of those events created a memory that was distinct and helps me remember who I am and continues to shape me into who I want to be.

I have several books on the shelves in my office that remind me of great faculty who taught me, many of them during summer intensives.  Each author reminds me of a great class and illuminating discussions with classmates that helped shape my ministry.  Create a great memory by sitting at the feet of Forrest Baird, Scott Cormode, Jim Davis or Bryan Burton, or any of our other fabulous faculty who we have teaching for us this summer.  Alternatively, create a great memory and participate in the Fuller Northwest Commencement on June 2^nd this year.  If you’re graduating, you’ve worked hard to complete your degree and we want to give you both the memory and the honor that you deserve.  Create a memory this summer that will help you through those long winters and dreary times you may face in the future.  Create a memory that will help shape your life and ministry in the years ahead.