Moses and God Have a DTR, and Students Get Prayer

First of all, for those unfamiliar with the acronym DTR, it stands for Define The Relationship. If you want a musical explanation for this cultural phenomenon of clarifying an ambiguous relationship (particularly as it takes place in the contemporary church), watch this video.

Onto the meat of our subject, 

Moses and God Have a DTR in Exodus 3. 

Our community recently investigated this dynamic interaction during our second Encounter meeting. Michael Kim-Eubanks (pictured below) invited us to see how God is both familiar to Moses ("I am the God of your ancestors") and foreign/other to him ("Take off your shoes, for the place you are standing is holy ground"). And as a result of God initiating with Moses via a curiously behaving shrubbery, their relationship is never the same again.

Me, Michael, and Matt:

Hopefully at least one of us is familiar to you.

I found this duality--God is both known/unknown--very helpful in interpreting where I find myself and Cal Christian Fellowship as the semester begins. In many ways, ministry looks much as it did last semester: I'm supervising the same focus group leaders, we are running similar weekly gatherings, and I continue to invest in these spaces. On the other hand, ministry feels very different than it did last semester (and last academic year):

1. We have a surprising number of new people coming to BOTH Encounter and our focus groups.

2. We had a dance-off at Encounter, and people got so into it that we had seven rounds of going around the room doing a different dance move each time. (THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN IN CCF. EVER.)

3. Students are honest about their vulnerabilities with other students and staff; they admit their difficult feelings and are taking active steps to resolve them (counseling, conflict mediation, etc.).

I think I need to repeat that last one. Students are being honest about their vulnerabilities and seeking help. At a large, competitive public university where self-sufficiency is an art form and confidence is a survival tactic.

So that's different. Kind of shocking, and kind of cool ... kind of like a burning bush!

God wanted to define his relationship with Moses based on what had been (he knew Moses' life story, including the murder he committed that caused him to flee his homeland) as well as what would be (he had a plan that required Moses to believe some new things--including that he was God's chosen leader). It seems that God wants to define his relationship with me and with the CCF community on similar terms: he knows how hard it has been with the transitions our community has been through, including staff transitions. At the same time, God is asking us to respond in faith to the signs of new life he is stirring--new people and new levels of trust. 

Moses responds with curiosity, attention, and humility. I can say I'm curious and interested in attending to the new things God is doing. I am praying for the humility to respond well to surprises, the good as well as the less straightforwardly pleasant.