academia. and sexual health and healing.

Last week I had a campus visit at Covenant Seminary here in Saint Louis.  I had been considering entering their counseling program, so wanted to get a good overview of the campus and their classes before making a decision to continue the application process.

Stepping into a class called God and His Word followed by Introduction to Counseling, my mind lit up with excitement.  It has been nearly two years since I delved so deeply into the realm of ideas, of theory and academia in general.  I've missed it.  The professor explained the importance of the particulars in regard to the universal, and how we cannot possibly understand the universal apart from our experience of it.  It reminded me of Dr. Rim's philosophy course at Moody, but somehow this time I understood it on an idea level and then was able to bring to a practical, applicable level.  I guess what we learned in college is more valuable than it seemed.

That day at Covenant brought me to step back from the world of crisis management and deescalation, the very practical, tactical side of things.  Instead, I could look at the realm of ideas, the theories that explain our everyday experiences.  The conversations came from this depth as well - a kind of conversation that I haven't engaged with in a long time.  It differs from the normal, which is based so much on people and events, storytelling really, instead delving into the why.  It was incredibly refreshing.

This is one reason why I so desperately want to return to the academic world.
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On a completely different note, my church began a new ongoing focus:  Sexual Health and Healing.  A topic rarely approached in the church in a non-condemning way, sex is one of the most widespread and profound ways in which Satan brings us to destruction.  It pervades our media, our humor, and can then so easily consume the body and mind.

Sexual immorality is a term so often used by preachers with a tone of judgment, but what is it really?  Anything that corrupts the picture of the perfect union of a married man and woman.  Anything.  In 1 Thessalonians 4, there is a concerned and protective warning about sexual immorality.  It's as if God is saying "I desperately want you to be with me and safe.  If you run in front of the car you will get hurt - I don't want that for you, daughter.  I love you enough to warn you that the temptation, the draw, is not worth it and it will separate you from me."

From a loving, gracious Father, he wants us to be in unbroken communion with him.  We cannot possibly have that if we at all indulge the images and ideas that defile his creation.  This is one of the reasons why God gave us the Holy Spirit - He helps us to look to holiness and hold God in a higher regard than we do our own pleasure.  The body and mind only do what the heart tells them to, so condition your heart.  Press into the Lord.

While all of that came only from the sermon this week, I find it interesting that the focus will continue.  This church sees the issue as one that can pervasively make or break a person, and therefore make or break the body of believers.  So many have either chosen sexual immorality or it has been forced upon them, that it will take a significant journey of healing to bring each and every one to wholeness again.  But that's the God we serve - He is able, there is healing, and there is nothing too big or too bad for my God.  The pastor is unafraid to speak boldly against something that he sees as the most destructive issue that remains untouched in most church circles, and to speak powerfully the restorative power of a God who raises people out of pits of destruction and despair.

I see a picture of a great spiritual revival  stirring up in this church, and it is so exciting to envision what God will do with a group of hundreds of people who live unashamed - healed and whole, on fire for the Lord!