Church Blog

As the fifth class of Fourth Fellows wraps up its 9-month leadership and discipleship program, the fellows are preparing to move on after their immersive experience integrating professional work, seminary study, service, and time spent with their mentors, host families, and other fellows. Throughout the year, Fourth’s fellows have regularly chronicled their observations on their own blog, found here; below is the latest installment:

By Duncan Goodman:

“Blink and you’ll miss it” usually refers to lightning strikes and camera flashes. For a year in the Fellows program, you’d think it wouldn’t necessarily apply. Yet now in the final days of the program, the fellows find themselves at a Janus — one of the literary terms we’ve learned in our seminary class, where we are looking both backwards and forwards and should we blink, we would miss this sweet, melancholic moment. In this Janus, our backwards view is one of reflection and meditation on the year we’ve just had. Forwards covers what our next steps are in light of our growth and change from the year.

Looking back, it bears dwelling on a few questions: What was this year about? Why was our particular group brought together? How did we challenge, care for, and cheer for each other? What did we learn? I don’t have perfect answers for any of these — I think they will take years to fully process and understand, yet by God’s grace, I have glimmers that flit around my mind, offering some words to share about this experience. So with that being said, let us begin with the ‘what.’

This year, in all of its frenetic activity, exciting community, and humble service, is about establishing rhythms and routines of work, study, and service that orient our hearts to our chief end of glorifying God and enjoying Him forever. College, as many of you know, is a bubble — a unique time of our lives that is incredibly insulated from the realities of contemporary quotidian life. The shift out of campus life and ministry and into the working world and the local church can be jarring. They certainly don’t discuss navigating that transition in the classroom. The Fellows program addresses that gap in teaching by intentionally running us through the motions of faithful living in all areas of our lives, be it the home, workplace, church, or the broader community. Now, looking forward from this question, it’s hard to imagine life without significant involvement in the local church. A house without hospitality seems strange. Work without service to Christ feels incomplete. And community without service just doesn’t shine as brightly.

When I think about our group in particular, a previous fellow’s words come to mind, that “the Lord brought each of us here for a reason, His hand divinely orchestrated our group composition.” How can I respond but to praise the Lord? Truly, the people he brought into this group have blessed me and each other in so many ways. They are all so caring and intentional with building relationships, asking the hard questions, and caring for one another through hard times and heartaches. We have borne each other’s burdens, while each carries his or her own load well. Even more, we rejoiced with each other as was appropriate for rejoicing, and wept with each other as was appropriate for weeping. We were all stretched to love and befriend those whom we may not have been naturally inclined to pursue friendships with, yet have all been blessed by the ultimate source of unity through Christ our Lord. Now, I can see how these friendships will continue to blossom and bear bountiful fruit for years to come. Praise God.

In regards to the question of ‘what’, there are two main areas that come to mind. The first is internal and relates to a greater knowledge of ourselves and of God. The second is external and pertains to the church. Over the year, much time and intentional effort was dedicated to understanding the unique gifts, motivations, and desires that God has gifted us with, and to understanding how those influence our various callings and vocational opportunities. For myself, it was both humbling and freeing to remember that all good things are gifts given by the Giver, not products of my own making that I should boast. Furthermore, it seemed very apparent that for the next year going forward, I was called to overseas missions and to pursue business as a mission. Suffice to say, this is not what I had in mind at the beginning of the year.

Now thinking externally, we have all learned what the importance of the local church is and how to love her well. By being so intimately involved in the life and rhythms of the body of Christ through worship and service, we’ve been able to each find areas where our gifts come alive and SING in joyful service. We’ve come to love the intergenerational community and delight in being mentored by older saints and mentoring the younger ourselves. Truly there is life in the body of Christ, and He has adorned us in splendor as His bride. Praise the Lord.