Creative Exemplification Speech

Camp Beechpoint Speech Time: August 10^th-13^th, 2019Place: Camp Beechpoint, MichiganLength: 50 minutes This interactive talk is to be given at Beechpoint, the annual retreat for Moody’s Student Leaders (RAs and the Executive Teams of the Top 6 Student Groups). I will have various opportunities to speak as president-elect, with the aim of encouraging us as Student Leaders to think intentionally and theologically about our leadership development in the coming year. Below is a loose manuscript (still in its draft phase) of an interactive discussion I’d like to have with the Student Leaders, to get their thoughts on how to do community life better through the mode of housing (and how we choose our living spaces). Some parts, like the intro and transition, will be presented narrative-style. Any learns that are suggested by Student Leaders from the group discussion can be outlined on a whiteboard (as facilities allow). Depending on the viability of suggestions for improving floor communities and better integrating floors with off campus students, I may bring a report Housing, Admissions (in charge of student visits) and Res Life to consider.A second purpose for this talk is to remind us again or cause us to consider what the biblical foundation should be of how we view and treat our neighbors and the community that we have been placed in. (Specific references still to be added; I am still deciding what would be helpful for Bible students to hear that they haven’t heard already.) 

1. Intro:

A few years ago, I was trying to describe to a friend the latest big life decision of my high school friend Rachel: “She’s moving into her first apartment, which is pretty exciting, but on top of that, she’s moving into a neighborhood on the ghetto side of town where all of her neighbors are immigrants who don’t speak any English!” It was baffling to me that one of my friends, barely into her 20s, was choosing to live with two other college-aged girls for the purpose of being really good neighbors to their Syrian friends.  This is the sort of stuff that ends on a ministry internship brochure for outreach in refugee communities, except that these women were pursuing what they called incarnational ministry from their own accord. The thing is, Rachel and her roommates weren’t doing this just to be really good neighbors. They had been living locally with their families and didn’t have to move; in fact, it probably would have made more financial sense for them to continue living at home. Yet they chose freely to pursue the community who they had adopted as their own. A local church had gotten involved too; the congregation two of the girls attended provided funds for a portion of their rent each month, supporting this incarnational neighborhood ministry as they would any other missional endeavor. Rachel and her friends never experienced for themselves the dorm life; their intentional community provided a different experience, though still vibrant and socially fulfilling and full with the joy of friendship. 

2. Transition:

Housing here at moody is something that is easy as students to complain about. We gripe about the inconvenience of housing selection and the disorganization of housing assignments, or the tedium of getting off campus or into Jenkins.  During particularly stressful weeks, my roommates and I do nothing more than plop ourselves down after a long school day into our own segregated messes in our tiny one-bedroom apartment. No amount of redecorating has been able to disguise the temperamentally fragile walls, the old, tiled carpet, and the aged pluming (not in a cool, mid-century sort of way, more like a plummer-on-speed-dial sort of way). And yet, as with everything else, we have the ability to apply our theology to how we view our housing; not as a trial merely to be endured, but as an opportunity to share what little we have with those around us. Hospitality does not start after college once we get a clean, nicely furnished, good-sized apartment. In a conversation I had with my pastor a few weeks ago, he reminded me that the call to hospitality doesn’t take into account our perceived ability to host well. It’s rather about treating whatever space and belongings we have as gifted from God in order that we may bless others. College is an ideal place to learn hospitality well. We already live in community (some of us just endure it, some of us more naturally thrive) and thus we have everything we need to practice (with the freedom to fail) what it means to intentionally care for one another.  For the RAs present, this spirit of intentional community is something you will be modeling in how you welcome transfers and new students to the floor, how inviting you make your own living space, and how you encourage others in your care to think about how they can steward their rooms well to bless those around them. What I want to talk about in our time together is how we can be better neighbors; both on our floors, and in whatever neighborhood we are placed in.  

3. Discussion and Brainstorming (Large Group Setting, Student Leaders will be arranged in one big circle, with Res Life and Student Development leaders included):

 For those still in On-Campus Housing:Ex: Difference between those who serve in missions: the ones who go, and the ones who send. How can we be senders in how we share our dorm rooms with others? 

• How have you seen your floor enact healthy, gospel-driven community life on the residence floors?
• What are some difficulties and conflicts that do not reflect healthy community life on the residence floors? (Ex: An atmosphere of isolation because of always closed doors; a floor’s response to a kleptomaniac revealing lack of trust for each other, etc.)
• How can we intentionally bless outside guests (those needing housing for Founders Week, Missions Conference, and Day One tours)?
• With the Residence Hall resources we have, how can we support and encourage those in the cohort program, as they face financial strain, academic stress, and spiritual exhaustion while serving in their communities?

 For those still in Off-Campus Housing:Ex: How we can think intentionally through what we want in an apartment—be it for the semester, over the summer, or to mark our post-college life? Especially in the city, it is easy to get caught up in the logistics of finding an affordable place in a safe neighborhood near our place of employment, but are those really they only criterion we want to consider? 

• How highly should we value safety in choosing a neighborhood to live in?
• What would we be willing to sacrifice in our housing choices in order to pursue a living space that best serves others?
• If we are subletting or leasing for a short amount of time, how does the mentality of or temporariness in our stay affect how we treat our neighbors and the local community?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks to consider in choosing to room with unbelievers?

4. Addressing common hindrances to hospitality:

• Uncomfortableness with sharing space / belongings / time
• Uncomfortableness with mess

Ex: I’m a fairly neat, organized-mess sort of person, but this semester I’ve made commitments which have caused sacrifices (home tidiness was one of the first to go). Yet part of me is still a recovering perfectionist, and I don’t want others to see my disorganized, cramped mess. It is easy to feel helpless and ashamed when I come home to find a few of my roommate’s friends unexpectedly over,  lounging placidly next to a pile of my unorganized papers, or having a conversation in the kitchen next to a sink overflowing with my dirty dishes.

• Need for personal retreat, considerations for the introvert
• Establishing routine and frequency in inviting people home
• No concept of what life-giving hospitality can look like

Ex: I grew up in a family who changed the atmosphere of our house when guests were coming over; the entire house was vacuumed, the ‘better’ dish-ware was used, and messes were stuffed into closets and behind closed doors. As a young child, I remember asking my dad why we didn’t have people over more, and he told me it was because entertaining was too much work. I questioned then why hospitality had to mean entertainment, and I still question that reasoning now. 

5. Check for Understanding:

• (To RAs): Was this discussion helpful to you? How could it be improved?
• (To Student Development Admin, Res Life Admin): Is the feedback from this discussion helpful? Is there anything you would like to add?