Chapel: 09-08-21

it's we're getting gailed by bg today that's my favorite thing to do uh [Music] [Music] um that's one of my favorite songs also one of my favorite songs [Music] oh so oh yes you know so oh right i'm welcome everybody good morning good morning good to have you with us [Music] i'm going to begin our time by reading psalm 146 1 and we spoke to the response where you will repeat the word let's enter into work together this morning praise the lord is the god who made heaven and earth the city and all that is in them who keeps faith forever the prisoners daniel yeah [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] um what happens peace [Music] [Music] [Music] uh [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] say [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] oh [Music] hello [Music] [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] so [Applause] [Music] come on [Music] hmm [Music] um [Music] so [Music] uh [Music] no uh [Music] oh [Music] uh [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] good [Music] [Applause] foreign today worship team thank you choir dr g just good to be together hey just a little uh reminder when we're here in here we pray this place can be so protected so that we could continue to meet and worship so please vigilant get that stuff over your face and keep it on time so that we can um just in this privilege okay experiences of leadership you've gotten to take in your life so far sometimes when you sign up to be a leader come what may and you must have an idea or to be our president of this country from the seasons that have him lead us through their significant and challenging major campaigns or fights throughout the fires or debris flows or global pandemics as we pray for father thank you so him for the gifts and talents and experiences that whatever you've shared our brother thank you for how he employs those all here how he brings his whole self to it and so we pray the favor of god the favor of men and women the anointing of the holy spirit over his leadership and his work his family and his life uh lord open our ears and hearts this morning to hear what you've put on his heart to share with us bless them bless and bless him in jesus name amen thank you so much one of the reasons i agreed to speak in chapel is so i could take my mask off inside why did it feel good enough to have to wear this yeah cheers from the crowd on monday i was downtown for a meeting coming home and i was hungry so i swung into bonds to just get a quick snack of peninos it was closed so i went into vons i forgot that it was labor day as i came out here were three west monitors sitting over on the bench in front of the union bank for the shuttle i had my mask on and i said are you westmonders and they said yes we're first years do you recognize me yes you're dr bibi well i never do this if it's just by yourself but since there's three of you do you want to ride up the hill and they started laughing and they said i can't believe it's him and as we came up the hill now i overheard you say i can't believe it's him what were you talking about and they said well we had just been complaining that the shuttle was a half hour late and we were going to call dr beebe here's what i love when i give you a 10 minute ride up the hill i get to know you just a little and i love it and what i love about being your president is really seeing god come to life in your life and you capturing a vision for what god will do with you the rest of your life i love seeing that happen in multitudes of westmonters i've also loved seeing it happen in the lives of my three children all of them west model ups i've seen it this morning in daniel g daniel was one of the most fascinating students with whom i've ever worked and the privilege of having him come back to his alma mater to a professor in our music department is just thrilling to me he has just the most amazing gifts he has obviously such a keen intellect but he has a heart for god and in that mix of gifts and abilities he just channeled his life energy in a way that is going to honor god that's going to help people who love music without the gifts that god has given them but also blessed literally hundreds of thousands of people uh throughout his life and in every way when i get to interact with you i look forward to it i was just visiting with three uh before chapel started and i enjoyed having you come by and have lunch with me in the office so that we can talk it's a chance for me just to gain a little insight into your life but also to get a sense of how the student experience at westmont is unfolding and so as we get opportunities to know one another i hope you'll take advantage of an opportunity to either get around up at the right half of the hill if you're sitting outside at bonds or schedule a time and we can have lunch together in my office this quote from mark twain is one i just really enjoy the two most important days of your life for the day you were born and the day you figure out because it why suggests that in one day we can come to understand why we are here what in the world will we put on earth to do what we enjoy in this is almost none of us can't do this all at once it evolves over time we try things college is a period of both learning and experiencing and go through these experiences your opportunity to actually be guided in them so that you can come to a deeper understanding of what you do well where you find the light what are the things that actually bring you the greatest sense of joy all of these things begin to unfold as you develop a deeper sense of purpose unfortunately our current reality doesn't really give us a lot of signposts because of all of the really the difficulties across the board obviously all of the natural disasters we live in california we're used to wildfires but we're not used to hurricanes or tornadoes and when we read about these calamities hitting the southeast and mid-atlantic states we feel immune to them when wildfires break out we feel very vulnerable to them the combination of these uh natural disasters the global pandemic all of the rising dislocations in our society and racial tensions that have heated up all of these come together to make us uncertain about how do we look for familiar signposts so that we can get direction for our life and really discover the purposes for which god has made us one of my favorite books recently is one that i just finished reading this summer it's called upswing it's a book by robert putnam he had a collaborator shaylynn garrett whom i don't know but robert putnam is quite famous sociologist who teaches at harvard he's written some amazing books one of my favorites he wrote 10 years ago american grace which is really looking at the sociology of religion in america well swain is really a look a panoramic view of 125 years of american history through the lens of growing economic inequality intensifying political polarization increasing social fragmentation and surging cultural narcissism and the reason that putnam gives writing book there are many reasons the core reason is he believed people had begun to talk like our time was unique unto itself and we had lost a sense of perspective that we have been through these periods before as a country and we needed to really marshal the strength to recover he comes up with this term that i like he calls it an iwee eye curve where in 1895 gilded age we were very self-centered and then over time we began as a country to actually get more concerned about the welfare of all people in our society it really made some significant headway but in 1970 somewhere in the late 60s early 70s that crested and we began a downward descent and we're at that nader again where we really need a period of renewal and he's an optimistic person and so he really believes that america can make it back he he talks openly about what are the frameworks that will contribute one of them that i love of course is he talks about the importance of religious organizations to communities part of our efforts through the lilly grant the living endowment program five threatening congregations thriving communities it's the recognition that thriving religious congregations help contribute to thriving religious or thriving neighbor communities and one of the points that putnam emphasizes is that people who are inclined religiously are not only willing to give to religious organizations that are generous to all organizations that actually help build the social fabric of a society but the way we undercurve points to the problem begins to help us begin to to mount a earlier solution which i have found really helpful and these are books that have really helped shape my understanding department in america is a book i first read in an american intellectual history class when i was an undergrad and the key book is really a classic alexis de tocqueville's work and he spent time traveling throughout the united states in the 1830s wrote this as kind of his summative judgment on the state of america and what made up the uniqueness of american society he boils it down in two important ways to americans have this commitment to equality and this commitment in individualism and it's unclear which one will prevail makes the point that he believes because of all of the voluntary organizations that go into the fabric of american life that equality would ultimately win out 150 years later robert bella famous sociologist of religion he taught at berkeley he along with five former graduate students all of them distinguished scholars by the time they were doing this work released a book called habits of the heart and it's a phrase actually taken from de tocqueville's democracy in america look back at where did the tokyo get it right and where did they get it wrong and his group concluded that he had inverted what would actually went out the quality had not won out in fact individualism had and it was fraying the society in a way that could be irreversible now the book was published released in 1986 i was pastoring a church at the time i remember reading it i remember being riveted by it but what it amplified was the fact that we were on a downward descent amplifies the fact that it's just continued and now it's time for us to really get to work on turning back to history and gaining inspiration from a time that can actually inspire us that we can gain the capacities to actually bring renewal to our society renewal will come as we in fact find god's destiny from life recently to my own reading and prayer time i've been reading through the prison epistles it's interesting that you come to these points of time where i probably read through the epistles of paul a dozen times in the history of my life or my life with christ and i struck each time because i'm at a different point in time and i don't know why they struck me this time maybe because of everything that's happened where you're suddenly going okay paul's in prison and philippians at least of the prison epistles actually has an optimistic tone to it thinks things are going to get better and it's amazing to me that a person can be in prison and actually look out and begin to think that things will get better well listen to these three verses from chapter one this is my preacher that your love may have bound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so you may be able to discern what is best and may be purely blameless until the day of christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through jesus christ to the glory and praise of god now let's just go through the passage uh three verses very short visually succinct but very pivotal begins with this call to prayer what is prayer we do it we do it very reflectively we do it almost automatically we do it at meals we do it as we're departing we do it as we're starting a worship service prayer is the process of questioning our spirit so that we can commune with the spirit of god it's what we've learned to understand our life and god's purposes for our life in a meaningful way prayer is the activity god uses to help us engage our own sense of self and come to a level of awareness and a willingness to self-correct that otherwise would go unnoticed advocate when i'm speaking to leaders that they develop a prayer life so that they develop a capacity not only to self-reflect but to self-correct and one of the greatest blessings that they can give to a group that they're leading it's willingness to self-correct none of us ever get it right we all have to come back from mistakes through prayer the spirit encourages us convicts us and activates us so that we align our life energies with the spirit of god now prayer does many things but this is the core of what i believe prayer should be about and i pray in a variety of circumstances but when i'm in my own time of prayer it really is a time for me to commune with the spirit of god get inside into my life gain insight into what's motivating in my circumstances and pray about the people with whom i will be working people with whom i'll be serving and even people with whom i'll be correcting so that your love may abound i love thinking about uh greek i the first greek class i took when it was when i was a consortium student here i've been studying greek over a period that amounted to three full years did a great grammar here did a great grammar at my host college to degree grammar and seminary and all of them contributed to me developing just a love for the biblical language of what we could learn as we actually studied the text in its original original language and so when you look at love of course the the passage uses the word agape which we know is the unconditional love that originates in god alone but it also refers to the fact that when we reach a place of being able to actually respond in selfless love to circumstances that have been presented it's because we've learned to love in other ways and what are the other ways one way storge it's empathetic love your capacity to actually respond to both known and unknown circumstances you see a news report halfway around the world and you suddenly find yourself overwhelmed with emotion or you receive a call from your beloved mother telling you that your grandmother has died empathetic responses to circumstances are one way that we awaken to the depth and capacity of human love philia love friend love the love that i hope you enjoy as a westmonter one things i love about going to alumni gatherings is how many west waters keep track of each other long after they're done being a student here must love romantic love we hope that happens and then agape love the unconditional love that originates in god alone but why do we want to learn to love we want to learn to love so that we can develop knowledge and depth of insight and if you've come to preview day you've heard me talk about t.s eliot i love this phrase from fort cortez where he says they had the experience but they missed the meaning and the reason i love that phrase is so often people have experiences and they completely blow off the meaning one of the things that i feel is such a key to the genius of our education is our faculty are here not to hover but to interpret and they become great guides for you as you develop a capacity to interpret the whole program every part of the educational experience at westmont is meant to teach you how to look into situations and understand them in the right way scripture today is in your outline that are referred to as matthew 13 this is where jesus tells us how to understand parables you have to look and see in order that you can understand verse 10 discern and understand what is best this phrase from daniel kahneman that i love is under the acronym w-y-s-i-a-t-i and it's taken from thinking fast and slow and it means simply what you see is all there is so often i end up in conversations where people are just convinced they know exactly what went on and that their solution is the only one in a conversation yesterday where this was at the heart of the issue is that a person was convinced that they saw everything that was actually in play and the solution was the only one in fact the best one when in fact they knew about five percent of what had actually gone on and part of humility is being humble enough to say i actually haven't seen everything what other pieces of information do i need in order to make an accurate understanding and how again do we learn to develop humility you're here to learn how to study you're you're here to learn how to learn so that you can go through life with all these capacities to gain the information you need to respond constructively to whatever situation you face but you also have to be in the right environments in order for that to flourish at westmont david brooks david comes every year for a day with david wonderful new york times columnist bestseller pulitzer prize winner his book the second mountain we first invited david as his book the road to character uh was being written and then released and the second mountain is really him coming into the open about his conversion as a nominal jew to an active christian and he he actually lays this all out in chapter 21 of the second mountain but part of what david is doing is he's saying one of the biggest problems for us today as a society is we have lost our ability to make commitments to anything and he begins to actually talk about what are the commitments that actually anchor our life in meaningful ways and how can we cultivate them it talks about the commitment we make to a vocation the commitment we make to a marriage and family the commitment we make to a faith and a philosophy and the commitment that we make to a community and basically he says when we circumscribe our freedom so that we're committed to certain tangible values that really anchor our life it actually leads to greater freedom it leads to greater flourishing and it actually gives us the guideposts we need so that we can find meaning and purpose in life he talks about the four commitments and then he talks about how do we actually build community in a way that can really sustain uh and nourish us i love the fact that he views communities as something that actually should nourish us so when you think about the community of westmont one of the things that we want for you is we want this to be a community that actually brings out the best in you sometimes we feel like there are rules that are here to inhibit us rules are here to guide you here so that the best expression of who you are can come into being and we believe god's purpose for your life can be discovered as a result of being in an educational environment that both values the life of the intellect and also values the life of the spirit in verse 11 look at what is the fruit that comes from our life with god i love this idea about what is fruit how do you know it i i remember seminary we were having a really difficult situation in the church where i was an intern and the chief elder the head of the elder board said there just isn't fruit here and basically he was looking at a ministry that was failing and his only assessment was i can't prove to you what's going wrong all i know is that there's no fruit that that is coming from this ministry but about that insight ever since how can you actually judge the effectiveness of a program of a person of a situation and maybe we begin to judge we don't know all that's going on but what kind of fruit is a result of the efforts that are being undertaken food is what's produced when something comes to the best most full expression of itself that definition of fruit really applies to us we produce the best kind of fruit when we're allowed to be the best expression of ourselves five paul speaks to what is the fruit of the spirit love joy peace patience guide kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self-control every day i pray this prayer and i evaluate myself based on how i did against the fruit of the spirit not that i measure up but it's a guideline it's a reminder i think that one of the things that we often overlook is the fact that we have given our lives to christ we're trying to live into the reality of his spirit but we don't do enough to discipline ourselves to actually embody it if you move forward in your time at westmont i really hope that you will aspire to excellence in everything you do i want you to develop a capacity not only to have a breath scholarship but also a capacity for empathy and compassion that will really help you awaken to the world's needs and the ways you can meet them ultimately i want you to learn how to love and know god in ways that encompass all of life because life comes to you in many ways and as pastor scott was saying it's been a an interesting time as a president but you know you many of you see me only as a president and i myself is so much more than a president i see myself as a president of westmont college but i also see myself as a husband as a father as a brother in all of these settings they each have dimensions that put pressure and as a result of putting pressure you you come to the best experiences and the most difficult experiences and as i conclude i just i just want to tell you about what's happened in 2021 2021 we got a dog what do we call them golden doodles golden retriever and poodle awesome personality really fun it's just so fun to see how his brain works i just wish he had vocal cords i wish he had vocal cords that didn't bark but he could tell us what what he was thinking but at the same time that we were getting auggie my father-in-law who was he and my mother-in-law moved here uh in december planning to move into the sammer camp if they moved here he quickly had two heart attacks and in march died and so in the midst of covet we had a memorial service for my father-in-law back up in oregon where only 12 people were allowed to be in the in the sanctuary the rest of us had to be online my mother-in-law his wife of 61 years is here struggling with parkinson's and certainly in really compromised health both of them gave their lives to the work of god they were educators but more important to them than being educators was following god wherever god really prompted them and so for 15 consecutive summers they spent every summer in wuhan china teaching english as a second language to mid-level professors so they could advance in their field they sponsored over a hundred mid-level chinese professors to come to the united states to finish their phd so that they could advance in their science all of this life the way in which they have lived their life has been out of a sense that god calls us to serve others and in the midst of that they have found such deep meaning and purpose one asking you to do today is as you think about what god wants to do through your life be mindful of the way god gives you experiences puts people in your life that can really matter to you and that can help you and guide you and give you an opportunity someday to give back in the same way as we conclude my message this morning i asked evan if we could sing children of the heavenly father it's a famous swedish hymn and to do it in honor of my mother-in-law who is full swedish and has been such an incredible example to me of how god can use one person to really extend his love and grace around the world thank you [Applause] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] please [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] me [Applause] last season of last week as we leave this to morning him to seek him first and to seek the purposes in the world that he's created you for with great curiosity do we punch you you

Channel: Westmont College

Views: 218

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Westmont, Westmont College

Id: ydQea_tjhrU

Length: 57min 0sec (3420 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 08 2021