Application Essays

I am applying to the Master of Arts in Global Leadership program at Fuller Theological Seminary. Here are the essays that I will be submitting with my application. Anybody who has the time, I would sure appreciate feedback!

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A. Reflect on your past Christian experience, including the most significant spiritual event/influence in your life, the role of Christ in your religious experience, the effect your faith has on your worldview, your involvement in Christian service, your perceived gifts/calling for ministry, and your reason(s) for attending your church.

Many people speak of faith in abstract terms or as something you pull out for the hard times, but for me, faith is a constant reality of relying on God. I've chosen to live my life in such a way that there has been no other option for me. Although I grew up in a Christian household, my walk with Christ took a very real turn for me in July 1998 at a youth camp when I decided to offer God my entire life. Prior to that, I had put off the decision, feeling like Christians never got to have any fun. I soon realized that my life as a Christian would be as adventurous as I allowed it to be.

Early on, God made it clear to me that He had my life in His control, but that He wasn't going to give me very much advance notice of anything or make it easy to rely on money. Each of my three summers during college really tested my faith. The first summer, I decided to do a discipleship training program with the Navigators. Having heavily relied on family and friends for three past international mission trips, I knew that God was calling me to pay for it myself. A similar thing happened the next summer, when I was planning on interning with my church when the budget was cut. I made the decision to continue with the job unpaid. The third summer, I hoped to return to Kenya and stay the entire summer with a team, but the team never materialized. I chose to go alone. Each of these three decisions had to be made at nearly the last minute, but each was incredibly rewarding. Since college, the trend has continued. It took two years after graduating to begin to earn a salary that covered my basic monthly expenses. My job change was also unexpected, but when the opportunity came it was clear that God had it planned for me. At every step of the way, I can have no doubt that God was in control.

My experiences in my life have really served to change my worldview. I have learned to see Christ in everything. I have had to work hard to know His voice and recognize it above the others. And my experiences traveling in Central and South America and Africa have continued to stretch my worldview to see the way that believers around the world see God. I have grown to love seeing different sides of God through the lenses of other cultures. I believe that I have a calling on my life for international service, but also for leadership and management. I also believe that God has called me to a higher level of holistic ministry. Fortunately, God has and is continuing to equip me for these callings, because I could never accomplish them on my own!

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B. Reflect on how attending Fuller Theological Seminary would complement your present Christian experience and/or help you to achieve your future professional and vocational goals.

God has called me to His ministry by an unusual road. As my church believed that every member was called to serve, I grew up involved in ministry but never had a vision for it being my life calling. In college, I studied business, not out of any desire to be a businessman, but out of a desire to learn skills that would be useful in any setting. It wasn’t until during college that I began to realize that God had planned for me to be in full-time ministry. For the past two years, since graduating, I have pursed full-time ministry out of a passion to see people’s lives changed, both spiritually and in more tangible ways. Now I recognize that my business education complements skills that God had already gifted me with in a way that I can be a leader in developing new methods of ministering to people around the world holistically.

However, due to my unusual path into ministry, I am now trying to find my role in ministry without any Biblical education. I have been in public schools my entire life and so the lack of formal Christian training has become an impediment to my career progress. Not only am I looked down upon by many, but I also recognize that I am lacking some of the essential training that I need to keep myself well-grounded in a life of ministry. Just as I was thrust into a role of leading a high school ministry suddenly in 2008 without any preparation or warning, I now find that in my life I have found myself in ministry without adequate preparation. My preparation has been purely experiential, from travelling around the world to working in ministry roles. If I am going to move forward with my calling, it is essential that I receive formal Christian education to complement my already-growing body of experience.

I am eager to begin my education at Fuller as soon as possible to learn about leadership in a global world, particularly from a Christian perspective. I had initially begun learning about international development from a secular university, but I soon realized that missing theological training was not God’s will. I then began to apply to a business program from a Christian university, but then realized that God has not called me to a life of business. God has called me to ministry, and I must follow Him! Therefore, I am applying to this global leadership program at Fuller, where I know that I will receive both the character, practical, and theological training to fulfill God’s plan. I believe that He is leading me toward a career of leadership in holistic ministry on a global scale, and thus I can think of no better program than the MAGL.

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Provide a resume listing your professional experience over the last 5 years. Please provide the name of the organization, title of your position, a brief description of duties, and years of employment.

My ministry experience began during the 2005-2006 school year with co-leading a Bible study and discipling several men. I spent the summer of 2006 working at my home church as an intern for the High School ministry. I helped lead a summer camp, a mission trip to Peru, and joined a team to Kenya. During the 2006-2007 school year I left the leadership team of the Navigators to be President of my dormitory and be part of an inter-ministry effort to reach my dorm. In the summer of 2007 I returned to Kenya and remained by myself working in a slum church, teaching a business seminar, and opening an income-generating water project. I continued as President of my dorm until graduating.

In February 2008 I took a job at my church as the High School Assistant but soon found myself responsible for the program when the youth minister abruptly left. I directed the program, a summer camp, and a mission trip until August, when I returned to my role as Assistant and also became an assistant to the Young Adults and Missions Ministries. I remained in that role until November when I accepted an offer to come to LINC North Texas, where I handle the finances and human resources. I am also part of our ministry efforts all over Dallas and Fort Worth, including networking, fundraising, helping with inner-city youth, and more. I have also stayed part of the project in Kenya, traveling back two more times since graduating and recently assisting with starting a nonprofit organization to sponsor the education of youth from the slums.

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Briefly evaluate your personal ministry, and identify perceived strengths and areas needing improvement. Please indicate what has prompted your interest in the Master of Arts in Global Leadership and how you hope the program will address this need.

My personal ministry is based first and foremost on people. As a naturally relational person, I lead through relationships and minister through relationships. People say that I am dependable and reliable, a good listener, and good at speaking to people's levels. However, I add to this relational focus a strong skill for administrative work. I am naturally good at managing things, planning things, and problem solving. This combination of strengths leads me to be an adept leader, manager, and hard worker at the same time. Combined with my varied passions, which include social justice, development, and anything international, my life has taken a turn toward finding the proper relationship between spiritual ministry and practical ministry. I do have plenty of weaknesses, of course, which include being overly independent, idealistic, and sometimes self-centered. I have struggled to find my role in teams, as my natural tendency is to either sit behind the scenes and work or take charge. I have been accused before of having trouble operating under authority and of being prideful. I believe that I am a very self-aware individual and that this allows me to see my weaknesses and work on them.

I am very interested in becoming a better leader. The emphasis on personal development and leadership training with a global focus attracted me to the MAGL program. I place a high value on being a lifelong learner and on continual self-improvement so I hope that this program will be part of propelling me toward greater opportunities personally and professionally. I believe that I am called to be a leader wherever I am and so I know that I need as much training as possible.

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What are the two biggest struggles facing the churches in your context?

As I am currently in a role where I work closely with many churches and experience many different types of churches, I believe that I get a good perspective of what the church culture is like. The biggest struggle facing churches that I work with in Dallas is to be outward-focused. Nearly all of the churches that I have experience with are focused on internal issues such as ministry styles, following traditions, and internal measures of success. This causes them to struggle to effectively outreach to their communities. With metrics such as Sunday attendance instead of real life change, they struggle to place an emphasis on reaching people outside the church and ministering to their deeper needs. It also causes churches to struggle to cooperate with other nearby churches as they are competing to be the biggest, best, and most self-sufficient.

The second biggest problem facing the churches in my context is related to the first: it is the challenge of being multicultural. Nearly all churches are essentially monocultural - not only are they segregated on ethnic lines, but low-income communities rarely attend church with middle- and high-income communities and young people rarely mingle with older generations. As the book of Acts describes the reversal of Babel with the bringing together of different cultures in worshiping Christ, the book of Revelations shows an image of all nations worshiping the Lord together, and the mystery of the Gospel described in Paul's epistles is the uniting of Jew and Gentile under one head, I have heard it said that segregated churches is one of the most dangerous heresies of our time. Through these two problems, many of our churches have become places of comfort for believers where a "club" mentality is held and outsiders feel unwelcome.

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What are the two biggest opportunities that you feel you are not properly resourced for?

At my current job, I am working primarily on the administrative side of operations. I would like to be more on the leadership side of operations. We are a church planting and community development organization and so I am being held back due to my lack of experience in either of those fields. The organization is in need of leaders who are capable of running entire projects or ministries and I believe that I could be the right person, but I need more leadership training and experience. I believe that my lack of qualified education for the job is also holding me back. As I have no Bible school training and only a business degree, I feel like my education causes people not to initially trust me. I feel like the MAGL program would really help me to develop into the right kind of leader and gain the trust of others to move our organization forward.

There is also an opportunity with the project in Kenya that I've been involved in for three years. A friend and I have just started a nonprofit organization for it, but since the longest that I've lived there is 2 months, I do not yet have the ability to take more of a leadership role. I believe that I am lacking the same resources in this opportunity as well: experience and education. My experience gives me a start, but I need more. My education, however, only qualifies me to work on the administrative side of things in this organization. The MAGL program would equip me with the leadership skills and character to step forward and get more experience while also helping me to grow my capacity for taking leadership in this organization.

Striving

Recently I have begun to notice in myself what I will call a "Striving Spirit." Over the past two years I think that I have developed a self-identity that basically consists of:

• young
• inexperienced
• unqualified

This is probably because I've spent most of that time surrounded by people older, more experienced, and more qualified. Unfortunately, that identity created in me an insecurity that I am:

• alone
• not good enough
• not going to make it

Therefore, I have been striving to rectify this identity. Pursuing friends, trying to get better experiences, and greatly desiring more education, to name a few of my strivings. Overall, I'm really just seeking some approval and some applause.

Galatians 1:10: "For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ."

John 5:44: "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?"

It's all well and good to tell yourself to give up striving, but how?

Luke 10:20: "Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven."

It's a change of attitude. Paul has some more interesting things to say about striving in Philippians 3:

"But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith." - verses 7-9

This is a powerful message to give up striving. Not only can you not achieve righteousness (salvation) by your actions, but everything is subordinate to the fact that you have Christ. Nothing else really matters. Not titles, nor degrees, nor accomplishments, nor friends.

Matthew 6:33: "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

Jesus is speaking there of abstaining from worries, but the same applies to strivings - seek Christ first and foremost! This presents an interesting dichotomy, for Paul is not done in Philippians 3:

"Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." - verses 13-14

Paul is now instructing us to return to striving! Now that we have abandoned striving for things in order to pursue Christ foremost, we must return to striving after God, who is calling us upward and forward! How then do we reconcile this?

Philippians 3:15: "Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude..."

Paul uses a powerful Greek word here for attitude (phroneo) which he has made a nice habit of using throughout Philippians. Other uses of phroneo in Philippians?

• 1:7 - love for the Philippians, confidence in their progress
• 2:2 - unity, love, joy
• 2:5 - the extreme humility and meekness of Christ found in the next few verses
• 4:2 - harmony and unity
• 4:10 - loving concern for the right things

Let us then give up strivings for righteousness in favor of focusing on Christ, but let us strive for righteousness with the attitude which Paul promotes throughout Philippians!

Live Simply

In Christian circles, you have probably heard of Shane Claiborne. He's a fascinating man who has undertaken an incredible ministry - he gives up material comforts in order to discover true community in inner-city Philadelphia. You are likely to hear many people call him "cool" or say that it would be awesome to do what he's doing. While I've met him, I don't know him, so I don't know whether or not he is "cool." Maybe he is. What he's doing definitely isn't "cool." There's nothing cool about the way he lives his life, nor would it be particularly awesome to do what he does. For some people, it would be awesome, but the vast majority of us could never live his life. He has an incredible ministry, and has a very special calling and it's great to see him living in that calling. I'm still looking for my special calling. If you see it anywhere, please tell it that I'm looking for it, and let me know which direction it went.

Anyways, he advocates living simply. When I heard him speak at a conference not long ago, I was pleasantly surprised to hear him humble himself a few times, such as when he admitted to having a "major libido" and that he had for a time made singleness his idol. He also said that he was still figuring out exactly what living simply meant, and he said that he now thinks that living simply means all different things to different people. We know what it means to Shane. To somebody, it might mean giving up a few extravagances so that a few kids can go to school in a developing nation. But I'd like to suggest another option.

I think that for me, living simply has less to do with material possessions (I don't have too many anyways) and more to do with attitude. In my life thus far, and I think that I want to make it part of my identity, I have always taken major events, problems, and changes in stride. Leave all my friends and move to college, no problem. Hang out in western Kenya without the benefit of any of my American friends, of course. Graduate with no job lined up and recession looming, whatever. Parents divorce, guess that means move forward. I think that for me, living simply means remembering my place in life. I'm just a guy doing my thing and that's all there is to it. Stuff happens, and of course it affects you, but I don't see the need to get dramatic about it.

I'll get dramatic for other people. My coworkers in Kenya who wouldn't go out with me to eat because they couldn't afford it, and wouldn't even go home to eat, but rather took their lunch hour to go to their second job - I'll get dramatic for them. They deserve it. I've never carried that burden. The young girl who gets tricked away from her family and carried to another country and forced into prostitution - I'll get dramatic for her. She deserves it. I've never carried that burden. The kid who has to kill at a young age because his country is in a civil war - I'll get dramatic for him. He deserves it. I've never carried that burden. I feel humbled when I look around, so I'll live simply.

So when times are tough, and things are crazy, and it seems like the pressure is heavy, I want to strive to live simply. For me, that may just mean cranking up the country music on the way home and singing loudly and happily, despite all the negative potential around me. That, for me, is living simply. Not too concerned by the small things, but easily satisfied by just a little bit. Even keel when the waves hit, but smiling all the way as I enjoy the adventure. And in the meantime, I just might impact somebody else's life for the better as I do my best to love them.

Idealistic

Tried by exposure
Sick with existence
Remnant of my many losses
Will this follow me forever?

Stained by the failure
Spent with my striving
Could my life by cleaned of anguish?
My identity is buried

Burnt by their falsehood
Jaded with people
Cynicism lingers longer
I am not the ideal image

Drawn to the hopeful
Eager for trying
The chance to live and dream again
An optimistic man will soar!

Voicemail Greetings

I think voicemail greetings are weird. Take a typical greeting:

"Hi, you've reached John. I can't come to the phone right now, but if you leave your name and number after the beep I'll call you back."

Now think about the assumptions that this greeting makes:

• Somewhere between dialing and getting the voicemail, you forgot that you were calling John and you needed to be reminded.
• The fact of getting a John's voicemail didn't clue you in to the fact that John couldn't come to the phone.
• You have never left a voicemail for somebody before and you didn't realize that you had to wait until the beep to start talking.
  
• You will only receive a call back if you leave your name and number.
• John won't pull your phone number out of his phone's memory, instead he needs you to leave it on your recording.

Just sayin' it's weird, that's all.

Who Are You?

Some time ago I was working through some young adult curriculum. It claimed that there are 3 big questions facing young adults in America today and proposed to help young adults work through them. The three questions are:

• Where will I work?
• Where will I live?
• Whom will I marry?

At first glance, these questions struck me as surprises, because I had honestly never thought of them before. Of course they had occurred to me, but they had never really been so consuming that they paralyzed me. The closest would be when I graduated early from UT with no job or plan. I applied to a number of jobs, but never really got too concerned. The other two questions have rarely bothered me at all.

As I thought more deeply about them, I realized that the reason that these questions surprised me is that they are not the real questions - they are only surface level. The second question is largely determined by the other two, and thus the question of living situations should be tossed out. The other two are deceivers.

The question of where to work and the question of whom to marry are both largely undiscernable and uncontrollable. You can't really know where to work until you receive that phone call saying that you are hired, and you can't really know the identity of your God-ordained spouse until one of you is on one knee and the other is saying yes. Moreover, the control that you think you have in the situations is deceptive. Where to work is largely determined by other people (namely, the employers), decisions that you have made in the past, and your choices of personal identity. You can only really make broad category choices. Whom to marry is largely determined of course by the person you are trying to date, and is also highly dependent on your other choices, including life direction and identity.

One thing is common between both - your career and your spouse are both significantly affected by personal choices regarding your identity. Therefore, I propose that there is really only one question facing young adults in America today:

• Who will you be?

The scope of this composition is not on how to establish your identity or go about that process....I would try to write it if I knew what it was. However, I do know that you cannot determine who you will be without knowing precisely who you are. Therefore, the real point of this article is to say that self-awareness is near the center of establishing your life as a young adult.

Time To Be A Scrooge

I hate to be "that guy" and I really don't want to come off sounding arrogant or angry or rebellious. I feel that I should preface with a brief statement: I most closely align myself with the Lutheran doctrine of the Christian faith. I have been brought up in a Lutheran church, mentored in both life and ministry and missions by Lutherans, and subsequently discipled and trained by Bible Church-attending Navigators. I am intellectual by nature and voluntarily minored in philosophy because I love dealing in the intellectual and the esoteric. What's more, I am considering entering seminary in the spring, and I am currently studying Lutheran doctrinal materials in order to become a Deacon.

Now, with all that off my chest, I have to become "that guy." I only made it 1 page into the introduction of That I May Be His Own by Charles P. Arand before I was ready to poke my eye out at what I was reading. If I may be so allowed, I humbly submit my commentary on the following quotes from the first couple pages of this book.


"Wherever Lutherans undertook the training of the young in the faith, they used this text [the Small Catechism]. Whenever they shipped the message overseas, they equipped missionaries and catechists with this text. Already by the end of the sixteenth century Lutherans had translated it into nearly every language on the continent."

• JFS: Clearly, the Scriptures alone are not adequate for the instruction of our children or the teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness of overseas mission work. I'm so glad that we carry the banner of "Sola Scriptura" and really act as if we believe it. And I'm also glad that while millions live with no Scriptures in their native language, we are hard at work translating Luther's Small Catechism.

"Over the next 200 years, the Small Catechism provided a common text for linking Lutherans together..."

• JFS: As if the Holy Spirit weren't enough to link Christians together. Around the Catechism, let us unite, and if you don't hold to the Catechism, you have no fellowship with us.

"Throughout these years, the catechism was the one theological text of the church, besides the Bible, that was read, learned, and prayed by rank-and-file church members."

• JFS: Make no mistake: Luther's Catechism, has no place beside the Bible. It is below the Bible. It is simply a theological text based on the Bible. The works of John Calvin, some guy named Ryrie, and Donald Miller all fall below the Bible. And should I ever become a "rank-and-file" church member, please beat some sense into me. Being a Christian has nothing to do with "rank-and-file," it has to do with being in the world yet not of the world. If it had to do with being a Club with "rank-and-file" membership, we would welcome everyone into nice comfortable buildings, wear shiny nametags, use our own special buzzwords, focus on ourselves, everyone would have to pay their dues, and we would make sure that non-club members would feel very uncomfortable. Hey, wait a second....

"I can testify that the little book [the Small Catechism] was a constant companion, its every page subjected to memory..."

• JFS: If only the speaker of these words would have dedicated such time and effort to studying and memorizing the words of God instead of the words of Martin Luther.....

Again, I'm sorry to be such a loser, but I am so disgusted by all of this stuff. I am a thorough believer in asking the hard questions, particularly about yourself. Constant self-examination and knowing yourself is the key to avoiding deep problems. So then I submit the following questions for the analysis:

• Are we more in love with our theology than our relationship with God?
• Do we know about God or do we know God?
• Which do we love more: our liturgy or the lost?
• Are we more committed to maintaining our club status or bringing the Kingdom of God?
• Do we experience God as if the veil separating us was torn when Christ died, or is our experience more like the Old Testament: reaching for Him through a priest, an action, rules, and doctrine?
• Are we living as if Christ is alive and on the throne, or as if He's still dead and powerless?
• Do we truly believe that it was better that Christ leave and send us the Spirit, or are we secretly wishing that Christ were still walking along next to us telling us what to do?