The Day after My College Closed: Thanks, Thoughts, Dream, Call

Lutheran Bible Institute: Minneapolis, Teaneck, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Irvine, Omaha, Seattle, Issaquah, Everett. This represents a century of starts and changes and closures, of enthusiastic dreams and difficult discernments. It represents countless equipped ministries and marriages. I (along with other elders, council, and congregation) am in the business of making decisions and setting direction in a congregation. Deciding to begin something, change something, or end something is complicated and difficult. 

I am profoundly grateful. I have a few unformed thoughts about its closure. And, I have a dream!

Five Thanks:

1. Generational Transformation: My Grandma Verona took LBI classes while in nurses training at Fairview in Minneapolis. She was a nurse in the room when Eugene Stime's son, Nathan, was born. She remembers Eugene leaning over to his wife and saying, "Thanks for giving me a beautiful son." His tenderness impacted my grandma. Eugene would go on to start Seattle LBI. Joy's Grandma Berdine took classes at Minneapolis LBI. My mom and dad and Joy's dad went to Seattle LBI (Greenwood Campus), and Joy's mom went to California Lutheran Bible School after she graduated from UCLA. Joy and I went to LBI (Issaquah Campus), and I've taught at Canadian Lutheran Bible Institute. Trinity, the congregation I serve now has many leaders who were equipped at LBI (Seattle and California). It's hard to overestimate the transformative power LBI has had in my family.

2. Inductive Bible Study: The Joy of Discovery! Oletta Wald. The Bible wasn't a dead document to do an autopsy on, but a living breathing word that we could come to with questions, observations, applications. It was God's revelation that evoked awe. I loved how the Bible was handled at LBI!

3. Generous Orthodoxy: Mere Creedal Christianity, without much of the cranky parochial sectarianism. We were a small school and a small movement in a BIG church! 

4. Relationship Nursery: Conflict management 101. Dating & Love 101. Denominational/Political Differences 101. Communication 101, 201, 301... I'm really glad I fell in love at LBI. I love who I fell in love with, and I love the place and people who surrounded us when we fell in love.

5. Ministry Nursery: Failure was not fatal! We could try new things. Some stuff worked. Some stuff didn't. I am so grateful I could try on pastoring a little, and leading a lot. 

Three Closure Thoughts:

I'm not going to go too deep, and there are probably many others who would better reflect on the closure cocktail.

1. Internal Insecurity: "Respect me!" We wanted other colleges and accreditation agencies to respect us. We wanted the synods to respect us. LBI had a conflicted relationship with the broader church. They were usually held suspect by the established synods because of strains of pietisms, fundamentalisms, pre-millenialisms, and conversion-orientation. None of these words define the whole movement, but there were enough of these ingredients in the recipe to make "the church" judge the hot dish...until they needed a musician, youth director, Christian education director, camp counselor, equipped servant...then call LBI! Living on the activist edge is tiring and hard to sustain. Lutheran Bible Institute. Lutheran sounds educated and respectable, but Bible and Institute sound fundy. This internal insecurity caused many compromises in LBI/Trinity's final years. I saw the last president speak at an alumni gathering. He was an impressive leader, but didn't share the DNA, or, as far as I could gather, the dreams of the pioneers. Bible seemed to become a nice addition to the Trinity curriculum, but not the heartbeat.

2. Demographics: The baby boom is busted, and the day of Sunday schools lined up on the front of the church steps after the church picnic are passed. The vast number of relatively evangelical congregations feeding even a percentage of their young to a Bible School is past.

3. Synodical Reconfiguration and Demise: Captivated by progressive sexual discussions from one side and defensive conservative reactions on the other, the market for an education in the Bible went through a recession more severe than our nation's financial recession.

Dream

1. BIBLE Core: God's Word is our Great Heritage, and (please Lord) DESTINY! Canadian Lutheran Bible Institute has found a way to sustain a school with the Bible as its core curriculum. Their secret sauce is Bible-Community-Mission. They cover a ton of the Bible in a year or two. They plan for a transformative community along the lines of a YWAM Discipleship Training School. They put it into immediate practice at orphanages, congregations, inner city ministries, First Nations ministries, global trips. Mission is not just the product but the process. Why not in the US?

2. Gap year and wedge weeks: A well-respected local High School held a "gap year fair" recently. My 16 year-old son's friends are thinking about a gap year. Instead of aiming to be the next PLU or Concordia, why not a community that aims to provide a gap year experience with Bible core, community, and mission? No insecurity! Along with a one-year gap experience, this community could provide wedge weeks for people who are currently in school. We have done this at Trinity in partnership with CLBI. We called it Southern California School of the Bible (SC-SB). Some students joined us in J-term (2 weeks) for Bible-Community-Mission. One student, a Sophomore at Cal State Dominguez Hills, said, "This was the oasis I needed. I am going back to my context with a full tank after being in community with other Christians for these weeks, and equipped in God's Word for my calling." The same wedge weeks could be offered in the Summer, and could be geographically portable.

3. Connections: Maybe the gap year could be translated into some elective or major/minor credit with partner schools. It would also be dreamy to relate to other generously orthodox movements inside and outside of Lutheranism.

A Call to Apostolic Pioneers

Leaders, including Lutherans, used to start stuff. Hospitals, camps, old-folks homes, publishing houses, seminaries here and everywhere were begun by courageous apostolic leaders. Can you imagine the risks Samuel Miller, Eugene Stime, and a host of other leaders took to plant what God called them to plant? They must have been moved and sustained by the Holy Spirit. 

Join me in praying to the Lord of the harvest to move and sustain a new tribe of pioneers who will plant what God is calling them to plant now! There is such need in the Church and in the world now!