One of the most harrowing journeys I have ever undertaken was obtaining a doctorate. I started 5 years ago, unaware that a job change to another state was on the horizon. Within 9 months, I would be taking the scarlet and grey into maize and blue inundated SouthEast Michigan. Soon after, my third child, my only daughter, would be born. Soon after, 2020 raged into all of our awareness, ushering in a global pandemic and revealing intense racial and political unrest in the United States.

My good friend and roommate Josh Johnson was my roommate throughout those 5 years at Asbury Theological Seminary. While driving home from an event, he asked me, “Would you do it again?” My immediate reaction burst through “NO!” as we cruised through the rolling hills around Wilmore, Kentucky. The last 5 years were the worst in my life in so many ways. The trial for my family was intense. How could I separate my time at Asbury from my ministry?

Then we drove by Jake’s Cigar bar, where I had many nights talking with pastors from all over the world about what God was doing. I sat with a Bishop in the Church of England in the first year, drinking a fine whiskey, smoking a cigar, and playing chess. And discussing the replanting of Christ’s body in the city centers across England. In the third, I sat with the owners of Jake’s, who immediately donated money upon hearing about my friends in Africa who had been living in the country for a year to foster their future daughter. This year, I sat for three hours in a thunderstorm discussing the multi-site movement in Seattle with a new friend graduating this year and how to hold tight to Jesus and loosely to the job.

My mind was flooded with flashes of memory. Moments sitting in sleepy Wilmore at a get-together of someone we met walking down the street. A room full of people from all over the world sharing their stories. One particular treasure was the performance of an original song by a circus performer from Nigeria. Speaking of singing, I will never forget the spontaneous bursting out of song in our classes led by an Alabama Pastor who used to tour with the Gaithers. The incredible moments in South Korea include walking the prayer mountain, exploring Seoul, and attending the largest church in the world. Moment by moment, the experiences flooded my mind, and I rethought my answer.

“100%, yes! I would do it again.”

Presentations of Projects

Thus began my graduation week at ATS. Little did I know that more of those crucial memories were about to be formed. The week started with the presentations of our projects. The five years with thousands of hours of research, writing, experimenting, swearing, editing, analyzing, and formalizing were boiled down to a 35-minute presentation. I spoke of how the project came to be, the powerful time together during the Equip course, and the participants’ transformation. To be able to share the impact of that work was incredibly gratifying. In fact, the very hour I was presenting in Wilmore, Kentucky, on the effects of Equip, the staff in Canton, Michigan, were in the third session of Equip, starting their own transformational journey.

I didn’t expect the nerves as I presented to a small group of soon-to-be doctors of the church. However, as I spoke, I felt the closure of the process. It was the end, yet the work continued beyond at Life Canton Church. The response to the project was incredibly gratifying as it was described as “extraordinary,” “excellent,” and “incredible work.” What you may not know about me is that I struggle to accept praise. I rarely receive it. At this moment, it felt right and good to receive the affirmation. I am relieved I even finished and amazed at the work God has accomplished through this process. It was time to begin the ceremonies, and the first was the Hooding Ceremony.

Hooding Ceremony

34 of my fellow participants made up the Doctor of Ministry 2022 class. Sitting in Estes Chapel with the President of the seminary, our academic advisors, dissertation coaches, and my brothers and sisters who were graduating felt both intimate and weighty. The ceremony was to place an academic hood on each of the graduates. For Masters’s Degrees and Doctorates, hoods are included in the academic regalia (outfit). Dr. Timothy Tennent began by describing the purpose of these colored hoods.

 “There were few articles of clothing more practical and useful than a caputium – a hood – even lined with fur – to keep your head warm in the cold weather, or inside the cool stone structures which dominated medieval Europe. It is in the 15th century that the hood was gradually taken over by the university and the hood became increasingly identified with academic achievements, specific degree levels. Suddenly the quality of the fur, the color of the lining and the length of the hood all helped to determine how high you had climbed the academic world.”

Dr. Timothy Tennent, President of Asbury Theological Seminary

He began to read 2 Corinthians 4:8-10, and before he had finished the first sentence, tears began to roll down my face as the weight of the last 5 years rose in my heart.

We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

2 Corinthians 4:8-10

I don’t remember the last time I cried or grieved, but a dam of emotion began to flow. My heart resonated with the truth of the steadfastness of Christ. In reading the scripture, his faithfulness was not only intellectually known but experienced as truth. I felt connected to the women and men next to me graduating and my parents who had come to celebrate with me, to the friends and family watching the live stream. I felt connected to my three children, who sat patiently, not fully understanding what was going on but feeling the weight and spirit of the room.

But I felt the truth of Jesus’ constancy in the storm the most in the presence of Jenna, my wife. Her support was everything, not just for this degree but for the work of ministry. Recently, I told my church that we got married because we believed that we would serve God better married than remaining single. Every trial has proven that true. I have never been more vulnerable and broken before my wife than in the last 5 years. To be received with love and acceptance is a balm to the soul. To be reminded of Jesus in moments of fear and despair is indeed the purpose of our community. My community proves the truth of 2 Corinthians, and I give glory to God.

“We have been pushed to the point that we find ourselves at every turn effectively asking the question, “What is the least one has to do to become a Christian?” That impulse must be opposed at every turn. We must resist Christian minimalism. We must resist those who want to boil the entire glorious gospel down to a single phrase, a simple emotive transaction, or some silly slogan. It is time for you, a new generation of Christians, doctors of the church, to envision a more robust apostolic faith, and to declare this minimalistic, reductionistic Christianity a failed project! It is wrong to try to get as many people as possible, to acknowledge as superficially as allowable, a gospel which is theologically unsustainable. We need to be reminded of the words of Søren Kierkegaard, in his Attack Upon Christendom, where he declared, “Christianity is the profoundest wound that can be inflicted upon us, calculated on the most dreadful scale to collide with everything.”

The fire of my passion for rejecting Christian minimalism and embracing the mission of Jesus Christ was being fanned back into flame sitting in the chapel. I had spent so much time trying to survive the emotional and spiritual blowback of calling people to repentance. I forgot the passion for a covenantal relationship with Jesus that the church must return to. I had allowed the numbness of a grief unmourned dampen the Holy Spirit fire. As the tears fell, the fire in my belly grew. As we sang “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and the beauty of mingled harmonies resonated in the chapel, my soul seemed to join in the truth of God’s sovereignty. I felt the weight of the call of Jesus to care for his church as I kneeled and received the hood. As I was anointed with oil, I felt the call to go in the grace of God.

Baccalaureate

After a beautiful dinner with all the people in the chapel, we returned to the chapel to join the hundreds of people graduating from the seminary that weekend and their families. The DMin office ran me two bound copies of my finished dissertation right before the service began (they had rushed the printing during the week since the previous copies had defects). It felt special to hand my mother her copy and then sit between her and my father for the service. Watching them respond to beautiful choir performances and the sermon was a special moment that rarely happens anymore with small children and hectic lives. When we stood and sang, Dad invariably raised his hands in worship (even though it was straight hymns). I was reminded of the many church plants sitting between them. The leading they did by the way they worshiped God, and it seemed that those moments decades ago were simply a few months ago. As the volume of the hymns swelled even further with a full chapel, joy continued to grow in my heart.

Near the end, every person graduating was invited to a seminary tradition. The aisles of the chapel form a cross. At the intersection, a cross was placed, and every graduate grasped it or the shoulder of the person touching it and created a new cross with their bodies. We would be the cross of Christ, but never alone, always together. That we collectively would be the sacrifice. That we would always grasp to each other and to Christ. Standing in that line as we were prayed over, I cried again, but this time in joy. The bride of Christ, while not yet perfected, is the hope of the world, and that hope lives in all of us, not as individuals but as brothers and sisters in Christ. A ceremony can often show us the truth of the scriptures experientially in a way that helps the knowledge move to the heart. A beautiful moment.

Thus Friday drew to a close…

Graduation Ceremony

The day of graduation had come. Not only was it my graduation, but 4 years to the day, I became the Lead Pastor of Life Canton Church. Not only that, it was my bride’s birthday. Spring was in full bloom, and it felt like the season lined up perfectly with our lives. This accomplishment came when the church I serve at was entering a new vision. A vision both bold and risky. We will all Reclaim our Identity in Jesus and Bear the Torch of Christ’s Justice and Love. A vision that resonates with President Tennent’s call to declare Christian minimalism a failed project. A costly vision came at a high cost for me, my family, my staff, leadership, and our congregation. 

Where there was transition and turmoil within the church now, there is solidarity and excitement. Where there was burnout in me, healing is beginning. Where there were schemes and weapons formed against his church, they have faltered. Where there was spiritual deadness, the Spirit has brought beautiful light. Anxiety and depression flee in the healing of God’s presence IN COMMUNITY.

It became so fitting that the speaker was Pete Scazerro, the author of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. He called us to hold tightly to Jesus. To rest in him and to call others to know him deeply. To prioritize our faithful time with Christ. As someone who has followed him for a while, I didn’t hear a new message, but the same message was faithfully delivered again. A statement that encouraged the digging of deep wells to fill with the presence of God. The call again from President Tennent was to reclaim discipleship as the primary tool of the kingdom of God. To reject the numbers (seats, money, and popularity) as indications of effectiveness but embrace obedience. Obedience, no matter the cost, as faithful stewards of the church of Jesus Christ.

As I walked across the stage and my name and the name of my project were read, I felt the joy of completeness finally fall in finality. As soon as I received my degree and walked down the ramp, my son ran to me and gave me a hug. What a joy to have them there. To have my parents who invested and struggled so that I could excel. To be the first person in our family to receive their Doctorate and perhaps extend that legacy forward. A joyful day and moment. We went back to the Airbnb house and had cake and ice cream to celebrate Jenna’s birthday. We talked and reflected and shared with Josh and his wife. It was finished, and it truly felt that way.

Gratitude

God is the one who this was all for; he is the one who set me on this path. His timing is perfect. The work was delayed two years because the time for Equip to come was on his schedule, not mine. He sustained me through the time of trouble, and he laid the passion in my heart to see all people equipped for works of service. He surrounded me with the people able to see that vision come to pass because he said he would. By the power of the Holy Spirit, I pursue the ministry of Jesus Christ to reconcile all to God. I thank him for His grace and love. I am overwhelmed by his faithfulness.

To John Grandy, my partner in the Life Journey for 7 plus years, thank you for your hard work on Equip. I can’t wait to keep rewriting and refining the entire Life Journey for years to come.

To Life Canton Church and its staff and leadership, thank you for the support in the journey. I never once was made to feel like I should not be spending so much time on this journey. It indeed would never be possible to complete this degree without the church. I can’t wait to see what fruit God brings from your faithfulness.

To Ellen Marmon, my coach, and Milton Lowe, you are both rockstars. The reason this program is successful is because of you. May God continue to encourage you by simply revealing a fraction of the impact your work has made in this world.

Finally, President Tennent and Asbury Theological Seminary, thank you for making graduation not about an organization or grooming a potential group of donors but about Jesus Christ and his glory. About commissioning and sending. About creating a milestone that will continue to provide encouragement and strength for the years to come.

Thank You All.

“Won’t he do it?”

“He said he would.”