It seems like eons ago today, but at one time I was a freshman at Northwest University. I showed up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with a glow of anticipation. The curious smell of the dorms and the homogeneous Caf food did little to abate my sense of purpose. I was in the epicenter of everything for which school and church had prepared me for all those years.
I spent three years at that place as a student, two as an employee, two summers as an SMT member, and countless hours in the nights and weekends trying to do something worth doing. In the last three months since I’d left, I have struggled with the overwhelming sense that it had all been for nothing. I have a piece of paper that says I passed my music classes and a couple of extra jewel cases with some music me and my friends put together. Trinkets, really.
The majority of my time at Northwest was spent in the chapel building. Most of my classes were there; my office was there; chapel and all of the production stuff that I worked on occurred there. I’ve eaten in that building hundreds of times–in probably every room of it. I’ve slept in the balcony after hours of exhausting post-production. I’ve departed for Europe twice after meeting people at the entry to that building. My most beloved mentors worked there, and some still work there. Two of my roommates and I left from that building to go to staff meetings every Monday for two years. Some of the greatest people and the most wonderful conversations I’ve ever had occurred in the various nooks and crannies of that place. The smell of the room was as much a part of my identity as the city in which I was born.
The smell of that room was never supposed to feel foreign.
Tonight, I attended one of the best church services in recent memory. Two of my close friends lead a packed crowd from a stage full of vibrant passion, and they used it to propel that crowd toward truth. Surrounded by the bevy of digital delay, tube overdrive, crash cymbals, and synth pad, I found myself overwhelmed by the purpose that had been absent from my recollection of my work at NU. The purpose of my work lives on in the strength of my friend Zac’s voice, in Travis’ confident motions on stage, in Brandon’s growing eagerness to challenge the status quo, and in the hearts and minds of everyone who is affected by THEIR work. Would they have reached those heights without me? Probably. They’re talented people. But, as Winston Churchill said of the Allies of their victories in World War II, “We stand on the shoulders of giants.” It is humbling to think that, at one time, those giants were standing on my shoulders.
So, to the current students of NU, I have one final lesson to pass along to you, if you would permit a young wanderer his chance to blather on… Give yourself 100% to everyone you meet at Northwest. Offer your mind to the professors and your heart to Pastor Phil. Present your precious time to the friends who are around you as a sacred offering that consummates the union between Christ-in-you and Christ-in-them. Find the people who accept you for who you are during face-to-face interaction, and then stand with them shoulder-to-shoulder in the task that stands before you. Serve wholeheartedly as though you were cleaning the toilet of Christ himself.
What you plant, you may not harvest.
You’re building a house in which you will never live.
You’re building a house for your younger neighbors.
If you build it well, it will suit them better than it would’ve ever suited you.
I spent three years at that place as a student, two as an employee, two summers as an SMT member, and countless hours in the nights and weekends trying to do something worth doing. In the last three months since I’d left, I have struggled with the overwhelming sense that it had all been for nothing. I have a piece of paper that says I passed my music classes and a couple of extra jewel cases with some music me and my friends put together. Trinkets, really.
The majority of my time at Northwest was spent in the chapel building. Most of my classes were there; my office was there; chapel and all of the production stuff that I worked on occurred there. I’ve eaten in that building hundreds of times–in probably every room of it. I’ve slept in the balcony after hours of exhausting post-production. I’ve departed for Europe twice after meeting people at the entry to that building. My most beloved mentors worked there, and some still work there. Two of my roommates and I left from that building to go to staff meetings every Monday for two years. Some of the greatest people and the most wonderful conversations I’ve ever had occurred in the various nooks and crannies of that place. The smell of the room was as much a part of my identity as the city in which I was born.
The smell of that room was never supposed to feel foreign.
Tonight, I attended one of the best church services in recent memory. Two of my close friends lead a packed crowd from a stage full of vibrant passion, and they used it to propel that crowd toward truth. Surrounded by the bevy of digital delay, tube overdrive, crash cymbals, and synth pad, I found myself overwhelmed by the purpose that had been absent from my recollection of my work at NU. The purpose of my work lives on in the strength of my friend Zac’s voice, in Travis’ confident motions on stage, in Brandon’s growing eagerness to challenge the status quo, and in the hearts and minds of everyone who is affected by THEIR work. Would they have reached those heights without me? Probably. They’re talented people. But, as Winston Churchill said of the Allies of their victories in World War II, “We stand on the shoulders of giants.” It is humbling to think that, at one time, those giants were standing on my shoulders.
So, to the current students of NU, I have one final lesson to pass along to you, if you would permit a young wanderer his chance to blather on… Give yourself 100% to everyone you meet at Northwest. Offer your mind to the professors and your heart to Pastor Phil. Present your precious time to the friends who are around you as a sacred offering that consummates the union between Christ-in-you and Christ-in-them. Find the people who accept you for who you are during face-to-face interaction, and then stand with them shoulder-to-shoulder in the task that stands before you. Serve wholeheartedly as though you were cleaning the toilet of Christ himself.
What you plant, you may not harvest.
You’re building a house in which you will never live.
You’re building a house for your younger neighbors.
If you build it well, it will suit them better than it would’ve ever suited you.
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