The King's Connection Magazine Volume 23 Number 2//Fall 2012 | Page 2
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
Get It?!
(Excerpt from the president’s message at Fall Convocation)
W
hat is ‘it’ that drives
this place? The ‘it’ I
have in mind has to do with
big questions we all bring
to our work at King’s: Who
am I? Do I have a purpose
in life? Why am I a student,
professor or staff member
here? What sort of world
do I want to help create?
Do you get it? When you follow Christ in a university like this,
something amazing happens. God, the great reconciler, brings
about a change so amazing that it’s like creation all over
again. God says “let there be reconciliation!” And there is! New
creation! The old way of ‘regarding’ passes away. Stand back
in wonder and delight, and regard a world that’s different, one
where the alienation, brokenness and suffering—in short, the
sin—that spoiled a good creation are done with, and where
agents of reconciliation live as if the new creation is already
here, because it is!
II Corinthians 5:16-21
speaks to such questions.
Our Mission Statement
Dr. Harry Fernhout - President
echoes this passage
in its call for Christ-followers to live as God’s ambassadors
of reconciliation in a world of brokenness, suffering, and
alienation from God. This must permeate your and my
experience at King’s – the call to participate in God’s work of
reconciliation, bending our lives toward the vision of healing,
renewal, reconciliation and hope which the Gospel promises.
If this academic community has a passion for this ministry of
reconciliation—well, then we ‘get it.’
Do we have the audacity to imagine that this is our real world,
and not the dreams and visions of the ‘good life’ peddled by
contemporary culture? Do we have the audacity to ‘regard’
education at King’s in that light?
This scripture passage also calls us to ‘regard’ everyone and
everything differently (verse 16). To ‘regard’ means to ‘pay close
attention.’ Isn’t that exactly what learning is all about? We pay
close attention to things, like molecules or historical events,
in order to learn about them and to understand how things
fit together. So this passage is incredibly relevant to our work
at King’s. If we are followers of Christ, we no longer ‘regard’
anyone or anything from this-worldly point of view. In fact (verse
17), if anyone is in Christ, ‘new creation’ is here!
Who are you? You’re not just a consumer; you are a new
creation in Christ!
Do you have a life mission? You’re not just out for success; you
are an ambassador of reconciliation!
What sort of world do you want to help create? Not one where
power and greed are worshipped, but one where God’s
reconciling shalom flourishes!
This year, I invite you to ‘attend to’ those times when we ‘get it’
at King’s. Or times when we don’t—yet. Let’s talk about those,
“admonishing each other with all wisdom.” Our challenge at
King’s is to ‘get it’ in whatever we do in Jesus’ name, which is
everything. ?
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3 /// The King’s Connection /// Fall 2012