1 John 3:2 “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”
1 Corinthians 13:12 “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
A friend’s son is hoping to gain a part-time post with one of our Churches. He was asked to submit a profile in part of which he had to describe himself. He wrote two words: ‘authentic’ and ‘vulnerable.’ There’s courage and honesty and winsomeness and superb self-awareness in those two words. He excels as a relational evangelist. And his two-word selection shows exactly why he excels at that.
As Scotland drifts out of lockdown, like hermits blinking in sunlight we’ve forgotten existed, we try to recognise and read faces that have been shadowed for two years. We try to find our identity and substance and form again. Have we become on-screen reflections of ourselves, seen only briefly and partially…ghosts of our once-upon-a-time selves? We all need to recover our ‘authentic’ and ‘vulnerable’ selves. And if we are to be effective in ministry in whatever lies ahead then those same two words fit well.
Our curricula here cover all that you’d expect of a Christian College – theology and doctrine and history and pastoral studies and so on. But it’s the spiritual formation and the growing awareness of our identity in Christ that is a most precious element. Together, we are learning how to be our truest ‘authentic’ and ‘vulnerable’ selves in Christ.