by David Melton
Did you get it? Whatever new thing — that Christmas gift you wanted — did you get it? Lots of us have been making “experienced” cars, carpet, furniture last a little longer than planned because these aren’t the greatest days for buying anything new. But Christmas is the exception. Surely all of us got something new.
Here in Boston we have been waiting and still will wait a while for some new stuff we want. We do need a lot of new carpet, some new computers, a new snow blower or two… “new” would be nice. But it is okay when we don’t go “new” just exactly when we thought we would. I am glad, however, that we do have something new… I am sure I see a newness in our students.
I often say that our students get younger every year. That is just a “new” way for me to say that the age gap between them and me broadens each year! We have to keep stretching to bridge the generational divide, and while that can get old, the payoff is a truckload of “new” that shakes up the halls and classrooms of Boston Baptist College.
Many of our students are new Christians. Most years almost half of our students are first-generation Christians, those not raised in Christian homes. These young people bring lots of questions to campus, and they have the most adjustment to get into our routine, but they also bring extraordinary new energy. I laughed to my soul at one of them the other day. He used to be a drug dealer and a drunk. He told me his new faith was “so cool” because this was the first holiday he could actually remember!
Our students also bring a new appreciation for grace. So much has been written and said about the impact of the implosion of the American family on this generation. But I think not enough has been said about how these young people respond to their adoption as God’s sons and daughters. I know they have some differences, and I will be the first to admit that I don’t understand all of them, but I absolutely love to hear them talk about salvation. That is the only upside to sin that I can see — the young people who are saved out of its depths seem to revel and bask in the warmth of the gospel. I joke with them that they are addicted to their iPhones. But along with that, I see in our students a reckless passion for the God who bought a relationship withr them on a Roman cross.
I did get a new thing or two during the holidays. Our college did too. We have a couple more new supporting churches and several more new students. I must say, though, that this generation of young people, so different from me in a lot of ways, these students at Boston, keep making ministry education “new.” We can assume little about them, but we ought to expect much from them. The gospel isn’t old hat to them. I’m sure glad we have them.