You will speak and write for me

I struggled long and hard with what I was going to say in giving my testimony to the student prayer meeting tonight. My writer's block finally loosened at 4:30 PM, and I wrote the following, lightning-quick, in about 90 minutes, ad majorem Dei gloriam (with apologies to the Jesuits):

One might rightfully consider it odd that a professor of Old Testament has chosen has the Scriptural basis for his first public remarks to the seminary community a passage from the New Testament. But as you listen to my testimony, you’ll see why these verses from the New Testament have been particularly significant for me over the past few months. I am also choosing an unusual way to tell my story. In the book Alice in Wonderland, the White Rabbit asks the king, “Where would you like me to begin, to please Your Majesty?” The king replies, “Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” Well, I am beginning at the end. It’s my story, so I can do that.

The concept of a “life-verse” describes a verse or phrase out of the Bible that has special significance for a particular believer. So, someone could choose John 3:16, or Jeremiah 29:11, or Numbers 6:24-26, or Romans 1:16-17. I have found that, at different times in my life, my life-verse has changed owing to the circumstances I am facing at a particular time. Luke 9:57-62 has been a life-verse for me in the last few months.

As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family." Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

I still remember clearly the circumstances of my first summons to APNTS. I had my laptop computer out on the kitchen table connected to a wireless network in my little apartment in Nashville. I had just sat down with a simple yet particularly American delicacy: the grilled-cheese sandwich, for whatever are the gifts and skills with which the Lord has blessed me, cooking is not one of them. A message came through on a secondary email account, and why this is important will become clear in a moment. The time stamp was February 6, 2008, at 2:32 in the morning. I didn’t have any idea who would be so crazy as to send me an email at 2:30 in the morning. The sender’s name was Dr. Floyd Cunningham, a name which I recognized but had difficulty placing. The message read, in part:

Dear Dr. Modine:

Greetings from Asia-Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary. Our school is located near Manila in the Philippines. It was suggested that I contact you, and Dr. Coleson at NTS was able to give me your email addresses.

We are looking for a teacher in Old Testament…

Would you be interested in applying for this position?

Then it hit me. I remembered where I had recently heard the name of Dr. Floyd Cunningham. Now, let me back up for a minute. I said this was my first summons to APNTS, but that is not quite true. I graduated from Drew University in 2006 with a PhD in Old Testament, but I had had trouble finding a teaching job. I had a sense that after all the waiting something was going to happen very quickly. (This is what you call foreshadowing, boys and girls.) I counted it up the other day, and over the past three years I have applied to fifty—fifty—different schools with positions in or related to my field. For many of them, I was woefully unqualified; these were the top jobs in the field, the places where people go when they have established long track records of publishing and careers of teaching. But I had no experience outside of one summer session intensive course in the book of Jeremiah at NTS. And in other cases I am sure my file was immediately rejected because of theological fit, or, better, because of lack of theological fit. These were all over the theological map from very conservative to the very liberal; I even briefly considered sending in my credentials to a reconstructionist Jewish school. So my friend Dr. Alex Varughese at Mount Vernon Nazarene University wrote me on January 29, 2008. He asked me if I would like to be considered for an opening at Asia-Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary. He offered to send me name to—you guessed it—Dr. Floyd Cunningham.

I had ignored Dr. Varughese’s email, because going outside of the US hadn’t been anywhere in my mind. But now, in the first week of February, I had two independent sources telling me about the opening at APNTS. Dr. Cunningham’s email had been addressed to a Yahoo! address that I rarely use and to my Drew University address that has been defunct since February 2007. Dr. Coleson at NTS in Kansas City didn’t have my current email address, because we have unfortunately not kept in very good contact; it’s more my fault than it is his. Anyway, I thought and prayed about it for a couple of days and then sent word back to Dr. Cunningham that I would consider coming to Manila. I also told him what Dr. Varughese had done the week prior, and how I was amazed at the separate communication. He said, “When things begin to converge, one must sense that God is in it.”

Now go back in time a little further. The time is 1997, the location is the lunchroom at Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City. I’m sitting at the corner table with my back to the corner, and around the table are four friends: Mark, Scott, Jason, and Jeff. I’ve since lost contact with Scott and Jeff, but Mark, Jason and I stay pretty close. I was worried about an issue, and I was seeking the counsel of godly men to deal with it. By the way, I have learned in my journey the awesome power of godly counsel. I had recently experienced what I perceived as a change in God’s direction and calling for my life. I had graduated Trevecca Nazarene University in 1996 with a major in Religion, and had come to seminary, with the goal in mind of being a senior pastor. I had developed skill in preaching, and when I got opportunities to preach I was always received very well as a gifted and thoughtful communicator, even if I didn’t necessarily have the social skills to match. But the big change I was contemplating was going on to graduate school to pursue a PhD after seminary. I didn’t see how the two goals—PhD and pastoral ministry—were complementary; they actually seemed rather to be in opposition.

The consensus of the men around the table was clear. God has given me a gift for learning and teaching, particularly with regard to languages. It may be, they said, that God is preparing a place for me in academics. And the two of them are not opposed to one another. Teachers and preachers are both listed as historic offices in the church I the New Testament. Incidentally, it took me many years, and many twists in the journey, before I finally realized the wisdom of what they were saying. I kept wanting to limp along between two opinions, as Elijah accuses the people of doing on top of Mt. Carmel (1 Kings 18). I kept trying to argue that I wanted to be involved in pastoral ministry at the same time I was teaching, because I often found resistance to the idea of a professor being an ordained minister without serving in a local church. I always wanted to be ordained, and I still do, but I am lacking the requirement of practical service. Perhaps it is God’s will that this will happen; perhaps not. I am still waiting on that particular revelation. But anyway, the advice I received helped me make the decision to pursue a PhD after graduation from seminary and, since the foundation was already laid through a biblical languages minor in college and further study in Hebrew and Greek (more Hebrew than Greek) in seminary, Old Testament seemed the best fit for my skills and my previous training.

Now go back in time a little further. This time the time is July 25, 1991, 17 years ago Friday. The place is Orlando, Florida. The event is Nazarene Youth Congress. Dr. Gary Henecke, who at the time was senior pastor of First Church of the Nazarene in Portland, OR, was preaching. The topic of his message was God’s call on our lives, and he said, “When God calls you, he will go with you, and he will equip you, and will give you the ability to do what he wills you to do, for the will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you.” I felt the call of God that night in a way I never had before. I had always wanted to use the creativity God had given me for his service, but I very clearly heard the words in my mind, “You will speak and write for me.” Since then, my understanding of the call has gone through many changes—one of which I described earlier. But the basic understanding has been the same. You will speak and write for me.

That last line of Dr. Henecke's sermon was particularly significant for me, because that phrase is on a plaque that has been hanging in my parents’ house for as long as I can remember. And if Luke 9:57-62 has been a life verse for me, then this has been a life-motto, of sorts. For, and here we fast-forward back to 2008 again, the next four months from Dr. Cunningham’s email and my positive response were a whirlwind tour, to say the least. I got in contact with World Mission in Kansas City, and they sent me a host of forms to fill out. I knew my process was on the fast-track when the second form I filled out said, “Please list the names of any children born since you filled out the first form.” I had to laugh because it had been only ten minutes since I filled out the first form.

I sent in the forms. Then I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more. I had an initial interview over the phone with David Cooper in the Mobilization Office, then spoke with him again and Rev. Verne Ward, at which time they invited me to formal candidate assessment in Kansas City. Then I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more. As I hear the story now, apparently it was already known around here that I was coming even before I knew I was coming. David Cooper called me on May 1 and told me I had been approved to come to Manila. Then they sent me to Baltimore the week after that to Cross-Cultural Orientation, which is supposed to be the first step in exploring missions with the Church of the Nazarene, even though for me it was close to the end. And the week after that they sent me for a quick boot-camp style field training. And all along the way I was marveling that one thing I had thought would happen was happening: everything was moving very quickly. I had been waiting for so long to see these things happen and now that they were I could hardly keep up. And I got my life in order as best as I could, resigned my job, and left for Idaho at the end of May to spend a couple of weeks with my parents before flying to Manila on June 15. For those of you keeping score, that’s four months and nine days from the initial contact I received from Dr. Cunningham.

What have I learned through this? I had thought it was crazy, thinking about going to Manila on the spur of everything. I hadn’t ever considered going out of the country for ministry and teaching until I received two independent emails about APNTS. Through all of the initial doubts—and there were many initial doubts—I have learned that when God calls you to go, he means for you to go NOW. No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. I never thought that I would be here, I never thought I would be able to put my life together quickly enough to get to Manila in four months. I had initially wanted to say to Dr. Cunningham, “Forget it, I don’t want to come to that place. It’s too hot! It’s too far away! I don’t want to be there!” And what if my excuses were written into the New Testament story? Lord, I’ll go with you wherever you go. Come to Manila. But it is too hot there. It is not as hot as the place from which I long to save people. It is too far away. I also came from far away. I don’t want to be there. My will will never lead you where my grace cannot keep you. Amen.