Volume 17 Issue 7
When I open my iPhoto 10,000 tiny photo thumbnail images pop up. Each invokes memories of past moments. I can’t resist the temptation to make them full-screen to better relish the special days. Modern technology is cool. Thank you Steven Jobs and Bill Gates.
In somewhat the same way, I have a huge collection of mental thumbnails stored in my mind. These are memories of Indiana Bible College. I think of these memories as an iCollege of stored information. Like magic, I can convert these memories to mental images and recall the wonderful times they invoke. Thank you God.
Let’s see Allow me to boot up my memory. Wow that was fast. No batteries or power cord needed. God is good. I am full-screening a thumbnail memory of Donnie Sheerin walking down the aisle as our first IBC Indianapolis graduate. What a great guy. He’s pastoring now in Kennett, Missouri;
What is this? Chuck Robinette, stressing the staff over one thing or another. But now, can you believe he is a missionary — a real soul winner? Wait a minute! Who is this strange band of young people screaming as they rock the swinging bridge at Turkey Run State Park during the Day Apart Staff & Student Retreat? Is it true they were later described by the park ranger as the greatest group of kids he had ever seen in the park? Yes it’s true. Wow! I liked that.
Sometimes the images come so fast I can hardly sort them out. Help! I need to put this stuff into files. Does God do brain upgrades? Faces, prayer meetings, music festivals, conferences, tears, more prayers, chapels, preaching, and more faces. Then there are the bus trips such as the one to Grand Rapids, Michigan for the Annual Book Trip. I see Bro. Marler doing book hunts, pointing students to treasures and classics, and talking about authors and preachers as if they were his neighbors. All the while, he’s singing some crazy song a thousand times. Just ask him about it. Like a flash, I see the legendary Ernest Jolly locking us in at Kregel books until 3am. Now that was a memory! Sorry you weren’t there. Next time.
I can easily picture the moment when the IBC choir opens up Music Fest, takes the stage at the General Conference, youth congress, or camp meetings. They are fully robed and fully prepared. Lindel Anderson is sort of nuts about the preparation thing. When the 200-hundred voice choir hits that first note. I am there. Nice.
You can’t really do this real life stuff at one of those ON-LINE schools. All due respect, but what kind of life is that? Uh, yeah, let me see, I have this memory of me sitting all by myself in a lonely room knocking out questions on a flickering computer screen. Uhh, I don’t think so. Virtual reality? Video-talking heads? That’s not education that’s data processing! Give me real life, real students, real prayer meetings, real preaching, real evangelism, real life-long friends, real pizza parties, real classes, real choir tours, real summer missions assignments, real street evangelism, real tent meetings, real correction, real church, real dorm inspections (well maybe not), and one last thing — real excited, in-your-face teachers who have killed devils, walked through fiery furnaces, dug wells, built churches, conquered the beast of Ephesus, published books, preached thousands of sermons, worked bus ministry and prayed for the sick. You know they’ve done it and are willing to talk about it. Hello REALITY!