With Everything, With Everyone
鈥淗ear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.鈥� Deuteronomy 6:4-5
This year's spiritual life/chapel theme, "With Everything", invites every student, staff, and faculty to live deeply into the charge of the Shema as found in Deuteronomy and quoted by Jesus in Matthew. 鈥淟ove the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: "Love your neighbor as yourself.鈥�
These are ancient words prayed by God鈥檚 people over thousands of years to express their devotion to God. This prayer is affirmed by Jesus as the greatest commandment, and his life, death, and resurrection embody this love. Jesus further emphasized and modeled that our love for God is tangibly expressed in our love for those around us. Therefore, these words continue to echo as a timeless truth for the people of God to live out these words as a reflection of our distinctiveness in our world. We are different because we adhere to express a greater love for God and the world, only found in and through Jesus Christ.
For Christ's followers, we surrender to the will and way of God鈥檚 Kingdom, which shapes our lives, relationships, and daily interactions. We believe that the power of the Holy Spirit empowers us to love God wholeheartedly and equips us to love our neighbors sacrificially. Theologian John Wesley argued through the biblical lens of 1 John, claiming that 鈥�...since God is invisible to our eyes, we are to serve God in our neighbor, which God receives as if done to God in person, standing visibly before us.鈥� To love and serve our neighbor is to love God with our entire being. This theme 鈥淲ith Everything鈥� is an invitation to journey together and discover how we can fall deeper in love with God, with our neighbor, and even ourselves through Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit to the Glory of God.
A companion theme for all our campuses is, 鈥淲ith Everyone鈥�. This connects in a particular way to the Great Commandment which includes to 鈥渓ove our neighbor as yourself鈥�. It also is an aspirational call that we would be a community that is committed to doing life together in ways that create belonging and care. This means living counter culturally where we witness so much polarized division. There is a loud call in our world and sometimes our churches to take sides and fight. We, as a 国产剧麻豆剧 community, deeply want to find a way of love for our neighbor amid differences.
Unity is not a call to uniformity. Rather we want to be a people who carry our convictions and differences into spaces of honest dialogue within a commitment of love. That is at the end of the day we can say to each other: I am with you, for you, and for God鈥檚 purposes in your life. Inherent in this message is a commitment to a humility that creates space for difference in theological, political and ideological convictions.
This theme aligns with ONE 国产剧麻豆剧 Strategic plan, particularly the areas of Mission and Diversity and Belonging. We hope the logo and learning opportunities across the semester will help foster a flourishing Christian community where we love God with everything and walk with love with everyone.