My good bud, Steve, will be leaving tomorrow after his one-year deployment was cut to six months. He will return to his wife, who is also active duty Air Force, and his dog, who is not active duty Air Force.
My weekly times of coffee and mentoring with Steve were some of the most valuable of this deployment. We often discussed the wonder of God's providence. Steve came to this country, expecting to engage in apologetic discussions with folks from a very different worldview. Instead, his most fruitful labors came in witnessing and discipling coalition soldiers. (This reminded me of my second trip to Malawi, where I spent much of my time in deep apologetic and evangelistic discussions with an atheist, Irish medical team.)
In the same way, I can marvel at God's providence in my mentoring of Steve. I was expecting front-line evangelism on front-line missions, but in God's providence, I operated in a (relatively) more secure environment and was used to mentor a future minister of the Gospel.
Steve began this deployment with an initial taste and love for Reformed theology and a hope to engage in para-church ministry upon his return. As we worked through Dangerous Calling, we also attacked a great number of theological issues: the importance of the pulpit ministry and a sound doctrine of the Church, Christ-centered preaching and teaching, presuppositional apologetics, baptism, the charismatic gifts, etc.
He is currently reading Christianity and Liberalism by Machen and God of Promise by Horton (alongside of Game of Thrones), as well as the Reformed confessions. He is listening to podcasts and CDs by The Gospel Coalition and White Horse Inn and reading Tabletalk and Modern Reformation magazine. He is hungry and growing in both knowledge and zeal for the Gospel, and hopefully avoiding many of the sins and mistakes that I made on my God-ordained journey to the precious truths of the Bible.
He is still planning to do para-church ministry (as a chaplain to college ROTC students), but with two added dimensions. First, he has decided to attend seminary at RTS-Charlotte. He is heeding Spurgeon's wisdom that if he had seven years for the ministry, he would spend six in preparation. Steve's next phase in life will be seminary, and his wife will likely take some counseling classes alongside of him. Second, he will plan to engage in his ministry under the auspices of the Church, likely the PCA and Reformed University Fellowship. He recognizes the importance of accountability and submission to Christ through His Church.
I anticipate that Steve and his wife will be good friends through the duration of this life. I rejoice that he has taken the providential plunge into the terrible, blessed realm of the public ministry of the Church. I rejoice that God would use me to mentor a brother to this course, much as He used certain, beloved pastors in the DC area to mentor me to my present course. I rejoice that I am reminded of how God uses me, not because of my strength, but in my weakness. I rejoice that, in God's providence, He used me in a way that I was not anticipating in the least.
Steve attended his last No BS BS this afternoon (with about half a dozen others). We prayed for his journey home and inevitably awkward reunion with his wife. We also prayed, in accordance with our study today, that his life and ministry, though marred by sin, would be used to magnify the glory of God. We prayed, that unlike the apostle John at the end of the great vision of Revelation, he would not bow the knee or direct others to bow the knee to the angel or any heavenly gift, but only before the the throne of grace--the throne of God and of the Lamb.
