I arrived at training camp with no itemized list of activities, no schedule, no piece of paper to tell me that speaker X was talking from 9:30-10:30 with breakout sessions from 10:30 until 10:55 then a 5 minute presentation by Compassion International followed by lunch at 11. This made me uncomfortable. It was my sense of uncertainty that made me desire an itinerary and question its absence. Surely I would have a plan, surely I would print out tidy little lists of the daily activities and set them outside of each individual’s tent with a mint each morning, I would at the very least hang a schedule in the dining hall. Then it hit me, could this case of information asymmetry be… intentional? By mid-week I had concluded that the lack of a public list of events was in fact one of the many subtle, mysterious, and decidedly devious devices used at training camp to remind us that, our egos had to go.
“5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death-
even death on a cross!”
-Philippians 2:5-8
It’s sometimes easy to forget that Jesus, in addition to being God, was human. Sure we view him in our minds as a human but thats often the extent of our connection. This passage tells us that Jesus had a mindset. A mindset is a habitual or characteristic mental attitude that determines how you will interpret and respond to situations [a]. Our mindsets are what make us who we are and they often impact how we are viewed by others. Jay’s a real glass-half-full sort of fella but that Steve fella sure views the glass as half-empty. Sasha thinks she’s better than everyone else but Jennifer always makes time to listen. So what is Jesus’ mindset? He could have gotten prime seating at the hottest dining establishments, but he dined with the poorest of us. He could have had his sheets changed and his floors swept by servants but he made himself nothing and took the nature of a servant. He could have accepted book deals, licensed his image and lived the celebrity lifestyle, but he humbled himself. He could have ignored the pain of the nails, but he cried out.
Jesus made himself nothing. He removed his sense of self from the equation. He removed his ego, he removed his desires and he simply lived. When we think about decisions, actions, or situations we begin to fear outcomes, consequences, and opinions. I need to hit the baseball, if I do, I will be praised, if I do not, I will be shunned. Before the pitch is even thrown, this batter has already begun to plan a celebration while simultaneously bracing for failure. What a conflict! What if the batter approached the plate and simply thought, “A pitch is coming Lord.” He wouldn’t be thinking of the catastrophes involved with failure or the pleasures associated with success, he would simply be acknowledging the present situation and giving it to God. The fear of failure is what may have discouraged him from swinging at the last pitch but now that he has given the outcome to God, he is able to focus exclusively on the mean curveball headed his way, and hit it out of the park.
It was through the many exercises, structural elements, and intentional omissions of items (mirrors for example) that a training camp environment was created which naturally encouraged the process of shrinking our egos. What better way to acquire the same mindset as Jesus than by eating small portions of new foods, served family-style, with people you just met? What better way to acquire the same mindset as Jesus than by not showering daily and reusing contact solution because your bottle burst open in your bag somewhere between Ohio and Atlanta? I am extremely excited about the many “mindset of Jesus,” experiences I will be having next year and I am even more excited about the opportunity I have to share them with you on this blog!
I will be posting more about training camp later, along with a post with some discussion regarding how I plan to use this blog and what other tools I will be using next year to stay in touch!
-Jeff
[a] ( http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=mindset ).
