Blog Post #3

            Today, I had the privilege of having another mentor-mentee conversation with Mrs. VanHuis. It was interesting to contrast this last conversation with our first one; both of us have reached a point of being very comfortable allowing the flow of the conversation to go where it will.    

            I entered into our conversation without a specific plan of what questions to ask, which turned out to be very beneficial because it allowed our conversation to be organically directed towards the things that resided at the forefront of my mind.

            We began by simply discussing recent developments in our lives. I told Mrs. VanHuis about my recent election to the position of junior class officer, and she updated me on the lives of her sons, one about to graduate from high school and the other from college. We discussed her younger son’s preparation for speech and debate nationals, as well as that of my other friends who had qualified to compete in nationals this year (her younger son is a part of the speech and debate club that I competed with during high school).

            After we updated one another on recent events in our lives, I moved on to asking Mrs. VanHuis for advice and opinions. One of the first things that came to mind was my struggle with church involvement. Although I attend church fairly regularly, I struggle to commit to attending one specific church consistently and have a propensity to “church hop.” I asked Mrs. VanHuis if she had any recommendations of how I can facilitate my own commitment to a specific church, and she gave me some excellent suggestions, encouraging me to get involved in church ministries that fit my skill set as a way of becoming more involved in the church’s community. I was surprised when she later suggested that perhaps it is not vital for me to make a commitment to exclusively attending one specific church. She pointed out that much of the Christian community that I experience occurs among my friends at school, and as a result, lack of in-depth involvement in one specific congregation does not necessarily mean that I am not experiencing Christian fellowship.

            Next, we moved on to an interesting conversation about our thoughts surrounding a more charismatic approach to Christianity. We discussed the difficulty of the fact that Christianity in America has become largely Westernized, resulting in many attempts to “put God in a box” by trying to state what God would or wouldn’t do. We also talked about the fact that the fact that Christianity has strayed so far from its roots that oftentimes it seems that attempts to embrace a more charismatic approach with more “direct” communication with God sometimes backfires as a result of a degree of what could be described as recklessness. Both of us concluded that we are not sure what the correct answer is in these situations; it is important to hear God when He communicates with his people, but it is difficult to strike a proper balance between openness and responsibility.

            As we wrapped up our conversation, we shared with each other that both of us greatly enjoyed the conversations that we have been able to have, and I suggested that maybe Mrs. VanHuis, my mother and I could spend some time together over the summer, to which she heartily agreed.