Upon further reflection on my seminary days, I realized there was one part of my education that really stuck with me – and it was way outside of any in-class lectures.<\/p>\n\n\n
I spent one January term completing a practicum at a nearby mental hospital, shadowing the resident chaplain.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
It was heartbreaking and fascinating.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
I met people who were nearly catatonic and others who couldn’t sit still. I met “Jesus” and I beat him at ping pong. I was suspected of being an alien but then exonerated when my accuser decided my eyes “weren’t purple enough”. And imaginary voices commanded one patient, “Listen to Steve!” – and I was glad for the support.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
I saw patients who found the right medication to bring a complete 180, allowing them to walk out the door, and other patients who had tried everything for a decade with no change, leaving them permanent residents.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Those four weeks widened my life experience in dramatic ways – and brought some spiritual wrestling.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
I, like a lot of Christians, had lived a fairly sheltered life up to that point. Was my God big enough to coexist with realities on the fringe?<\/p>\n\n\n
A lot of people spend their entire life on the fringe, after all. And if God can’t live and work there, how real can He be?<\/p>\n\n\n
Is Jesus capable of meeting people there on the fringe?<\/p>\n\n\n
And tonight I am left wondering what I could be doing to lead the people of my church outside their comfort zones – into the places where real learning takes place.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Upon further reflection on my seminary days, I realized there was one part of my education that really stuck with me – and it was way outside of any in-class lectures. I spent one January term completing a practicum at a nearby mental hospital, shadowing the resident chaplain.\u00a0 It was heartbreaking and fascinating.\u00a0 I met […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[178,177,160,179,180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-effective-teaching","category-experience","category-lecture","category-mental-health","category-practicum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9678,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9677\/revisions\/9678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}