Grateful

It’s been a privilege to serve with IFES Graduate Impact for the past seven years. I have been blessed to meet and get to know so many brilliant, committed, and thoughtful Christians—from our participants and alumni to our outstanding inspirers, teachers, and contributors, and our dream team running our programs. In working so closely together and being so vision-driven, we became like a family despite functioning as a scattered team. We’ve achieved so much and been through so much together—more joy and sorrow than I could even begin to express in a social media post.

I’ll mention the names of dear friends who formed our team in various roles at different times, some full-time, some part-time. Each shaped the work of IFES Graduate Impact, and each left a mark on my life. There are many things I admire about my colleagues, but I’ll mention just a few “superpowers” that immediately come to mind when I think of them: Tim Vickers (TV: depth and imagination), Rodica Ro?ior (RR: faithful servant’s heart), Christel Lamère Ngambi (CLN: sophisticated and über-cool, brilliant communicator), Miriam Owen (MO: the best project manager one could imagine), Delinda Mu?ollari (DM: sparkling, joyful social media expert), Sophie Adams-van Houtryve (gentle yet assertive resource manager/editor), Charlotte Screnock (CS: multi-talented editor, writer, and resource developer), Alex Holdsworth (extremely prompt and professional), Emily Lange (one PhD is challenging enough, having two is in another league: a true scholar and an artist), Samuel Johns (SJ: a legend, the most intelligent and interesting friend I have ever met; a unique combination of kindness and brilliance. I miss him a lot). AP loves you all.

I am grateful for having worked alongside these exceptional people and for the privilege of serving the emerging generation of Christian professionals, helping them bring hope to our broken and tired world. I pray and hope this work continues to grow and spread, as more people pick up and use the resources we have developed and refined over these years. Because of the depth and quality of the course materials (field-tested across multiple geographies and cultures), I am confident that those willing to commit to this learning journey will be able to teach others and join a growing movement of Christian professionals who want to align their everyday work with their faith. It’s encouraging to see how many faith & work initiatives are emerging, but I can confidently say that Cross-Current is the deepest and most thoughtful approach I know. It’s the deep end: a three-year learning journey that is truly transformative. I was a beneficiary even before joining the project with a three-year commitment. Seven years later, I’m still here, and I admit, it’s hard to let go.?

This is crucially important work, and it’s not an easy task because, as TV put it, “we’re trying to work with the prophets, not with the choir.” The people we try to serve face complex challenges and immense cross-pressures in trying to live with integrity in their specific circumstances. Their Christian faith doesn’t make things easier, as Christianity lacks both the “fake coherence” offered by ideologies and the moral relativism of a self-discovery journey centered on individual authenticity, where one can pick and choose what to believe and how to live in an eclectic manner. We cannot dare to tell them a priori what to do, but we surely pray and hope that they become Christlike in character, gain wisdom, and develop discernment to live up to their Christian faith in their own contexts. That being said, we did our best to teach participants to “cook their own meals”: to study the Bible and take it seriously, to think with their own minds, to pray with their own hearts, and not simply rely on soundbites or canned insights from other thinkers. We trust them and the Holy Spirit to open up the Scriptures for them, which is why we strive to lead by reading the Scriptures with integrity, asking good questions, and facilitating honest conversations and prayerful personal reflection.

At the intersection of professional excellence, cultural relevance, and their Christian faith, many Christian professionals inhabit a liminal space of risk and opportunity. They are uniquely positioned to catalyze interaction and dialogue between people and bridge realms that rarely touch or influence each other meaningfully. Whenever that happens, it’s a minor miracle. The people we’re serving are integrators and explorers, “border stalkers.” They’re neither simply counter-current nor part of the current; they are #cross-current, and there’s not enough encouragement or intentional long-term support for such people. They are living signposts to Jesus in places where priests and pastors can’t reach. More and more professions and workplaces are niche, which is why we’ve held to our work philosophy: “small is beautiful.” Our ideal groups are 8 to 12 people, with a maximum of 15. There’s a trade-off between reach and depth; Cross-Current goes for depth, so it’s remarkable that there were between 500 and possibly over 1,000 participants in various small cohorts, many completing a three-year journey together. All this, despite a global pandemic, the reigniting of the Azeri-Armenian war over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine—all massively disruptive events for our work in the region. I’m giving such a range (500 to 1,000+) because, in addition to professional and city groups run by our team members, we’ve trained leaders who run proxy groups. We’re transitioning to a situation where participants who haven’t directly met any of our team members now outnumber those trained by us, especially outside Europe and Eurasia (in Latin America, Canada, and Francophone Africa). In providing these emerging thought leaders with learning communities of practice, we saw the need to contextualise the Bible’s teachings as much as possible without watering them down or compromising. We also recognised the importance of allowing time and encouraging relational proximity for trust to grow so that people become more genuine in each other’s presence and truly learn from their mentors and from each other.

To learn is to change. It takes time. Character formation cannot be rushed. It requires intention and sustained attention.

I feel both privileged and humbled to have contributed to Cross-Current. This journey was not easy, but it was worth it. I often felt intimidated and sometimes tired, but it has been a great joy and a constant learning opportunity.

If you want to “meet the team” (part of it), you can find a link below to our webcast from mid-2021, where we presented the main conclusions of our extensive research report. It was right in the middle of my seven years of serving on this team. I promise it’s worth watching. :)

https://www.cross-current.org/posts/a-vocational-mandate-for-work