Wheaton's Eighth President

Three weekends ago, the Board of Trustees announced the election of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken ’88 as the eighth president of Wheaton College. Dr. Ryken is currently the senior minister of the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. I did not know much about Dr. Ryken prior to this announcement, but I know my way around the Internet, The Record (Wheaton’s student newspaper) published a special issue, and one of my roommates’ and his family are members at Tenth Presbyterian, so I had plenty of resources at my disposal to learn about the president-elect. Please read more about the selection process and Dr. Ryken’s profile at the Presidential Selection Committee’s section of the College website. I would like to here respond to the content of two particular items from the president-elect.

In an interview with Christianity Today soon after the announcement of his election, Dr. Ryken stated, “I want to cultivate a campus-wide community of grace.” I could not be happier to hear our next president so clearly express that desire. Wheaton College has very high standards for its students, and as a result alumni from all disciplines are leaders and innovators in their fields. I am extremely grateful that my professors hold me to such standards. My mind has been stretched so much in the last two and a half years. And I believe that God pleased by our tradition of excellence.

However, because of our standards, Wheaton is inherently susceptible to the temptation to make excellence the ends rather than a means to something greater – the glory of God and the advancement of His Kingdom. My fellow Conservatory students and I are particularly vulnerable to this temptation. Furthermore, our relationships with God often suffer because we find our identity in our craft rather than in Christ. I am blessed to have learned that lesson early in my life (though I admit I still struggle with it at times), but my heart goes out to my friends and acquaintances who have to learn it the hard way while in college. Dr. Ryken said in that interview, “I believe that true excellence, whether in academics or in other areas, is best inspired by a deep awareness of God's love for us in Christ.” I look forward to Dr. Ryken’s initiatives on this important issue and how the quality of spiritual life on this campus might increase as students, faculty, staff, and administrators refocus on the Cross.

Secondly, I was intrigued when I found out that Dr. Ryken has written a book on the arts. I secured a copy of Art for God’s Sake: A Call to Recover the Arts and read it over my spring break. This short but thoughtful book is a response the indifferent and sometimes negative view of the arts in modern Christendom. Dr. Ryken begins by acknowledging that in our society, the arts have many manifestations that Christians rightly reject. He then points out that it is impossible to completely avoid using art in daily life (e.g., almost all vocations have some application with an element of creative design). Dr. Ryken writes,

The question becomes, therefore, whether as Christians we will aspire to high aesthetic standards. All too often we settle for something that is functional, but not beautiful. We gravitate toward what is familiar, popular, or commercial, with little regard for the enduring value of artistic excellence.

Dr. Ryken warns that our low standards of excellence is dishonoring to God, undermining of the church’s calling, prophetic of the future of Christianity, and detrimental to our spiritual lives. He writes,

What we need to recover (or possibly discover for the first time) is a full biblical understanding of the arts – not for art’s sake, but for God’s sake.

This last statement is the connection I see to Dr. Ryken’s comments in the Christianity Today interview about excellence and grace.

In the rest of the book, Dr. Ryken lays out three core components of art for God’s sake: goodness, truth, and beauty. I highly recommend that any Christian in any art or art-related discipline read this book. He finishes the book by saying,

We are living in a fallen and broken world; yet for all its ugliness, this world was made by God and will be saved by his grace. Therefore, we should devote our skill to making art for the glory of God, and for the sake of his Son – our beautiful Savior, Jesus Christ.

In summary, I am quite pleased with what I have learned about Dr. Ryken, particularly these two items. I look forward to spending my senior year at Wheaton under his leadership, and also to having an alumnus’s view of his administration in the years after.

This is Rubio, over and out.

*Block quotations from Ryken, Philip Graham. Art for God's Sake: A Call to Recover the Arts. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2006.

Reflections on Celebrating Christmas

I returned to Oak Park for a three and a half week break just a couple days ago. As is my custom, I like to reflect on some of the experiences of the past term.

One major highlight in the second half of the semester was the annual Wheaton College Christmas Festival; this year, titled Rejoice! The Symphonic Band and Symphony Orchestra alternate performing on this event from year to year; as a result, I was again performing on the festival this year as a member of the Symphony Orchestra. However, I was also assigned to stage manage the event. It worked out rather well: the orchestra only performed on the second half of the program, so I was free during the first half and before curtain to run the backstage operations. Putting together such a large and complex production like the Christmas Festival is never easy, and a couple of the rehearsals during the week before the concerts were moderately stressful, but in my opinion (and judging by the reactions of the audiences), we pulled off two very successful performances. You can watch a video of the Christmas Festival here (look for “Christmas Festival – December 5, 2009”).

More than once, the idea that events like Wheaton’s Christmas Festival detract from celebrating the birth of Christ has come to my attention. I definitely agree with the argument that one can become so involved in producing such an event that he or she is unable to focus on Christ, and that is a very real danger. But if we begin each planning meeting and rehearsal and performance with prayer, as we do at Wheaton, then our hearts are more likely to be properly focused. And I happen to think that the productions themselves are very valuable to a Christian community’s celebration of Christmas.

Some might argue that Jesus came in extreme humility and thus we should avoid extravagance in our observance. I respect that point, and if simplicity brings you closer to Christ than extravagance, then far be it from me to suggest anything that would hinder your relationship with the Lord. My argument, however, is that we can have extravagant productions and still model Christ’s humility. The key is obvious – the production has to be about Christ, and about sharing his love with the audience, rather than about showing off our skills. And furthermore, does not the King of kings deserve all our talent and resources? (And who gave them to us in the first place?) What better way to give them to him that by pooling the talents and resources of an institution like the Wheaton Conservatory to produce such an event that not only celebrates the birth of Christ but also testifies to the birth of Christ to an unbelieving world? I consider it a great privilege and honor to have been so involved in this year’s production, and it is and was my prayer that all the work I put in may be used for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom.

Christmas has always been my favorite time of year. The commercialization and secularization of the season in the Western world is a bad sign to some, but I believe that God is yet at work, and that Christmas is perhaps the best time of year for Christians to share the love of God with the unbelieving world. To return to my main discussion: everyone likes a Christmas concert, so why not use that event to tell of the Incarnation? I have never investigated this question, but I would be interested in knowing whether or not churches have more seekers in December than at other times of year.

May our Lord bless you and your loved ones this Christmas.

This is Rubio, over and out.

Upperclassmanship

This weekend was Wheaton College’s fall break. It is the first chance all semester that I have had enough time to sit and write a thorough reflection on the school year thus far. I should like to sum up my first two months as an upperclassman with a metaphor of my own invention: I am drenched by all the blessings God has poured out on me.

In my last post, I wrote about my early arrival on campus due to a retreat with the Symphonic Band Cabinet. We had a great time at Wisconsin Dells, and since then we have had a great time working together to assist Dr. Tim Yontz, the music director, in implementing the band program. One of the other cabinet members said that we (the cabinet) “are like family,” and I agree completely. It has been a real joy to be a part of the leadership team.

In my role as chaplain, I was privileged to join with the other ensembles’ chaplains to plan an informal worship service for the Conservatory’s All-Ensemble Fall Workshop over Labor Day weekend. We put together a program of songs, Scripture readings, prayer, and a devotional from Dr. Kathy Kastner (the Conservatory’s percussion professor) that I think everyone enjoyed.

Wheaton College is, of course, a school, which means that approximately one quarter of the student body is new each fall, and my department was no exception. This year’s new music majors are a great group of young musicians, and I am humbled to find myself in a big brother role to many of them. They are all passionate about using their gifts for the glory of God, and I am excited to see how they will all grow as Christian musicians in the two years I will spend in school with them.

Wheaton College is, of course, a school, which means that substantial time is spent studying. My classes this semester have all been fairly challenging. Two-thirds of my credit hours this semester come from non-music classes, which is new for me. The immediate effect is that I spend a lot more time reading. It can be a big of a drag for me at times, but on the whole I am enjoying developing that part of my intellect. I finished two classes at the end of A quad, so I will have a somewhat lighter schedule B quad; I hope to be disciplined enough to use the extra time to give more attention to my remaining classes.

Going back to the beginning of the semester, I am happy to say that I won a seat in the Symphony Orchestra for this season. I now have twice as many performances, but I am really enjoying playing with the orchestra. We had our first full concert two weekends ago and it was a great success. One friend who was in attendance said that we sounded as good at the beginning of our season as last year’s orchestra did at the end. [You can watch the archived video of the concert here.]

This semester has not been without substantial challenges (beyond the challenges of my coursework itself). About three weekends ago, I felt myself running out of energy. It concerned me at first, for normally I do not run out of energy after only five weeks of a semester. That weekend, though, happened to be the orchestra concert I just mentioned. After the concert, I discovered that the “burned out” feeling was gone. I concluded that I had lacked a sense of accomplishment until that point. The concert was my first performance of the year in all senses of the word – I had not even had any major papers, exams, or projects yet in any of my classes. I suppose that the cycle of doing homework and then going to class (or, alternatively, practicing and then going to rehearsal) had started to seem endless, but God provided a performance opportunity that, as Dr. Dan Sommerville, the orchestra director, said, was more than we could ask or imagine, and that I found immensely refreshing.

Finally, as I mentioned in my last post, this school year marks the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of Wheaton College. From the redesigned College letterhead to the year verse on banners all over campus, we are in full celebration of God’s hand in the institution’s history this year. President Litfin is using his series of chapel sermons this year to reflect on the administrations of each of his predecessors and how God has used them to make Wheaton what it is today.

It occurred to me that it has not yet been five years since I decided to pursue music in college. It was maybe four years ago that Wheaton College became my dream school, just less than three years ago that I auditioned for the Conservatory, three years less two months and a week I received by mail an offer of admission, and two years and two months ago I began my freshman year. I wonder from time to time what exactly I did to deserve this blessing of going to Wheaton College. Then I answer my own question – I did nothing to deserve it. It is a gift from God, pure and simple. Sure, maybe I qualified for admission, but I owe those qualifications to God as well. Looking back on the last two months and seeing all of God’s blessings only confirms for me that God does indeed want me at Wheaton College, and I can only hope to use my time there to strengthen my relationship with Him and serve the community there for His glory.

This is Rubio, over and out.

Top of the Third

I started packing this week. By “packing,” I do not mean filling a suitcase with several changes of clothes and a toothbrush in preparation for a short excursion. No, by “packing” I mean that I am once again preparing for a change of residence – I am once again moving from my childhood home in Oak Park to the campus of Wheaton College.

For my third year, I am moving in a full nine days before classes begin, on August 17, this Monday. I had the option of moving in ten days in advance, but it is still the earliest by far. As some know, I have been elected to the Symphonic Band Cabinet (the student leadership team) for the 2009-2010 performance season, serving as chaplain. The entire Cabinet has recruiting duties during freshman orientation, which begins next Thursday, August 20. Prior to that, the Cabinet is taking a retreat, to the Kalahari Resort and Convention Center in Wisconsin Dells, which accounts for the other three days. (Can I just say that I have the best major department ever? What other department would send its student leaders to Wisconsin Dells?)

The reader can probably surmise that I will have a very busy first week after moving in (and might not finish the moving in process until the end of that week anyway). It will be a whirlwind first week, but once it is over and the semester begins on Wednesday, August 26 (at eight AM for me!), I have quite a few other things to look forward to.

I have two classes this fall that I am particularly looking forward to. The first is Christian Thought, a general education requirement. According to the catalog, the course is “an investigation into the beliefs of the Christian faith.” My instructor for the course is Dr. Paul Kirbas, one of the department’s adjunct instructors. I had Dr. Kirbas for Gospel, Church and Culture, the first in the Bible/theology general education sequence, my freshman year, and really enjoyed that class, so I was very pleased to get a seat in his section of Christian Thought.

The other is Introduction to the History of Christianity. It is an elective for me, and some who know me well might wonder why I am taking a history elective, when history has never been a strong subject for me. I wondered too, when I realized what I was doing. But it is a subject that interests me, I have room in my schedule, and I figure that it might complement Christian Thought.

Something else I am really looking forward to is this year’s Artist Series season. As it happens, 2009-2010 is Season 60, and we have an impressive list of seven events to match. Seven events equal seven exciting evenings at Wheaton College.

A little bit later in the school year (January 9, to be exact) is the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of alma mater herself. From what I have heard, special events are scheduled throughout 2010. I am quite looking forward to the fun.

And, of course, I am looking forward to that which makes Wheaton College what it is – its people. I have had the privilege of seeing a handful of my Wheaton friends over the summer, as well as keeping up with many others long-distance, but there comes a point when one wants to be able to wake up in the morning and know that he will see friends all day long. Two weeks and that will be my daily experience!

This is Rubio, over and out.