This past fall, Fuller Arizona’s new student orientation included a tour of the campus. Students visited various offices and departments to learn more about the campus community in an affectionately named “Trot and Treat.” Each office offered a “treat” or small gift that represented them—stickers displaying Fuller’s clinical virtues, “jitter glitter” for first-day-of-school jitters, homemade cookies—when groups came by. Near the end of the trot, as program director Jenny Bayless walked alongside a returning student, the student stopped her and said, “Jenny, I’m looking down at my hands, and they’re full.” They were thinking of the ups and downs Fuller Arizona has gone through in recent years, not the least of which were the difficulties brought on by the pandemic. “And just like my hands, my heart just feels so full!”
Jenny shares this story as a way of describing what has been a season of renewal for the campus. “There’s this abundance that’s coming,” she says. “And wow, God! Because out of storms and transitions and unknowns and uncertainties, new life is forming.” A major marker of this exciting time is the coming launch of Fuller Arizona’s new mental health clinic.
Jenny talks about “kingdom vision”—a practice of looking to see the many ways God is active all around—which has become a guiding principle of the community during this time. At the weekly Tuesday meeting for faculty and staff, they begin with prayer and with sharing “God signs” with one another. They share what God has been doing in their lives. “It’s exercising a muscle,” Jenny explains, “of seeing God at work.” They share about challenges and losses, and they also share about joys and celebrations—and about witnessing God amidst it all. Jenny affirms that this practice increasingly opens her eyes to see a wider and broader picture of who God is. And above all, being “drenched in prayer” as a community has been essential in the renewal they’ve been experiencing.
This spiritual formation is especially important for the work that Fuller Arizona does of training emerging therapists for kingdom work in the world. Jenny says that therapy can take therapists to many “dark and difficult places” and that it’s necessary to “envision God in all these dark places.” Faculty and staff have a responsibility not only to teach students what this looks like but to model it. As she puts it, “To cultivate that vision at Fuller, it starts with us.”
God has been faithful. And the new life budding all around is palpable in Fuller Arizona. “There’s renewal that’s happening,” Jenny says. “People can see it, and people can smell it. And I’ve been told by many students, ‘It just feels like there are exciting things happening here at Fuller.’”
Jerome Blanco, editor in chief
This past fall, Fuller Arizona’s new student orientation included a tour of the campus. Students visited various offices and departments to learn more about the campus community in an affectionately named “Trot and Treat.” Each office offered a “treat” or small gift that represented them—stickers displaying Fuller’s clinical virtues, “jitter glitter” for first-day-of-school jitters, homemade cookies—when groups came by. Near the end of the trot, as program director Jenny Bayless walked alongside a returning student, the student stopped her and said, “Jenny, I’m looking down at my hands, and they’re full.” They were thinking of the ups and downs Fuller Arizona has gone through in recent years, not the least of which were the difficulties brought on by the pandemic. “And just like my hands, my heart just feels so full!”
Jenny shares this story as a way of describing what has been a season of renewal for the campus. “There’s this abundance that’s coming,” she says. “And wow, God! Because out of storms and transitions and unknowns and uncertainties, new life is forming.” A major marker of this exciting time is the coming launch of Fuller Arizona’s new mental health clinic.
Jenny talks about “kingdom vision”—a practice of looking to see the many ways God is active all around—which has become a guiding principle of the community during this time. At the weekly Tuesday meeting for faculty and staff, they begin with prayer and with sharing “God signs” with one another. They share what God has been doing in their lives. “It’s exercising a muscle,” Jenny explains, “of seeing God at work.” They share about challenges and losses, and they also share about joys and celebrations—and about witnessing God amidst it all. Jenny affirms that this practice increasingly opens her eyes to see a wider and broader picture of who God is. And above all, being “drenched in prayer” as a community has been essential in the renewal they’ve been experiencing.
This spiritual formation is especially important for the work that Fuller Arizona does of training emerging therapists for kingdom work in the world. Jenny says that therapy can take therapists to many “dark and difficult places” and that it’s necessary to “envision God in all these dark places.” Faculty and staff have a responsibility not only to teach students what this looks like but to model it. As she puts it, “To cultivate that vision at Fuller, it starts with us.”
God has been faithful. And the new life budding all around is palpable in Fuller Arizona. “There’s renewal that’s happening,” Jenny says. “People can see it, and people can smell it. And I’ve been told by many students, ‘It just feels like there are exciting things happening here at Fuller.’”
Jerome Blanco, editor in chief
This issue of FULLER magazine considers the particular question of how our faith shapes, and reshapes, our understanding of “family.”
