There is one word I want you to remember after reading this: build. Build a church. Build a community. Build a family. Build a business. Now before I explain what I mean by these four kinds of building, I will first clarify "build" with four observations about what I do not mean. Let me be a philosopher for just a minute. We define things by contrast.

Do Not Start from Scratch

By build I do not mean start from scratch. The kind of building I have in mind is like the cathedral building that C.S. Lewis describes in his very last book, The Discarded Image. The subtitle is daunting: An Introduction to Renaissance and Medieval Literature, but really it's fantastic. A cathedral takes more than one lifetime to build. The medieval artisans who built the great cathedrals—masons, master builders, carpenters, glaziers—typically joined the project long after it had started, and most of them died before it was finished. They were joining other people’s work. So when I say build, I mean join good work that other people are already doing.

Do Not Sign your Work

By build I do not mean build your brand. Medieval cathedral builders did not sign their work. The masons who fitted the stones together matched the bottom stone to the stone on top of it so perfectly that no mortar was necessary. They didn’t sign their work because to sign their work would make it so that it didn’t do its job. They didn’t care about whether they got credit. They cared about whether it was excellent work, and they cared that it would fulfill its function, which was to bring glory to God and to serve the community. They were not building their private brands. So when I say build, I mean focus on serving others, not on getting credit.

Do Not Burn and Rebuild

Third, by build I do not mean burn and then rebuild. The world will whisper to you that the quickest way to make a difference or to make a name for yourself is to call out and destroy someone prominent. That’ll be super tempting because it’s a quick return. The whisperers might even get crafty and say, “This is what a prophet does.” Now that might be what prophets did in the Old Testament—not sure about that—pretty sure they were bringing a covenant lawsuit. What prophets do today is preach the word faithfully. And if a sister or brother needs to be corrected, a true prophet does it in private—ideally face to face and clearly in love. You’ve learned how to do that—keep doing it.

The sad truth is that the people you’re most likely to hurt if you build your brand by burning are people close to you. People far away aren’t going to hear you. So if you want a reputation for being insightful or clever, you’re going to have to make your target people who will listen—and that’s going to be people in your church, people in your family, and your friends. Anybody close enough to hear and care is close enough to be hurt. Satan loves it when we bite and devour one another. 

By build I mean affirm what is good. Encourage your sisters and brothers, and pour yourself out.

Do Not Build Alone

Fourth, by build I do not mean work alone and astonish everyone with your solo accomplishments. Now to a certain extent, we’ve encouraged that in your classes—very little group work, lots of solo accomplishments, lots of things done quietly to surprise me. Cathedral building took a community. Just about everything you’re going to do after today is going to take a community. No one had all the skills necessary to build a cathedral. Nobody had enough time, even if one person could have done it all. The cathedral itself was the visible presence of an institution. Institution-building is the most effective way to serve others, and it is especially the most effective way to serve the vulnerable and the weak. 

Institution versus Individualism 

The forces that make individualism so powerfully attractive—you’ve heard a lot about it from your Covenant professors—we’re really good at pointing out individualism as being bad, and it is, but it’s especially bad when you think about what it means to make a difference in the world. Institutions are stable and visible in ways that individuals are not. Institutions serve the vulnerable because they’re there and they’re trustworthy. They’re more trustworthy than usually any one individual. Any one individual is likely to let you down or lose their focus or change their mind. Institutions can be depended on. Institutions will also multiply your impact. They serve many people at once. They can outlast us, and the institutions will still be here after you’re gone.

So by build, I mean build institutions that serve others.

As I mentioned at the start, I want you to build four kinds of institutions. And no matter what comes after you walk across the stage at graduation, you can get started on all of them immediately. Now, you're doubting me on one of them, but hold on.

Build a Church 

First: Build a church. Your Covenant education has equipped you to be uncommonly effective at contributing to the life of a local church. Whenever you graduate from Covenant, you’ve had enough Bible and doctrine to teach Sunday school at any level for decades, like until you’re senile.

I still have the notes that I took in my classes as an undergraduate at Covenant almost 50 years ago. I use them. I take them out to get ready to teach first-grade Sunday school. I’ve been teaching first-grade Sunday school for 20 years. It’s harder than you might think, and way more rewarding than you can guess. Even more importantly, when James and John wanted to be made great in Jesus’s coming kingdom, Jesus turned their attention to welcoming children. Go serve the children.

But in addition to teaching, you can find other ways to use your talents in the church. You can sing in the choir—I’ve sung next to many of you in chapel—make meals for families with challenges, clean bathrooms. You will always find people willing to let you help with that. Everything you do for a local church sets someone else free to serve other people. The church is an institution that multiplies your impact in the world. Build a church.

Build a Community 

Secondly: Build a community. The community I’m asking you to build is much more than a general sense of well-being. What you’ve enjoyed at Covenant has depended upon a mutual willingness to sacrifice merely private desires. What I’ve heard in student testimonies was, over and over again, “There were people I could depend on in my class who would set their desires aside to care for me.” That’s the kind of community that you want. It depends on volunteering to put other people’s needs ahead of your own.

The church is one place you can volunteer. But there are going to be other organizations wherever you end up who will be able to use your skills, your time, your energy, your ideas, your encouragement—the same way a church could. You don’t have to volunteer everywhere—you can’t. But you should volunteer somewhere.

Life after Covenant is not that different from life at Covenant. I know—I’ve done it. If everyone says someone else will do it, no one does, and everyone suffers. Your residence hall was healthy when everyone looked out for each other’s needs and looked for ways to bear each other’s burdens. And your hall was toxic when even a few people tore each other down and left the hard things for everyone else. The same will be true wherever you go next. Build a community.

Build a Family

Third: Build a family. I understand that building a church and building a community are things you can contribute to all by yourself. Building a family requires other people. Almost all of you are already parts of families that you can help to build. You’ve probably been helping build it so far, I hope. Yes, that family—the one out there, the ones you’re trying to prove you don’t need—you might need them a little and they need you. They need you to contribute to the life that they have with your encouragement, with your prayers, looking for opportunities to bear their burdens. And you can free them up to serve other people as well.

Now, if you find someone of the opposite sex to share your life with who isn’t already married—that’s important—you can start your own family. God’s word encourages that sort of thing. I’ve been married for almost 41 years and have four grown children. I am aware that it is possible to be happy as a single person—I’m aware of that. But it’s been over 40 years and I can’t imagine being happy without my wife, and my children are a continual source of joy. My family multiplies my impact. They serve other people in ways that I cannot and in places I can’t be. Build a family.

Build a Business

Fourth: Build a business. Again, this doesn’t mean you have to start a business—although you could. Some of you will do that, and many Covenant grads have done that and done it really well. But most of you will be like me: you will find someone willing to pay you to contribute to what they are already doing. Covenant has equipped you to be very effective employees and teammates. When you can choose, prefer working for a business that is pursuing healthy outcomes over a company that will pay you a lot for frivolous outcomes. You don’t have to be poor—really, you don’t. But a modest income doing something that truly serves others will be much more satisfying than a fat paycheck doing something else. Build a business.

Is This Advice Biblical?

Before I finish, let me answer two likely objections—again, you can’t keep a philosopher from thinking about the likely objections. Here’s the first one: Is any of this advice biblical?

Now, we’re not Israel in exile, and we’re not the church under Roman persecution; even so, Babylon isn’t a terrible description for the world that we’re in right now. Jeremiah 29 is written to the Israelites in exile in Babylon. Paul in 2 Thessalonians is writing to the church in the Roman world that John describes as Babylon. They agree that what we are to do as God’s people is to seek the welfare of the city wherein we find ourselves. As Jeremiah says, “In their welfare, we will find ours.” We do that by building institutions that serve other people. We probably won’t end up being great the way the world counts greatness, but Jesus will be pleased with faithfulness anyway. 

Where’s the Practicality?

A second objection: How will any of this help you right now? As I was reading over my notes for this piece, I thought: How will this help the graduates who are heading into a world dominated by angry protests, financial distress, and violence? That’s a good question. But it isn’t the whole question. The whole question ends in: What can we do about the anger and violence?

We can do what God’s people have always done: pray and love. We pray that God will turn people’s hearts away from hatred, that they will turn to Jesus. Without the Holy Spirit working in people’s hearts, hatred will win. And we love our neighbors. We love them specifically and practically by building institutions that care for them.

The kind of building I’m asking you to pursue now is how Jesus would have us make a difference in a broken world. I’m not avoiding the mess out there. I’m giving us something to do about it.

A Small Confession

My last point is a confession. If I had been told when I graduated to build a church, a community, a family, and a business, I would have thought, That’s exactly what all the average people around me need to hear. But I’m special! And, it’s even a little worse than that. I would have thought, I am smart. I need to do something big. Teaching Sunday school, volunteering at the hospital, raising children, and working for a small college wouldn’t have been enough. I need to do more in order to be proud of myself. Jesus needs me to do more than that. I really would have thought that—but I would have been wrong.

Jesus doesn’t need more than what I’m recommending. Jesus doesn’t need any of it. I certainly didn’t need more than that. And being proud of myself is a silly thing to want. What I really wanted was for others to be impressed by me—and we all know what a foolish desire that is—yet it is a very hard desire to kill.

I now know that the most effective way to kill that foolish desire is to experience the joy of seeing others served by using your talents. Serve others by building institutions. At some point you’ll realize that even if you never get any credit, it will be more than enough. Playing a tiny role in Jesus’s work of making all things new is what you were called to do—it is what we were made to do. Now, go build.

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