A well-presented lecture or sermon gives us excellent content and sometimes an emotional high. We learn what we should do and have short-term motivation to do it, but the normal patterns of life quickly distract us from our resolves. New knowledge rarely changes old habits. That is when additional intervention strategies are required.

The drug and alcohol rehabilitation world has created familiarity with the term “intervention.” An intervention usually involves physically relocating to a treatment center where there are new life patterns and a community of support for an extended period of time.

Using the principles of intervention, Bakke Graduate University (BGU) does city immersions in the largest cities on five continents. Over three decades, BGU leaders have led over 500 immersions while improving the process each year. Instead of addicts, the participants are masters and doctoral students from five continents. They choose to be disrupted by spending seven to ten days in a different culture where they are immersed in new habits of daily spiritual formation, exposed to new models of innovation that shock their current thinking, and journey with a new global family intentionally guided by trained mentors. The guides are BGU faculty, alumni and students who live in that city.

Before the students arrive, they have spent several weeks meeting each other in Zoom meetings, telling their stories, and reading about the culture and background of the city. They have also reflected on theological perspectives of the region while doing group biblical readings and prayer. When they first meet at the airport, there are excited squeals and hugs as they see their Zoom new friend for the first time in person. There is also a lot of nervous laughter. They are already confused in a foreign culture, and they know they have entered a time of unknown disruption.

BGU recently completed a seven-day city immersion in Singapore with twenty students from eight countries and six BGU Singaporeans who served as guides. Every morning, they experienced a spiritual formation process led by a BGU professor from Amsterdam. Each day was spent canvassing the city meeting leaders with innovative ministries among the poor and senior living homes, as well as an Emmy-award winning producer, along with business, church, and government leaders. Every evening was a time of community reflection. There were intentional and welcomed disruptions, and “aha’s” of new perspectives that transformed students at all levels.

The sense of community and oneness grew as the days went by. One student paid for another student’s tuition when a financial setback would have caused him to cancel. The community wrapped their arms around each other as one student’s father-in-law passed and another student’s terminally ill brother passed during the immersion. They wept together. There was support, care, prayer, and unity; God’s presence was deeply felt, and change took place because of it. The class that started as nervous fellow travelers left Singapore as a family.

The family is now continuing to support each other in a virtual community as they have continued to meet on Zoom and through a WhatsApp group, building new habits, exploring their dissertation research, and continuous spiritual formation and prayer. BGU has immersion participants from 2019 that still have WhatsApp discussions with daily postings. This intentional process based upon the model of intervention creates life-long transformation.

The president of a historical USA seminary who attended the Singapore Immersion to learn from the BGU model shared, “We also do immersions, but not in this extended time, with so many cultural disruptions. BGU students welcomed disruptive days that lasted until 9:30pm rather than comfortably ending at 5:00pm. This is very effective.”

BGU will be conducting future city immersions in the next few years in African, Asian, Latin American, European, and North American cities. Students from economically-challenged nations sacrifice enormously to pay for their educational costs. Generous donors make up the rest.

As BGU comes to the of our fiscal year this month, would you prayerfully consider donating to BGU at https://bgu.edu/giving? We are grateful to God for His intervention in our lives. We are grateful to you for your support.

Brad Smith

Chancellor,
Bakke Graduate University