Build Stories, Not Success
Sometimes I think that being homeschooled and sheltered in small Christian churches as a child limited my opportunities in life versus being part of a mainstream culture and competing head-to-head with my peers.
This was the mistaken belief I had sitting in Seat 48K of Qantas Airlines at 11pm on a Monday night as I flew from Los Angeles to Sydney Australia at 18 years old.
I made straight A’s in high school, did all kinds of clubs, and had a generally successful high school experience. When I finished, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. The smart kids in my high school all applied to colleges, but that wasn’t really a thing in my family. Neither of my parents had graduated college, so I didn’t think of applying until it was too late.
I ended up going to a Bible College for a year in Australia as a ‘gap year’ of sorts. As I sat on the plane flying out, I felt like I was delaying my real life.
Landing at Kingsford Smith Airport in Australia, I found my two massive bags for the year and went through customs. There was nobody with a “Josh Ballantine” sign. I hadn’t set up someone to pick me up. However, there was a sign for “Hillsong Bible College” which was the school I was attending. I told them I needed a ride, even though I wasn’t on their list. I waited with the driver for the other students.
Lucia came first. She was a red-head with hair down to her waist that stood at maybe 4’11” if I’m being generous. She came off a plane from London and didn’t say a word. She was totally shy. With her was a woman named Nancy who was in her 40s and a jolly English woman.
We waited for one more. Soon, a Puerto-Rican guy with tattoos all up his neck, arms, and hands showed up with piercings in his mouth, nose, and ears. His curly hair covered his shoulders, and he yelled out, “Hillsong here I come! I’m Angel!”
Angel and I hit it off right away. The guy was totally strange to me. Who comes to Bible college looking like they’re a punk rocker? I also had long hair, so we were quite the group with our conservative, British classmates that landed with us.
The driver dropped me at my new house in New South Wales at 4 Etruscan Ct. My roommate was Canadien, and my other housemates were from New Zealand, Alaska, and Sweden.
The School
During my time at the school, I swam in some of the healthiest coral reefs in the world, learned to surf, had dinner with Korean families that had been permanently separated from their families in 1945, met some of the most influential pastors in the world, attended the opera with South African friends, and sat in classes with students from more than 30 countries.
My classmates were incredibly talented and successful. The school attracted musicians from all over the world, and my insecurities grew.
As I began to sink into the culture of a Bible College built into an Australian mega-church, I began to want validation from my peers. Much like my mistaken belief of wanting to be validated by the ‘majority’ culture rather than building a life in isolation.
I began to sign up for everything I could at this church and seek validation and approval. I hid my true opinions and forgot my purpose for being at this Bible College in the first place. But rather than get validation, I was overshadowed by my peers. It wasn’t until I had a conversation with my roommate that I remembered why I went to Australia in the first place.
One of my roommates’ was the son of a mega church pastor from New Zealand named Luke. He had grown up in the system that built this church and seemed to know everyone. He was as high profile as you could get for a bible college student, and I was his roommate.
My reason for being in the Bible College was to have a one-year experience and dig deep into my faith, not build the kingdom of a big mega-church. Luke was in Bible College as his stepping stone into the pastoral ministry where he would serve under his father.
“What if you don’t want to serve in your dad’s church?” I asked Luke during a late night conversation. “You’ve never even experienced anything else.”
“My dad has accomplished so much. He is incredibly successful. Why would I want to go somewhere else and completely start over?” Luke responded.
“Don’t you want to have adventure and show the world what you’re made of?”
“I don’t want to sacrifice this. I would have to start all over if I went anywhere else.” Luke replied.
Luke was the embodiment of what I was trying to become: someone completely validated by his peers in a majority culture setting. But, something felt amiss to who I was.
Every Tuesday morning, we would have a chapel service at the school and one of the pastors or professors would share a message.
A few months into my stay, one of the pastors from the church named Robert Ferguson came to share. He was an old, wise British pastor who had clearly LIVED his life. He had been married to his wife for over 50 years, and was extremely respected.
He shared about pastoring in Spain as a middle-age man where there were few practicing Christians. He had run-ins with the government and had to be careful about how he pastored his church. He seemed full of life remembering these stories and sharing them with young people from a pulpit in the twilight of his life.
Robert hadn’t decided to live a life under his father’s rule. He traveled the world and shared openly. Unlike Luke, he didn’t seem afraid to lose what his family had, he freely was giving. He was peaceful and confident.
I realized Robert was the kind of person I wanted to be. At 18 years old in that Sydney church, I made the decision that I would always be the kind of person that pursued stories and not success.
The need for validation is so deep in all of us. I don’t want to fall behind my peers when they get promoted, or am terrified my kids are falling behind if they are late on a milestone… But at the end of the day, who cares if they fall behind? I want to pursue stories with them.
If I would have pursued validation and success, I don’t think I would have gained the confidence in life to do the things I do today. There is no such thing as ‘falling behind in life’ because that is always in comparison to someone else.
If I pursue stories, I can only be comparing myself to myself. If I pursue success, I’m always comparing myself to others.
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Joshua Ballantine 