An Interview with Tim Courtois, Part I

I greatly enjoy college ministry, and think that I’d get along serving college students anywhere just fine. But one of the greatest joys of laboring at New Life Church is that I’m surrounded by a staff team full of people who stretch my faith in ways that very few people on this planet do (and trust me, I know quite a few). One of those people is Tim Courtois (pronounced Curtis, not Core-TWAH). He’s the only person I know who got a counseling degree just to be a more effective missionary to the campus. He’s a fascinating individual, and I have learned a great deal regarding matters of the heart by simply reading his blog.

So I thought I would bless you with his life an insights. This first part is mostly about who Tim is as a unique human being and child of God. Part II will be about the unique role in this world God is calling him to fulfill at New Life Church. Enjoy!

M: How do you think your story and character uniquely reveal the heart of God?

T: The first thing that comes to mind is the themes that have been prominent in my story.  My life has been a lot about loneliness and the struggle to find beauty and meaning – and even connection with others – in the midst of that.  I can remember from a very young age feeling alone and feeling a deep longing for something that would make it all make sense.  And then I remember listening to certain kinds of music and feeling such joy and a longing to exist within the beauty that I was hearing… So my life is, in a big way, about holding onto those two truths: that loneliness and pain are real, but so is beauty and meaning.

So I think my story shows that God doesn’t flinch at the difficult parts of life.  I kind of grew up learning that so-called “negative” emotions are just that – negative – and so it’s best to avoid them as much as possible.  But I couldn’t ignore that certain parts of my life were sad; it would have required me to cut off a huge part of myself.  I had to learn to find meaning in the midst of my feelings, even if they were “negative”.  And for me, out of that came a deeper sense of beauty and meaning – and intimacy – than I ever could have found by avoiding those things.

Through that, I’ve developed a passion to try and “incarnate” myself fully in my life.  I want to be as fully present as possible, celebrating wholeheartedly and grieving deeply as the circumstances of my life call for it. 

This is a passion that God has built in me over time, and it is a reflection of his character: He engages in life and relationships fully, with all of his emotions.  I can’t be only halfway incarnate in this world and expect my presence to have the redemptive value God intended.  I’m continually striving to learn about what it means to feel, to bring my whole self to bear on my life.

M: What are you all about?

 T: I’m all about life being full, abundant, and passionate.  One of my favorite verses is Ezekiel 16:6: “Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, ‘Live!’”  I love that exclamation point!

There are many parts of myself that I exiled a long time ago, thinking they weren’t “good enough” for some reason: my creativity, my love for art, my love for rest and quietness.  In college I began to see them as a waste of time, a hindrance to all the things I should be doing for the gospel.  Inviting those exiled parts back into my life as reflections of God’s glory has been a huge part of my own healing.  That’s how God said, “Live!” to me. 

I love finding parts – either of myself or of other people – that have been lost, rejected or exiled, and inviting them back into the conversation. 

It’s like the guy with the lizard on his shoulder in “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis.  The lizard represents lust.  We think the lizard needs to be thrown out, because “surely something like that could never be allowed in heaven?”.  But what happens is that after the lizard is struck down, it becomes a stallion: it is reborn as something beautiful, powerful and passionate. 

I want to see Christians living full and passionate lives, seeing parts of their hearts that they’d given up for dead become something beautiful.

Second, I’m all about connection and intimacy.  Growing up, I felt very alone.  Until I was a teenager, I didn’t even know it was really possible to open up to another person about all the things that were going on inside of me.  And when I finally did, it was amazing and terrifying at the same time.

I long for intimacy and at the same time it terrifies me.  Every day there is a tug of war in me between the longing to be close to people, and the desire to avoid people.  The same is true with God: I long for his closeness, but at the same time, I avoid him.

I think this same tug of war goes on in all of us.  So I’m continually wrestling with this tension, wanting to discover how to really connect with others, and I long to see the Church grow in this, too.  And I think it’s really happening: To see men in the Church today being more and more able to look into one another’s eyes and show affection for one another …it’s a beautiful thing.

M: (much more to come in Part II…I know you’re all stoked)

Related posts:

1. An Interview with Tim Courtois, Part II
2. An Interview with Greg Van Nada