The Cost of Relational Education

So I am finishing up some adjustments for the next semester's syllabi (yes it does start later today...but I still count this as the night before). And it has got me thinking; At Eternity Bible College we put a huge emphasis upon relationships and building of community and trying to reflect an aspect of the Church. In fact as a faculty we have discussed the corespondent relationship between the depth of relationship between teacher and student and the quality of education a student receives, we have discussed the necessity of being in relationship with a student as you deconstruct aspect of their thinking, and how their needs to be a relationship to sustain the precarious time of instability as a new foundation (hopefully a biblical one) is put in place.

But while we have talked of all of this, we have failed to address something quite obvious, something that is glaring at me as I write this. There is a high cost to pay for such relationships, I just spent the past two years pouring and investing into the students that have since graduated and moved on...and now I must make that same investment into these new students knowing full well that in a few years I will go through the heart ache all over again. There are so many reasons i can nurture as to why I should not invest into these new students:

1. I should maintain relationship with past students, that will take up most of my time
2. It does not seem natural to pursue relationships with people for such a short time...so i will invest into people I will be involved with for the long haul
3. These students don't really know me
4. I don't really know them
5. It is painful to establish and invest into people knowing that they will soon move on

But none of these excuses really hold up...so as sit up the night before a new semester starts I am praying that God will give me the strength and the grace to love these students and invest into them because that is what He would have me do. and at the end of the day Luke 17 comes to mind... I really am only doing that which I ought to do .