CCS Glossary: “Complete”

Every organization or movement uses language in its own unique way, and the Centre for Christian Studies is no different.

Today’s CCS Glossary word is COMPLETE.

In CCS-speak, “complete” is a mark. Assignments, projects, activities, learning circles, and field placements at CCS are marked on an “complete/incomplete” scale. No B-minuses. No eighty-nine percents. Just complete. Or not complete.

Plus lots of comments. Every assignment is a conversation. But what you’ll see on a CCS student’s transcript is just “complete.”

Complete means you did the thing. You had an assignment; it had a number of pieces to it – some research, some analysis, some personal reflection, some practical application, some organizing and expressing of ideas – and you did what was required of you. Good enough. Done.

“Complete” can be a bit challenging for people who grew up with number or letter grades. We’ve had at least one student who said, “I know you do complete/incomplete, but if you were giving this paper a number grade, what would it be? You don’t even need to say it out loud; you can just write it on a slip of paper and slide it over to me.” (We didn’t.)

I get it. As someone who has been fond of marks in the past, I can hear all sorts of questions about a complete/incomplete scale rising in my mind:

“How will I know if I’ve done it right?” (Did it get marked complete? Then you probably did it right. If you were way off base or you if left out required parts of the assignment, we’d tell you. We’d mark it “not yet complete” and ask you to take another crack at it.)

“No, but how will I know if I did it well?” (Do you feel like you learned something from doing the assignment? Have you grown? Do you feel proud of your work? Do the comments and feedback suggest that you expressed yourself clearly and that your thinking was on track? Then you probably did it well.)

“No, but compared to other people? Without a ranking, how will I know if I did better or worse than everyone around me?” (Is that important to you?)

“No, no, no, what I mean is, how will I know if I’m good? Like, if I’m a good person?” (…Oh, honey.)

And scene.

“Complete” works well when you’re trying to be more collaborative, less competitive. It works well when you want students to become more self-aware and spiritually grounded, rather than chasing after external validation. It works well when you want to accommodate diversity and acknowledge that “good enough” looks different to different people in different contexts or at different stages in their formation.

Completion is a process of growth. And it is ongoing. Sometimes a CCS assignment is not completed at the first attempt and needs more work, or a learning circle remains “in process” for longer than might be expected. (Within limits, of course. And sometimes students decide to let this one be “incomplete” so they can move on and focus on the next one.)

Matthew’s gospel tells us to be perfect as God in Heaven is perfect (Matt 5:48). That’s a pretty daunting ask. The Greek word translated into English as “perfect” is teleios. In Hebrew it’s tamim. These words don’t mean perfect in the sense of infallible or 100% correct all the time. They mean fulfilled. Mature. Complete.

I don’t know what a perfect minister looks like. I have seen many come out of the CCS Diaconal Ministries program with a sense of their own readiness and completeness.