Fall Conference was an amazing time of training and fellowship for the students in One Voice. On Friday night we were challenged by Tom Lin, our IV Regional Director, to ask Jesus to reveal the "nets" that we are holding onto. He described nets as the things in our lives that are keeping us from fully following Jesus' call. Like the fishermen that Jesus invited to be his disciples, each of us have to wrestle with the cost of leaving those nets behind.

The weekend continued with great worship and further teaching from Dr. Bernard Franklin. Dr. Franklin serves as President of Metropolitan Community College - Penn Valley in Kansas City. He helped us dig deeper into the theme of the conference: a life together, a campus renewed. His talks on the beautiful mess of Christian community and how our fellowship are called to bring new life on campus were both challenging and inspirational.

We are returning to campus with a renewed vision for One Voice and a commitment to praying for God's further direction as we begin inviting our friends to explore more about Jesus. What a blessing!

conference

240 InterVarsity students from Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska will be descending on Kansas City, MO this coming weekend for a regional fall conference. This is a huge answer to prayer because it's the the first time that we've attempted fall conference regionally and we created the budget based on an estimate of 250 registrations. What provision! You can learn about what the students will be experiencing here.

All of the staff were assigned various tracks to serve on. I have been working with three other staff over the summer to plan the evangelism track. While we were hoping for a good number of attendees to sign up for the track, we were also unsure of what to expect - the idea of evangelism can be scary! I just received an email this morning: 82 students are signed up for the evangelism track. As a result we will work this week to restructure some of our plans to accommodate such a large crowd and adjust to the idea of presenting in the room used for the plenary sessions. We are trusting that God is going to use our time with these students on Saturday to serve as a catalyst for region-wide evangelism efforts on campus.

Please join us in praying that the Spirit would be working in our hearts as we present and teach, as well as the hearts of the students who receive our invitation to begin trusting Jesus and stepping out to advance his kingdom.

Ministry is not an equation. X amount of effort plus Y amount of planning does not automatically result in the Z results that I was hoping for. It's not as if I didn't know this in theory, it's just that the experience of it is a lot more jarring.

As this reality has played out in my ministry on campus I have found myself contrasting it with the manageable tasks that I find myself involved with at the coffeehouse where I work part-time. There is something satisfying about knowing what I'll get when I start making a latte. Not a lot of surprises. Satisfying in some regards, but I also find that it lacks the deeper sense of fulfillment that I am seeking.

So I will press on. Pray that my student leaders and I will fix our eyes on Jesus and refuse to take what we see around us in the residence halls at face value. God is at work and we long to join him.