i heart my staff team

2009-2010 Missouri Area Team

I love these people. No, really I do. I'm realizing how often I use that phrase flippantly, as in, "I love my new dress!" or "I just love New York-style pizza!" But when it comes right down to it I aim for sincerity when talking about love in relationship to other people, so it feels fitting to confess how much I appreciate and care about the people on this team that I get to serve alongside.

God calls us into partnership with him and with each other. It's a beautiful, life-giving gift if we can learn to accept that our relationships are one of the primary tools he uses to refine each of us. We have much to learn from each other and much to give so that the whole Body is built up.

I am looking forward to this year of ministry with this team as we encourage, challenge, and serve one another for the sake of the Kingdom.

dependence and hospitality

Yesterday was our first meeting of the new school year as the Missouri Area Team. We studied Luke 9:1-16 and as the themes of dependence on Jesus and those we serve, coupled with radical hospitality emerged I felt so much hope welling up inside of myself. The past couple of years have been a journey of learning deep dependence on Jesus - it's definitely not over, but some really good work has taken place. In the midst of that work I've also discovered that one of my gifts is hospitality: making space in my life and heart for new relationships. During our reflection time after the study I spent time thanking Jesus for the way he's been transforming my life and ministry in the time since I moved to St. Louis and I asked how he wanted to use this particular passage to shape ministry on campus in the coming year.

"Get ready!" he said.

My sense is that Jesus is going to show up in incredible ways as we order our lives and our fellowship around dependence and hospitality this year.

soar

Taking flight: my favorite mural in the Roosevelt Arts District in Phoenix

It is good to be back in St. Louis after three wonderful weeks in sunny Arizona. I am getting settled into my new home and continuing to reflect on the goodness of God in the midst of a loss that is propelling me into a new year of ministry on Wash U's campus.

If you had asked me in June how I felt about the fall semester I probably would have told you that I didn't have the emotional capacity to even think about it, but such is not the case at the beginning of August. I believe that God has incredibly good things in store as I lead students to engage with His mission. I believe that the new life He wants to bring on our campus is going to be overwhelm us in the best possible way. I believe that He knows what He is doing.

I've been seeing a counselor since January and today she paid me the highest compliment. "Andrea," she said, "You make me love Jesus more. The best part about it is that you're not even trying to get that kind of response, but you're so transparent that it just happens as I get to hear about the way you are letting him transform you. Thank you for letting me be a part of it."

I am treasuring those words and asking Jesus to make transparency a mark of my ministry this year.