Pigs as part of a metaphor for healing and deliverance? Yes, indeed. I'm speaking tonight at Asian Christian Fellowship's Large Group at Wash U. I'll be sharing the story of Jesus healing the Gerasene Demoniac in Mark 5.
Please pray that students will respond to the invitation to experience more healing so that we can tell our friends the story of what He's done for us.
good food + studying Scripture = a truly great feast
Last Friday 6 Wash U students gathered in my living room - 5 freshmen and 1 sophomore. I had invited them to share an evening of food and Scripture. Looking around the room I realized that only a couple of them had ever met each other before. I realized that they each met me at some point in the past couple of months. It was fun to realize that God had gathered a group of people who might not otherwise be in the same room together.
As of 10 PM on Thursday evening, the night prior to this gathering event that I dubbed The Feast, only 2 students had committed to attending. I woke up on Friday morning to text messages with confirmations of 3 more and another text message late Friday afternoon rounded out the 6 who said "yes".
We studied the parable of the great banquet in Luke 14. We marveled at a God who is always inviting new people to his party. We talked about it hosting another dinner and Scripture study on campus in a couple of weeks. What would it be like to invite as many people as we can? What would it be like to be generous with our invitations?
Wash U Christian Fellowship is a community of Jesus followers free to love God and to make His love known at Wash U. That's the vision that I have been sharing with the students I am meeting. There is something in particular about the public nature of making God's love known to others that presents the challenge for students to choose faith instead of fear. I continue to hear that invitation for myself as well and so I've been experimenting with some creative ways to engage students in conversations about spiritual reality. This kind of public outreach has been helpful because it's a tangible way to invite students to join me in mission on campus and it allows me to gauge their openness to risk-taking.
The week after Fall Conference I planned to run a Proxé Station for two afternoons on campus as a way to publicly invite students to consider the God who loves them. A Proxé Station is an interactive experience used to clearly explain the Gospel and help people to respond appropriately. The Proxé Station that I decided to use involved asking students to respond to questions about how they have been both victims and perpetrators of injustice. I had a few solid conversations with students who stopped by the display on the first day, but I left campus feeling tired and lonely. The thought of trying it again the next day just felt daunting.
I called my supervisor that evening and as I shared how tiring and lonely my experience of the day had been she offered to join me at the Proxé Station for an hour the following day along with one of our other teammates. Esther, my friend and staff with Asian Christian Fellowship (ACF), was able to join us as well. If having three staff partners with me wasn't enough, two students from Wash U Christian Fellowship's sister chapters, ACF and Harambee, ran the station with me for the second half of the afternoon and changed their plans at the last minute in order to do so. Together we were able to engage so many more students in conversation than the first day and many conversations revealed the spiritual hunger that exists among students at Wash U.
Isn't God's provision incredibly timely?
That same day I received a call from Howie with the idea to bring a team of staff to Wash U to run multiple Proxé Stations on campus on November 2 as part of their evangelism training. Pray for open hearts and minds next Tuesday as we confront students with the evil of human trafficking, invite them to consider the things that they are enslaved by in the process, and point them toward Jesus as the one who brings freedom.
Partnering with friends from Asian Christian Fellowship to start conversations about Jesus and social justice.
Debriefing our John 9 Bible study at Fall Conference with Jenn and Valerie.
According to the dictionary I just consulted momentum is,"strength or force gained by motion or through the development of events." Momentum is definitely my buzz word these days. In fact my planting coach, Howie, and I spend most of our conversations discussing where I am seeing momentum on campus and how to capitalize on that. I notice that the momentum has shifted around a lot in the first half of the semester, but there are a couple of locations where momentum has been building consistently. Here is where I am seeing momentum:
Athlete Bible Study - 3 freshmen football players, 1 cross country runner, and 1 swimmer joined me to study a passage from Mark two weeks ago. Our discussion was lively and somewhere in the middle of it one of the football players, EJ, expressed his doubt about God's existence. EJ is one of Andrew's roommates and Andrew texted me later that night to let me know that they had a great conversation about faith when they returned to their dorm room.
Catholic students - Several of the students I've met through hanging out in various freshmen dorms come from a Catholic background. Three students who came to our first two events of the school year happened to be Catholic. I was so excited about their initial interest, but when they stopped responding to my invitations for further connection I was rather disappointed. Despite that disappointment I continue to meet Catholic students and I am asking God for wisdom on how to invite them to get involved in the mission of Wash U Christian Fellowship.
Being present - I spent one recent evening hanging out in a fort that some freshmen had constructed in their common room out of stacked furniture, bed sheets, and duct tape. Their RA had hoped that the night would involve discussing faith and so he invited me to join them. The conversation didn't end up there, but I did get to meet more students and share what I am doing on campus. I ran into a couple of these new students on campus last week and found myself feeling surprised as they recognized me. I realized that simply choosing to be present with them in that fort has potentially opened up a door for ministry.
I am encouraged by the evidence of momentum and I am praying for wisdom as I plan the next steps.
Fall Conference was pretty great! I think it stretched our staff team to pull the whole thing off and lead in different capacities. I think it stretched students as they were called to live as bold witnesses for Jesus on campus. It's good to be stretched.
We talked a lot about how easy it is to say "yes" to Jesus when you're spending a weekend surrounded by other students who are excited to respond to God's call. It's not always so easy when the retreat is over and you're back on campus surrounded by friends who haven't had the same experience that you've just had. Before we all went our separate ways on Sunday afternoon each fellowship had a chance to meet together to plan how we would apply what we had learned.
I sat down with the two students, Jenn and Valerie, from Wash U Christian Fellowship to come up with outreach ideas that we could do on campus. We ended up deciding to host a game night for Valerie's floor in her dorm. Valerie is a freshman at Wash U and she is fairly quiet and reserved. I wasn't sure how she'd fare when it came to inviting her neighbors to a game night so that we could build more relationship with them, but she was enthusiastic about the idea and so we went for it.
Last Friday night I showed up in the lobby of Valerie's dorm with homemade cookies and Apples to Apples. Students from her floor began to gather and everyone who walked through the lobby was invited to play with us. We played for four hours with a rotating group of 8-12 students. At the end of the night one of the students commented that this was the most social the floor had been since before classes began. I am excited to help Valerie continue to build relationships with her neighbors and to discover those who are curious about Jesus.
At 7 PM this evening over 170 students from schools in St. Louis and Columbia, MO will descend on Potosi, MO for Fall Conference 2010. We're asking the question, "Do You Know Him?" as the theme of the conference. Pray that many students would indeed be able to say that they know Jesus in a new way because of our time together this weekend.
I will be leading the group through an inductive Bible study in John 9 on Saturday morning. It's a powerful passage and I am excited for the way that God wants to use it to empower us to be His witnesses even when it's costly. I would appreciate your prayers for clarity and the ability to discern how the Spirit is at work in the room as I lead. I am so excited for what God wants to do!
This is my 9th InterVarsity Fall Conference. One October weekend in 2000 I decided to commit to following Jesus at a Fall Conference in Arizona. Ten years later I am convinced that it was the best decision I've ever made! As our staff team has been making final preparations for this weekend I have been marveling at what a privilege it is to be a part of a movement that is continuing to invite students to follow Jesus.
The InterVarsity interns from the Central Region were in St. Louis in early August for training. Part of that training involved prayer walking the campus of Wash U. As they were praying several students had a sense that God wanted to open doors among two communities on campus: athletes and Jewish students.
My internal response upon hearing both of those communities named was less than enthusiastic. I often describe myself as "athletically challenged" and I didn't grow up playing team sports so the prospect of hanging out with students from the other end of that spectrum was intimidating. Reaching out to Jewish students also sounded intimidating. A significant percentage of Wash U's undergrad population identifies as Jewish and there has been tension on campus in the past over Christian outreach efforts aimed at the Jewish community. I've been willing to pray for open doors, but I've lacked faith since planning for a door to actually open didn't make my list of strategic moves.
I am grateful that God continues to invite me into situations that require more faith than I can muster. I am grateful that He is committed to freeing my from the fear that keeps me paralyzed in my comfort zone. I am grateful that He promises to lead the blind, "by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them" (Isaiah 42:16).
Andrew, the freshman football player, and I met for lunch last week and I asked him what he thought about inviting some of his teammates to study Scripture on Monday nights. "That sounds great!" he responded. I mentioned the idea to Jess, a senior on the cross country team and she immediately started inviting some of the freshmen girls from the team. I also invited another freshman from the swim team.
Andrew, Jess, and I met last night to study the first fifteen verses of Mark's Gospel and talk about how to invite our friends to the official launch of our athlete Bible study next week.
I think I'm going to have to learn a thing or two about football.
BUT that's not the end of it! Wouldn't it be just like God to show up in another crazy way? Yes, yes it would.
I met up with Jonathan, another freshman, last week and discovered that he identifies himself as a Messianic Jew. His parents independently came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah prior to their marriage and two of his grandparents, both Holocaust survivors, came to the same belief later in life. I could hardly believe what I was hearing.
Torah study? It just might be in my future.
Your prayers for wisdom and direction are very much appreciated as I continue to build relationship with Andrew and Jonathan and invite them to explore these open doors with me.
I shouldn't be surprised at the way that God uses the work that He calls us into to highlight the inner work of transformation that He's committed to completing in us. I shouldn't be surprised, but I still am. I have experienced a roller coaster of emotions in the last three weeks, but much of that has come in the form of anxiety. As I've processed what I am feeling with people I trust it has become increasingly evident that too much of my sense of worth is tied to the response I am receiving from other people. In my case those people are students I am meeting. Again, this is not a new struggle, but it feels more acute than usual. It is a daily battle to trust that my identity is actually fixed in who Jesus says that I am and nothing else. As I continue to invite students to join Wash U Christian Fellowship in order to proclaim freedom to the captives on our campus I am asking Jesus to free me from the chains of anxiety and people pleasing.
The awareness of my internal battle to believe what is true ties into my sense that launching into this new school year has felt like more of a spiritual battle than ever before. As I've been spending more time interceding for campus I am aware of some of the oppressive spiritual realities of Wash U. Again, this is not new to me, but I feel keenly aware of the ways that a culture steeped in achievement, perfection, and pluralism operates as a kind of bondage that has spiritual implications. I am also aware that it is only a movement of God's Spirit that causes blind eyes to receive sight and hearts to hunger and thirst for truth. I've told several people that I am praying more than I've ever prayed in my life! Will you join me in fighting this spiritual battle through prayer?
The work of planting Wash U Christian Fellowship is giving me new reasons to appreciate all of the farming metaphors found in Scripture.
Classes at Wash U are in full swing and students are settling into their routines. I glanced at the calendar today and realized that I've been meeting new students for nearly three weeks! Each day I experience moments that convince me that I've been at this for much longer than that and then other moments when it feels like move-in day just happened.
I am quickly learning that starting something new is hard work: lots of new relationships, sharing and modeling the vision for this fellowship, and not knowing who will join me to reach out on campus. Yes, I am very much aware of my own stretching and growing as I've stepped into this planting adventure, yet I am also discovering that God has been working harder than I ever will! He's been preparing students to encounter Him. Each day I step on campus asking Him to show me where He is at work and how I can be a faithful partner, joining in what He's already been doing. Here are a few highlights from the last couple of weeks:
I met Corrie in one of the residence halls on campus as I was knocking on her neighbor's door to invite her to our first outreach event, ice blocking. I invited Corrie to join us, too. She wasn't able to come, but when she ran into me on campus later in the week she asked if I would make sure to invite her to our next event. I decided to risk asking her about her spiritual background as we continued to chat. She said that she didn't have one, but that she was interested in exploring what that might look like. We met for lunch early last week and after hearing more of her story I asked if she would be interested in checking out Jesus for the next few weeks by looking at some stories about him from the Gospels. She agreed and said, "Yeah, I should figure out if this is for me."
Kurt is a sophomore at Wash U who identifies as a Christian, but did not find a fellowship that was a good fit for him on campus last year. Howie, my planting coach, and I were visiting some other students in a residence hall when we met Kurt as he was posting some fliers for his acapella group. He asked why we are launching Wash U Christian Fellowship, but as I shared the vision and invited him to join us he said he was too busy to be a part of something new. Honestly, I didn't think much more about that interaction except that it highlighted my need for a good response to the question Kurt posed. Two days ago I received an email from Kurt. He wrote, "I just wanted to let you know that I'm still looking for a faith community at Wash U, and as I've though about it more, the prospect of being able to shape that community, even in some small way, since it's just in its formative time, has become more exciting to me." What a fun surprise to find in my inbox!
I met Andrew on move-in day when he stopped by my table looking for information on another campus ministry and then asking about InterVarsity. He's a freshman from Hawaii and he plays on the football team. This year's InterVarsity interns from the Central Region had spent time praying on campus at Wash U as part of their summer training and they had a sense that God wanted to move in the athletic community. As soon as I met Andrew I thought, "I'm going to stalk that kid, but in a good way. I'll stalk him for Jesus." I visited his room multiple times, but I had not been able to reconnect with him. Yesterday I decided it would be worth inviting him to Cross Training - my attempt at gathering some potentially missional students for experiences in Scripture, missional prayer, and evangelism - via text message. He responded and indicated that he was interested in joining us. I am really excited to pursue helping him reach out to his teammates on the football team!
Whew! There are more stories to tell and this is just the beginning! God is at work!
Tomorrow morning at 8:30 AM more than 1600 freshmen students will begin moving into their residence halls at Wash U and their orientation program will begin.
And every branch that is grape-bearing he cuts back so it will bear even more. John 15:2b, The Message
Tonight I was walloped with the realization that it feels risky to believe that all of the pruning I've been experiencing, particularly in the past year, will result in an abundance of fruit. That hoped-for-fruit has made the painful removal of dead weight feel worthwhile. Tonight I crumpled in a sobbing heap and confessed the toxic seed of doubt that has been making itself at home in my heart: maybe barrenness is my lot.
Yes, the anticipation of planting something new has me feeling like I'm riding an emotional roller coaster. One minute I'm loving the ride and I'm convinced that there's nowhere else I'd rather be because this ride is forcing me to trust Jesus with abandon. The next minute I'm clinging white-knuckled to the safety bar with clenched teeth and I'm convinced that getting on this ride was a huge mistake.
The pruning is not over. If my understanding of Scripture is on point, it won't be over this side of eternity! The mercy in all of this is that I don't have to spend time agonizing over what my continued pruning will look like or what it will feel like. I can also ask Jesus to fight off my fear of fruitlessness because he says that fruit will be the organic result of remaining in Him.
This remaining business is an art and I would very much like to be a more devoted student of it.
They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.
Isaiah 61:3b
The words of Isaiah 61 have echoed in my head and in my heart since January 2008 when I heard them clearly during a time of prayer at InterVarsity's National Staff Conference. As I think about the twists and turns of my life and my ministry over the past three years I can see evidence of the way that the images and themes present in this passage have begun to take shape in me and around me. As I've spent time this summer preparing for a significant relaunch of the ministry at Wash U I can't get away from this passage. That's not a complaint, just an observation!
At the beginning of July I had the incredible opportunity to receive training as a guest in IV's Chapter Planting Cohort. While I've been at the work of "re-planting" the One Voice fellowship since joining the staff team in St. Louis, some key factors have me feeling that this fall is a game changer. One of those factors is having the right training!
I am so grateful for the wealth of information I received as I learned about what InterVarsity has been learning about planting new chapters across the country for the past several years. One of our assignments during the training was to write a 7-minute vision talk that we could use on campus to invite students to become fellow co-laborers in the mission field. As I worked on my talk the themes of Isaiah 61 continued to swirl around my mind.
Luke sets the stage for Jesus's earthly ministry in chapter 4 of his Gospel. Jesus shows up on his home turf in Nazareth, rolls into the synagogue and reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah:
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for
the prisoners
And recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
As I pray for this new witnessing community that I will work to plant this fall I am convinced that we are to be a community that joins Jesus in proclaiming freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind. I long to call students to experience the freedom that Jesus is offering to them and that he continues to invite you and me to experience, too!
Even before the students arrive on campus at the end of August will you join me now in praying that God would direct us to students at Wash U who are desperate to be free?
I found this posted on the website of our Regional Director. He, in turn, discovered it on someone else's blog. Check it out!
I was encouraged by this pastor's perspective on what it means for the church to partner with a campus ministry like InterVarsity. It reminded me of how grateful I am for the churches who are already involved with what God is doing at Wash U.
It also challenged me to desire a kingdom perspective in the midst of planting a movement on campus. I want to know that I am raising up leaders for what God is doing in the world, not just in my tiny corner of the world.
God answers prayer. In January I asked you to join me in praying that God would direct me towards missional students at Wash U who could be a part of re-planting One Voice. I have to confess that a part of me didn't believe that He would answer.
But He did.
Enter Jenn. I met Jenn in one of the freshmen residence halls at the end of January and had a gut sense that I needed to get to know her. It was an exciting moment!
It took a few weeks before our schedules lined up and we were able to meet for breakfast. I asked her about her time in college so far and why she wasn't connected with one of the other Christian fellowships on campus. She said that she had tried a few out but that none of them felt like places she would feel comfortable bringing her non-Christians friends. The more we talked the more it became clear that she had a lot of those and she was consistently finding ways to communicate God's love for them. She firmly believed that her ministry as a college student was to be the kind of friend that introduces people to Jesus.
Needless to say, this was a really fun conversation to be in the middle of!
I shared with her about my sense that God was calling One Voice to be a conversion community, a place where we were being transformed because of our obedience to Jesus and inviting our friends to experience the same thing. Jenn exclaimed, "Oh my gosh! You're the first person I've met at Wash U that has that kind of vision. That's what I want to see happen, too!"
Jenn is a missional Christian. She knows that God wants to uniquely use her in His mission to draw her friends into a relationship with Him.
Jenn and I are praying big, bold prayers for the incoming class of freshmen. We can't wait to see who Jesus is going to call us to serve in this Fall.
God answers prayer.
Jenn (on the far right) desires to see her friends and other students at Wash U understand that they are deeply loved by God.
I hope you enjoy this photo summary of the past school year as much as I enjoyed putting it together! I feel a little overwhelmed by the awareness that each person in each of these photos has a story. I smiled and teared up as I compiled these images, recounting the moments throughout the year when I had the privilege of witnessing their stories interacting with the epic story of the Kingdom. That, my friends, is such a gift!
I invite you to celebrate with me because you have been a part of making these moments possible:
One Voice serving the city with WULF - I will always remember this school year as the year that the WULF atheists became my friends. How I long for them to know their true identity as friends of God! Hmmmm...I find it suspicious that it's a One Voicer attempting to choke me in the above photo. :)
You mean to tell me that we can serve together more than once? Get outta here! :)
Nothing says, "Merry Christmas!" quite like this photo. One Voice has a tradition of inviting friends to a party involving a gingerbread house design contest. My team dominated this year. Yes!
There was some serious Bible study going down at this table! In February I had the incredible fun of leading three of my staff co-workers through an inductive study in the first two chapters of Mark's Gospel as we prepared for Catalyst, our summer training camp for students. The opportunities I've had to lead groups in Scripture study have been such a blessing to me this year.
Spending time at a local elementary school tutoring kids during the CityLights Spring Break Urban Project - our team included students from St. Louis, Minnesota and Georgia.
Christy just graduated from Wash U and she served as a leader in One Voice for three years. Fun fact: her mom was an InterVarsity student leader during her college days. Christy, on the other hand, arrived at Wash U pretty well determined to avoid InterVarsity. That didn't really work out for her. I am convinced that God has a sense of humor! She and her fiancée, Jonathan, are CityLights alumni and served as summer interns in 2009. It has been an absolute joy to watch their hearts expand to love the city of St. Louis.
It was hugely significant for me to be a part of the team that organized Wash U's first Veritas Forum. As I stood at the back of the room as over 200 students heard two opposing perspectives on selflessness, one of which was a thoroughly Christian worldview, I was so grateful. That evening represented over two years of dreaming and praying. Let me assure you that it was worth it!
InterVarsity was just one of the groups sponsoring The Veritas Forum. I had so much fun partnering with students from other fellowships on campus. I also enjoyed welcoming people at the door. :)
Wash U students engaged with the dialogue between two respected professors with two very different worldviews.
The best conversations happened after the dialogue had ended!What a good God we serve!
In April the Wash U staff hosted three leadership trainings for next year's leaders in our fellowships. Here I am reminding students that challenging those we lead is an integral part of actually loving them.
Catalyst 2010 - these students and staff studied Mark for a total of fourteen hours at our summer training camp in May! It is always exciting to experience community forming around Scripture. One of the students pictured above decided to commit his life to Jesus on the third night of camp and then shared his testimony in our study time the next day. Thanks be to God for good soil and new life!
Three cheers for partnership! Part of the fun of Catalyst is that our Central Region staff team gets to work together to serve all of our students. It's a community effort and we get to see God show up in a big way as students hear the call to be missionaries on their campuses. It's a good reminder for us, too!
250 students, faculty, and other inquiring minds packed into the largest lecture hall in the Lab Sciences building for the first ever Veritas Forum at Wash U last Monday night. I will post a link to the audio and video files as soon as they become available.
It is partially true that the evening came together thanks to the hard work and dedication of the students on the planning team and some surprising partnerships within the campus community. I think it is more true that the success of the event bears witness to the faithfulness of God.
The conversation between the two presenting professors was incredibly cordial. While there was much that they agreed on when it came to the science behind the topic, the divide between the Christian worldview and an atheistic worldview was made evident. As the event came to a close and I thanked people for their attendance as they were leaving several people asked when the next Forum was taking place and commented on what a thought-provoking dialogue this first Forum had been.
On Thursday morning I met with three Christian professors from Wash U to pray and encourage one another. Two of these professors attended the Forum and one of them just happens to teach in the same department as the non-Christian professor who participated as one of the Forum presenters. Already this Christian professor had sent an email to his non-Christian colleague, thanking him for his presentation. He also plans on having lunch with his non-Christian colleague to further the conversation about belief that the Forum began. "It was clear to me that [the non-Christian professor] knew how to talk about what he does not believe, but when he was asked to articulate what he does believe he didn't have a well-thought through response. I'd love to talk more with him about the basis for what he does, in fact, believe," my Christian professor friend said.
It appears that some of the first fruit of hosting a Veritas Forum on campus is taking the form of faculty members inspired to minister to their peers. Praise God!
I've had several moments on campus this year when I have had to remind myself that I did not graduate from Wash U. That's how much it feels like home! This is a total answer to pray and I could not be more grateful for the way that God has allowed my heart to love this institution and its students. In my time here I have been challenged to pray and discover the needs unique to this place. What are the big questions that students at Wash U are asking? Part of InterVarsity's vision is to see campuses renewed. What might that look like? Before I had even stepped foot on campus I remember thinking, "I bet Wash U would be a great place to host a Veritas Forum."
The Veritas Forum exists to "inspire the shapers of tomorrow's culture to connect their hardest questions with the person and story of Jesus Christ." Founded in 1992 at Harvard University, The Veritas Forum has spread to campuses across the country. I am thrilled to announce that the first Veritas Forum at Washington University in St. Louis is taking place on the evening of March 29, 2010.
It has been two years in the making. Initial plans for the inaugural event had to be scrapped in late 2008. The fact that we are on the cusp of seeing it come to fruition is hugely significant as hosting a Veritas Forum requires partnership between Christian student leaders from multiple ministries, campus ministers, and faculty. I believe that the event next Monday night will be the first of many opportunities to elevate the conversation about Jesus on campus and engage students with questions that they are actually asking.
Needless to say the next couple of weeks are going to be full of excitement as we finalize logistical details for the 29th, host the event, and create some strategic follow-up plans to capitalize on the momentum for outreach on campus.
On Friday, March 12, CityLights was coming to a close and Gerry Chappeau, project director, was leading the students in sharing their reflections from the week. Sanjay*, a Wash U senior who has been friends with a couple of One Voice students since his freshman year raised his hand. "This week has helped me understand more of what Christianity is all about...getting to see it in action. I didn't understand before why people could be so passionate about it, but I think I get it now. It's made me take a look at my own faith and why I believe what I believe," he shared.
Sanjay comes from a Hindu background and describes himself as a Hindu/Buddhist. As his friends from One Voice have continued to engage in conversation about spiritual matters his posture towards Christianity has become more positive. I must confess that I was pretty surprised when I learned that he had signed up for CityLights. I fully believe that the experience of living in community, serving the city, and learning about God's response to injustice and oppression have helped Sanjay take a couple of steps closer to Jesus. He told his One Voice friends that spending Spring Break at CityLights was the best week he's had in the past year and a half!
Returning to the "real world" after any spiritually significant experience is challenging. Diving back into life and study on campus after CityLights is no exception. Would you join me in praying specifically that Sanjay's heart and mind would remain open to the Gospel in this spiritually vulnerable time? Please pray for wisdom for those of us in his life who will continue to talk to him about Jesus and help him process what he has been experiencing. * Name changed to protect student's identity
There is something new brewing in my internal world. I am grateful for the way that Jesus knows exactly what dark corner of my heart He wants to excavate next. He seems to slowly make that evident to me as some kind of repeated theme emerges over the course of weeks, or months, or even years. In the initial stages of each excavation (and really it's more like multiple excavations in progress all at once) I find that I also experience fear in addition to gratitude.
There is something a wee bit frightening of letting go of what is familiar and "safe" even when it becomes clear that it's destructive and you know that it's out of His grace and goodness that Jesus is saying, "Time for this mess to go!"
Here's a recent and unfolding discovery: I have a serious problem with receiving. In fact, I harbor some suspicion that God's good gifts to me are not actually good. What a mess! Who wants to help me sort through the roots and growth of that foul line of thinking?
Jesus does.
Today I received an exciting invitation and my first response was to burst into tears. This invitation represents a clear affirmation of gifting and calling, but my thoughts went something like, "I don't deserve this."
Oh, I am reminded that we are in relationship with a God who does not relate to us on the basis of what we deserve and that is a truly good gift.
I had the privilege of spending the last four days near San Fransisco at InterVarsity's Asian American Staff Conference.
I was initially nervous about attending. As I've continued to explore what it means to feel free to embrace my Korean-American side I consistently find myself wishing that I were half-Korean. If I were half I'd feel more entitled to that identity. I imagine that an even split is easier to navigate. I imagine that if my dad had kept his Korean name I'd be Andrea Kim and there would be far fewer questions. I imagine that my high cheekbones would be set even higher and my small feet would fit in smaller shoes.
Jesus continues to invite me to experience healing and to embrace an identity that is far less fragmented. I don't fully know how He plans on using this Scotch-Irish-German-Korean-Jewish vessel, but I know that He'll use all of me. Not one bit of my tangled ethnic identity is out of place or a mistake.
Post-conference conclusion: I am grateful to be caught up in the Story written by a God who wastes nothing.
Adam is one of my wonderful Missouri Area teammates.
I've been thinking about teams recently. I grew up with very little appreciation for the value of teamwork. Team sports were not really part of the picture. I wasn't blessed with much athletic ability and what little I had was channeled toward more individualistic ventures like ballet and tennis. I dreaded group projects in elementary school and I developed the reputation of taking on the bulk of the work because I simply couldn't imagine that anyone else would get it done right. The early signs of trust and control issues? Check.
Old habits die hard. Looking back I can see that there was some growth in my understanding of teamwork throughout high school and college, but I had (and still have) a long way to go. My intern year with InterVarsity was extremely rough in terms of team dynamics. I left that year with some battle wounds and the understanding that being on a team is hard work. Each of us bring a pile of sin and selfishness to the proverbial table that is enough to make us incompatible with every other human being we come in contact with. Bleak outlook? Perhaps, but I think there is a lot of truth in there. Put two or more of us in a room and there is bound to be conflict at some point!
The good/hard news is that we are called to minister in teams. I just love it when I am reminded that most of the New Testament was written with a group audience in mind, a "you all" rather than "you" as an individual. Teams are the context in which our gifts are best utilized and where we experience the potential for exponential impact as our individual gifts come together. A healthy team is also the context through which we are challenged to grow as our sin and selfishness are exposed and dealt with, hopefully with generous helpings of grace and humility.
I am learning to love the joy and the pain that come with being a part of a team. When my former supervisor told me that he thought I was a great person to have on a team I immediately recalled my past and my gut-level response was, "That cannot possibly be true."
Isaiah 43:19 continues to come to mind as I consider what God is doing in my life and on campus this season:
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
My emergence from a period of trial by fire and by flood has resulted in a kind of freedom that I did not imagine possible. I feel free to embrace my identity as a dearly beloved child of God. I feel free to fully invest my heart and my energy into replanting One Voice. I feel free to hope and pray towards its future as a thriving conversion community at Wash U. I feel free to run with the Spirit's leading.
What's a girl to do with all of this freedom?
I find myself giving thanks. I know that what I am experiencing is the direct result of the healing that Jesus has been doing in my life and in my ministry over the past couple of years. As I read through my old journal entries I find that many of my words form a collective crying out to be healed. So, it would appear, this freedom is no accident. It is an answer to prayer. My response is to thank my Healer.
I walk on campus these days aware that I am experiencing the goodness of God. There are many at Wash U who have yet to experience such authentic goodness. There are many who have yet to hear of Him. I get to partner with my students to make Him known.
March is just around the corner and with it comes the arrival of something in addition to spring: the CityLights St. Louis Urban Project.
I love getting to tell students the story of my first CityLights experience and how God used it to further my desire to learn what it means to seek justice and to love mercy. That was eight years ago! This year I'm particularly excited because we have at least one non-Christian signed up for join us for the week and I am working on recruiting a few more participants in the next week or so.
The strength of the CityLights experience is that students get to live and serve in community, living out the Gospel in an urban context even as they are invited to dream about what it means to follow Jesus in their neighborhoods on campus. It's a breeding ground for catalytic moments and transformation.
I'm really excited to see how God uses the project this March to further the work that He's doing in the lives of the students who will be participating. It's going to be a wonderfully challenging week!
Friday afternoon I received a text message from a freshman international student. I hadn't seen her in awhile. She studied the Bible with a couple of other students in one of our GIGs at the end of the last semester. Her text message asked if I wanted to meet her for dinner. I jumped at the opportunity.
In the midst of eating and catching up I asked her if she wanted to continue to explore more about Jesus. She said that she is really curious and she wants to keep learning about the possibility that God exists and that He cares about us.
I know where I'll be on Friday afternoons: studying Mark's Gospel with this student and one of her close friends. Praise God for open doors and the chance to discover where He's been at work!
I am a fan of the show Lost. Tomorrow night is the premiere of the show's sixth and final season. As I was coming up with a list of creative ways to gather students on campus and maybe meet some new ones, hosting a Lost premiere party was at the top of my list. A couple of One Voice students, who shall remain nameless, were not sold on the idea and one even said, albeit in a somewhat jocular manner, "No one is going to come to your party because no one here likes that show. It's soooooo dumb!"
Remaining undeterred in the face of criticism is something I am getting better at and so I ignored the dissenting views.
Fast forward to this past Friday. As one of the One Voice seniors and I are visiting freshmen and bringing them homemade chocolate chip cookies we intentionally go to meet a student who has been emailing us and trying to get connected with our fellowship. As we talked about the coming week she mentions apologetically that she will not be able to come to our prayer gathering on Tuesday night because several of her friends from the dorm are planning on watching the Lost premiere together. The timing was impeccable.
"Hey! That's what we were planning on doing, too! Could we bring our premiere party to your dorm?" I asked.
She agreed and so that is what we will be up to on Tuesday night.
I feel like a detective these days. If you were to ask me how I've been spending my time on campus I would respond, "I'm following leads."
It's all rather exhilarating. I meet a potentially missional Christian or a leader from a community that we want to intentionally engage with and then I get to scope them out. It takes energy and some serious intentionality, but I find myself excited about where it could lead and confident that Jesus already knows the people he's drawing together.
One of those potential people is a student named Jamie. At Urbana she committed to leading a GIG using John 1-4 with some of her non-Christian friends on campus. I'm meeting up with her tomorrow to chat about her Urbana experience and to ask if she'd like me to co-lead her GIG. Partnership and risk-taking with a potential student leader? Sounds like fun!
What would it be like if thousands of people eager to hear about God's mission in the world took over your city for five days? What would that look like? I will venture to guess that it might look a lot like what we in St. Louis experienced during Urbana 09. There really is no accurate way to describe the thrill of watching as the downtown area began to fill with the 16,000 people, mostly students, ready to hear and respond to God's call to join His work in our neighborhoods, both local and global.
Experiencing Urbana from the staff perspective was something new for me. A lot of my energy went into my teaching role during the morning Bible studies and I absolutely loved it! It was an incredible privilege to serve with my assistants, all of whom are InterVarsity alumni. I also appreciated that the participants in our study were a diverse group of U.S. and Canadian college students, InterVarsity staff from around the country, InterVarsity alumni, and even a few folks from the Pastor and Church Leader Track. We had a lot of fun together digging into the first four chapters of John's Gospel. It was such an honor to serve as a teacher.
Stepping back from my job assignment and getting to hear how God was moving through other elements of the conference was equally exciting! Over 300 conference attendees (and even several stadium workers employed by the convention center) responded to an altar call on December 30. 2000 students committed to serving in long-term, cross-cultural ministry. A few thousand more committed themselves to short-term assignments. The stories of responses made in the light of the calls issued will continue to be lived out in the coming years. The kingdom will advance as a result of many saying "yes" to God's invitation to them at Urbana 09!
And in the midst of all of the excitement I found that God had some specific invitations for me, too. Even as I write about them they don't strike me as exciting or as alluring as trekking off to a distant land for the sake of the gospel and yet they are infused with so much gospel truth! I heard the invitation to forgive as I have been forgiven. I heard the invitation to love extravagantly. I heard the invitation to faithfully point the way to Jesus again and again.
I hope I never get over being amazed at how He knows exactly what we need.
According to InterVarsity's Chapter Planting material a missional Christian is, "a student or faculty who is motivated by their relationship with Jesus to advance the gospel on their campus, someone who is willing to devote time and resources to take risks for Jesus' sake." Missional Christians are essential to the health and vitality of a fellowship and they are particularly crucial in the start-up phases. At our Central Region Staff Conference in December I had the opportunity to interact with one of the staff who coaches chapter planters in New England. As I shared a bit about the history of One Voice with him and some of the current realities and challenges of working to replant the fellowship, he began to ask some really good questions.
"What kind of evangelistic risks are you willing to take?" "Are there students in the group who are pushing you to raise the bar when it comes to evangelism?" As I shared my responses he thought for a moment and then said, "It sounds like you need to pray. You need to pray that you will encounter missional students on campus who will join you in the evangelism that you're already doing and even lead out in greater risks. You need start praying for conversions. It sounds like God could be shaping your group to be a community built around conversion.
As soon as he said that I was reminded of the words that I've been holding onto for the past couple of years. As I prayed for One Voice in the summer of 2007, prior to knowing very much about the chapter or its students, I heard God saying that the chapter would not grow because we were attractive to all of the Christian students at Wash U. Rather, One Voice would grow through conversion - students encountering Jesus, perhaps for the first time in their lives, and choosing to follow him.
I am committing myself to prayer towards this vision even as we continue to experiment with creative outreach this semester. I am asking the current core of One Voice to spend more time praying towards this vision. In particular I am asking Jesus for some divine appointments with missional students. I believe they're out there.
