Bait and Switch...

in the last few weeks since i found out that the head campus minister was leaving and that i would be filling his shoes, i have many people ask me if i feel like he pulled a bait and switch on me in bringing me out here.

however, i feel very confident that there was nothing of that sort going on...or at least not on his part...

i do however think that there may have been a bait and switch happening...it is just that it was God that was pulling the bait and switch. see, i have come to realize that if i would have come to UCM to interview and the board would have told me that they wanted to hire me to be the head campus minister, i would have probably told them that there was no way. so it seems as though God knew that He needed a different method to get me here.

so, do i think that jon pulled a bait and switch on me....absolutely not....do i think that God pulled a bait and switch on me....i am certainly not going to rule it out as a possibility.

regardless His hand was at work the whole time!!

a new relationship...

central missouri campus house has a close connection with northside christian church here in town, which is something new and different compared to what i was used to at purdue. however, yesterday i had a chance to grab a coke with the head pastor at northside and it was a really great experience. i feel like we are going to be able to support each other and grow from each other really well. we seem to really have similar philosophies of ministry and similar goals for the ministries.

there are certainly some things that i am a little unsure of with how that relationship is going to go, but overall i feel quite encouraged about it and i look forward to developing the relationship that will exist there...

Perfection...

i am a perfectionist....i have known it for a long time...i have also recently found a great group of guys that i play basketball with a few time a week.

this week while i have been playing basketball, i have been thinking about how my perfectionism relates to the way that God created me. God created me to be perfect...that was his desire. He formed me with the innate desire to strive towards perfection, so maybe being a perfectionist isn't all bad...

i also realize that Satan is very adept at using perfectionism as a tool to do his work. i think that he desire for me to get so caught up in my struggle with perfectionism, that it takes me away from God. that is where grace comes in....i have to understand that as a result of the fall, perfectionism must also be accompanied with grace.

so maybe my struggle is a little less with perfectionism and a little more about internalizing grace...it is a thought that i look forward to exploring...

Atmosphere

Yesterday i threw out the idea of moving our weekly Wednesday night study (called DIG) back to the basement of our building here at Campus House. The last couple of years, they have been meeting on campus and this coming year we were going to have to meet in a regular classroom, which just felt way too rigid. The atmosphere just did not seem like it was one that was really conducive to intimacy and growing with Christ.

We have an amazing space downstairs that has very much of a coffeehouse type of a feeling, and will provide an amazing atmosphere for our weekly meetings. There is a little bit of a concern about the amount of space that is available, but i don't see us losing any more people because of the lack of space than we would lose in a classroom because of the students lack of interest in being in that type of atmosphere.

I am super excited about the space and the atmosphere that it provides! It should be awesome!

His Timing

In the past week i found out that the head guy at Campus House is going to be leaving to take a different job, which leaves me to take over the lead role of teaching and administrating along with small groups for this coming school year.

It is a rather overwhelming feeling to say the least...

But isn't that just the way that God loves to use us. I look at so many people in the bible, like Moses for example, and the times when God uses them the most is when they feel like they are not capable of doing the work. There is just something about feeling overwhelmed and uncertain of ourselves that really leaves us with no option but to rely completely on God and to allow him to be the one doing the work through us, and i really believe that is what His desire is all along. So, i guess this is just like God to do something like this and i supposed that there is no place that i would really rather be than in the middle of a place where he is about to do something big.

That Tingly Feeling...

When i watch sporting events and things of that nature and there is something really exciting or inspiring, I tend to get a tingly feeling inside of me. I got to thinking the other day about what causes that feeling. And i don't mean scientifically or physiologically, but how did it get there originally. I definitely don't know all the answers to that, but what i do come to conclude for sure is that the feeling had to be put there by God. He created it, he placed it there, it is a feeling that has to be from Him. I like that idea, i like that God does things like that. He truly was fully God and fully man.