Victory...

i want to stop and remember and celebrate a victory today...a major victory in my mind...

since this shows up in a public forum, i am going to withhold the details, but today i feel like i made a major breakthrough in leading people. and this is coming from a leader of people who often feels like he doesn't do a very good job of leading people. in my mind, it is nothing less than a monumental step for me personally.

granted, it most be only one step in a growing process, but nonetheless...i truly believe that it was a major step...and a step that i don't want to soon forget...

Campus Culture...

what is the culture of the campus here at UCM...

what types of things "connect with" and "resound with" these students...

those are tough questions...

you would think that the answers to those questions would be universal for college students on every campus, but i would strongly disagree with that. in my experience, it is quite unique from university to university...and that is challenging...very challenging...

i am not entirely sure what that means for me and for this ministry...

it makes me wonder what i need to do to engage the culture more and to more fully understand what "connects with" and "resounds with" these students.

i guess in some senses, i really need to be a sponge in soaking up every last little thing that i see in the students that surround me.

Birth: The Visited Planet (Ch. 2)

in chapter two of The Jesus I Never Knew, yancey looks at the christmas story...it is a different look at the story...an intriguing look...

here are a few thoughts and quotes...

he talks again about images...images of Jesus...the images that we see at christmas time...

"Inside, the cards stress sunny words like love, goodwill, cheer, happiness, and warmth. It is a fine thing, I suppose, that we honor a sacred holiday with such homey sentiments. And yet when I turn to the gospel accounts of the first Christmas, I hear a very different tone and sense mainly disruption at work."

"If Jesus came to reveal God to us, then what do I learn about God from that first Christmas?

The word associations that come to mind as I ponder that question take me by surprise. Humble, approachable, underdog, courageous - these hardly seem appropriate words to apply to deity."

yancey then goes on to talk about each of these four descriptors...

humble...

"That God is little, that is the truth which Jesus taught man. The God who roared, who could order armies and empires about like pawns on a chessboard, this God emerged in Palestine as a baby who could not speak or eat solid food or control his bladder, who depended on a teenager for shelter, food, and love."

approachable...

"What can be less scary than a newborn with his limbs wrapped tight against his body? In Jesus, God found a way of relating to human beings that did not involve fear."

underdog...

"Growing up, Jesus' sensibilities were affected most deeply by the poor, the powerless, the oppressed - in short, the underdogs."

courageous...

"It took courage to risk descent to a planet known for its clumsy violence, among a race known for rejecting its prophets. What more foolhardy thing could God have done?"

The Jesus I Never Knew

first, i appologize...i don't know that there is really anyone out there still reading this or checking it, but if there is, i appologize because it has been nearly forever since i last wrote. and i guess maybe, even if there is no one reading this, i still need to appologize to myself, because there is something implicitly good that comes for me in writing here...something good in my head and my spirit...a processing if you will...

so...that said...i started back into reading The Jesus I Never Knew...i am reading it partially for myself, as is always the case when i read or study...but also seeking to put together teaching thoughts...and as i read, i am also going to write...write here, in this place...

so...here is a thought from chapter one...

what is your image of Jesus? i mean, what does he look like, but also, how does he act, what type of person is he, to you personally. how do you interact with him, if you see yourself interacting with him at all. what are his tendencies and typical emotions? is he emotional at all?

and these things that you think...the images that you have of Jesus...where do they come from? what has shaped them? do they come from scripture? from your thoughts? from pieces of the life around you? how has the culture around you developed these thoughts? mislead you in these thoughts?

is our image of Jesus tamed? trimmed around the edges? do we have even a shadow of an understanding of just how world changing Jesus was...and is?

here is an absolutely amazing quote by Walter Wink, "If Jesus had never lived, we would never have been able to invent him."...ponder that for a little while...

A Monumental Night...

so i realize that it has been almost 2 months since i have written...likely, at least in part, a commentary on the crazy busyness of the beginning of the school year. with that long of a pause, it would take a pretty big deal to get me back writing, and last night was one of those nights...

one of our students, vickie arnett, had come to me a few weeks ago and said that she wanted to get baptized at our fall retreat, which was this past weekend. we had planned to do the baptism at the retreat in an outdoor pool, however, it poured rain the entire weekend and so we decided that instead of standing out in the rain it would be best to just wait and do it after dig on wednesday, and i am convinced that was God's plan all along...

so last night, immediately following dig we invited all the students to go with us to northside christian church to share in the baptism and to pray and celebrate with vickie. and right before we were going to leave one of our students (totally unplanned) got up and passionately from the heart talked about how exciting it was that Vickie was going to be baptized and about how being a community of believers was all about this and what better could any of us have then to celebrate with her!

it was awesome...and it could not have been more powerful...coming from a student...a peer was exactly what it needed to be. no question about it. i will admit, things like that are tough for me because it is unplanned and therefore i don't have control...but that is okay because God does and he did for sure last night.

and so i bet there were at least 40 students that went. we talked a little about baptism, vickie shared a little, we baptized her, sang Mighty To Save (the power of that group singing that chorus together was amazing!), prayed over her and for her, hugged her, cried with her, and then came back to campus house to have cake with her and to celebrate...it was a PARTY!

i do not think it can be underestimated how monumental of a night it was. it was monumental for vickie as she identified with Christ and opened claimed Him as Lord and Savior and Director of her life. but it was also monumental for our community. i believe that was a powerful time for our community to be together like that...something i don't think the students that were there will forget for a while. it was truly acts 2 type community...

a truly monumental night...

Stability v. Spontaneity...

i truly believe that the ministry here at central missouri is very much in need of stability and of someone who can give it vision and direct it to really make it everything that God desires for it to be. and i want to be able to be that for the ministry....

but at the same time, my spirit craves spontaneity....it craves the ability and opportunities for cailyn and i to be able to just freely serve God in different ways and in all different parts of the world...

i am really struggling to figure out how these two states of being....stability and spontaneity....can co-exist at the same time, in the same person...

Answered Prayer...

you know, when you've been a christian for quite some time, it can become rather easy to slip into a rut (well, probably a lot of ruts) when it comes to prayer. i find it so easy to talk about prayer and even to pray and to say that i believe in prayer, but when i am honest with myself, i can see that sometimes i am just going through the motions instead of really believing that God can and will answer prayer, even and sometimes especially when it is a "big" prayer...

but without a doubt, the best remedy that i know of for a prayer rut is when God brings you one of those "Holy Whacks" where he just slaps you up side the head with an answered prayer...

and today was definitely one of those days for me...

we have been struggling somewhat financially as a ministry and we had been getting to the point where it was hard for us to pay our mortgage and payroll and were really in need of about $4000 just to get us out of the hole we were in and then some additional increase in giving to keep us from getting right back into the same hole...

and this morning, in a matter of about one hour, God took care of both...

i talked with one supporter and i shared with him our need, and he said that it was a good thing that i called when i did, because he said that he just got a call from a business partner letting him know that they had their tithe money from their business ready to distribute somewhere. and would you guess how much that check was for...well you might have guessed $4000...and you would be close...it was actually for $4400. and he said that he would get it in the mail right away and that it should be here by wednesday at the latest...

and as if that is not enough answered prayer to get you out of a rut, i also found today that we have had new monthly commitments in giving of $200. yet again, a huge answer to prayer!

God truly is good, and he truly does answer prayer!!!