WhirlyBall!
One of my best friends from college, Jeremy Johnston, is getting married in a few weeks. So, to celebrate his last days of bachelorhood, a bunch of us guys went down to Chicago for the day to play some WhirlyBall! It was quite an experience.
Check out our other WhirlyBall Pictures!
The whole group after we finished playing - We had such a good time!
CRUNCH!
Yesterday morning, Abbie and I were leaving the house in a bit of a rush. I was loading the car with the things we needed, and also unloading a few things from our recent trip to St. Louis. In my rush of loading and unloading, I somehow didn’t completely close the back driver’s-side door. As I backed up, I heard a sound like something falling to the ground, then felt a slight thud under my wheels.
I got out of the car hoping for the best. But alas! I had run over my leather briefcase--it had fallen out of the partially-closed door. I had the fleeting thought that this might add some character to the bag and maybe even help me achieve that Indiana Jones look. I was actually rather encouraged as I began to open the bag. My Bible was fine, as were some note cards, file folders, my headset for my cell phone, my wallet--they were all in pretty good shape…
This is because our laptop computer had sacrificially absorbed the majority of the car’s crushing weight.
Today, we are thanking God for three things:
- The Best Buy service plan we bought two years ago, which will allow us to get our computer completely replaced. In fact, it’s likely that we’ll walk out of this deal with an upgraded version of our original computer.
- The “loaner” computer that Best Buy gave us while they’re processing our claim.
- The fact that I am pretty obsessive-compulsive about backing up our computer on a regular basis on multiple drives. We lost almost nothing!
The Lord provides in mysterious ways--what started off as a bit of a bad day turned out to be a blessing!
Through all of this, what have we learned? Our life doesn’t consist in what we own--we need to hold our things with open hands...always, ALWAYS back up your files, buy the service plans on computers...but if you can help it, the best thing is to simply not run over your computer with your car.
What is a movement?
“Movement" is a word we have been using a lot in our communication. We wanted to take a bit of space and describe in a bit more detail what we mean by movement. When we envision a movement of students on a campus, we envision an environment and a ministry culture that is dynamic and growing. We envision students leading other students to Christ, and those students in turn leading other students to Christ! We want to see students trained in evangelism and discipleship to the point where they’re not only engaging in these activities, but training other students to engage in evangelism and discipleship, too.
A movement doesn’t grow by addition--it grows exponentially, by multiplication. A movement is constantly expanding and sending--sending students both to the ends of the earth, and the other end of their campus. We want to see the students we reach to develop a burden for and have a ministry in their immediate spheres of influence, but also to minister “cross culturally” even in the context of their own campus, reaching African-American, Latino and international students, athletes, the Greek system…
Please pray with us for movements of this kind to grow on the campuses of St. Louis. We want to be constantly pressing forward, constantly expecting great things of God as we step out in faith, and ask students to step out in faith with us.
St. Louis Day Two!
We met with our director today and got some more information about the campuses that we’ll be working on starting next fall! This map shows all of the campuses that fall into our scope of ministry. Our primary focus will be on the Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville campus (shown in red).
Today was an exciting day for us--this trip is allowing us to move from a theoretical to a real knowledge of what we’ll be doing, where we’ll be doing it, and who we’ll be doing it with! Please take a moment right now to pray for the students on these campuses, and the freshmen that will start school at these colleges in the fall!
St. Louis Day One!
The first day of our long weekend in St. Louis was great! In the morning, we had a chance to meet the team we’ll be working with! There are about 20 people on our team, and our scope is the over 50 campuses in the St. Louis area. Our team will be working on bigger university campuses in St. Louis, but we’ll also be working on the dozens of smaller community college campuses in the metro area. As a team, we spent time in the word and in prayer together, planned for the fall, and got to know one another better! It has definitely gotten us excited to report to St. Louis as soon as possible!
However, even more exciting for us was yesterday evening. Last night, we gathered with 13 students from three of the campuses that JB and I will be working on!
These are some of the student leaders currently involved in Campus Crusade movements on their campuses. These students are sharing their faith, leading Bible studies on campus, and making an impact for Jesus. We were so encouraged by the faithfulness of these students--that they would give up their Friday evening to gather and pray for the lost students on their campuses! These students are passionate about making Christ known among their friends, in their classrooms, and on their dorm floors. Together, we prayed and worshiped God for three hours, looking at the Word together, asking God to open doors for ministry, and asking God to break our hearts for lost students.
Pray for these students--we will be working closely with them in the fall, and entrusting them with responsibility and leadership to reach their campuses for Christ!