In a little over 24 hours I will officially begin my senior year at South Dakota State University (had to clarify which SDSU!) and before doing so, I thought I would post some final remarks regarding San Diego. It has been crazy to see God using this summer to change a lot of things since I have gotten back home. I'm excited for the next year and to see what my future holds. I cannot really summarize my summer in a letter but I attempted to do so anyway and I have pasted below the letter I mailed out to those who supported me:
Greetings from South Dakota! I am writing this from my family’s house where I am able to spend a few weeks before heading back to SDSU to finish my final year. This summer has been the best summer I think I could have ever asked for. I just arrived home from my 10-week San Diego Summer Project with Campus Crusade for Christ. I feel like I cannot even begin to elaborate how God worked through my group and I this summer, but I am going to attempt to give you all a general idea of what He did in Southern California, and beyond, these past few months.
Our theme for the summer was “Living on Mission” which was fitting because physically, we were living in the neighborhood of Mission Beach, CA. We also used Luke 19:10 as our theme verse and this says, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Our focus this summer was reaching the city of San Diego, specifically college students with the Gospel. We hosted Bible studies throughout the week at the main colleges in the city and through these we had Christians, non-believers, and people of other religions such as Muslims encountering God through the Word every week. Some of these Bible studies are now continuing throughout the school year, even though we are gone, and different colleges have started new ministry movements for the first time ever we are praying will continue if God allows.
We also shared our faith throughout the city as well. In the city we encountered diverse groups of people including many who were homeless as well as many foreign tourists. On the beach, we held different outreaches such as one where we held up signs saying “I Will Listen”. These simply allowed people to come right up to us and share with us whatever was going on in their lives and we responded with the message and love of Jesus and numerous people accepted Christ through this. One of many other ways we reached out to the city of San Diego was by holding services on Friday nights and I was fortunate enough to play my violin for this service every week. It was incredible to see a group of “young” college students have a strong and long-lasting impact on the eighth largest city in the U.S.
Personally, this summer stretched me more than ever. It was difficult not having an income, living in a place very different from the Midwest, and being challenged more than ever spiritually. Through this, I grew more than I ever had before. For example, I became connected with some Jehovah Witnesses during the summer and it was very pressing to “discuss” with them the truth of the Gospel every week, but through it I was able to gain insight to the blindness their religion brings upon them and present to them the truth of the Gospel. This summer I also learned a lot about my need for brokenness and how I can become ensnared in trying to be too self-righteous (I encourage you all to read Tim Keller’s The Prodigal God to learn more about this concept).
God also changed my heart after I got back from San Diego pertaining to my future. I had always planned on entering the medical field but this summer was the greatest ten weeks of my life and I am starting to feel called to do full-time ministry the remainder of my life. The spiritual joy I experienced this summer was not from living in beautiful Southern California with 102 of the coolest college students on the planet but it was from doing 24/7 ministry, literally, and I have never seen God work more than he did through this lifestyle. Sometimes our faith requires us to take great risks but through these risks, we learn more about God than we do at any other moment in our life. I already have stated what my group’s theme was for this summer but God really used Philippians 3:7-9 to shape my life throughout the summer and beyond. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness of God that depends on faith” –Philippians 3:7-9.
I cannot thank you all enough for the support I received this summer. I was overwhelmed by the financial support I received and more importantly the encouragement and prayer I received from all over the nation on a daily basis. God used these resources to allow my group to share the Gospel with thousands of people from all over the globe this summer and we saw hundreds of them place their faith in Christ or renew their relationship with him. I was honored to serve the Lord with my summer and my prayer for you is that you all begin to “Live on Mission” wherever you are at. The greatest moments in life are those where we are obedient to the Lord and this may be in our own hometown or on the other side of the world. Feel free to read many more of my stories on my blog from this summer at benmeyerink.blogspot.com or contact me if you would like to discuss anything else in more detail.
Thank you again and God bless you all!
As far as the future of this blog, I am not really sure what is in store. I may keep it up, I may not. If any of you have any further questions regarding my summer, God, or life in general please email, facebook, or call--it's really not a burden at all. I've been really excited to hear the amount of people that have read this blog and I hope that it has pushed all of you closer to the cross.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Finishing Strong
ONLY 10 DAYS LEFT! Yes, 10 weeks has now turned into 10 days. This past week was like the rest as God continued to work in completely different ways that were beyond what we expected. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights (of last week) were spent doing different types of outreach. On Monday our entire group saturated the beaches and just initiated conversations with people of all backgrounds. It is pretty neat to see our group just go all out together in the same area since we always split up during the day to go to different campuses. It is also interesting to imagine the Gospel advancing to places all over the globe because these beaches are a constant attraction for tourists and it is crazy to just picture the Gospel spreading outward from San Diego. During the middle of the past week we really began to see a movement "officially" forming at Mesa Community College, which has over 20,000 students. In fact, in one of our churches this Sunday the pastor began speaking about God working in the community and he said how a college student at their church had recently come to Christ and we realized that it was someone who God had allowed us to share the Gospel with! We were a bit excited in the congregation when he told that story. At Mesa, there is a solid group of people meeting with us numerous times before we take off to really launch a great movement there this fall. We also had another person accept Christ there yesterday on our last day of Bible studies this summer. Being on a community college has allowed us to disciple people of all ages and backgrounds and we have been encourage to see people who are 48 years old begin a thriving walk with the Lord. They are excited to start a movement at there school and it will be neat to see God move after we leave.
Last week we received a tip that numerous athletes on the UCSD campus, a spiritually dark place, were Christians. Attempting to be bold, another student and I basically stood outside UCSD's athletic facilities an entire afternoon and wandered around meeting random athletes. We were amazed at their openness and immediately found students who were more than interested in joining a Bible study. Now I am in touch with the center of their men's basketball team who is the student FCA leader on campus and we will be working to get things going there this fall even after I leave. You all have no idea how huge this is. We struggled at UCSD all summer since it is very research-focused, very introverted, and extremely negative toward the Gospel. Now we have students that are interested in being in Bible studies and joining a movement for the rest of their college career!!!
This Saturday, some of us ventured down to Comic-Con. Some of you probably have not heard of it but it is this huge convention that basically takes over all of downtown and even though it started out to deal with comics, it now has numerous celebrities that come to promote movies and lots of other major events. When wandering around I saw a man standing on a stool preaching at the busiest intersection downtown. I immediately rolled my eyes but wandered over to watch, expecting a message filled with condemnation. I have seen numerous people try this "open air evangelism" but every single time I have heard messages that do not have any grace and that immediately turn listeners off and harden their hearts towards Christ. However, this message was full of grace and truth. I then began talking to one of the men that was with the speaker and he completely changed my view on this form of evangelism, mainly because it was the first time I heard someone biblically support this method. It really impressed me and I was really encouraged by their boldness as well as their church's focus on growth, truth, and evangelism (they do a lot of relational and 1-on-1 evangelism). I also saw people stop and listen with open hearts and ask great questions about God and when I had seen people attempting to evangelize in the past like this, people's hearts were hardened. Pray for this group as they do this quite often and that God would work through them and bless them for their work and the great message they are proclaiming that is saturated with grace and truth.
Another crazy story was last week I was getting ready to leave my room, of course running super late for a meeting, and I was the last one in our living quarters and heard a knock on the door. It happened to be a couple in their 50's who were Jehova's Witnesses. They really caught me off guard but we talked for 90 minutes about everything and I honestly left the conversation flustered and really questioning how well I knew things like the Trinity and other major differences we have. Thankfully God has blessed me with excellent resources like an ESV Study Bible, you should all have one by the way, and my Pastor Rick from back at home. The wife that was here, who is probably one of the smartest Jehova's witnesses I've ever met, came back tonight with another lady. I asked her to come back after last week's meeting so I was much more prepared. Tonight we sat on our patio and me and another guy on project kind of just went through everything with them and God's spirit flowed through our conversation and the more we discussed things, the more we clearly saw why the Trinity is real and why Jesus is fully God. They did not see this but at one point they were stumped when I stated that if Jesus didn't submit to God at certain times, it would have been pride which would have been sinful. These words just came straight from the Spirit and immediately made them question what they've heard. They are coming back next week so please pray for their salvation and for our next and final conversation. There were tons of people watching tonight but we managed to show Christ's love (at least I thought so) and we were very respectful. Our focus in these conversations cannot be proving them wrong but it has to be helping everyone see God and who he is more clearly and we need to focus on their salvation. This really made me realize why we need to be studying scripture daily and really understanding it as a whole. Honestly, many things they pointed out were correct if you looked at it just the right way or not in complete context so they are a religion that could easily persuade weak Christians or non-believers.
Tonight we went to a really neat place called Sunset Cliffs and as I sat reflecting on my day and really my last 9 weeks here I began to break down. It is truly incredible what God can do to us when we are obedient to him 24/7 and when we take major steps of faith for Him. Pray for our last week here. We are wrapping up our movements on campuses and throughout the city, we are making preparations that will encourage spiritual growth in those we've seen come to Christ this summer, we will be having our final FNL worship service, we will be putting all of our supplies away and debriefing everything for next summer's project, and then we will be saying bye to everyone and to the city we have been blessed to call home and minister to this summer. We have an emotional and busy 10 days left and we need to stay focused on the Gospel and we need to look at what God has done because it points to what he is still waiting for us to do. I probably will not blog until like the 8th of August when I am back in the other SD but continue to watch my facebook or twitter for updates. Continue seeking Christ first in all you do!
-Ben
Last week we received a tip that numerous athletes on the UCSD campus, a spiritually dark place, were Christians. Attempting to be bold, another student and I basically stood outside UCSD's athletic facilities an entire afternoon and wandered around meeting random athletes. We were amazed at their openness and immediately found students who were more than interested in joining a Bible study. Now I am in touch with the center of their men's basketball team who is the student FCA leader on campus and we will be working to get things going there this fall even after I leave. You all have no idea how huge this is. We struggled at UCSD all summer since it is very research-focused, very introverted, and extremely negative toward the Gospel. Now we have students that are interested in being in Bible studies and joining a movement for the rest of their college career!!!
This Saturday, some of us ventured down to Comic-Con. Some of you probably have not heard of it but it is this huge convention that basically takes over all of downtown and even though it started out to deal with comics, it now has numerous celebrities that come to promote movies and lots of other major events. When wandering around I saw a man standing on a stool preaching at the busiest intersection downtown. I immediately rolled my eyes but wandered over to watch, expecting a message filled with condemnation. I have seen numerous people try this "open air evangelism" but every single time I have heard messages that do not have any grace and that immediately turn listeners off and harden their hearts towards Christ. However, this message was full of grace and truth. I then began talking to one of the men that was with the speaker and he completely changed my view on this form of evangelism, mainly because it was the first time I heard someone biblically support this method. It really impressed me and I was really encouraged by their boldness as well as their church's focus on growth, truth, and evangelism (they do a lot of relational and 1-on-1 evangelism). I also saw people stop and listen with open hearts and ask great questions about God and when I had seen people attempting to evangelize in the past like this, people's hearts were hardened. Pray for this group as they do this quite often and that God would work through them and bless them for their work and the great message they are proclaiming that is saturated with grace and truth.
Another crazy story was last week I was getting ready to leave my room, of course running super late for a meeting, and I was the last one in our living quarters and heard a knock on the door. It happened to be a couple in their 50's who were Jehova's Witnesses. They really caught me off guard but we talked for 90 minutes about everything and I honestly left the conversation flustered and really questioning how well I knew things like the Trinity and other major differences we have. Thankfully God has blessed me with excellent resources like an ESV Study Bible, you should all have one by the way, and my Pastor Rick from back at home. The wife that was here, who is probably one of the smartest Jehova's witnesses I've ever met, came back tonight with another lady. I asked her to come back after last week's meeting so I was much more prepared. Tonight we sat on our patio and me and another guy on project kind of just went through everything with them and God's spirit flowed through our conversation and the more we discussed things, the more we clearly saw why the Trinity is real and why Jesus is fully God. They did not see this but at one point they were stumped when I stated that if Jesus didn't submit to God at certain times, it would have been pride which would have been sinful. These words just came straight from the Spirit and immediately made them question what they've heard. They are coming back next week so please pray for their salvation and for our next and final conversation. There were tons of people watching tonight but we managed to show Christ's love (at least I thought so) and we were very respectful. Our focus in these conversations cannot be proving them wrong but it has to be helping everyone see God and who he is more clearly and we need to focus on their salvation. This really made me realize why we need to be studying scripture daily and really understanding it as a whole. Honestly, many things they pointed out were correct if you looked at it just the right way or not in complete context so they are a religion that could easily persuade weak Christians or non-believers.
Tonight we went to a really neat place called Sunset Cliffs and as I sat reflecting on my day and really my last 9 weeks here I began to break down. It is truly incredible what God can do to us when we are obedient to him 24/7 and when we take major steps of faith for Him. Pray for our last week here. We are wrapping up our movements on campuses and throughout the city, we are making preparations that will encourage spiritual growth in those we've seen come to Christ this summer, we will be having our final FNL worship service, we will be putting all of our supplies away and debriefing everything for next summer's project, and then we will be saying bye to everyone and to the city we have been blessed to call home and minister to this summer. We have an emotional and busy 10 days left and we need to stay focused on the Gospel and we need to look at what God has done because it points to what he is still waiting for us to do. I probably will not blog until like the 8th of August when I am back in the other SD but continue to watch my facebook or twitter for updates. Continue seeking Christ first in all you do!
-Ben
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
God's Sovereignty and Spirit Working in Our Lives
The overall mood on project has really been changing. We are all beginning to realize our time here in beautiful San Diego is getting very close to the end (18 days actually!) and this has caused a lot of different emotions on project. Two weeks may sound like a long time but when we have been doing 24/7 ministry for the past 7-8 weeks, this doesn't seem like much and the natural tendency is to become lazy. Thankfully we are seeing the need to reject passivity and not take it easy during this final stretch. God has been moving in incredible ways too, in order to lead us and motivate us. For example, last Tuesday on campus I randomly went up to a guy I saw sitting in the cafeteria to start talking with him. It turned out he was Jewish but felt this urge to go buy a Bible that very morning. Talk about a divine appointment and God's timing! Tuesday night we went to Balboa Park in San Diego to have a group reflection time and it ended up not being planned the best so a few of us ended up breaking away from the group to do our own thing. We were leaving in a negative mood about how the night went but when we got on the bus God immediately changed our attitudes. First, the bus driver saw a Bible in my friend Jordan's hand and he said encouraging things to us. Then a homeless man started talking to us and it turns out he is a Christian who recently became homeless. He had bitter feelings toward the church but we had an incredible conversation about how some churches, which I will get to later in this blog, are going back to what the book of Acts calls us to do. He really walked away from us changed for the better and as soon as he got off of the bus, a college student immediately told us that was nice of us to care for him. I instantly took the opportunity to enter into conversation with this student. It turned out he went to a Catholic college down here and his dad had always urged him to meet someone from Campus Crusade so when I told him I was out here with Cru he flipped out. It turned out he lives just a few blocks from us, which meant it's crazy he hadn't already seen one out of the 102 of us, and he wants to bring his friends all to FNL sometime. So we got on the bus with terrible attitudes and we were questioning God's works but He put three super conversations in our paths to direct our focus and joy back onto Him.
This past Sunday, I said bye to a really close friend I made down here this summer. His name was Kevin and he was a 19 year old from Vancouver. He had been down here for a few months now on an internship with Acts 29, the greatest church network on the planet (go check out their website at www.acts29network.org) and we met him because his church is close to the San Diego State campus. He had been hanging out with our group all summer and with me aligning with Calvin/Reformed Theology just like he does, we instantly became great friends. This Sunday I had the opportunity to go to the college branch of his church called Kaleo and it was probably the best church I've been to in person in a long time. To those of you in South Dakota, it resembled the Crossing in Sioux Falls. The church branch just started up a few months ago and will officially launch in a month. It already has many members but most importantly, it did an amazing job of demonstrating what the church should be. It's members all live in the community where the church is, their Sunday services aren't see as "church" but as a "gathering", the members eat after church together, they all get together during the week, they are all reaching out to their community and sacrificing what they have to meet others' needs, their preacher is young and new but spoke with truth and grace and passion and really provided great insight and application, their theology is excellent, and the list goes on and on. Needless to say, I was extremely encouraged by what I saw. Kevin returned to Canada to help out his church back there but the relationship I developed with him and the Kaleo church down here in San Diego is one that will definitely continue for years to come.
Another thing at the service that really struck me was what the message was over. They are going over the book of Ephesians and that night went over the beginning/middle portion of Ephesians 4. The past week our project had started to form minor divisions over the way people were using their time and these thoughts have been especially hard on myself. Sunday morning many people started voicing their opinions and while they were sometimes done in good manners, other statements were filled with anger and judgment. I had felt bad the way I had said some things to certain people but I knew what I believed was right. When the pastor at Kaleo began speaking over Eph. 4, it instantly convicted me but encouraged me as well. He said how we need to mature in the Gospel, in community, and in missions and then speak full of grace and truth. He said it isn't 50% truth and 50% grace but it is a fulfillment of each. He also said "Truth needs to be softened with love, and love without truth is false" and that quote is going to stick with me forever.
Pray that I may speak and live a life full of both grace and truth and bound in love and it is my prayer that God shows you too how to do exactly this. Other prayer requests I have for you are that my project continues to finish strong and that we do not get weary but run the race with perseverance (stole that from Hebrews 12 haha). I would also ask you to pray for my Grandma Meyerink. She had a stroke last week and it has been really difficult to be here on the West Coast while she is in serious conditions but she had open-heart surgery today that went well. She has a long and difficult road ahead and pray that she isn't in pain and that whatever God does with her, my family sees his goodness in it. Thank you for reading, know that you all are in my prayers even if I do not know you, and may you live a life full of grace and truth this week and forevermore.
This past Sunday, I said bye to a really close friend I made down here this summer. His name was Kevin and he was a 19 year old from Vancouver. He had been down here for a few months now on an internship with Acts 29, the greatest church network on the planet (go check out their website at www.acts29network.org) and we met him because his church is close to the San Diego State campus. He had been hanging out with our group all summer and with me aligning with Calvin/Reformed Theology just like he does, we instantly became great friends. This Sunday I had the opportunity to go to the college branch of his church called Kaleo and it was probably the best church I've been to in person in a long time. To those of you in South Dakota, it resembled the Crossing in Sioux Falls. The church branch just started up a few months ago and will officially launch in a month. It already has many members but most importantly, it did an amazing job of demonstrating what the church should be. It's members all live in the community where the church is, their Sunday services aren't see as "church" but as a "gathering", the members eat after church together, they all get together during the week, they are all reaching out to their community and sacrificing what they have to meet others' needs, their preacher is young and new but spoke with truth and grace and passion and really provided great insight and application, their theology is excellent, and the list goes on and on. Needless to say, I was extremely encouraged by what I saw. Kevin returned to Canada to help out his church back there but the relationship I developed with him and the Kaleo church down here in San Diego is one that will definitely continue for years to come.
Another thing at the service that really struck me was what the message was over. They are going over the book of Ephesians and that night went over the beginning/middle portion of Ephesians 4. The past week our project had started to form minor divisions over the way people were using their time and these thoughts have been especially hard on myself. Sunday morning many people started voicing their opinions and while they were sometimes done in good manners, other statements were filled with anger and judgment. I had felt bad the way I had said some things to certain people but I knew what I believed was right. When the pastor at Kaleo began speaking over Eph. 4, it instantly convicted me but encouraged me as well. He said how we need to mature in the Gospel, in community, and in missions and then speak full of grace and truth. He said it isn't 50% truth and 50% grace but it is a fulfillment of each. He also said "Truth needs to be softened with love, and love without truth is false" and that quote is going to stick with me forever.
Pray that I may speak and live a life full of both grace and truth and bound in love and it is my prayer that God shows you too how to do exactly this. Other prayer requests I have for you are that my project continues to finish strong and that we do not get weary but run the race with perseverance (stole that from Hebrews 12 haha). I would also ask you to pray for my Grandma Meyerink. She had a stroke last week and it has been really difficult to be here on the West Coast while she is in serious conditions but she had open-heart surgery today that went well. She has a long and difficult road ahead and pray that she isn't in pain and that whatever God does with her, my family sees his goodness in it. Thank you for reading, know that you all are in my prayers even if I do not know you, and may you live a life full of grace and truth this week and forevermore.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Seeing God Work in San Diego and Beyond
It's hard to believe we have already been out here for six weeks and only have four weeks left. I miss my family and friends back home a lot but this project has provided one of the best environments ever so I am not really looking forward to this summer ending. This past week was really progressive for our movement. On Monday and Tuesday we went to campuses across San Diego, as usual, and saw incredible things happen. At lunchtime I was sitting at a table and a really cool student from France walked up to me and asked if he could sit with us. This caught me off guard because usually we have to go seek people out to talk to them! My other 2 friends came and joined us and we talked with him for a long time just about his life here compared to life in Paris and we eventually started discussing basic spiritual things. He said he was an atheist but we could easily tell he hadn't looked into things very much. Even though our views on God are very different, he got up at the end of the conversation and said,"See you here next week at 12:30" so I guess I will be meeting up with him the rest of the summer. We also found out he doesn't live too far from Mission Beach so he is going to come hang out with us on Friday and Saturday nights too. His English is not the greatest so pray that he can understand the Gospel and that he sees his need for Christ. Another neat story from this past week is that we had a bonfire on the beach late Monday night and a family stopped by because they knew one of the students on project. One of the members of my growth group began talking to them to find out they were all Mormons. I saw them talking intensely for a good hour and learned the next morning that the family had been searching for truth for a long time even though they were involved members of the Mormon religion and the father, wife, and their teenage children all prayed to receive Christ at our bonfire!!! They have one son who is doing his two-year mission with the church of Latter Day Saints right now so pray that he understands the awesome decision his family has made and that he himself sees his need to accept Christ as his Savior and develop a relationship with Him.
On Wednesday our entire group had its one and only free day of the summer which allowed us to leave the San Diego area. We all went up to Santa Monica (west LA) and kind of just hung out there all day. Even though it was a fun day, we all brought our outreach materials along by our own choice and we were able to talk with some of the homeless people of LA along with other people we met on the streets for just a bit. We noticed it is much more liberal than San Diego and people are less receptive of the Gospel from what we saw, but we also saw a great need for Christians to be sharing their faith there and I think all of us wished we could have stayed there much longer. Thursday led us back to San Diego and my friend Max and I spent the morning working at Hollister in a nearby mall. It was the first time we worked together and our coworkers were asking us why we were here, why we believe what we do, etc. They instantly started asking us questions about God after finding out our beliefs and even though none of them are Christians, I could tell they were all super interested in learning more about my faith and that they are all searching for answers so I am anxious to see how God uses my last three weeks working there to minister to them. Friday night meant another great FNL service and it was exciting to see many new faces from the San Diego community. There are many foreign students who live in Southern California for the summer and we had quite a few at FNL this week. It's exciting to think of the possibilities of the gospel spreading beyond San Diego and outside of the US because of Summer Project.
Today, I switched from my normal time spent at the San Diego State campus and I ventured over to UCSD. I knew beforehand that the campus was large, very smart, focused on research, and a hard place to witness at. My friend Josh and I joined our ministry team of about 10 of our students today and when we got off the bus, we immediately noticed it was a campus unlike any we had gone to before. If you go to my facebook page, you can see pictures of their library which is the focal point of their campus. This library has a serpent on the sidewalk around it and it is shaped like a tree to represent the tree of knowledge of good and evil and then out front is an actual tree that's supposed to represent the freedom of speech. The whole thing seemed extremely derogatory towards Christianity. The majority of people on campus are extremely focused on school and themselves and it was very challenging to get into spiritual conversations with them. The conversations we did have were extremely challenging because many are science-minded and therefore cannot imagine having a faith in something that cannot be tested and proven which I can relate to but this is also the hardest group in my opinion to witness to. Overall, this campus needs a lot of prayer. It has numerous international students, people who will be very influential in our future, and students who need Jesus as much as anywhere else but have hardened hearts. I definitely am going to move over from my campus more often for these past few weeks to help our team face the challenges at UCSD and remember that God is more powerful than we can imagine and remember everything he says at the end of 1 Cor. 1-beginning of chapter 2 where he talks about using the foolish to shame the wise and how we don't need to say great things but just rely on His spirit to work in those we minister to.
The schedule for the rest of this week is pretty normal but we do have a band with Cru's music department's Summer Project coming Thursday night to do an outreach and then on Sunday we are inviting our coworkers to our living area here in Mission Beach to hang out with us outside of work so pray for these events.
It has been incredible to see God continually moving more and more but pray for my group as we have been facing more spiritual warfare, people have come down with mono and other illnesses, and pray that we can have perseverance to keep working harder every week for the Lord. I have been reading the book of Philippians this week and would like to leave you with the challenge to read through it as well, especially where it talks about "count all things as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" and to just meditate on this and live it out. It is not easy for me or anyone else but when we do this, God will move in ways we cannot imagine and his name will be glorified and proclaimed.
On Wednesday our entire group had its one and only free day of the summer which allowed us to leave the San Diego area. We all went up to Santa Monica (west LA) and kind of just hung out there all day. Even though it was a fun day, we all brought our outreach materials along by our own choice and we were able to talk with some of the homeless people of LA along with other people we met on the streets for just a bit. We noticed it is much more liberal than San Diego and people are less receptive of the Gospel from what we saw, but we also saw a great need for Christians to be sharing their faith there and I think all of us wished we could have stayed there much longer. Thursday led us back to San Diego and my friend Max and I spent the morning working at Hollister in a nearby mall. It was the first time we worked together and our coworkers were asking us why we were here, why we believe what we do, etc. They instantly started asking us questions about God after finding out our beliefs and even though none of them are Christians, I could tell they were all super interested in learning more about my faith and that they are all searching for answers so I am anxious to see how God uses my last three weeks working there to minister to them. Friday night meant another great FNL service and it was exciting to see many new faces from the San Diego community. There are many foreign students who live in Southern California for the summer and we had quite a few at FNL this week. It's exciting to think of the possibilities of the gospel spreading beyond San Diego and outside of the US because of Summer Project.
Today, I switched from my normal time spent at the San Diego State campus and I ventured over to UCSD. I knew beforehand that the campus was large, very smart, focused on research, and a hard place to witness at. My friend Josh and I joined our ministry team of about 10 of our students today and when we got off the bus, we immediately noticed it was a campus unlike any we had gone to before. If you go to my facebook page, you can see pictures of their library which is the focal point of their campus. This library has a serpent on the sidewalk around it and it is shaped like a tree to represent the tree of knowledge of good and evil and then out front is an actual tree that's supposed to represent the freedom of speech. The whole thing seemed extremely derogatory towards Christianity. The majority of people on campus are extremely focused on school and themselves and it was very challenging to get into spiritual conversations with them. The conversations we did have were extremely challenging because many are science-minded and therefore cannot imagine having a faith in something that cannot be tested and proven which I can relate to but this is also the hardest group in my opinion to witness to. Overall, this campus needs a lot of prayer. It has numerous international students, people who will be very influential in our future, and students who need Jesus as much as anywhere else but have hardened hearts. I definitely am going to move over from my campus more often for these past few weeks to help our team face the challenges at UCSD and remember that God is more powerful than we can imagine and remember everything he says at the end of 1 Cor. 1-beginning of chapter 2 where he talks about using the foolish to shame the wise and how we don't need to say great things but just rely on His spirit to work in those we minister to.
The schedule for the rest of this week is pretty normal but we do have a band with Cru's music department's Summer Project coming Thursday night to do an outreach and then on Sunday we are inviting our coworkers to our living area here in Mission Beach to hang out with us outside of work so pray for these events.
It has been incredible to see God continually moving more and more but pray for my group as we have been facing more spiritual warfare, people have come down with mono and other illnesses, and pray that we can have perseverance to keep working harder every week for the Lord. I have been reading the book of Philippians this week and would like to leave you with the challenge to read through it as well, especially where it talks about "count all things as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" and to just meditate on this and live it out. It is not easy for me or anyone else but when we do this, God will move in ways we cannot imagine and his name will be glorified and proclaimed.
Monday, July 5, 2010
One Body Working in Unity
The last week has been a whirlwind and kind of the midpoint of SDSP. The week started out with our typical schedule of Bible studies on campuses across San Diego. I was actually surprised Tuesday when my group at SDSU (the other SDSU, not the Jacks) got together and three Muslims decided to come. I can't say I have ever had a study with Muslims in it so I was nervous but it was a great experience and they are going to continue coming. Some of our staff here worked in an Islamic area in Russia so thankfully they have given me advice for what to do the rest of the summer. We also held up the "I Will Listen" signs on campus this past week and got into some great conversations. It felt really weird to sit in the middle of the busy campus holding a sign all by ourselves but it was evident that God used them to really bring his Gospel to the students in this city. On Thursday night we hosted a farewell banquet for our staff and on Friday night we had our final FNL for them before they departed Saturday morning. It was hard to see all of them leave, especially our growth group leaders/disciplers, but everyone has said the second month of project is the best and we have all been looking forward to taking charge and making this project our own. We used Saturday and Sunday afternoons to regroup and set our theme for the week and really for the rest of the summer. This weeks theme focuses on how we are a body of believers made up of many parts. We will be focusing on recognizing both our strengths and our weaknesses and using these attributes to achieve unity in God's work. Tonight we sat down as a group and listened to Matt Chandler's sermon "Everyone Plays a Part" over Ephesians 4. Those of you who know me know I'm somewhat obsessed with Chandler so I may or may not have had something to do with everyone listening to this sermon and you can download it to at http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/sermons under his Ephesians series. It is interesting to hear how we all have some or all of these gifts, how and why we should use them, why we should be praying for them, and what their role is in God's plans.
My FNL ministry team has really started to become much more rooted in my church here in San Diego. We have started spreading out more during church to meet more people and Sunday morning it immediately paid off. One of our girls, Laura, was sitting next to a man in his mid 20's who was invited to church by his coworker in the praise band. It was the second time in his life that the man had ever been to church. Our church takes communion once a month so Laura could see it would probably be foreign to him and slid over to explain the rest of the service to him. After church he began telling her how he had just gotten out of a 9 year relationship, yes 9 years, and how he had been wanting to make changes in his life, find his purpose, and figure out who God is. It really caught us off guard because none of us had any of the booklets we use to share the Gospel because who would figure people in church would be non-Christians (I'm being somewhat sarcastic here). She eventually began explaining to him how he can know God personally, how Christ died for our sins and how we cannot do enough good to get to heaven and the man accepted Christ right there after the church service. It was a huge praise and we will continue to help him start his journey now as a Christian! It really convicted us on talking to people we don't know at church here and back home because they may be sitting in the pews but still feeling lost and it is our duty to push them toward God. Sunday night we went back to church because it is on the hillside overlooking Mission Bay so many locals sit in the church parking lots at night to watch the fireworks (which out of all the big shows in the area, Sea World dominated). While waiting, we went around passing out snacks and information about church with the ultimate goal of getting into spiritual conversations. I was fortunate enough to meet a man who spent 15 years in prison but became a solid Christian toward the end of his sentence and has grown in his faith tremendously since then. His family has been looking for a good church for many years and has never been to Clairemont Emmanuel so we exchanged numbers and they are going to try to come soon. It was crazy how he went there to watch fireworks and God used the night to help him gain insight on growing deeper in his faith. His testimony brought so much power to my life too and he said I was the first person he'd told it to in years which meant a lot. I actually really put it on his heart to enter prison ministry so pray for Rafael, that his family would find a good church and that he'd spread the story of what God's done for him to others that they may see the freedom they can have through Christ.
Thanks for all of your continued prayers and please keep us in them this last month. Their has been some spiritual warfare experienced the past couple of days and many students, including myself, have come down with colds. We are feeling rundown and tired but pressing on for the sake of the Gospel. We are going to take Wednesday off this week, since we don't really have weekends ever, and we are going to go up to Los Angeles to Santa Monica Pier. I've been there before but it'll be good to retreat with my incredible team and spend a day just thinking about what God has done and building our community we have. Knowing some of my team members who are much more motivated than myself, we will probably do some evangelism in Los Angeles too. I also hope to get some time to post pictures to facebook and email/mail out a mid-summer newsletter our communications team made sometime this week so leave me your email address if you'd like a copy. I leave you all with Philippians 1:9-11 this week, "And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."
My FNL ministry team has really started to become much more rooted in my church here in San Diego. We have started spreading out more during church to meet more people and Sunday morning it immediately paid off. One of our girls, Laura, was sitting next to a man in his mid 20's who was invited to church by his coworker in the praise band. It was the second time in his life that the man had ever been to church. Our church takes communion once a month so Laura could see it would probably be foreign to him and slid over to explain the rest of the service to him. After church he began telling her how he had just gotten out of a 9 year relationship, yes 9 years, and how he had been wanting to make changes in his life, find his purpose, and figure out who God is. It really caught us off guard because none of us had any of the booklets we use to share the Gospel because who would figure people in church would be non-Christians (I'm being somewhat sarcastic here). She eventually began explaining to him how he can know God personally, how Christ died for our sins and how we cannot do enough good to get to heaven and the man accepted Christ right there after the church service. It was a huge praise and we will continue to help him start his journey now as a Christian! It really convicted us on talking to people we don't know at church here and back home because they may be sitting in the pews but still feeling lost and it is our duty to push them toward God. Sunday night we went back to church because it is on the hillside overlooking Mission Bay so many locals sit in the church parking lots at night to watch the fireworks (which out of all the big shows in the area, Sea World dominated). While waiting, we went around passing out snacks and information about church with the ultimate goal of getting into spiritual conversations. I was fortunate enough to meet a man who spent 15 years in prison but became a solid Christian toward the end of his sentence and has grown in his faith tremendously since then. His family has been looking for a good church for many years and has never been to Clairemont Emmanuel so we exchanged numbers and they are going to try to come soon. It was crazy how he went there to watch fireworks and God used the night to help him gain insight on growing deeper in his faith. His testimony brought so much power to my life too and he said I was the first person he'd told it to in years which meant a lot. I actually really put it on his heart to enter prison ministry so pray for Rafael, that his family would find a good church and that he'd spread the story of what God's done for him to others that they may see the freedom they can have through Christ.
Thanks for all of your continued prayers and please keep us in them this last month. Their has been some spiritual warfare experienced the past couple of days and many students, including myself, have come down with colds. We are feeling rundown and tired but pressing on for the sake of the Gospel. We are going to take Wednesday off this week, since we don't really have weekends ever, and we are going to go up to Los Angeles to Santa Monica Pier. I've been there before but it'll be good to retreat with my incredible team and spend a day just thinking about what God has done and building our community we have. Knowing some of my team members who are much more motivated than myself, we will probably do some evangelism in Los Angeles too. I also hope to get some time to post pictures to facebook and email/mail out a mid-summer newsletter our communications team made sometime this week so leave me your email address if you'd like a copy. I leave you all with Philippians 1:9-11 this week, "And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."
Sunday, June 27, 2010
A Week of Transition
The past few days and the week ahead have been and will be a week of change. This past Thursday and Friday our guys took a retreat from life in San Diego and held sessions at a Bible camp out in the desert. It definitely was my highlight of project thus far. Our leader is one of the best speakers I have ever been around and he held two final sessions Thursday night that left thoughts in my mind I will never forget. There were also long sharing sessions of what God has been doing and just scriptural passages that bring us refreshment and they brought our men's group extremely close. The women on SDSP also held an overnight retreat on Friday through Sunday. While they were gone we cleaned their condos for them and left them flowers. Needless to say, they were impressed! This week our staff will leave project for good, yes for good. It is crazy to imagine how everything will keep going without them but anyone who has ever gone on project has said that the second month of project is the best. Now the students will have a chance to take charge and make the project their own so I am excited to see what is ahead.
On Saturday my friend Ryan and I were walking to Ralph's (a local grocery store) and on the way I was praying to God to put someone in my path to just talk with. Well as we left we missed the bus by no more than 20 seconds and we weren't happy because they only come around every 15 minutes. God of course was working for our good and his. Sitting at the bus stop was a homeless man named Kevin. He had a terrible accident a few years ago where he skid hundreds of yards but miraculously survived. Earlier in the day I had just been debating reasons for God's existence and was struggling to come up with good reasons but as soon as he told me his story I was in awe. He also was quoting scripture left and right and I felt the Spirit working through him right into my heart. Sometimes the homeless has very skewed views on God but this man was solid. I could see his depravity and immediately recognized God showing me my own need for humility and brokenness. Once again, I was blessed more than he was I'm sure. We waved two buses by as we sat talking to him and I hope to cross paths with him again soon. Please pray for his health, certain addictions he has, his job situation, and that his faith would only continue to strengthen.
This past week also focused a great deal on international missions. We focused on reaching minorities on campuses here in the USA and this upcoming week I am going to help our UCSD team on their campus which consists of a large number of international students. Our leaders had us listen to the message by John Piper called "Doing Missions When Dying is Gain". This talk is one of Piper's best known and it applies to ministry in your hometown and abroad so go to desiringgod.org and download it and listen to it! We also had an international dinner this past Wednesday in which God showed me a need for the Gospel in countries like Italy and France that are comfortable socially and physically yet very lost spiritually. He also placed a huge burden on my heart for Asia. Two of our leaders are taking a team there next summer and they are hoping it is the largest international Summer Project ever. East Asia is more open to the Gospel now than ever before and as campuses of 60-80,0000 students are being launched there, the time is now to bring Christ to them. We also heard how half of the world's population lives in that area of the planet and that the Gospel is spreading there more rapidly than ever. At the end of our dinner my leaders played a video. It was actually a major surprise to me because I actually am in the choir in this video but did not realize I was being recorded when I was singing. I hope it shows you though how badly certain places, including your hometown, need the Gospel and they need it NOW. Please pray about these countries and consider leaving all you have to go there and share Christ. Especially pray for East Asia and the believers currently living there and that God would raise up missionaries to be going there very quickly. I hope to blog later this week as it will be an odd sort of week full of major events on SDSP. Thanks for reading and know you're all in my prayers!
On Saturday my friend Ryan and I were walking to Ralph's (a local grocery store) and on the way I was praying to God to put someone in my path to just talk with. Well as we left we missed the bus by no more than 20 seconds and we weren't happy because they only come around every 15 minutes. God of course was working for our good and his. Sitting at the bus stop was a homeless man named Kevin. He had a terrible accident a few years ago where he skid hundreds of yards but miraculously survived. Earlier in the day I had just been debating reasons for God's existence and was struggling to come up with good reasons but as soon as he told me his story I was in awe. He also was quoting scripture left and right and I felt the Spirit working through him right into my heart. Sometimes the homeless has very skewed views on God but this man was solid. I could see his depravity and immediately recognized God showing me my own need for humility and brokenness. Once again, I was blessed more than he was I'm sure. We waved two buses by as we sat talking to him and I hope to cross paths with him again soon. Please pray for his health, certain addictions he has, his job situation, and that his faith would only continue to strengthen.
This past week also focused a great deal on international missions. We focused on reaching minorities on campuses here in the USA and this upcoming week I am going to help our UCSD team on their campus which consists of a large number of international students. Our leaders had us listen to the message by John Piper called "Doing Missions When Dying is Gain". This talk is one of Piper's best known and it applies to ministry in your hometown and abroad so go to desiringgod.org and download it and listen to it! We also had an international dinner this past Wednesday in which God showed me a need for the Gospel in countries like Italy and France that are comfortable socially and physically yet very lost spiritually. He also placed a huge burden on my heart for Asia. Two of our leaders are taking a team there next summer and they are hoping it is the largest international Summer Project ever. East Asia is more open to the Gospel now than ever before and as campuses of 60-80,0000 students are being launched there, the time is now to bring Christ to them. We also heard how half of the world's population lives in that area of the planet and that the Gospel is spreading there more rapidly than ever. At the end of our dinner my leaders played a video. It was actually a major surprise to me because I actually am in the choir in this video but did not realize I was being recorded when I was singing. I hope it shows you though how badly certain places, including your hometown, need the Gospel and they need it NOW. Please pray about these countries and consider leaving all you have to go there and share Christ. Especially pray for East Asia and the believers currently living there and that God would raise up missionaries to be going there very quickly. I hope to blog later this week as it will be an odd sort of week full of major events on SDSP. Thanks for reading and know you're all in my prayers!
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Being Stretched to New Limits and a Spirit of Unity
Well it is starting to look like Sunday nights may be the best time to blog to everyone. First of all, things are going well here but it has been a tough past week and an even tougher week awaits. As far as the past week goes, it was Facing the Giants week as was stated in the last blog. It was incredible to see everyone on Project stretched to take steps of faith and do things they have never done before, including myself. People restored relationships with their parents that had been nonexistent for year, students shared the Gospel with their best friends from home (which is terrifying), and people learned to trust God at a whole new level. Taking these steps of faith was challenging but we saw countless people in San Diego commit their lives to the Lord. My friend Lee and I were at SDSU's campus on Tuesday and were about to go to lunch when I decided we should share with one more student. A student named Alan was sitting in the cafeteria and we approached him and started asking him about his faith. It seemed like he was not interested but something in us said to keep pressing on. We went through the track we use called "Knowing God Personally (KGP)" and when we got to the end of it he said he wanted to place his faith in Christ! I was pumped! Another outreach this week the social media outreach through Facebook. Basically all of our project got on facebook this week and sent out quest surveys to friends and relatives back home with hopes of initiating spiritual conversations where the Gospel could be presented. At this point, we have had well over 1,000 people respond to our survey and over 6,000 people were involved in conversations. Those numbers are astounding and it is crazy to see God work across the US even though we are all out here in San Diego. We also did an "I Will Listen" outreach on the beach two nights this week where we stood between lifeguard towers along the boardwalk all the way up and down Mission Beach with signs saying simply "I Will Listen". While many of the people that we talked too were just plain crazy, many of the conversations we had were incredible and many people accepted Christ through it.
The lesson we all learned this past week was that taking steps of faith and killing giants is one of the hardest things to do but in the end, we saw God move in astounding ways. This leads us into our theme for this next week which will be focused on building a spirit of unity. I haven't really analyzed our schedule for the week but I know the unity theme will consist of people calling friends and family back home to resolve disagreements, some which have existed for years and years, and we will be learning how to look at people here on project the way Jesus looks at them. I honestly think this could be the most challenging week for me throughout all of project because I am a sinful and prideful person who often sets higher standards for others than I do for myself. God has been breaking me though (it has not been fun but it is good for me by the way) and I have been striving to understand the Gospel better along with God's grace so that I can begin to love and accept others the way Christ would like me to. We also will be getting out of San Diego for an overnight men's retreat and the women will be going on a retreat as well. Ours will consist of us leaving Thursday morning for somewhere in the desert and returning Friday morning. I was told to not even bring a change of clothes along and I know we will get sleeping bags but I don't think we will have tents or anything. It could be interesting! I also will be deciding at the beginning of this week if I want to continue to look for a part-time job or just volunteer somewhere the rest of the summer. While it would be nice to have an income to get me through the summer and school year, job searching is physically, emotionally, and spiritually draining and many organizations around here need volunteers immediately and I could easily share my faith with many people through this. If you could keep me in your prayers this week for everything I have already typed, that would be greatly appreciated. Like I said at the beginning of this post that's now become a novel, it has been a great week but God has not stretched me and broken me like this ever during my life and while it is a physically and emotionally draining time, I am in a great place spiritually and God is working through me and my team out here in ways we never thought would be possible. Just as I did last week, I would like to encourage you to join with me in our theme this week. Forgiveness, love, and grace are some of the main components of the Gospel and while they are hard to show with certain people due to past circumstances or personal sins, we are called to display them with EVERYONE. This may entail taking great steps of faith to display these characteristics but they are commanded of us and I know that if we look to God, he can give us the insight and strength necessary for following his will. Thanks for reading and know you are all in my prayers!
The lesson we all learned this past week was that taking steps of faith and killing giants is one of the hardest things to do but in the end, we saw God move in astounding ways. This leads us into our theme for this next week which will be focused on building a spirit of unity. I haven't really analyzed our schedule for the week but I know the unity theme will consist of people calling friends and family back home to resolve disagreements, some which have existed for years and years, and we will be learning how to look at people here on project the way Jesus looks at them. I honestly think this could be the most challenging week for me throughout all of project because I am a sinful and prideful person who often sets higher standards for others than I do for myself. God has been breaking me though (it has not been fun but it is good for me by the way) and I have been striving to understand the Gospel better along with God's grace so that I can begin to love and accept others the way Christ would like me to. We also will be getting out of San Diego for an overnight men's retreat and the women will be going on a retreat as well. Ours will consist of us leaving Thursday morning for somewhere in the desert and returning Friday morning. I was told to not even bring a change of clothes along and I know we will get sleeping bags but I don't think we will have tents or anything. It could be interesting! I also will be deciding at the beginning of this week if I want to continue to look for a part-time job or just volunteer somewhere the rest of the summer. While it would be nice to have an income to get me through the summer and school year, job searching is physically, emotionally, and spiritually draining and many organizations around here need volunteers immediately and I could easily share my faith with many people through this. If you could keep me in your prayers this week for everything I have already typed, that would be greatly appreciated. Like I said at the beginning of this post that's now become a novel, it has been a great week but God has not stretched me and broken me like this ever during my life and while it is a physically and emotionally draining time, I am in a great place spiritually and God is working through me and my team out here in ways we never thought would be possible. Just as I did last week, I would like to encourage you to join with me in our theme this week. Forgiveness, love, and grace are some of the main components of the Gospel and while they are hard to show with certain people due to past circumstances or personal sins, we are called to display them with EVERYONE. This may entail taking great steps of faith to display these characteristics but they are commanded of us and I know that if we look to God, he can give us the insight and strength necessary for following his will. Thanks for reading and know you are all in my prayers!
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