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