Missouri
Last week, Nancy and I took a week and traveled the mid-west. First stop: the GCC Pastor’s and Leader’s Retreat at Tan-Tar-A Resort on the Lake of the Ozarks. (Ya, it was rough.). We spent a great week in a beautiful location with great weather hanging out with good friends, and making connections with other leaders in our church movement.
Of the things I learned during the week about student ministry, campus ministry, and leadership, the one theme that kept hitting me again and again was the necessity of actively sharing the gospel. I realized that I have not being doing much of this at all of late. I came away from the conference with a conviction/conclusion that this is what I need to be doing with my time. Notice I didn’t say that I came away from the conference pumped up about getting out and spreading the word, it is simply that I realize now that this is what I need to do.
I mean, why else are we here? What other job do we, as Christians, really have on this earth, than to share the message, and to do so actively (rather than just sitting around waiting for someone to ask us about “the whole God thing”)?
I was challenged with a thought from My Utmost for His Highest:
June 21 – …By what right have we become “a royal priesthood”? It is by the right of the atonement by the Cross of Christ that this has been accomplished. Are we prepared to purposely disregard ourselves and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual inner-searching we do in an effort to see if we are what we ought to be generates a self-centered, sickly type of Christianity, not the vigorous and simple life of a child of God.
and from the day before
June 20 …A pitiful, sickly, and self-centered kind of prayer and a determined effort and selfish desire to be right with God are never found in the New Testament. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is actually a sign that I am rebelling against the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
We spend entirely too much time worrying about our problems, and trying to get them fixed before we go about the work God has us here for, rather than taking our eyes off of ourselves, and going about his work, and suddenly realizing that we don’t have problems anymore!
I’m going to be making an effort to be out on Campus, or Welch ave. at least once a week from here on out, to see if there is anyone interested in talking about God. I have a strong feeling there are.
Chicago
After the conference, we headed up to visit the folks at the Windy City SALT program. On the way there, we stopped by Williamsville, IL to visit Dave and Melinda, Nancy’s youth pastor from back home, now pastor of Williamsville Community Church. It was a great mutually encouraging time. It’s nice to know that God has faithful laborers ALL over the world, not just in our little sphere of influence.
After spending the night at Tim and Kristen’s place, we headed to UIC, and then on to the Taste of Chicago celebration, where Tom Short preached on Lake Shore drive, and those of us there from the SALT program got to engage interested passerby’s in spiritual conversation. Later that evening, Pat and I broke out our acoustic guitars and entertained about fairly large crowd that gathered to see two crazy guys making fools of themselves on Lake Shore drive. We didn’t place our guitar cases in very strategic spots, but even so we made about $14 :). We played for about an hour and a half… my fingers bled.
It was a crazy week.
Here are some pretty shocking stats I heard over this last week, two amazing, and one horrifying…
-Amazing: today, there is a Christian witness in every country in the world. That has never happened before in history. -Amazing: Currently, there are more people being saved each day than ever before in history. -Horrifying: 88% of children of evangelical parents leave the church by age 18, and never come back.
June 30, 2004
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