Stupendous September

This past month has gone by so fast! I'm amazed at how fast time flies by. I feel busier than ever but blessed to be in ministry. Even though the beginning of the month started with a holiday, I barely noticed the break. I'm still trying to get a handle on how to work with the students. I'm meeting weekly with 7 young men(Christian Challenge) and for the past month been trying to iron out what type of mentoring relationship I have with each one. I feel blessed to have the opportunity to practice spiritual coaching, spiritual directorship, discipleship, and mentoring. However I do feel overwhelmed at times! Thank goodness for gmail and all of the electronic tools at my disposal. For many of the students I work with the main area of growth is in time management and organization. As you probably know, poor time management and goal setting negatively affects the academic, social and spiritual portions of life. So I've been teaching varying methods of organization and time management techniques. I've also been teaching goal setting and intentional living(finally all that Leadership and Psychology training is paying off!).

I have also been meeting bi-weekly with student officers(Priority) and encouraging them as they seek to build identity and community within their college ministry through authentic fellowship facilitated by social events. It has been a blessing continuing to work with them and seeing how God has been building their character and seeing their commitment to one another. Before I began meeting with them I made a covenant stating my commitment to them and asked that they also enter into covenant with me. It's been a gradual process but I'm glad to see the change God is doing in their lives and how God is beginning to bring them out of their shells to reach out to people(they are naturally shy).

More recently I've been asked by a student to teach him how to do apologetics. I was a little reluctant to start because I had intended to use the one on one time with the student for something else. However, I agreed that I would use the one on one time with the student to do apologetics training. I had the chance to go back through all of the FCA material from high school, the Truth Project and How Now Shall We Live.

As I began to prepare to teach apologetics, the bad taste I had left over from doing that stuff in high school washed away as I began to view apologetics training through the lens of evangelism training. In times past when I've seen or done apologetics the tendency is to stay in rational and knowledge based arguments and never move conversation to a place where the unbeliever I'm talking to is forced to face Jesus the ultimate source of truth and make a decision about what they think about Him. When I had this recognition of how apologetics could and should be used as a bridge to bring someone face to Jesus my attitude toward this type of training changed from disdain to joy. Through the practice of apologetics I gain confidence in what I believe. I learn how to articulate my beliefs in a way that is easily communicable to others. Most importantly I learn how to use various topics as a common ground bridge to lead someone to discussion about Jesus.

In addition to the one on one and group discipleship meetings I'm also blessed with 3 small group bible studies. It is very interesting to see how God has formed each of the groups as the personalities in each group are very distinctive. It's cool to see how God brought people together that have similar stories and are going through the same things together to act as shield bearers for one another. It's also interesting to see how each group is studying something that pertains and speaks into the life circumstances of each of the groups. Monday(Ninja Cow's) is studying the book of Mark. Wednesday(Holy Rollers) is studying the book of John focusing on the "I am" statements. And Friday(Nerf Herders) are studying Galatians, 1 & 2 Peter. The first few meetings I have been teaching and facilitating discussion. However, this coming month we are beginning a rotation in each of the small groups and each member will have the opportunity to prepare study and facilitate discussion. I'm very excited to see them begin as many of them have never had the opportunity to teach much less ever been shown how to really do bible study. Each person will get the chance to prepare and go over some question they have with me. Then after they have presented receive two peer evaluations, complete a self-evaluation and meet with me to do a final evaluation. Once everyone has gone through I will teach again using a different method of bible study and the cycle begins again! So, Lord willing by the end of the semester each of the students will be exposed to a few methods of study and good resources so that they can rightly and maturely study and interpret the Bible for themselves. What I'm hoping is that after this semester we will have a few men that are especially gifted in teaching motivated to lead small group bible studies themselves for the Spring Semester! So please be in prayer for these young men!

I was very encouraged this past week meeting with some of the men student leaders as they began to report to me that they were on the prowl for new leaders among our freshmen and sophomores. They were asking how they might be mentoring and preparing them to be future leaders at Challenge. At first I was shocked when I heard them ask me this. I guess I forgot the whole idea of self replacement. At Challenge we currently have a lot of staff available to do training and a great ministry team. So the usual mantra of, " Look for the people God is placing in your life that are teachable and gifted to lead and teach. Then bring them along side of you and train them to replace you." This saying was something I completely forgot about simply because things have been going so well and the need for future leaders hasn't been as urgent as it has been in the past.

Thank you for your prayers for our Fall Retreat! We had a good turn out for the camp. God is doing a great work in the lives of our students. We had a lot of last minute additions from people that weren't initially sure if they could or even wanted to go. However, each of those students that went and were on the fence have come back and shared how blessed they were from getting the chance to go. One particular encouraging story of God working in the life of a student is one I met while on the U of A mall manning the Christian Challenge table. This freshman girl came up to the table and was so excited to see someone from a Christian group she could talk to( this 2 days before we left for the retreat). I told her a little about our ministry and some local churches she could get involved in. As an afterthought I mentioned the Fall Retreat even though we'd just met, she didn't know anyone from either Christian Challenge or Priority and it cost $55 dollars. The crazy thing is she said she wanted to go! She even invited her roommate to go! So we were very blessed to have this young woman come fellowship with us at the Fall Retreat. Please be in prayer for her as she seeks to be obedient to the Lord in finding a local church to fellowship with and a small group bible study to grow in her knowledge of Jesus Christ.

The topic that our camp speaker spoke about was evangelism and as I mentioned earlier there are several ways this topic is continuing to find itself emerge in both my life and the lives of our students. This coming Tuesday, we are having our first "Faith Forum." This is a open seeker oriented event that addresses various topics in the hopes of creating dialogue between believers and non-believers that lead to relationships that continue after the event so that our students may continue to be light in the lives of lost students. The topic for this first event is, "Is there purpose behind suffering?" Please be in prayer for our students and our discussion facilitator David Gainey.

As for me seminary is a lot more work than I originally anticipated :) However, it has been a blessing to make the connections I have with the professors and fellow students. They have been an enduring source of encouragement and wisdom. I had the opportunity to shadow my professor for Pastoral Counseling at his Chaplain position at University Medical Center. One of the things that struck me as I watched was how intentional he was about using the opportunities he has through the stories of patients and his family to share the gospel. So God's definitely telling me to be more intentional in the area of evangelism. Please pray that I stay refreshed. That as I am pouring out into the lives of others that I'm filling my own life with good stuff. That I don't contaminate the students I work with and fill them with hollow empty words I try to find in myself rather than the life giving water that is found in Jesus Christ pouring into me and overflowing into the people God has placed in my life.

Due to the schedule I currently have I have not been able to attend my small group bible study with Epic Church. I have also not been able to meet with my spiritual director. I feel a little behind and like I'm constantly packing and preparing for the next trip. Lord willing, October will slow down a little for a couple of weeks so I can be in town to fellowship with friends and be refreshed. Our Senior pastor at First Southern is leaving this Tuesday from Georgia to drive down to Tucson. I am really looking forward to him coming and hopefully having the opportunity to serve and study under him. One other praise! I finally received a check from the Army paying me for May! However, if you would continue to keep me lifted up that I remain steadfast in my faith for God's provision as I am without any source of provision and have been living out of savings. Lord willing, the Army will pay up and back pay for August and September and I will receive some financial assistance from the North American Mission Board and maybe a local church.

Thank you again for your reading this and keeping me in prayer. I hope that you are encouraged in what God is doing at the UofA. I hope to hear from you and what God is doing in your community!