October’s Obtestations

Wow! It’s already the end of October! The month barely began and it’s already over! October has been a month of great growth marked by obstacles and trials both in the ministry and personally. The weeks are flying by so fast that its getting hard to keep track of everything that’s going on!

I kicked off the first weekend of October attending my monthly Battle Assembly for the Army Reserve and was relieved to find out that I wouldn’t have to take the Physical Training test that weekend. The first weekend of October also marked the beginning of a new era at First Southern Baptist Church as they welcomed senior pastor Randy Mullinax and family.

The beginning of October also marked the beginning of a new phase with the men God has entrusted to the small groups I lead. The past two months have been focused on teaching my men how to read the bible. Teaching them to read scripture holistically analyzing passages of scripture in the context that it is written and seeking to understand the message the author was communicating to the original audience. Then teaching them how to extract the timeless truths of scripture and apply the Word of God to their lives. I closed out the last two months with a basic summary of what we had been learning the past two months in a document entitled, “Creating Dynamic Small Group Bible Studies.” The document goes into more depth about the thematic approach to studying scripture. I used some of the principles I’ve learned from various classes in my undergraduate as well as a few seminars on bible teaching. However most of the information that I gave out was from Dr. Bob Utley’s free bible commentary. The document also contained a description of the improvement rubric for the “Small Group Leadership Evaluations.” After the first several weeks of demonstrating how to facilitate small group bible study discussion I gave the students the opportunity to practice leading. They would complete a “Self Evaluation” and give “Peer Evaluations” to two other members of the small group. Later in my one on one time with each student we would review the evaluations in the context of the notes I took as I observed their leading.

The next few weeks we start a new cycle and I am demonstrating as well as teaching the students how to use the inductive bible study method. I’ve demonstrated how to use inductive bible study for personal study using a template worksheet I’ve created. Soon I hope to show how this more intensive form of bible study aids in the facilitation of small group discussion. It is a little difficult doing all this simply because I’m creating, teaching and demonstrating on the fly. However, I do believe that future semester will become progressively easier in terms of pace and availability of resources.

In addition to teaching the men in my small groups to have confidence in God’s Word through intensive study of scripture, I have also been attempting to systemize the approach I’ve taken in coaching/developing the young men I meet with. A few of the young men I meet with have already taken the initiative to seek out and begin the process of discipleship. Naturally, many questions arise regarding what to do or how to help someone. At present I’ve been during my one on one time attempting to answer each individual question that comes up allow each young leader to lead in the way that best fits their personality. However, since the beginning of the month I have been more conscientious of how I coach/develop/counsel these young men looking for common patterns in both the dynamics of the meeting and questions that come up. I hope to finish preparing a document for distribution to leaders I am mentoring now as a form of future reference in their discipleship relationships.

Many of the people that I talk to are also serving as leaders or desire to be leaders in ministry or other organizations. Two relationships I have with students from Priority College Ministry (FSBC) in particular led to the creation of a more generic leadership document. This document also contains self and peer evaluations for specific leadership events. There is a detailed description of each of the categories of evaluation and a brief overview of what it means to be a leader. I have not used these materials with students outside of Priority College Ministry, however, before completing the current draft, I sent out the material to fellow ministry workers and some have begun to use the evaluation tools in developing their leaders. Alex, the other college intern at Christian Challenge, asked if he could use the material with the ministry team at Christian Challenge which of prompted my urgent completion of a description of the evaluation criteria.

Aside from all that stuff, things have been very hectic in the lives of our students as they are in the midst of midterm exams. There have also been many financial, healths, and relational issues the students have been persevering through. So please keep them in your prayers. I could not ask for a better first semester experience in terms of the types of students I get to interact with. There seems to be cohesion among the students I believe to be borne out of a clear sense of identity as a ministry. Seeing and hearing all the students gathering at the Christian Challenge building doing life together is both encouraging and distracting. But Praise God!!! This has all been a little nostalgic for me and in some ways an answered prayer. If you knew me from before then you’d be aware that I during my undergraduate I was heavily involved with the Asian American Student Affairs (APASA) Office and all the Asian clubs that fell under it. There was a great sense of community and family there that I wished was a part of some of the campus ministries I participated in. APASA was also characterized by a lot of community service projects and just fun activities. The thing that was depressing about my association with APASA was that although many of these people were my friends and wonderful people none of them were believers. APASA was a group of people doing great things but only with an eye on the immediate. Doing things with a lack of perception on the eternal So hearing from students how they feel like Challenge is a home away from home and family is a blessing. It is a blessing to be a part of a group of people that is seeking to know God more intimately and proclaim His glory throughout our community.

God has also opened a door back into APASA for me through some former students at the Tae Kwon Do studio I assisted at. Some of the students that used to attend tae kwon do as junior high and high school students are now students at the UofA. Two of them approached me through my brother and asked me if I could train them and get them into shape so they could go back to Tae Kwon Do. I didn’t really have much expectation for ministry in this request but the first day they came two more students from APASA came with them. All of them are unbelievers, however here they are coming to Christian Challenge. Please be in prayer for these students. Hopefully they will continue to want to come both for the Tae Kwon Do training but more importantly for the relationships they can build with the believing students of Christian Challenge.

This brings me to my last request. As I mentioned earlier several of the students in our ministry have been facing adversity in various forms. Several students have been attending our small groups and large group meetings that openly share that they are not Christians. Christian students have been expressing a desire to change. To be freed from whatever…there is a common thread of people desiring to be transformed. People that want the power to change. The past semester we have been going through a series at Christian Challenge called the Pursuit. The whole series climaxes November 2, 2010 @ 7pm. The topic for the night is personal transformation. All the things that we’ve talked about so far have led the students to a point where they have to decide if they will choose to pursue relationship with Jesus or not. I especially crave your prayers for this night as the responsibility of presenting this topic has fallen to me. So ya’ll know I can use a lot of prayer for wisdom, integrity, humility, and tact. In all seriousness I really desire prayer for myself and for the students involved in helping to put this night together. Also for all the students coming that are sitting on the tip of the iceberg. I know God has a plan and a purpose for the lives of these students and that in spite of me still speaks to the hearts of the people that come. Please pray that this is a night born out of scripture, flows with scripture, and that the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ pours forth from the lives that are changed by the power of His Holy Word.

Ministry Habits

As I reviewed some of what I've said in my last post and talking to some people about what I'm doing right now, I realize that I appear to be in dire trouble. It appears that the current lifestyle I'm living will lead to ministry burnout. I do recognize that currently I'm making myself too available to the students. Despite the fact that at this time I am single and have no family of my own to take care of I'm setting precedent for unhealthy habits. Although, I am allowing students an inordinate amount of access to me, I'm doing so in the hopes that I will not have to spend as much time with them later.

I'm really trying to lay a ground work for the spring semester and the future. My hope is that by spending as much time as I am now mentoring and teaching the students in my care, that they will use their memories of time spent with me and the lessons they've learned to develop future leaders. My hope is that this Spring the current leaders will begin aggressively training future leaders and spending time with younger people because I've done it with them.

I will never teach or ask someone to do something that I have not done or am willing to do myself. I will not expect someone to do something without me having demonstrated it first. I firmly believe in leading and teaching by example. I firmly believe in pushing myself and setting the standard so that those I teach will see that with a teachable attitude and faithfulness God enables us to do much.

I also recognize that my time here is short and I want to make the most of every opportunity. I try to live each day in view of eternity. I do my best to live each day in view of my obituary. That being said I know that the current pace of life I have is not realistically sustainable for more than this semester so please be in prayer for the young people I'm working with to grab hold of the vision and take ownership of the ministry they are a part of. Pray that a culture of discipleship, teachability, and leadership is cultivated in the ministry of Christian Challenge and Priority College Ministry.

In regard to leadership, specifically the kind of servant leadership displayed by our Lord Jesus Christ. One of the greatest obstacles of college students and Christians is to be people of substance. Not just people that say they are Christ followers, but people who by their actions show they live a life yielded to Jesus. Our leaders need to be people that are consistent in what they say and what they do. Many people have a disconnect between what they say they want to be and who they are. They aren't even aware of the discrepancy between their speech and actions. Pray that God would confront them with their speech that they become people whose word means something. That our leaders would not be people whose word is empty and hollow but full of life giving substance found in the Living Word.

The biggest challenge I find with those whom I work with is a challenge I struggle with daily. And it's simply to be authentic. To be consistent. So that what I say and teach becomes more than speech, it becomes action. So that when I say that we should pray, we pray. Not when I'm at home or in my car alone. All the things that I say and teach need to be shown. They need to be immediate. If those I'm leading never see me do any of what I say. And if they don't see me do it immediately, they will not begin to establish these spiritual habits and disciplines. They will not understand the urgency of applying habits to their lives now. So please pray that I am consistently demonstrating all that I say to my students setting a model for them to follow.

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!

2010 Fall Retreat

This past weekend was the annual Fall Retreat for Christian Challenge and Priority College Ministry. The retreat took place September 17-19 at Southern Pines Baptist Camp. Our camp speaker was David Englehart the Christian Challenge director of New Mexico State University. The topic we covered was preparation for evangelism. The camp was a good time for new and visiting students to meet the student leaders of both ministries as well as the staff. It provided students the opportunity to fellowship with people they normally wouldn't get the chance to talk to. And I know that several students have made new relationships that will serve to encourage Christian fellowship and accountability. Additionally, because of the topic of evangelism I know that some of the students have expressed the desire to hold one another to be more accountable about being aware of opportunities they have to share with others what God is doing in their life.

Here are some of the Fall Retreat Highlights:

Awesome August!!!

Ok, I know the title is corny, but God has really been Awesome this AUGUST!!!! As some of you may know August marks the beginning of the school year at the University of Arizona and it is also the time when things really start picking up for college ministry. During the summer most of our student leaders are either on mission trips or back home. The couple of weeks before school starts is a crucial time of planning, training and praying.

One of the annual events that we have the opportunity to participate in is the Collegiate Conference in Glorieta, New Mexico at the Lifeway Conference Center. This annual retreat is a special time of fellowship with college students collegiate workers from all across the country. We spend a week worshiping together and learning from gifted godly men and women. This year worship was led by Addison Road and our teaching pastors were Mike Satterfield and David Platt. Having the opportunity to dive into God's word with teachers of this caliber is always a blessing. This year I was doubly blessed with the opportunity to attend the Collegiate Workers fellowships and received current information about social trends that are appearing on college campuses. I was also exposed to new discipleship and witnessing resources. One of the tools I'm really excited about is a product put out by Campus Crusade called "Solarium." Solarium is a series of 50 pictures used to conduct a national spiritual survey. The pictures are used to draw people out and engage them in deep personal conversation. We have started using the cards at the Christian Challenge table when we set up out on campus. I can honestly say that I've engaged people in conversation that I normally wouldn't have spent anytime talking to. It helps draw out their personal stories and allows you to share yours. I've also been using the cards in my small group bible studies and it's a wonderful tool that allows people to freely share things about their lives that they would feel awkward talking about otherwise.

After I got back from Glorieta I had the opportunity to attend my student orientation for Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. I met many of the professors that I will be having for my seminary courses and met fellow students that I will be going to class with. It is such a blessing to have the opportunity to attend courses that will better equip me to do ministry. Moreover, it is a blessing to find mentors and colleagues in the faith that I can turn to for advice and support in ministry. I am only taking two courses this semester, New Testament Survey I and Pastoral Counseling. I've only had one class meeting for each but have already been given the opportunity to apply lessons I've learned in class to ministry. For example, in my first Pastoral Counseling class we learned about the skill of reflective listening in counseling. A half hour after class ended I stopped by the Christian Challenge building and there was a student there that needed someone to talk to. I'll be honest, in times past when this student would talk I kind of zoned out and would interrupt to hasten the student to the point and just tell him solutions. However, because of my new awareness of communication styles and the skill of reflective listening I had the opportunity to listen to the student and start hearing some of the root causes of the issues he has. Had I not taken the time to simply listen, the student would have never been given the opportunity to open up. My seminary classes have also been a humbling experience for me. Many of the other students are older than me and have already been serving in ministry for decades. I feel fortunate to listen to them and learn from their experiences. Whenever the professors ask questions I sit in awe of the wise and insightful responses of the other students. One thing that I think has characterized my experience at seminary thus far is the realization of how much I don't know and how much more room there is for me to grow.

As I mentioned before the first couple of weeks/days prior to the start of school is a crucial time of preparation and planning for the school year. Over the summer I had been attending the Freshman Orientations and Club Expos to try and meet and gather as many student contacts as possible. While staff leaders at Christian Challenge and Priority have been keeping in touch through email and facebook we recognize that the connections students are really looking for are relationships with other students. At both the Christian Challenge and Priority College Ministry leadership orientations we divided all of the student contacts we had and charged our leaders with making contact with their students and personally invite them to our kick off events. The first kick off event was the Priority Welcome BBQ near the Park Student Union and AZSO dorm. This event turned out better than we planned because the dorms were supposed to have had a welcome event with free food. Fortunately for us, they didn't so when the students started walking out looking for the event they found our BBQ. I don't know exactly how many students were around but well over one hundred students participated in our fellowship. This platform event built a pretty solid launch for the rest of our August events such as our Guys/Girls night out, Scavenger Hunt, and Meet First Southern. Already in just the first couple weeks of school we've spotted some new students that God is developing to be future Christian leaders at the university.

Christian Challenge's first event the Fajita Fiesta was equally blessed. If you've read one of the earlier blog entries you may already know how God used the first event to grow us in confidence of His faithfulness and provision. We served fajitas to over 125 students and had the opportunity to invite them to our More to Life groups as well as our Tuesday night fellowships. We've also handed out gift bags to incoming freshmen inviting them to become apart of our fellowship.

One of my biggest fears coming into this semester was not finding any guys to connect with. That I wouldn't have anything of value to offer students. Well God has blessed me with the opportunity to lead two small groups for Christian Challenge. Interestingly enough each group seems to be drawn to one another in a weird way. I've had the opportunity to meet with each of the individual members prior to the start of the small groups and its been interesting to hear how similar their stories are. It's incredible to hear about the personal trials that each young man is going through and how God is burdening them to grow. Another blessing is finding that the separate issues each group is dealing with is something I've dealt with in my own life. So I rejoice in the opportunity to share with the students the mistakes I've made and successes I've had in the season of life they find themselves. It is a humbling and cleansing experience to see how God is using the journey He has led me on to speak into the lives of the young men He's placed in my life.

Closing the end of this month has been the start of many new things and with the new starts comes the hope of what God is presently doing and how that affects what He will do in the future. God has blessed First Southern Baptist Church with a new leader in Randy Mullinax. He and his family are set to move to Tucson and begin serving October 2. Meanwhile, we have have recently started a series called, "Changing your War and Your Wardrobe" during our Breakaway service. The series addresses the topic of spiritual warfare and all of this reminds me of the charge that we believers have to be faithful servants of our Lord. As I recognize that my God is working around me now, He gives me the opportunity to join with Him in His work by being faithful in prayer, exhortation of fellow believers with His Word, and fellowship with His people. So as I end this letter please be in prayer that I along with my fellow laborers in the mission field of the University of Arizona take heed to be found faithful and join in the work God is doing in our community.

Also things you can be in prayer for in the upcoming month will be Christian Challenge and Priority College Ministry's annual Fall Retreat! This is always a time of great relational and spiritual growth for our students setting the tone for the rest of the school year.

If you want to keep up with what's going on check out:

www.christianchallengeuofa.com

www.priorityministry.com

Check out our facebook page and groups too!

http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=477505621448&oid=4844400259

http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=477503946448&oid=4844400259

Stay with You

I've had this song stuck in my head the past couple days. It's "Stay with You" by John Legend. I kept hearing and singing the chorus in my head then this morning I was thinking that this might be a good song to share at church. So I decided to look up the lyrics and here it is:



I've been getting in a lot of different ways from God that I need to develop my relationship with Him more so that I can in times of trouble rely on him. I've been learning that I need to learn how to rely on the Lord for provision so that i can truly enjoy and experience rest. The last couple of days in particular God has really been stressing the need for me to trust in the wisdom and goodness of the Lord. Specifically through my devotion...

The picture that came to mind illustrating this principle of obedience and absolute trust was the movie A team. Near the end of the movie "Face" talks to "Murdock" about how they have always gotten through difficult and seemingly impossible situations because of "Hannibal." No one else ever had to worry about the details or things going wrong because Hannibal always had a plan to get everyone out.

Another illustration for me was my life in the Army. Sometimes in field environments you'll be operating all by yourself with little or incomplete information of where enemy and friendly forces are. But if you have a good leader and you trust him implicitly, you can be free of worry. The leader assigns you a job and all you have to do is the task assigned to you.

In the same way in real life God is the master tactician. He's the guy that has his eye on the whole picture. His mind is the one that worries about the things that could go wrong and considers all the minute factors that could affect things that probably dont even affect me. The thing is God is a good leader who cares for each of his soldiers. He wants the best for each of them and doesn't want harm to come to them. He has a contingency plan for every situation. He has a out for every seemingly impossible situation( 1 Corinthians 10:13).

God has a plan and task for me, and rather than worrying about all the things that could possibly go wrong, or the seemingly huge and impossible tasks I should focus on the task that is on hand. God has given me simple tasks for me to be found faithful in now. What i need to recognize is that my faithfulness in these small things plays into God's game plan to win the war.

Fajita Fiesta!

So this past Tuesday was Christian Challenge's big kick off with the annual Fajita Fiesta. It turned out great with over 110 kids in attendance. God is so good and really blessed us. However, 3 hours prior to the start i had some serious reservations about the success of opening night when the hailstorm from no where showed up!

That's right! I said hail! Just 40min before 2:30pm the weather was over 107 degrees! In under an hour the hot arid campus of the University of Arizona turned into a network of islands seperated by fast flowing streams grimy asphalt colored water! There's seriously some places you could probably go kayaking :) (which is something i intend to try!)

This was definitely a memorable experience and a great lesson in the faithfulness of God. After seeing the deluge outside some people would be tempted to just fold and cancel when things seem to be heading toward disaster. We've planned to do things a certain way and dont think its possible for things to go any other way. I think the great temptation I've experienced in my life is to plan so well(or think i have) that sometimes I count out the wisdom and power of God. Rather than trusting in Him I trust in myself and my plan. However, in the past that hasnt always worked out. Several times in the past I've fallen flat on my face in very public ways, which is why I appreciate the director at Christian Challenge who was probably mindful of the Word of the Lord:

"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed"

Proverbs 16:3

"In his heart a man plans his course , but the Lord determines his steps."

Proverbs 16:9

Now I'm not saying that I can plan anything for anything and as long as I pray and ask God to bless it the thing will get done. I have to recognize that first this is God's show and He just gives me the opportunity to play a part in it. God's show has a purpose and direction to effectively communicate His message. So when it comes to making decisions about activities related to Christian activity and proclaiming the glory of God, I need to keep the focus on the character of God and strive my best to ensure that the way I present is consistent with the nature of God. The activities that take place at event serve to build Christian community and serve as a witness to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in the community of believers.

If I have peace w/ God and have prayerfully submitted my will to His plan according to His purpose for His glory then I have nothing to fear the pressure for me to be "sucessful" in coporeal standards is off. I've committed all that I have to the incoporeal one and He will see His plan to completion.