I'll be at Regional Staff Conference today through Friday. I'm excited to learn more about discipling students, hear what's been going on around Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, and most importantly, beat the other areas at our annual Christmas party competition.
Andrea Thomas, Meg (one of the students I'm discipling), and I got to have a few spiritual conversations with non-Christians last week. Of course, we always run into a lot of Christians on campus, but that's when we switch over to "conversational discipleship" - checking to see how they're growing and praying for them. But we usually get into some great conversations with non-Christians, too. Andrea and Meg got to talk to a Taiwanese Ph.D. student who is attending church and seriously considering the gospel. Meg and I got to talk with an agnostic student who didn't want to look for or consider what truth might be - there are lots of roads, and you can't know, and people who think you can are the really awful people, and she wished they would just shut up. Her indifference was palpable. She kept talking with us, though, and she was honest, which was nice. It was beautiful to see Meg speak with such passion, and I keep feeling bolder every time I share the gospel. God is good.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Teach Pray Love
Besides the 2 student retreats I've gotten to go on in the last month, I've had opportunities to pray, teach and share the gospel.
InterVarsity trained me in prayer ministry during two overnighters this fall, and I've taken every opportunity to put it into practice. I've planned for it in student meetings, but I've also done it spontaneously when I realized they needed a word from God. I've even taken it off campus, praying with people from church. I'm part of the Urbana prayer ministry team. I'll pray with students at our national missions conference this December, listening with them for what God has to say, how he wants to heal them, or how they need to respond. God has already brought healing to identity, abuse, deep childhood issues, unforgiveness, and fear. Praise Jesus! I'm excited to see what he does at Urbana, and grateful to have another tool in my belt for ministry. Please pray for me, that I'd be diligent in my own walk with God so I don't burn out, and that I'd have ears to hear the Lord.
I spoke at UH's Large Group meeting earlier this month. I felt like God wanted me to teach from Mark 6, but I wasn't sure about what exactly. And then it hit me - I needed to challenge students to depend on God. Something I fail to do regularly. Why this passage God? It was good for my soul though. From the passage, I showed students our need to depend on God for authority in work/ministry/life, for rest, and for compassion. Please pray for me and for UH's students to depend on God in all things.
The week before Thanksgiving, I drove to SFA. We hit the ground running with conversational evangelism. I taught the 8 gathered students how to strike up spiritual conversations, then sent them out in pairs. Later, I heard one student, Morgan, was so nervous she thought she was going to throw up the whole day. But all 8 students came back gushing! While no one decided to follow Jesus that day, they connected with new people and realized how easy it is to talk to strangers about the important stuff in life - God's love and grace and salvation. Later that night, I studied Luke in SFA's Wednesday Small Group and went to a poetry night. The next day, I met with some of the students 1-on-1 and left joyful at what God is doing in Nacogdoches.
I'll be going out with my Associate Regional Director, Andrea Thomas, and any InterVarsity students at A&M that we can round up for conversational evangelism this Friday. Definitely pray for that too!
InterVarsity trained me in prayer ministry during two overnighters this fall, and I've taken every opportunity to put it into practice. I've planned for it in student meetings, but I've also done it spontaneously when I realized they needed a word from God. I've even taken it off campus, praying with people from church. I'm part of the Urbana prayer ministry team. I'll pray with students at our national missions conference this December, listening with them for what God has to say, how he wants to heal them, or how they need to respond. God has already brought healing to identity, abuse, deep childhood issues, unforgiveness, and fear. Praise Jesus! I'm excited to see what he does at Urbana, and grateful to have another tool in my belt for ministry. Please pray for me, that I'd be diligent in my own walk with God so I don't burn out, and that I'd have ears to hear the Lord.
I spoke at UH's Large Group meeting earlier this month. I felt like God wanted me to teach from Mark 6, but I wasn't sure about what exactly. And then it hit me - I needed to challenge students to depend on God. Something I fail to do regularly. Why this passage God? It was good for my soul though. From the passage, I showed students our need to depend on God for authority in work/ministry/life, for rest, and for compassion. Please pray for me and for UH's students to depend on God in all things.
The week before Thanksgiving, I drove to SFA. We hit the ground running with conversational evangelism. I taught the 8 gathered students how to strike up spiritual conversations, then sent them out in pairs. Later, I heard one student, Morgan, was so nervous she thought she was going to throw up the whole day. But all 8 students came back gushing! While no one decided to follow Jesus that day, they connected with new people and realized how easy it is to talk to strangers about the important stuff in life - God's love and grace and salvation. Later that night, I studied Luke in SFA's Wednesday Small Group and went to a poetry night. The next day, I met with some of the students 1-on-1 and left joyful at what God is doing in Nacogdoches.
I'll be going out with my Associate Regional Director, Andrea Thomas, and any InterVarsity students at A&M that we can round up for conversational evangelism this Friday. Definitely pray for that too!
Monday, November 26, 2012
Thanksgoween
So much happening around here! But I'm feeling like I should be more committed to updating y'all so you can actually pray for what's happening; hopefully you'll see more of me on here. For this post, I wanted to show you some Halloween pics and share Thanksgiving stories. Tomorrow, I'll fill in some gaps on what's been happening on campus.
My totally awesome pumpkin!
Kyle's creativity at work! We love decorating our house for Halloween. It gets scary when it's dark, and we keep slowly adding to the collection by buying everything half off after Halloween each year. Which is how we got this:
Jack may look forlorn, but he's actually wagging his tail, waiting to go outside. We've never dressed him up before, but we couldn't pass up a hot dog costume for our weiner lab. My staff partner Ben suggested we get a lab coat for him to finish off the costume.
The first half of Thanksgiving week, we flew to Alabama to see the Holley's - Tag and Allison, Emma and Aubrie (our nieces, age 5 and 3). Aubrie says I'm nice and Uncle Kyle is silly. He sometimes twists his ball cap around his head. So silly. We ate well - home-fried chicken wings, Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends, and a night out for Allison and Tag's anniversary. I was laid out for a day with back pain. But the next day, we went to the playground. We pretended to be monkeys and ran away from evil Uncle Kyle, then trapped him by burying his shoes in pebbles. Emma helped us escape to the hippo. Very exciting!
The second half of the week, we stayed with my parents and brother north of Dallas. We watched the James Bond movie (awesome!) on Thursday, and gathered for Thanksgiving on Friday with the extended family. My cousin Sarah is a student athletic trainer at TCU and had to be in Austin for the football game with that other school on Thursday. I also got some great deals at JCPenney's on Black Friday. And I got to see lots of upsets in football all week - so much fun to watch!
My totally awesome pumpkin!
Kyle's creativity at work! We love decorating our house for Halloween. It gets scary when it's dark, and we keep slowly adding to the collection by buying everything half off after Halloween each year. Which is how we got this:
Jack may look forlorn, but he's actually wagging his tail, waiting to go outside. We've never dressed him up before, but we couldn't pass up a hot dog costume for our weiner lab. My staff partner Ben suggested we get a lab coat for him to finish off the costume.
The first half of Thanksgiving week, we flew to Alabama to see the Holley's - Tag and Allison, Emma and Aubrie (our nieces, age 5 and 3). Aubrie says I'm nice and Uncle Kyle is silly. He sometimes twists his ball cap around his head. So silly. We ate well - home-fried chicken wings, Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends, and a night out for Allison and Tag's anniversary. I was laid out for a day with back pain. But the next day, we went to the playground. We pretended to be monkeys and ran away from evil Uncle Kyle, then trapped him by burying his shoes in pebbles. Emma helped us escape to the hippo. Very exciting!
The second half of the week, we stayed with my parents and brother north of Dallas. We watched the James Bond movie (awesome!) on Thursday, and gathered for Thanksgiving on Friday with the extended family. My cousin Sarah is a student athletic trainer at TCU and had to be in Austin for the football game with that other school on Thursday. I also got some great deals at JCPenney's on Black Friday. And I got to see lots of upsets in football all week - so much fun to watch!
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