Coffee House

Hannah, one of our student leaders, read out loud from Matthew 13, a parable comparing soil and people. I paused from gobbling a gooey brownie to pray that God would make the gospel alive to our friends. I took a handful of dirt and scattered it in our flower pot. Brice, next to me, prayed Christian students would be sensitive to their friends’ needs. We spent the evening praying for God to prepare unbelievers’ hearts, asking Him for opportunities to share our faith, and praising Him for sending witnesses into our lives. To help us engage with our prayers, we planted and watered geranium flower seeds.

Coffee House, our weekly prayer and fellowship meeting, is a lively, relaxed place for us to creatively talk with God. We pray for the lost, the oppressed, and the fatherless. We ask Him to move in our lives, around campus, and throughout the world. And we do it all while enjoying Hannah’s gifts of coffee, tea, and homemade treats. Freshmen are coming to meet new people and meet with God. Upperclassmen are finding refreshment and renewed focus to follow God’s call on our community.

At last week’s Coffee House, we gathered around our flower pots full of sprouting leaves to praise God for growing our chapter in evangelism and bringing our friends to Him.

Poverty Week

Did you know that around the world, 15 million children die of hunger each year? Or that despite economic progress, India is home to 25% of the world’s poor?

Students exposed themselves to facts like these as they spent no more than $25 on food for the week. Stats like these seem pretty depressing, until you hear about the other half of the story. They contemplated verses like Proverbs 21:13, Romans 12:16 and Jeremiah 22:15-16. This helped them consider the good news that God cares deeply for the poor, the hungry, and the defenseless. God invites and even commands us to respond to the causes and effects of poverty, as well as to personally love the poor. As they experienced slight pangs of hunger or had to refrain from eating out, they got just the tiniest glimpse of what many live through without choice or escape.

Members invited their friends to join with them in Poverty Week. Most said no, but 30 students came to the Feast at the end of the week, where we shared about God’s heart and response to the poor and our plan to donate to World Vision. Students donated $200, enjoyed some amazing home cooked food, and prayed for God to move.

Conversational Evangelism

UNT and TWU – after hearing stories of staff sharing the gospel 2 years ago and what the spiritual climate of the campus was, I was slightly terrified. But despite my terror, we were going to spend the afternoon asking students questions about their spirituality and hopefully getting to share what we believe about Jesus.

My partner, John, and I felt unsure about whom to approach, but the first real conversation we got into was with a woman sitting on a bench picking through her lunch. She was a 1^st generation biracial Korean Caucasian who had started following Jesus many years before. But just last year, the friend who had introduced her to Jesus betrayed her deeply. She no longer talks to her friend, and she’s struggling in her relationship with God. She hasn’t been to church, she says she isn’t sure Jesus is the only way anymore, and her pain was evident in her eyes and shaking hands. It seemed like she was running away from the pain, trying to make it through by ignoring it. We got to encourage her to stay honest with her struggles, that nothing can separate her from the love of Christ, and that he is with her, suffering alongside her.

The next woman we talked to was a Korean international student who had moved to America just weeks ago to study English. We had a lot of trouble understanding each other, but when we started asking about religion and whether she was Christian, eventually she told us “I’m nothing.” She had been to a Korean speaking church the weekend before where she felt relaxed for the first time. She excitedly took a track called True Story by James Chuong about how we were designed for good, damaged by evil, restored for better when Christ died on the cross, and are now sent to heal the world with Christ.

The last significant conversation we had was with a white student sitting at a fraternity table asking for donations for the North Texas Food Bank. He was spacy, eventually revealing he hadn’t slept the night before. It was kinda hilarious trying to get him to answer questions or even understand what we were saying. We found out he wasn’t very passionate about the food bank or the frat – he just wanted to be involved in something while he was at college. He grew up Catholic, but had decided to “take the wheel” and choose where he wanted to go. He agreed that Jesus was Lord “because that’s the language I always grew up with” but he didn’t think of Jesus as the leader of his life. We tried to challenge him that Jesus wanted more for him and for their relationship, that when we try to be in charge we make selfish and dumb choices, but he kept saying that he wasn’t sure about that. God was his safety net – that’s what he wanted and what God wanted. But he was considering going to some InterVarsity events because we were the second pair of people to talk to him about God that day. 

All in all, it was a great afternoon!