The year has been incredible thus far. Our first two services at Wesley have been amazing. The first one filled Tate so fully I felt led to go worship in the hallway outside the ballroom for most of the service. It helped it was a good 10 degrees cooler outside the room where probably 1400 people or so came together to worship God.
Freshley: We split the 580 or so people who came to Freshley this past Monday into small group, which made for quite the chaotic transition, but now we have almost 40 (including prayer groups) group where students are being challenged to grow spiritually in community. My guys are so hungry for God. I could tell they were all really excited about a place where they could fellowship, grow, and outreach together. They're so cool too. Too bad I wasn't that cool when I was a freshman.
God is teaching me rest. Last weekend I had my first true Sabbath where I wasn't doing something Wesley or for other people in weeks. All the roommates were out of town or not around, so I tried to spend a day of rest in God's presence. Nearly killed me: I am such an American. Valuing time that is not tangibly productive stresses me out (and many others), but God has a heart for true rest.
Hopefully another post coming soon, I went to an amazing conference this weekend called Jesus in the Qur'an (JIQ). I'm still digesting it, and there's much too much to fit in with this post. Please be praying for God to sustain me as this week will be busy trying to launch Intramural teams for Freshley, as well as finalizing (hopefully) our leadership curriculum for our 3 areas of Leadership.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
In Between Intern Training Weeks
We started intern training this past week, which has been exhausting, fun, spiritually fruitful and very different from last year. I think the final number on interns is 76 of us, meaning we now have a staff of about 90. That's not a typo. The nature of everything from how the internship is done to how the office building is set up is changing, and its very exciting to be in the midst of a place where God is building and moving in powerful ways.
This past week we had training sessions and teachings on the core values of our ministry (His power, His love, and His voice), community building/get to know each other games and competitions, and even things that were just plain fun, like dressing tacky and going roller skating as a staff. We worshiped together, prayed together, and began to open up to each and build relationships in our discipleship groups with the directors who would be discipling us this year as we seek His purpose in ministry and Christlikeness in character. Life is busy, life is good, and the school year still has yet to even start. Looks to be a great year.
We also had our Freshley staff retreat Friday to Saturday. Our first night we spent hours just getting to know each other through our testimonies and sharing of who and where we are now in life, praying together and for each other, and of course stayed up late into the night playing games. We had incredible fun tubing on the lake Saturday morning as well, even with my shoulder freshly coming out (it's still pretty sore now, so please pray for my healing). It has been an exhausting week with intern training all day and different commitments every night. The remainder of this weekend turned out to be a really great Sabbath though, which will be the needed launching pad into another week of interning that will lead straight into the school year starting a week from tomorrow.
Please Pray for:
A hunger in all the students to know the Lord, and especially the freshmen
The continued unity/community and spiritual growth of both our staff and Freshley staff
Our staff (all 90 of us) retreat the next two days
Rest - we're trying to build a culture that honors the Sabbath, a very countercultural idea in the US
Our faithfulness to the will of the Lord and not seeking our own means and ends
My role/our ministry in the leadership development of our Freshley leaders
My shoulder to heal - I don't want to miss out on anything on our staff retreat
This past week we had training sessions and teachings on the core values of our ministry (His power, His love, and His voice), community building/get to know each other games and competitions, and even things that were just plain fun, like dressing tacky and going roller skating as a staff. We worshiped together, prayed together, and began to open up to each and build relationships in our discipleship groups with the directors who would be discipling us this year as we seek His purpose in ministry and Christlikeness in character. Life is busy, life is good, and the school year still has yet to even start. Looks to be a great year.
We also had our Freshley staff retreat Friday to Saturday. Our first night we spent hours just getting to know each other through our testimonies and sharing of who and where we are now in life, praying together and for each other, and of course stayed up late into the night playing games. We had incredible fun tubing on the lake Saturday morning as well, even with my shoulder freshly coming out (it's still pretty sore now, so please pray for my healing). It has been an exhausting week with intern training all day and different commitments every night. The remainder of this weekend turned out to be a really great Sabbath though, which will be the needed launching pad into another week of interning that will lead straight into the school year starting a week from tomorrow.
Please Pray for:
A hunger in all the students to know the Lord, and especially the freshmen
The continued unity/community and spiritual growth of both our staff and Freshley staff
Our staff (all 90 of us) retreat the next two days
Rest - we're trying to build a culture that honors the Sabbath, a very countercultural idea in the US
Our faithfulness to the will of the Lord and not seeking our own means and ends
My role/our ministry in the leadership development of our Freshley leaders
My shoulder to heal - I don't want to miss out on anything on our staff retreat
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