Looking back at the semester in review:
1. I'm terrible at blogging frequently.
2. A little goes a long way. Amazing how much a phone call to check in on someone or a facebook message can encourage someone. People are desperate to know they are loved, and God's love is often most tangible when it comes through people. That is why Jesus narrowed the entire Law down to two simple instructions: love Him, love people.
3. Comparison tends to steer us towards insecurity (jealousy, powerlessness, or disconnectedness) or arrogance.
4. God is a God of restoration: Of hope, of joy, of peace, of passion, of discouragements of every sort. His heart is for our fullness.
5. Love and honor always move us towards people. Everyone has barriers that keep them from both giving and receiving love.
6. Ministry is not for spiritual All-Stars, because there are none. Everyone has their imperfections and mistakes, but are perfect in Christ. The calling of ministry is inseparable from the belief and faith in Jesus.
7. I'm getting older, slower, and weaker, but it's because of laziness. When I purpose to, I can still hang with those in their athletic primes - which is a great way to build relationships in ministry.
8. We must never stop learning, never become complacent, and settle. One of Satan's greatest lies is that every new step we take is "good enough."
9. Leading two small groups (one of freshmen, the other small group leaders), discipling four student leaders, co leading a group or around 120 student leaders, and helping lead a ministry around 350 people, I've made excuses far too often of not having enough time, lacked intentionality, and have yet to change a culture of the next generation of Christians - this is a glass is half full mentality. Thank you Jesus for an amazing semester. Where we know He is taking us and not being there yet should never keep us from celebrating that which He has done now. Lives have been changed, friendships built, and eyes opened to the Good News. People have been freed from spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical prisons. God is good.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Murder Mystery Theater and Jamaican Invasion
Hello friends!
This past Friday, we turned the Main Chapel into a Luau grounds, complete even with a beach in the corner, for our Hawaiian themed Murder Mystery Theater. We had about 100 student leaders and freshmen show up and participate in groups to solve the case. Our staff really got to "ham it up" in our acting exhibitions for the year, and the night was a good opportunity for people to bring people together for a good time.
The past few weeks, we have been getting our Jamaica trip finalized. Last year, 110 staff, leaders and freshmen went to Port Maria and Montego Bay for Spring Break. This year, we expected we might have to go to three locations. To our astonishment, 200 people signed up to go, and our director Stephen had to go to Jamaica last week to look into additional locations, finally arriving us at the place of 3 locations (adding St. Ann's) with about 70 people each. We're blessed: what a great problem for a ministry to have.
God has really been pouring out favor on this year. It shows not just in numbers, but also in depth. In our Freshley Monday night service, we just wrapped up a three week series inspired by the book Radical by David Platt (I highly recommend reading it). In all my years in Athens (this is my 6th - wow), I have never seen a community so purposed to reach out and take the kingdom of God not just to this city, but to the world - and the weight behind the momentum is a community of 18 and 19 year old Freshmen in the body of Christ. Love it.
Please be praying for the upcoming school breaks - our freshmen and student leaders have all grown so much, and Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks can be so discouraging every year when they are removed from that intentional community. The enemy really gets people down with the lie that they can't help but backslide into who they used to be. Pray that these breaks would be seasons of taking more ground and advancing even further into what God wants to do in them and through for the rest of the year.
This past Friday, we turned the Main Chapel into a Luau grounds, complete even with a beach in the corner, for our Hawaiian themed Murder Mystery Theater. We had about 100 student leaders and freshmen show up and participate in groups to solve the case. Our staff really got to "ham it up" in our acting exhibitions for the year, and the night was a good opportunity for people to bring people together for a good time.
The past few weeks, we have been getting our Jamaica trip finalized. Last year, 110 staff, leaders and freshmen went to Port Maria and Montego Bay for Spring Break. This year, we expected we might have to go to three locations. To our astonishment, 200 people signed up to go, and our director Stephen had to go to Jamaica last week to look into additional locations, finally arriving us at the place of 3 locations (adding St. Ann's) with about 70 people each. We're blessed: what a great problem for a ministry to have.
God has really been pouring out favor on this year. It shows not just in numbers, but also in depth. In our Freshley Monday night service, we just wrapped up a three week series inspired by the book Radical by David Platt (I highly recommend reading it). In all my years in Athens (this is my 6th - wow), I have never seen a community so purposed to reach out and take the kingdom of God not just to this city, but to the world - and the weight behind the momentum is a community of 18 and 19 year old Freshmen in the body of Christ. Love it.
Please be praying for the upcoming school breaks - our freshmen and student leaders have all grown so much, and Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks can be so discouraging every year when they are removed from that intentional community. The enemy really gets people down with the lie that they can't help but backslide into who they used to be. Pray that these breaks would be seasons of taking more ground and advancing even further into what God wants to do in them and through for the rest of the year.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Freshley Retreat
Hey Friends!
I apologize, it has been far too long since I have written anything on here. Maybe this blogging habit isn't coming as naturally to me as I would have hoped.
Freshley Retreat was last weekend. With over 200 people (Freshmen, student leaders, and staff), we headed up to Dahlonega for the weekend. We prayed and prepared a lot in the weeks before, and God was so faithful. The weather was perfect. People connected and built friendships. Saturday night we had our meeting end with a 5 hour worship session as people just lost track of time. Some time after 2 AM Sunday morning as I reflected on the weekend to that point, I realized the Lord had changed dozens if not hundreds of lives forever in just a short weekend. I love the blessing and fun that is my job. The best part is really that I see people transformed more and more to His likeness on a daily basis.
I had been sick most of the week leading into the retreat, and just as I was getting better, I got my prescribed 3-4 hrs of sleep per night that comes with retreats (Love it!). So with no rest over the weekend and heading right into Monday, my busiest day of the week with Freshley, I got sick enough that I had to take Tuesday off. I think I'm just now shaking it off in time for another amazing week.
So recently I have actually become pretty discouraged with keeping this blog. I just felt like no one was reading it; then I realized this is not about how many people actually read it or how many it blesses, but faithfulness to what God is calling me to do. I'm humbled by my inability to regularly chronicle another year in ministry at Wesley, if only for my own use. Though I cannot see the purpose, love is about commitment, so in that sense at least I am aiming to love, even in this blog.
I apologize, it has been far too long since I have written anything on here. Maybe this blogging habit isn't coming as naturally to me as I would have hoped.
Freshley Retreat was last weekend. With over 200 people (Freshmen, student leaders, and staff), we headed up to Dahlonega for the weekend. We prayed and prepared a lot in the weeks before, and God was so faithful. The weather was perfect. People connected and built friendships. Saturday night we had our meeting end with a 5 hour worship session as people just lost track of time. Some time after 2 AM Sunday morning as I reflected on the weekend to that point, I realized the Lord had changed dozens if not hundreds of lives forever in just a short weekend. I love the blessing and fun that is my job. The best part is really that I see people transformed more and more to His likeness on a daily basis.
I had been sick most of the week leading into the retreat, and just as I was getting better, I got my prescribed 3-4 hrs of sleep per night that comes with retreats (Love it!). So with no rest over the weekend and heading right into Monday, my busiest day of the week with Freshley, I got sick enough that I had to take Tuesday off. I think I'm just now shaking it off in time for another amazing week.
So recently I have actually become pretty discouraged with keeping this blog. I just felt like no one was reading it; then I realized this is not about how many people actually read it or how many it blesses, but faithfulness to what God is calling me to do. I'm humbled by my inability to regularly chronicle another year in ministry at Wesley, if only for my own use. Though I cannot see the purpose, love is about commitment, so in that sense at least I am aiming to love, even in this blog.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Two Weeks into the Year
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.
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 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
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
india
India has been amazing so far. I could probably write a book, but I have spared you for the time being: www.missionindia2008.blogspot.com
much love
mike
much love
mike
Monday, May 24, 2010
India
It's been a while since the last post. Sorry about that if anyone has been checking in. For the next seven weeks, I will be in India. I'll try to be updating at http://missionindia2008.blogspot.com/. Be praying for us
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)