Catalyst 2009 - Day Five

Wow what a week it has been. From the worship team to the Catalyst Cup competition to the nine students that SLU brought this week, it's been a little hectic. The worship team has been going pretty well. We had a few issues with folks (including myself) showing up late to meetings and not respecting each other's time, but it has wrapped up beautifully. I am pretty impressed with how far we have come and I am blown away by how God has used the musical experience to build community between the team members. There is nothing like common experience that is bigger than the individuals involved to build community on a team. I have had a lot of fun playing guitar this week and watching 180 college students and staff sing their hearts out to God together.

On Wednesday evening, during the time we are allotted to meet in our campus groups (as opposed to the one large multi-campus group). our nine SLU students were asked to reflect on their experience thus far and share a story of how Jesus had impacted them over the course of the week. I was amazed by the stories that were shared! Each student could trace the specific ways in which Jesus had connected the events of the week to form an intentional and personal message just for them. It was incredible to realize that every single one of them had individually encountered Jesus in a very significant way in just the first few days at Catalyst. All of the sudden, all the stress of the worship team and some of the trainings that I had to do melted away and I was reminded why it is that I felt so compelled by the call to campus ministry in the first place. I love watching God move in the hearts of people that seem so far from Him, watching their eyes light up when they talk about how they felt His presence or heard Him speak to them. It is simply incredible.

Tomorrow is our last morning here at Camp Windermere. Thank you for your prayers this week. Please pray that God would use our last few hours together to continue calling people to mission at SLU and on campuses throughout our region.

Catalyst 2009 - Day One

There is something very surreal about sitting in the midst of an event for which months of planning have come and gone. We are now about 15 hours away from the first students arriving here at Camp Windermere, a beautiful Baptist camp on the Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri. Catalyst is the InterVarsity Central Region summer student conference, focusing on processing the year past and visioning for the year to come. It allows our students to unwind from final exams and get one last chance to hang out with friends and staff before heading home for the summer. It also provides a space for students to hear from Jesus regarding areas of sin in their lives, areas where they need to accept His love and lordship, and even areas where He is calling them to follow Him in a deeper or different manner. Catalyst was actually my very first InterVarsity event and one of the places where I first discovered what it meant to love and serve Jesus from within other cultural contexts than the one in which I grew up. Here, students will worship in multiple languages alongside students from various ethnic, geographical, and socio-economic backgrounds as we come together to form a fuller mosaic of the Kingdom of Heaven, as Jesus taught us in the Gospels.

My primary role this week is to serve as co-director of the Catalyst Worship Team. Our team is made up of students from around Saint Louis, myself, and another InterVarsity staff worker. We have rehearsed a handful of times over the past few months and are starting to feel comfortable around each other. It has been great watching the chemistry between band members forming even in the past 24 hours. Please pray that the sound system and all of the technical details come together so that the Team can focus on worshiping God and not on the inevitable glitches, mishaps, and shortcomings that are inherent in being human.

The staff gathered this evening to prepare for the students' arrival and the presence of the Holy Spirit was quite noticeable in the room. This is an amazing group of people - I am humbled to hold be surrounded by some of the staff workers who have had such a monumental impact on my own life. In this very room where I write sits my own staff worker (and now supervisor), a woman whose direction and constant support kept me sane in college and keep me floating through the unpredictable world of college ministry. Also in the room is the first person I heard speak at Catalyst in 2006. I have no idea what he spoke on but I remember that during his message was the first time I ever considered that maybe God was calling me to missionary work at SLU. It is interesting how men pick certain people to hold up as "heroes" or even models to look to when weighing great decisions. We have actually only been around each other a few times but he consistently goes out of his way to speak words of encouragement to me and make me feel important and included in ministry. Please pray that God would bring me students this week who need to be encouraged and included. May the love of Christ flow through our staff team as the students arrive safely tomorrow. I will keep you posted.