March Proxe Stations: A Recap

As I sit looking out on downtown Marion, IL on this warm and breezy Good Friday, I feel like I am pausing to catch my breath halfway through a distance run. This weekend comes as a gift after the crazy, risky schedule of March and leading up to the inevitable whirlwind of an April laden with campus events, investigative Bible studies, traveling, visioning for next year, and prayerfully ending this one well. A weekend to pause and reflect, not only on the year that has been and the month to come, but on the reason why we continue to labor in Hope and Anticipation, is a tiny reminder of the Gift that stood before the executioners he came to save so long ago.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.

Isaiah 53:5

As promised, I wanted to give you an update as to how last week's Proxe Stations went on campus. Overall, I would tell you that we were extremely satisfied with the week. We were given a prominent and public space on campus even during a campus-wide, event-heavy social justice emphasis week. A few administrators and faculty members went through the station with words of encouragement and gratitude that we were engaging the campus in this fashion. Several young leaders in InterVarsity received significant experience in sharing their faith, many for the first time. My staff partner and I walked away with an invaluable deepening of our understanding of students on campus - from their unflinching hope in education and awareness to fix the world to their difficulty in naming their own personal contributions to injustice. Our chapter was united and emboldened by the opportunity and many of them are hopeful that we will do another similar station next semester. For those of you who like numbers (as I do), here's a breakdown:

• 16 - the number of SLU IV students who gained significant experience sharing their faith (around 70% of the chapter)
  
• 163 - the number of students who went through the Proxe Station in 4 days (15 total hours)
• 67 - the number of students who indicated that they would like to further investigate Jesus with folks from InterVarsity
• $716 - the amount of money raised at our adjacent table which sold jewelry handmade by former sex slaves in Nepal, all of which will go into their hands to provide a dignified income for themselves and their familes (check out the incredible Christian Foundation for Education for more details)

I want to end this update by thanking you so much for your prayers, encouraging e-mails and text messages, and other support that you poured out on us last week. My staff partner and I were pretty drained by Wednesday morning and I have to believe that it was your prayers that carried us through Friday. I am beginning to understand more and more why Jesus prayed that we would be one, even as he and the Father are one. I can't imagine doing this without you. In the spirit of our unity, the healing work that God is doing on campus at SLU, and especially in light of this holy weekend, I leave you with a passage from John Stott's Basic Christianity that I have been meditating on today. Peace to you dear friend.

Paul described his work as a "ministry of reconciliation" and his gospel as a "message of reconciliation." He also made it quite clear where this reconciliation comes from. God is its author, he says, and Christ is the one through whom he brings it about. "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ." Again, "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ." Everything that was achieved through the death of Jesus on the cross had its origin in the mind and heart of the eternal God. No explanation of Christ's death or humanity's salvation that downplays this fact does justice to the teaching of the Bible. "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Again, "God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether thingss on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross."
But what does this "reconciliation" mean? The answer is that it indicates either an action by which two parties in conflict are brought together or the state in which their oneness is enjoyed and expressed...Sin caused a separation between us and God; the cross, the crucifixion of Christ, has brought us back together. Sin made us enemies; the cross brought peace. Sin created a gulf between us and God; the cross has bridged it. Sin broke the relationship; the cross has restored it.