NSO 2011: Week One by the Numbers

9 out of 11 Core Leaders pose with me at our Pre-Fall Retreat

Here are some important numbers from the past week:  350+, 160, 101, 12, 2, 17.  I guess some context would help...

• 350+ = the number of cold drinks handed out to freshmen by SLU InterVarsity leaders in less than 2 hours
• 160 = the number of new people who filled out a contact card indicating their interest in InterVarsity
• 101 = the number of those folks who are interested in being in a Bible study this semester
• 12 = the number interested in investigating Christianity
• 2 = the number of GIGs (Groups Investigating God - a Bible study designed for someone just checking out Christianity for the first time) that have already been started in the first week of school
• 17 = the number of freshmen we crammed into an apartment living room for Brunch Bunch, our first freshmen-only event this morning

If those numbers seem large to you, let me be the first to say that we have been blown away by this freshmen class.  I don't think we have ever collected more than 100 contact cards or had a Brunch Bunch larger than 12 or 13 people.  As you can probably guess, it's been a week full of many small panics and an overarching feeling of tired joy.

Today (Sunday), the Core Team and I took a mini-Sabbath retreat together at Forest Park here in Saint Louis.  We are spending our bi-weekly gatherings this semester in Luke 9-10 and today's time was spent in the story of Jesus Feeding the 5000 (Luke 9:10-17).  As I was lying out in the grass on Art Hill this afternoon, I could not help but see the parallel between this story and our stories from the past week.  The apostles have done much in their traveling - preaching the Kingdom,  casting out demons, healing the sick - yet they are reminded once again how much they need Jesus.  In fact, Luke tells us that after all 5,000 (plus women and children) had been fed and were satisfied, "the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over" (v. 17).  With every step of stooping down to pick up leftovers, the Twelve (each with their own basket) are reminded of Jesus' ability to provide.

As the twelve of us (eleven leaders plus me) have labored together this past week in prayer and hospitality, we have been tempted to rely on our own strength, charisma, and talents.  There have been a few different times this week when, like the Twelve, I wondered (literally) "How will we feed this many people?"  Today, however, we too were reminded of our need to stay close to the One Who Provides.  Much has been done and much is left to do, but we serve a God of wells that will not run dry, a God who can satisfy our thirst.

Here are a few more pictures from the first week of NSO (New Student Outreach):

Core Team setting up our Freshmen Water Bottle Giveaway

Welcoming Freshmen!

Heading to the Soccer Game!

Missionary Summer Living

It's officially over 100 degrees right now in Saint Louis. I'm not normally a shorts-wearer but today is one of those days where you just have to make an exception. But despite the heat, I do love Saint Louis in the summer. It's a great summer city. There are lots of free things to do, plenty of green space, and several walkable neighborhoods that make summer not only fun but fast. It's hard to believe, but the summer is already more than half over for SLU students. In exactly seven weeks, they will begin the first classes of the 2011-2012 school year, my fourth year on staff with InterVarsity (wow!). Several friends have been asking what the typical summer looks like for an InterVarsity staff. Here are a few things that I've been up to so far this summer:

Training/Traveling
I've had the pleasure this summer of spending a few days here and there with some close friends who also happen to be some of the most gifted college ministers I know. Back in early June, I spent four days in Pella, IA with other second- and third-year staff from the Central Region (Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas). We are all part of a new staff training curriculum for which we receive a couple of transferable seminary credits (bonus!). In late June, I spent another four days in Madison, WI (InterVarsity HQ and a beautiful city!) with staff from all over the country (see above picture). Each of us had been selected to serve as Regional Trainers in Chapter Building and were receiving training in training, as it was. One of the new responsibilities I'll have this upcoming year will be to facilitate training in my region for staff of established chapters as they think about how to achieve lasting growth (numerically and spiritually) in their chapters over the long haul. It was a blast and I'm excited to see what God does in our region as have these conversations.

Fund-raising
As you know, one of the primary responsibilities of any InterVarsity staff is to put together a team of people who financially support and prayerfully intercede for the ministry. I have to give God praise because it feels like there has been a lot of momentum in this area for me this summer. I am currently around 75% of the way toward raising the $54,000 needed to encourage and empower student missionaries this year at SLU. I've gotten to meet with several new and returning supporters and friends this summer who have been so encouraging for my soul after a long year of ministry. Thanks so much for your continued support - honestly, I would have thrown in the towel a long time ago if you weren't constantly praying for and encouraging me.

Preaching
One of the fun opportunities that seems to come my way every summer is preaching at local churches. I actually love getting the chance to preach anytime that I can. Ever since I've been a Christian, I've felt most connected to Jesus through the reading of his Word. Preaching gives me the chance to immerse myself in a single passage of Scripture for at least a week and I love it! This Sunday, I'll be preaching on Joshua 22 at Rooftop Community Church in Saint Louis. I'll also be preaching on the evening of August 7th at Third Baptist Church in my hometown of Marion, IL.

RELAXING :)
Ahh...yes - I have also been doing this. As I said, Saint Louis is a great city to be in during the summer, as long as you can get past the oppressive humidity. As a native Midwesterner, I've learned to manage. I've really treasured having a bit more time this summer to see family, be around friends, read some great books (see below for recommendations!), and spend time outside. I'm looking to take a vacation to the great state of North Carolina at the end of July. I've always wanted to go and see the mountains, so I'm finally going to do it this summer!

I'll keep you posted as we get closer to time for the students to return. For now, please be praying for our upcoming Leader's Retreat, happening August 24--25 in Saint Louis. Thanks and have a great week!

If you're curious, here is my summer reading list thus far:

• Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity and Why It Matters by David Kinnaman with Gabe Lyons - a thought-provoking and incredibly well-researched look at faith trends in 18-29 year-olds
  
  
• Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears - a helpful, popular overview of major Christian doctrines and their Scriptural bases
  
  
• The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton - my first novel by one of my favorite thinkers, this was a strange ride all the way until the last page when everything came together beautifully
  
  
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - a classic and one of my favorite all-time books, it was fun to see the movie for the first time immediately after finishing it again. On a related note, I have a major literary crush on Elizabeth Bennet
  
  
• A Separate Peace by John Knowles - the first "classic" novel I ever read, dating way back to freshman year of high school. The second time around, I was able to appreciate even more how perfectly Knowles captures the darker side of being a competitive teenage boy.
  
  
• The Monster in the Hollows by Andrew Peterson - Peterson is my all-time favorite songwriter and his fiction series, The Wingfeather Saga, of which this is the third installment, is way up there in my list of children's fiction. On a side note, this is the second time in a row that I've cried at least once in finishing one of his novels but I will point out that they were quite manly tears both times.
  
  
• High Fidelity by Nick Hornby - Hornby is a guilty-pleasure read for me. His work is always a bit crude but spot-on to the experience of being a neurotic male (of which I have some...okay lots of experience). For added fun, check out the John Cusack movie of the same name.
  
  
• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - I just started this one but I'm already impressed by Card's character development, unique literary structure, and addictive writing style. I read 60 pages last night before realizing it was past 1am.
  

Catalyst 2011: A SLU Recap

Every May, InterVarsity students from all over Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, and Missouri (we call it the Central Region) gather at Camp Windermere in Roach, MO for one of two weeks of InterVarsity's end-of-the-year conference, called Catalyst. Students hang out with old friends one more time before summer and make new friends along the way. They spend their days hearing excellent Bible teaching, worshiping in a variety of styles and languages, receiving leadership training to take back to campus next year, and eating lots and lots of camp food. I attended the very first Catalyst ever back in the Spring of my freshman year in college, back in 2006. It was a talk at that Catalyst that eventually led to me joining InterVarsity staff. Needless to say, I love Catalyst and look forward to the experience for my students every year.

This year I had a couple of fun opportunities to serve at Catalyst, besides getting to be with my students who came for the second week of the conference:

The Call
One of my favorite things about my job is getting to be a part of the journey of folks who are investigating Jesus for the first time but would not yet call themselves "Christians." At Catalyst, I had the opportunity to help lead a track designed for students in that very place. We spent four sessions together studying stories about Jesus from John and talking about our own fears, frustrations, and questions about Christianity, Scripture, and Christian people. It was insightful and, at times, challenging, to hear the concerns leveled against the Church and the Bible by these polite, well-spoken college students. They allowed myself and the other staff into their journeys and it was a joy to be with them along the way. We spent the week praying for them and encouraging them and trying to answer their questions to best of our abilities. Praise God! By the end of Catalyst, four of the students from the track made decisions to follow Jesus! It was such a treat to hear them share their testimonies in the main session after walking with them for even a couple of days. What a gift!

Leading Worship
I've devoted a whole blog post to this experience at Catalyst. Feel free to read about it here.

But, my own personal highlight came from spending time with the SLU students. On the third night of the second week, our Regional Director gave a talk about surrendering all of ourselves to Jesus, not just the parts we feel comfortable with. After the session, I noticed that one of the girls from SLU had been crying. I asked her if she wanted to talk and so we sat down together. She told me that she had come to Catalyst hoping to grow closer to God but felt like the opposite had happened. She told me that she had been living a very religious life of attending church regularly and praying daily. When she performed the routine, she felt good about herself and her faith. When she failed to, she despaired and wondered if God still loved her. She told me she'd been crying during the session because she knew that there were parts of herself that she was unwilling to surrender to Jesus. She wanted to follow him and become a Christian but didn't know if she could give up these parts.

We talked about God's unconditional love and the problems with living "religiously," where our performance is what earns our favor with God. We talked about Jesus' sacrifice and how freedom comes from surrendering ourselves wholly to him, not from being "good enough." After an hour or so of conversation, she decided that she was willing to make the leap and trust Jesus with her life. We prayed together and she gave her life to Jesus! She was so excited that she couldn't wait to share her story with the rest of the SLU chapter. The next night, she stood in front of fourteen new brothers and sisters and shared her painful journey to Jesus. After she finished, the students clapped and gave her a group hug. They prayed for her and praised our God for his saving work in her life. I'm guessing you can see why this was my favorite moment from Catalyst.

Praise God it's been a big year. It was difficult at lots of points but always sustained by Jesus. Thank you so much for your prayers and constant encouragement. I am so excited to continue partnering with you in reaching all of Saint Louis University with the life-changing, hope-bringing, joy-filling Gospel of Jesus. Thanks again from all of us at SLU InterVarsity!

Catalyst 2011: Worship-Leading and Me

I play guitar. I've been playing since I was about 16. I started writing lyrics around age 14 because I thought girls were attracted to songwriters. At 16, I became convinced that I could increase the attraction if I could actually play and sing the songs myself. I bought John Mayer's Room for Squares album and started writing songs like his, thinking that his charisma and appeal could be transferred by osmosis to me. This had mixed results at best.

Then this funny thing happened. I was part of the youth group at my church and, as happens to lots of Christians who happen to also be musicians, I was asked to lead worship for the youth group. As a teenage boy with a strong-though-subtle arrogant streak, I of course accepted any opportunity to be on stage holding my guitar (where all the girls could see me). I played in the praise band with some friends for a couple of years at the youth service and had a blast. I didn't know the first thing about leading people in worship but I loved playing music and serving the youth group.

Flash forward to college. I started writing more seriously and fell in love with the artistic process of communicating my story and perspective through words and music in making a connection with other people. I even put together a band and recorded an album of my songs. We started playing a lot in coffeeshops, churches, and restaurants around Saint Louis. Along the way, another funny thing happened. I became really disinterested in the idea of leading worship and even a little frustrated with "worship music" in general. C.S. Lewis once said that music in churches sounded to him like "fourth-rate poetry set to fifth-rate music" and I agreed. As my own musicianship deepened, I became annoyed by the predictable and seemingly shallow lyrics (note again the arrogance) that I was singing in church. When people would ask me to be on worship teams, I refused. I didn't connect with the music I heard in church and didn't think it was fair to lead people in singing songs I disliked and couldn't relate to. I still loved the sermons and community I found at church but mostly just tuned out during the worship.

Then, the last funny thing happened. I came on staff with InterVarsity. One of the values we have in InterVarsity is multi-ethnicity, which basically means that we believe that God's Kingdom is made up of people from across all times, places, tribes, cultures, languages, and musical styles. As I started going to staff gatherings, my "worship walls" came tumbling down. I sang incredible Latin songs with Spanish lyrics and complicated rhythms. I sang Gospel music with amazing dynamics and complex chord structures. I sang old hymns with beautiful poetry and equally rich theology. I saw worship leaders who were listening to the Spirit and actually leading people and not just leading music. My heart started to soften to the idea of worship music and to worship-leading in general. God was changing me.

The past couple years, I have had the opportunity to lead worship at a few different InterVarsity conferences for staff and students and I have fallen in love with it. At our recent student conference, Catalyst 2011, I was blessed with the opportunity of putting together two different teams of staff and student worship leaders. We met and practiced and became friends over the course of the semester. We learned each other's strengths and weaknesses and built chemistry as a team of musicians. But, more importantly, we worshiped together. We let the Spirit move in our practices and got ready to do the same at the conference. It was a beautiful thing. For the first time, I felt like I could hear the Spirit speaking to me while I was leading the music. I could sense when we needed to keep repeating a chorus or when I needed to say something to the worshipers that I felt like God wanted them to know. In a sense, it wasn't that different than having coffee with one of my students. I listened to Jesus and expected him to say something that they needed to hear when they needed to hear it.

As I grow as a worship-leader, the most important thing I'm growing in is hearing from Jesus. Musicianship and arranging will come with practice. Hearing from Jesus is a gift he gives when we actually stop to listen. We hear his voice as we stop talking and worrying about what people are thinking. I'm grateful for the gift and the Giver.

Wait, What Month Is It?

Happy March everyone! It's hard to believe but it is in fact the first day of a new month. January and February have flown by and we are already almost halfway through the Spring Semester. Crazy.

A lot has happened in these first two months and I wanted to give you a brief rundown of all the good things we've seen God doing on campus at SLU:

New Bible Studies. This semester, we've seen three new ongoing Bible studies planted by students, bringing our total to six with one more in process as I write. What I love about these groups is that they are focused on specific subgroups of students within the greater SLU community (we call them "neighborhoods"). We have students leading studies in the Black Student Alliance, among the fraternity/sorority community (see picture above), on the medical campus, with international students, and in two different freshmen dorm communities. We're looking to start a couple more in another freshmen dorm and with commuter students before the year ends. Studying Scripture with InterVarsity is what made me fall in love with reading the Bible in college and I am a big believer in the power of the Spirit working through the Scriptures to bring real change and healing in the lives of students. Exciting!

New Brother and Sisters. After being on campus for the past 6 years, first as a student and now as a staff, and seeing very few if any people become followers of Jesus and join the family, it's been difficult to keep hoping that we would see a movement of the Spirit in the hearts of folks seeking after God. I am overwhelmed and humbled to tell you that we have seen three students come to faith in the last month, each of whom were led to faith by a friend from our Core Team of leaders. I wish I could better communicate the joy that comes in receiving these phone calls from students where the joy is so thick in their voice that I know exactly what they're about to tell me. Mostly I just laugh and yell like a crazy person trying to get them to calm down and tell me the story. It's the most thrilling experience I've ever had to see so much happening at once. I think I could get used to this...

New Missionaries. At SLU, our desire is to see a multi-ethnic community of missionaries raised up among the student body. We don't want people to just become followers of Jesus (though that's obviously a BIG deal!); we want to see them become missionary followers of Jesus who are willing to share the hope and healing they've found with other folks on campus. As Jesus says himself in Luke 10 - "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." In line with this call, my students and I are pretty passionate about helping the followers of Jesus we meet on campus realize this part of what it means to be a Christian. My Core Team of leaders is especially dedicated to seeing new InterVarsity students get connected to the community, learn how to share their story of meeting Jesus, and maybe even start a Bible study of their own one day soon! So, as we start these new studies, we're always looking for the next bunch of new folks who could one day be doing the same. Praise God - we're finding them faster than we can train them this semester! So far, we've invited two new leaders up into the Core Team and hoping to end the year with 20 leaders in our chapter. Pray with us that the Lord of the Harvest would indeed send out more workers into the field.

The Spirit is on the move and we are tired but excited at the halfway point this semester. He has been so exceedingly good to us and we give Him praise and glory for all that we've been graced to see. Pray that we would continue to search for (and find!) where the Father is at work on campus so that we can join Him in the work He has been doing since long before we arrived and will continue to do long after we're gone. Peace to you friends.

While the Students Are Away...

Today was the first day back to school for SLU students. They had their last day of finals exactly five weeks ago and now they've officially begun the Spring Semester. Books have been bought, stories from break have been told, and new routines are being established. It is always exciting to see my students again after weeks of praying for them from afar in my apartment and various coffee shops across the city. I loved hearing their stories of how Jesus met them over break and what they're excited about for the semester to come. Already today I've spoken to two different students who are excited about starting brand new Bible studies for the Spring! Inevitably, the question comes back to me, "So, Kale - what do you do while we're gone?" Great question!

I had several highlights over Christmas break but I'll share just a few of them with you here:

Regional Staff Conference (Dec. 13-16)
Like many national organizations, InterVarsity is subdivided geographically. I am on staff at Saint Louis University, which is part of the Missouri Area, which is part of the Central Region (Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri make up this Region). The picture you see above is the Missouri Area staff team, representing 7 chapters at 5 different schools. We're holding our boss, Elizabeth, who is the Area Director here in the "Show Me State." Every December, our Area gets together with the rest of the Region for a four-day-long Staff Conference. This time is always refreshing and fun for me. There is plenty of time to relax and reconnect with Jesus and old friends. I have never met a more talented or more fun bunch of people than the folks that I get to work with. It's both incredibly intimidating and encouraging to spend four days with people that I went through college looking up to and am now blessed to call my friends and co-workers. The biggest highlight for me of this time was spending time with the entire community studying John 21 as a group. Hearing Jesus reinstate Peter after the Resurrection is always powerful but this time around it was like he was speaking directly to me when he continued trusting Peter even after Peter had betrayed him. I connected to it so much that I decided to come back and preach on it at Rooftop Community Church, my home here in Saint Louis. If you're interested, you can listen to the sermon here.

Down Time
After Regional Staff Conference wrapped up, I got to travel to Nashville, TN for a few days to stay with some friends and attend an annual Christmas concert put on by my favorite songwriter, Andrew Peterson. If you haven't bought his album, Behold the Lamb of God, do yourself a favor and get it immediately. It's not really a Christmas album; actually it's more of an epic song cycle telling the story of the coming of Jesus into the world, from the Old Testament to the Gospels. I travel to see Andrew and a crew of some of the most talented musicians in Nashville perform this show every year and it seems to be getting better and better as the years go by. Incredible. I was blessed to spend some time in my hometown of Marion, IL with family over the Christmas weekend, which was also relaxing and refreshing. I love Saint Louis but there is a part of me that will always feel at home in Illinois.

The Planning Process
I returned to Saint Louis and began laying down some serious plans for this semester. I had been praying about the Spring for weeks already and I started to receive some of the coordinates of where I felt like God was leading me in putting together the Spring Semester for InterVarsity at SLU. We never know exactly what these four months will hold but God has always been faithful to begin preparing me for the journey ahead well in advance, even when I don't see it at the time. You'll hear more about the semester to come in a week or so but suffice it say for now that we have some BOLD plans down on the calendar and lots of space for Jesus to do some crazy things on campus this semester. I am beyond excited and now that the students are back I'm ready to put my hands to the plow! I'll be getting together with my leaders this coming weekend to cast vision for our semester and call each of us back to focusing our eyes on Jesus and our hearts toward our friends and professors at SLU who desperately need to meet him.

National Staff Conference (Jan 5-9)
The last major highlight for me from the past five weeks was National Staff Conference, the triennial gathering of InterVarsity staff from around the country to our own fair city of Saint Louis. 1200 InterVarsity staff from the U.S. spent four days together last week in community reflecting on one of the three tenants of our national vision: "Students and Faculty Transformed, Campuses Renewed, World Changers Developed." This year, we focused on the theme of "Campuses Renewed," thinking about questions such as "What does it mean for us to participate in the academic sphere of our campuses, not just the spiritual?" and "What role should InterVarsity play in speaking the Truth not only to individuals but also into structures and ideas of injustice happening around us on the campus and in the cities?" These are obviously enormous questions with equally enormous implications. I felt Jesus challenging me to think even bigger about how he wants to use my students and I to be a true blessing not just to students and faculty at SLU, but to the institution of Saint Louis University - its ideas, perspectives, structures, and culture. Fascinating.

Hopefully that gives you a good idea of what my "break" looked like. I feel so blessed to have had these past five weeks to spend time with Jesus and with folks like you who love my students and I and are excited to watch the Kingdom come on campus. Thank you for praying for us - we beg you to continue to do so and to pray even more often and more boldly that Jesus would move in power and that we would see many people at SLU come to know him this semester. We are going to keep our eyes on him and we trust that we'll have some incredible stories to share with you Along the Way. I'll leave you with the following video, which I'm proud to say was shown to all 1200 national InterVarsity staff this past week at our conference. It's a testimony of God's work through a difficult time on our campus last year. Enjoy!

Saint Louis University from InterVarsity-twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas From SLU InterVarsity!

It's Final Exam Season here on campus. Students wander listlessly from the library to the cafeteria to the exam room to the dorm room and repeat. Energy is low, coffee shop lines are long, and the longing to leave this chilly Midwestern campus for a few weeks increases with every turn of the textbook page.

As has become the norm for me as InterVarsity Staff, the times when students are the busiest is normally the time when on-campus events and ministry lessens and the need for pastoral care and opportunities for students to "escape" campus for a few hours increases. In that spirit, my leaders and I hosted our annual Bacon 'n' Waffles Christmas Party this past Monday evening. "Breakfast for dinner for Christmas?" you may be incredulously wondering. Point taken but here's the story: long ago, before even I was a student at SLU (pre-2005), InterVarsity leadership on our campus was made up of mostly men. When asked what they thought would make a great Christmas party, the men replied, "Bacon...and waffles." Thus, a tradition was born of which I am only the humble recipient. Though I must say, I'm not complaining.

As has been the case for most of the events we've hosted this semester, my faith in God's ability to bring people waxed and waned throughout the day leading up to Bacon 'n' Waffles. I wondered if we'd have enough cars (or too many!), if we'd have enough food, or if anyone would honestly miss out on 2-3 hours of studying just to come eat breakfast food a few blocks from campus. And again, as has been the case all semester long, God showed up everywhere I needed him to and then some. At 6:50pm, I pulled my car behind one of the freshmen dorms to pick up students and found 20 people (the number we were expecting) waiting in the cold for me. As I waited for a few minutes, 10 more showed up. Enter the transportation panic - "How do I move 30 people using 4 cars?" Enter God - 3 of the 10 had brought their own cars with them. Then my mind turned to the food. We'd been expecting 20 or so - would the team of 3 I left behind in the kitchen possibly have had time to make the 20 or so extra waffles we would now need? Again, enter God - yes they did and plenty of bacon to spare as well.

So I just stopped worrying. I decided to go along for the ride and we had a great time. About 35 people in all came through the party, 5 of whom I was meeting for the first time - my students are such great inviters! About 10 of the folks you see in the picture above aren't following Jesus; they're simply friends of people who are and find our community of Jesus-followers attractive and fun - what a gift! One of my primary Core leaders reminded me that night that she had first come into our community at this same party two years before. Five months after first meeting us, she gave her life to Jesus. One year after that she joined our Core Team and started inviting other people to meet him. Who knows what Jesus might do with this year's new group of Bacon 'n' Waffles attendees? Join me in praying boldly that God would continue telling this story of transformation over Christmas break and as we start up again in January!

From all of us here at SLU InterVarsity, we pray that you have a peaceful Advent Season and a blessed Christmas! Thank you for partnering with us as we continue to speak the Great Story into the lives of students and faculty at Saint Louis University - we couldn't do it without your constant encouragement, prayers, and support. Merry Christmas!

Jesus, Sex & Dating: A Recap

"This event was great!! Speakers were on point! I look forward to future events." - First time InterVarsity attendee

"I liked discussing [sex and dating] directly with people in person. I also liked knowing how Jesus fits in to sexual relationships." - Occasional InterVarsity attendee

"It was nice that everyone was so open and willing to speak their minds but also to listen to others without shutting people down or being condescending." - Regular InterVarsity attendee

It's been a fascinating week. Starting last Tuesday, fourteen SLU InterVarsity students and I engaged in eighteen combined hours of evangelism around the topic of Jesus, sex, and dating. We talked to dozens of SLU students on every corner of campus and, as we invited them to join us for our event, we asked them questions about their own understanding of sex in our culture, their advice on dating, and whether or not Jesus had anything to say on the topic. Here's a few examples of what we learned:

• Most of the students we surveyed never had "the sex talk" from their parents growing up.
• According to the students we surveyed, the average person has sex for the first time at age 16.
  
• Only 55% of the students we surveyed think that sex is always a spiritual act.

Even in looking at these few pieces of data, I think you can gather both the necessity and a bit of the magnitude of attempting to make a connection between Jesus, dating, and sex. We heard lots of stories of brokenness from past relationships gone bad, of hurt and abuse from family members, and even of pain from poor handling of the subject by church leaders. We knew that this conversation would be important and we prayed that it would be a place of healing for many for whom sex and dating had only added to the brokenness.

At 6pm on Monday night, my leaders and I gathered to pray and set up the room. At 7pm, students started showing up, trickling in slowly in clusters of 2-3. They were greeted with name tags, themed snack options (Forbidden Fruit Snacks and Name-All-the-Animal Crackers - Genesis 2 shout-out), and friendly conversation from one or more of my students (they're so talented at hospitality!). As we got ready to start the event, we looked around and realized that nearly every one of the 60 chairs we had set up was taken - we estimate that about 55 SLU students were in attendance, making this InterVarsity's biggest campus outreach ever at SLU. The students began the night in table groups that rotated every five minutes, discussing various questions related to the night's topic, including questions like "What do you think about interfaith dating?" and "What is your view of your parents' relationship? Healthy or unhealthy?"

After about twenty-five minutes of table group discussion, my friend Andrea (IV staff at Washington University) and I gave our presentation on how Jesus connects to dating and sex. We talked about how God created humanity to be in relationship with one another, reaching its apex with sexual intimacy in the context of marriage. We talked about how humanity introduced brokenness and sin into the world in our suspicion that God was holding out on us and that we could control our own lives. We shared stories from our past of relationships gone bad. But, we also talked about hope. We talked about the freedom that Jesus came to offer from this cycle of broken relationships. We talked about the woman caught in adultery in John 8 and how we too can leave our baggage at the feet of Jesus, how we too can be healed of this disease that we've inherited.

When we finished, we asked students to respond to the presentation personally on response cards and then in their table groups as well. We rounded out the night with a time of Q&A where the students could submit index cards with specific questions for Andrea and myself. We tacked subjects from physical boundaries in Christian dating to homosexuality to how to find healing from past relationships. Several students stayed after to continue their conversations and ask for prayer from staff and IV leaders.

All in all, it was a fantastic evening - I'm so proud of my leaders for loving their campus so well in the past week, which was one of the most academically rigorous weeks of the semester so far. They had great conversations, invited lots of their friends, and displayed true servant leadership as they welcomed new faces into our community. Next week is our final Edge for the semester and I'll be excited to see who from the event decides to get plugged into our permanent community. Thank you so much for your prayers for our week of evangelism and for my own preparations for the evening - we would not have made it without you! I'll leave you with a few more of my favorite pictures from the evening:

So It's Kind of a Touchy Subject...

A couple of months ago, I sat down with some of my leaders and talked about what kinds of events we wanted to do over the course of the semester. They mentioned offhandedly that it would be great to have an event focused on sex and dating relationships because they had lots of questions and thought their friends would have lots of questions as well. So we put a date on our calendar - November 22nd - and decided that would be our night to talk about sex and dating. Sounds innocent enough, right? Just an InterVarsity staff worker trying to help some students piece together their thoughts on a confusing and sometimes painful subject. No big deal.

Then my mind started going. Wow, sex is a pretty touchy subject, I thought. It's not just Christians who have questions and opinions - everybody has questions and opinions about sex and dating. Wouldn't it be great if we could get lots of people who aren't following Jesus into the room to talk about it as well? Oh wait...what if we could somehow do some evangelistic conversations based on sex and dating and then invite people to come to the event to hear what Jesus thinks? That would be fascinating. How would that work exactly?

Well, we probably would want to gather some hard data about what our campus actually thinks about the subject so we should probably do a survey. But it would be fun if we could also do something that was a bit more of a spectacle to draw attention to the controversial nature of the topic. Then, the image of the poster you see in that picture above came to mind. Oh wow, I thought, wouldn't it be great to make a bunch of these posters and put them up in random gathering places on campus where a few of my students could engage people in conversation? But who would be willing to do that?

Turns out, about 15 of my students would be willing to do that. Their eyes got really big when I told them about my idea, but they signed up all the same. So we held some training and spent some time talking about Jesus and now they are heading out this week to intentionally get themselves into some pretty sensitive conversations about Jesus, Sex & Dating. They're going to ask some tough questions. They're going to tell some tender stories. They're going to talk about the healing they found in Jesus. And they're going to invite people to come to an event where they can find that same healing. Big week, right?

Here's where you come in. We need your prayers. We've never done anything like this before. Would you pray that God sets up fantastic conversations for myself and my students? Would you pray that He opens our eyes to see exactly the right people who need to hear from Him? Would you pray for a staff friend and I as we write a talk that both explains what sex was originally designed for and how Jesus brings healing to the ways we've abused it? Who knows what might happen when that many students dedicate a week of time to engaging people with the Good Story? I'll keep you posted.

A Few Good Problems

I am a dreamer. By nature, I just tend to set big goals and have big expectations for myself and for those around me. I like thinking far into the future and imagining what God could do in my life and in our ministry at SLU weeks, months, even years from now. Sometimes this works against me. I sometimes spend so much time dreaming that I forget to plan how any of these dreams will actually become a reality. Sometimes I think I (or my leaders) can accomplish more within a certain time frame than is actually reasonable. I like to think big picture and sometimes I get a bit ahead of myself.

When I sat down to set some goals for this current school year last May, I tried to be realistic. At the time, we were averaging about 20 students at our weekly meeting, which we call the Edge. I wanted to set a goal for how many people would be attending by the end of the first semester of this year. I thought 30 sounded reasonable but still something we could dream about and work toward. 30 would move us beyond the capacity of our previous meeting space and be a 50% growth from the previous semester. Sounds great right? Yep, I thought so too.

At our first Edge, back in early September, we had about 40 people show up. I was thrilled but honestly, not too surprised. Last year, at the first Edge, we also had about 40 people show up. That number quickly dropped to 20, then 15-16 for the rest of the first semester before coming up to 20 again by May. My Core Team and I were excited but we didn't really know what to expect. The next week another 40+ people showed up, including a few new faces we hadn't seen before. We were even more tightly crammed in than the previous week as our room comfortably seats 35 but reaches capacity around 45. The next week we reached capacity. 45 people scrunched and squeezed into the room to hear about Jesus and the Rich Young Ruler. We started realizing that maybe this wasn't a fluke. Maybe we should start looking for a new room to meet in. Maybe we should figure out some smaller groups for these people to meet in to connect with each other and Jesus and to be trained in mission. We prayed about this, made a few calls, and waited to see what would happen the next week...

Last night, we fortunately managed to secure a one-time meeting in a large room in the Student Center. We got there early and set everything up, praying that God would use our bigger space to bring more people to hear about him. We set out some sign-up sheets for people to indicate interest in being part of a smaller community Bible study, including an evangelistic Bible study where they could come and just ask questions about Jesus, the Bible, Christianity, or anything else that was on their hearts. Last night, we reached 50 people for the first time. 50 SLU students sat in a room together studying Jesus' interaction with the woman caught in adultery from John 8. We talked about Jesus the Savior, the one who puts our sins on his shoulders and offers us new life. After the study wrapped, nearly everyone stood up to sign up for a Bible study community, including 10 people indicating interest in being a part of a GIG to investigate what they really believe about Jesus!

Let me remind you, I was planning for 30 people by December. Not 50 by October. This is what I love about my job: who knows what God is going to do? Who knows!? My Core Team and I have no idea what is going to happen from here, who is going to lead these Bible studies, or what tomorrow may bring our way. We've been hanging on by the seat of our pants all semester and we're here for the ride at this point. That being said, we have a few GREAT problems we'd love for you to pray about right now:

• This weekend is Fall Conference. SLU has 24 people registered which is the biggest group we've ever taken to a conference. However, we are still a few spaces short on cars and trying to coordinate with the other IV chapters in Saint Louis on how to get all of our students to the Conference. It seems like the other staff are also experiencing these good problems :) Please pray that we find transportation and that God does some incredible work in the lives of students this weekend (especially the 4-5 from SLU who don't yet know Jesus!)
• We found a new space to meet that has capacity for 100! I'm sure you can imagine right now where my mind is going :) But, it's very new, in a different location than our folks are used to, and has its own challenges in terms of the need to rearrange furniture, set up the audio/visual equipment every week, and generally just to get used to being in a new space. Would you pray that we overcome the technical difficulties of getting adjusted to meeting somewhere new as quickly as possible and that God continues to bring more and more people to hear about him now that we have space to be a bit more hospitable?
• We have 40 people or so signed up as interested in being part of a smaller Bible study community. Would you pray for wisdom for my Core Team and I as we figure out who will be leading these communities and for the Spirit to move as we hope to build tighter relationships with these 40+ people around Scripture and taking the love of Jesus to our campus?
• As a side note, I'm giving one of the main talks at Fall Conference this weekend. Please pray for me as I finish preparing this week. Pray that the Spirit will guide my preparation and the direction of the talk. Pray that many people will come to faith because of the seeds being planted this weekend and through the relationships being formed in our IV communities.

As always, thanks for your prayers. Hopefully, my next post will be about all of the incredible things God did at Fall Conference!

The Average Week

Hello faithful blog reader. It's a sunny and beautiful day here in midtown Saint Louis and I pray that the day finds you well and reminded of the gracious love of our God. On this blog, I generally like to go into detail about major happenings in the SLU InterVarsity chapter and in my life in general as I serve as the staff of said chapter. I realize that though not everyone will enjoy the minutia of life as an InterVarsity staff, there are some unique aspects to the missionary life that may at least be interesting enough to hold your attention for a few moments as you sweep through your e-mail inbox. I know this because every once in a while, someone will look at me very curiously when I attempt to answer the question, "So what do you do for a living?" My answer usually elicits two responses:

1. Wow. You fund-raise for a living? What is that like?
2. So what do you actually do during the week? I mean, what does the average week look like for you?

Now, that first question is actually not difficult to answer. The answer is this: I used to hate fund-raising. It's really hard. Really hard. But now I love it. I love it because I love stories. I love telling my story, the stories of my students, the stories of how good God has been to us. I love hearing stories too. I love hearing people say, "Wow, I wish we would have had something like that when I was in college. Here's how I came to know Jesus..." I love praying with and for people and knowing that they pray for me. Honestly, I don't think this job would be as interesting to me if there was just a salary check that came in for me every month from some nebulous fund set up in some office somewhere. The fact that every dollar my students and I spend has a face and a name and jobs and history and struggle attached to it changes everything about how we spend it and how grateful we are that you love us enough to invest in us.

The second question, however, can be challenging. It's been posed to me several times in the past month and every time someone asks, I find myself pausing and asking it back to myself ("Wow, what do I do every week?"). Now part of my hesitation is that every week is a little bit different; the same elements may be present in each week but they are rarely arranged in the same order from week to week. I have to confess, however, that part of my hesitation also comes from some fear and brokenness in me that makes me think if I don't impress the questioner with my answer, they won't think I am a worthwhile investment. There's a part of me that genuinely believes that people won't love me if I don't seem like I will offer a good return on their love. The Fall has shaded my eyes and my heart to see love as a currency that is offered to me only when I deserve it. I pray against this but still it pops up from time to time.

So, in part as an act of transparency and in part as an effort to seek some sort of freedom from that fear, I want to give you an example of what the average week looks like for me as the InterVarsity staff worker at SLU. A few notes before I start:

1. Four days per week I don't work before noon. Those days are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. There are two reasons for this: (1) I am prone to workaholic tendencies. Given the option, I would rather work all day every day until I just pass out from exhaustion. Wisdom has been given to me to see that this is not very wise. Starting at noon guarantees that I don't develop those unattractive gray circles under my eyes. (2) I am young and single. This eliminates the need to be home at a certain hour every night and gives me the freedom to operate on a college student's schedule, which usually means later evenings as opposed to earlier mornings. It also gives me time to spend with Jesus and at the gym those four days.
2. I have one general overriding rule for myself as far as time and work goes. That rule is this: Work 50-60 hours in six days. InterVarsity highly encourages staff to take a Sabbath day every week in which NO work is done for 24 hours. You may have a number of reactions to that rule but trust me when I tell you that it has become my sanity. It does two things for me: (1) It forces me to work efficiently and plan ahead so that everything gets done in six days and (2) it forces me to take time to rest and spend a longer block of time with Jesus that day than I normally would on an average morning. I highly recommend it.

With that in mind, here is my average work week:

Monday - The Edge Day
12pm - Lead prayer with students
1pm - Lunch with students and anyone we meet along the way
2-6pm - Finish any last minute logistics, printing, etc. before The Edge
6pm - Arrive with Core Team to the Edge site and prepare together
7-9pm - The Edge (our weekly large group gathering)
9-10pm - Debrief with Core Team

Tuesday - Fundraising Day
12pm - Pray with students
1pm - Lunch with students and anyone we meet along the way
2-6pm - Fund-raising Administrative Work (letters, this blog, budget stuff)
7-9pm - Phone Calls (calling to invite folks to support InterVarsity at SLU)

Wednesday - My Early Morning :)
6:30am - Meet with my Core Men to Pray
7-8am - Man Breakfast (social event to meet and pray with the men of InterVarsity)
8-9am - Spend time with Jesus
9am-12pm - Work on any planning or prep work for the week's events
12pm - Pray with students
1pm - Lunch with students and anyone we meet along the way
2-6pm - Mission Window (left intentionally open to hang out with Jesus on campus and see what happens)
6:30-8:30pm - Church Small Group
9pm - Lead a Bible study for Fraternity / Sorority students

Thursday - Spying Out the Land
12pm - Pray with students
1pm - Lunch with students and anyone we meet along the way
2-6pm - Mission Window / Staff Meetings (1-2x per month)
6-9pm - Take students to attend other events/groups on campus to meet people and build relationships with the greater SLU community

Friday - SABBATH :)
I usually spend this day at the park, the Basilica, or some other equally quiet and beautiful place just hanging out with Jesus in Scripture and prayer. No plans, no schedules, no cell phone, no laptop. It is glorious.

Saturday - Service and Social Day
Depending on the Saturday, we are either working with a local church to serve the refugee population near SLU, cooking breakfast for freshmen, exploring the different neighborhoods in the city, or hanging out on campus in somebody's apartment. Saturday events are usually great ways to meet and hang out with people on the fringes of the IV community. My Core Team also meets two Saturday mornings each month to be in intentional community together around the Scriptures and to be trained in mission and leadership.

Sunday - Church Day!
8:30am - Take students to church with me
9-11am - Church
1-5pm - Prepare Scripture study for the Edge; Work on any planning or prep work for the week's events
5-7pm - Meetings with students in preparation for the Edge
7-8pm - Put together schedule to prepare for the week

That pretty much wraps it up. If you have any other curiosities about staff life or about how things are going this year, feel free to comment on this post and maybe that will be the next thing I write about! Exciting :)

On Life and Ministry: 4 Things I Learned From Esther Wong

This is a semi-embarrassing (but mostly awesome) picture of my now-former staff partner, Esther, and I at an Ugly Christmas Sweater party during Regional Staff Conference this past December. Next year, Esther will be taking over the staff position of Asian Christian Fellowship, an InterVarsity chapter at Washington University in Saint Louis. I love this picture for several reasons. Above all the others though, I love it because it represents something really true about the two years that Esther and I spent working together at SLU. We are both more naturally introverts and aren't exactly inclined toward things that are beyond our realm of comfort and experience. I remember that it took me about ten minutes after putting on that sweater to actually come out of my room and display it to my co-workers and I love that you can still sort of see some of Esther's discomfort (possibly at standing next to me in my sweater) in her face. We each know our strengths well and tend toward those things that allow us to work from places of strength. However, that wasn't the story that God wanted to tell at SLU the past two years. The past two years have been filled with opportunities for Esther and I to take a step out of the boat on to the crashing waves in following Jesus as staff workers at SLU. We were trying to build something that had never been seen on our campus: a multi-ethnic community of student missionaries. Every word of that phrase is laden with risk and potential conflict and that is exactly what we found in the (still ongoing) construction process. Along the way, we learned how to talk to each other, how to challenge each other, and most importantly, how to forgive each other. Working with a staff partner was the hardest thing I've ever done in ministry but I can honestly say at the end that I wouldn't trade it for anything and that there is no one with whom I'd rather have gone through the past two years. As each of us step up to the helm of our respective chapters as solo staff for the first time, I want to share with you 4 things that I have learned about life and ministry from Esther Wong:

1. The unwavering power of the to-do list. Google is incredible. When Esther and I got together for staff meetings, we would start by opening up a Google doc, which is essentially a Microsoft Word page saved online that you can edit together at the same time. I'm still amazed by this. Usually our meetings go something like this:
   
   Kale (excitedly): Wouldn't it be awesome if we could ______(insert fifteen minutes of Jupiter-sized vision-casting, including impressive-sounding phrases like "pop-culture-SLU" and "missional bootcamp experience")?
   Esther (calmly): Yes, that would be awesome. What do we actually need to do to get that done?
   
   This is when a little to-do list magically appears at the bottom of our document and I'm brought back from the atmosphere into the real world of plan-making and step-taking. I remember discovering this gift of Esther's at our very first interaction with students as a team. Back in August 2008, we had our annual Pre-Fall Retreat with student leaders in Saint Louis and it was Esther's first introduction to our leadership team. We started talking about New Student Outreach and everyone was throwing out ideas. Suddenly, like an organizational lightning bolt, Esther whipped out her laptop and started making a list of things we'd need to buy/borrow/do in order to pull of the events that were being shouted at chaos-level speed from the crowd of visionary thinkers. Ah...the sweet feeling of balance in ministry. Thanks to Esther, all of my planning now has a to-do list at the bottom and ministry generally goes better because of it.
   
   
2. Vulnerability is a virtue. There are several reasons why I'm thankful to have a Y chromosome: longer shorts, less time in the public restroom line, and not being able to give birth come to mind. I love that guys are expected to initiate in dating. I love the idea of being a dad someday. I aspire to be one of the older guys that meets at McDonald's everyday at 7am to talk about current affairs or their families or whatever it is that they talk about (I've always been curious). There are lots of benefits that were designed to come with being a guy. However, one unfortunate weakness added on to our sex as a perversion of the deeper good given to us (a certain degree of emotional resilience and stability) is the cultural expectation that guys never share things that hurt them. We never show a crack in the armor. When guys talk about weakness, they often use language that describes it as something that can be conquered. We usually use words like "struggles" or "hurdles." Nothing ever "hurts" us; we are always either "climbing our mountain" or "overcoming a challenge." Brokenness is not even part of our vocabulary. The strength of this is that we are usually good at helping each other overcome very particular sin issues. One weakness (of many) of this is that we have no language for dealing with brokenness for which we may not even be responsible. For example. all guys experience father-wound, the realization of the limitations of our own fathers and the sorrow over how those limitations have affected (and currently affect) our lives. Most guys never learn to talk about it until they get married or even until they have kids themselves. That sort of vulnerability is not only uncommon, it is almost impossible without direct intervention from someone outside.
   One of the things I appreciate most about Esther is her willingness to share her life with other people. From our very first large group gathering this past year, Esther continually allowed God to speak truth out of her life and share that with students. When she experienced overwhelming conflict in her personal life, she allowed students to pray for her and opened her heart to Jesus in prayer with other people. She told powerful stories of Jesus' redemption in her life, even going into detail at times about the brokenness from which she'd been redeemed. As a guy who often falsely believes that leaders need to be stoic, put-together people, it was so refreshing to hear stories from a strong woman of faith who was willing to admit at all times that she didn't have everything together. As a result of that, our students have become a much stronger story-telling community, willing to share their own stories of rescue and hope in the midst of hurt and sin. In my own life, I've been told by my supervisor that I have become more vulnerable as the year has progressed. I've felt a greater freedom to share sin in my own life with my students so that we can experience freedom together, instead of believing that I need to carry freedom down from the mountain to them. This has been a true gift to my faith.
   
   
3. Sometimes people just need a listening ear. Did I mention I like to talk a lot? It may be another weakness in my fellow Y-chromosomers and I that we generally feel more comfortable as problem-solvers than as active listeners. As a staff worker, I am often blessed with the opportunity to hear the tough stories that happen in the lives of college students. I've been able to pray with a lot of folks over the past couple years and I thank God everyday for giving me a job where I get to deal with broken people - people in need of Jesus just like I am. I must confess, however, that pastoral giftings like counseling and discernment are not natural strengths of mine. God has given me several gifts that are well-suited for the ministry to which He's called me, but I still find myself often wanting to problem-solve when a student or friend comes to me needing to express frustration or hurt or fear. As I've partnered with Esther in ministering to college students, I've noticed a couple of key things about counseling people in her interactions. First, people will usually let you know if they're in need of advice. When tension is high and emotions are raging, it is often the case that people just need to get what's in their heads out into the air so that the Holy Spirit can begin doing His healing work. As someone who is so prone to doling out advice at the drop of the hat, it's been good for me to learn to sit back a little longer and listen to see if that's what people are actually interested in. Second, people need to feel affirmed in who they are. I feel this so much in my own heart when I'm hurting. I need to be reminded that this trial or this sin doesn't name me to Jesus. It doesn't take over my whole identity. I need to be reminded that I'm still a Son of the Kingdom. I need to be reminded that I still have worth and purpose to God. Earlier this semester, a student came to Esther and I after dealing with a painful breakup and, after holding her as she cried, Esther looked at the girl and said, "Baby do you know that Jesus thinks you're beautiful?" I was blown away. So often, our great variety of hurts in this world boil down to some core questions we have about ourselves: Am I lovable? Am I beautiful? Am I respectable? As a guy staff leading a core team that is 75% female, learning to listen and serve my sisters well in conversation is crucial.
   
   
4. Prayer is important. Seriously. This may seem obvious, especially from a missionary, but it's remarkably easy to say and much harder to say truthfully. I'm a problem-solver. I like to attack things head-on. I don't like waiting for anything. When an issue arises, my mind spider-webs into every imaginable scenario and method of fixing the problem. It's been a welcome switch to work with someone for whom the natural reaction to problems arising is prayer. Beyond a reaction to stress, however, Esther also modeled a generally more open-minded approach to prayer in my life. From celebrating together after someone shares a good story to guidance when a pending decision is brewing, I've seen Esther employ prayer in scenarios in which before hadn't occurred to me to pray. I find myself feeling the urge to pray in many different types of situations and to see prayer as pure communication with the Father instead of as a means to the end of intercession or thanksgiving or something more goal-oriented. We pray because we need to stay connected not because we need something done for us. Prayer re-orients us to the will of Jesus; it doesn't re-orient Jesus to my will. Again, this is easy to say but I've been blessed to see it actually lived out for the last two years.

I'll leave you with a few more pictures that are close to my heart. I'm so thankful for the rollercoaster ride that God brought Esther and I through over the past two years. It's been a blast and I'm excited to see what He does with her at Wash U next year. She will be missed but (fortunately) not too far away.

Catalyst 2010: A Recap

The school year is officially over. All of the students (minus the summer school-ers) have packed up and left Saint Louis for the summer. Some are studying abroad; some are returning home. Most are working; some are taking classes. A few are taking mission trips this summer, including one to East Asia with an InterVarsity Global Project. It's been a long, emotional rollercoaster on campus at SLU this semester and, though the sorrows have been mixed with joys, there was an obvious release that came with finishing their last finals for the school year. However, before InterVarsity students stepped into their summer plans, we had one last experience together as a community: Catalyst 2010.

Catalyst is InterVarsity's annual Spring Camp where students from all across the Central Region (my region, which includes Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas) gather to learn from God's word and be inspired as a community. It's a week of fellowship, worship, leadership development, missionary training, storytelling (my favorite!), outdoor fun, delcious camp-food-eating, meeting new people, and deepening relationships with familiar folks. You can probably tell from that ridiculous list that Catalyst is one of my favorite InterVarsity events on the calendar each year. It's one of the experiences that remind me why I do this job in the first place: 130+ college students (170+ counting both weeks of Catalyst) gathered under one roof at a beautiful lakeside camp asking the question "What does Jesus want me to be and do to love my campus well?" This year, nine SLU students attended Catalyst, ranging from rising juniors who have been around IV since day one to a few folks whom we've only met in the past couple months.

A day at Catalyst is basically broken up into three parts: Community Scripture Time, Track Time, and Evening Sessions. This week's Community Scripture text was the second chapter of Acts, including the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Peter's sermon to the crowd, and the description of the communal lifestyle of the first-century church. After spending the morning studying the Scriptures with their fellow Catalyst-ians, they would head to their Tracks. Every student at Catalyst chooses into a Track, or a specific training program that they walk through during the week with everyone else who signed up for that track. There were six different tracks in all, ranging from rediscovering who Jesus is in the book of Mark (mostly aimed at people invesstigating Christianity for the first time) to tracks based on learning missionary leadership strategies on campus. I helped lead the Rediscovering Jesus track, which was a seven-session intensive Scripture study investigating the first four chapters of the book of Mark. We had about 15 people in my track, several of whom were international students investigating Jesus for the first time. I'll give you a couple more highlights from the week but one incredible thing that Jesus did this week at Catalyst was that one of the international students from our Track actually became a Christian at Catalyst! His journey was incredible and as he shared his story with us the next morning, he mentioned feeling like he had "peace" and a "true family" for the first time. His joy was palpable in the room and it was such a wonderful ending to our week of digging deeply into the life of Jesus to see one of the students actually meet him for the first time. Praise God!

Another highlight from our week at Catalyst was the extended worship night that took place on Tuesday. As a staff at Catalyst, we spend most of our time running around making sure things happen as planned and teaching during the track times. Due to the hectic schedule of the week, I hadn't gotten the chance to sit down and be truly present with my students. This night was a great gift to me because I didn't have any extra responsibilities. I got to worship with my students and pray with them and just be their staff worker. It was wonderful - many tears both happy and painful. You could see the rollercoaster that I mentioned earlier being physically breathed out as they cried and as they lifted their hands in praise. It was like we'd been running a distance race together and Tuesday night was the tape breaking at the finish line. We talk a lot about being a family but I am especially thankful for the times when that sentiment can be felt in our interactions together. Personally, I also felt blessed by some truth that Jesus was speaking into my own heart about my idolatry of other people's perceptions of me and my reputation. Pray for me as Jesus continues to work this out of my heart.

One final highlight from the week was our last night at camp. Every year, our region takes a night at Catalyst to celebrate people who have made a decision to follow Jesus over the course of the year. These students get to go up on stage and a few of them get to tell the story of their journey in meeting Jesus and how their lives were transformed as a result. Then, they walk off stage and etch their names on to a large wooden cross that has been around for a few years of this tradition and is now quickly running out of space for more names (praise God!). As you can tell from reading this blog, I'm a story-lover at heart. This tradition is one of my favorite things that we do at Catalyst because seeing students have their lives completely transformed by Jesus is why I wanted to be a campus missionary in the first place. Though everyone's stories were powerful, I have to play favorites just a bit. The student that I mentioned earlier from the Mark track was the last to share his story. His journey from "aimlessness" and "loneliness" to the "peace" and "family" that he met in the community of Christ-followers brought tears to my eyes. Though I know in my head that Jesus can do radical things in people's lives, it's so good to be reminded with a flesh-and-blood person standing in front of you, telling you their story. Afterwards, I got to debrief the night with my students and we all shared a common desire to have plenty of folks with us next year to etch their names on to the cross! I can't wait to see how Jesus meets us in that hope.

Overall, Catalyst was a great experience for our SLU group. We built a lot of cohesion as a community. I got to experience my first time of leading the group as the lone staff worker at SLU (more on that to come in my next post). Our new folks felt more called to mission and will hopefully consider stepping on to our core leadership team in the next week or so. We spent a lot of time talking about what kind of group we wanted to be next year on campus at SLU and I can tell you even now that you're going to want to stay tuned. These kids feel empowered and they are totally capable of following Jesus in making radical change happen on our campus. Pray for us this summer in our various pursuits - pray that we stay bonded as a community through the blessing of technology and prayer; pray that Jesus continues to do a mighty work in each of us, preparing us for the work ahead; and pray that he breaks our hearts even further for those around us who don't know him, even giving us opportunities over the summer to practice living like a missionary. And again, stay tuned - you won't want to miss this.

P.S. Another fun moment from Catalyst: My students performed a choreographed dance to the Black Eyed Peas song "Imma Be" which was pretty incredible and very fun to watch :)