Fall Conference '10: The Jesus You Don't Know

Last weekend Michael and I took 53 of our students to Oregon's annual Fall Conference in Eugene. It was the biggest group that has gone to the conference in my whole time at OSU. Praise God for a growing fellowship! We joined 100 other students from around the state for a weekend of worship, great teaching, prayer, and fun.

This year the theme was "The Jesus You Don't Know." What was it about Jesus that made people have such strong reactions to him? Our speaker, Tracey Gee from LA came and shared some of her stories and taught us about this Jesus. One of the best things she did at the conference was give great questions for the small groups to talk about.

Each student was put into a group of about 5 people who met several times over the course of the weekend. Our leaders we in charge of the small groups so they had the opportunity to be with the new students as they wrestled with the questions and with Jesus.

What I loved about this was that it was right in line with things we have been seeing this year: Students leading students. It was a beautiful thing to watch. Sometimes when we come to a conference, we expect the speaker to be this magical person who will say all the right things and miraculously convert everyone in attendance. I don't think this is what Jesus wants. He is not about raising up celebrity Christians. He wants to help the normal, everyday people experience his goodness and his Kingdom. And that is exactly what I saw happening this weekend.


My favorite story was from Ryan. On Saturday night, the speaker gave an invitation for people who wanted to put their faith in Jesus for the first time to stand up. No one did. But during small group time that night, Ryan was able to help two people in his group make the decision! Students leading other students to faith! How awesome is that?! I will try to get their stories out to you as soon as I can.

Pray for us as we try to use the momentum gained from the conference to continue influencing the campus.

Reflection

The theme of this year has been students leading students. It has been happening in Bible Studies, at our large group, our leaders' meetings, and at Fall Conference. It is an absolute joy to watch and be a part of.

But even I was unprepared for this.

A week and a half before the conference, Russell, a Bible Study Leader in McNary Hall, told Michael and I some news. Over the summer he had worked a lot and was able to make a decent amount of money. He wanted to set aside 10% of it for some kind of tithe though he was not sure what exactly to do with it.

He goes to church but is not super involved since InterVarsity is really his spiritual home and community. But he wasn't sure he wanted to give it to InterVarsity either. He really just wanted to use it for whatever God wanted.

Then Fall Conference came.

He realized that he could use this money to help people go to Fall Conference. Money tends to be an issue for people in their decision to go or not. We always tell people that money should not be a reason to not go. Russell saw this and realized that this could be a chance to live out those words in a tangible way.

So he got up in front at Awake and announced to everyone that he had several hundred dollars saved up to help people go and if they needed some help they should come talk to him.

Russell was able to help more than 7 more students attend the conference.


Students leading students. What an amazing example Russell just set. What an amazing witness. Those students had encounters with Jesus last weekend because Russell helped them go. He sacrificially gave to help others get to Jesus. I am so proud of him.

I guess that wasn't really a reflection but it is a great story isn't it? Stay tuned for more!

Thank you again for all your prayers and support. God is seriously moving here at OSU.

And We're Off!

When I said I would write a monthly update on this blog, I forgot that some months are a little more difficult to update than others.

Take September for example.

Mustard Seed

This was our annual retreat for our leaders to gear up for the year. This year we met again at Crossroads Christian Fellowship in Corvallis for about 3 days. We studied the beginning of Mark and learned about the authority of Jesus and reflected on what it would be like to begin each day or the school year knowing we were beloved children of God and he was well pleased with us. That could seriously change things.

This retreat is a great time to reconnect after the summer and remember what God has invited us into. Special thanks to the people who stepped up and cooked dinners for us. That was awesome. Here are some pictures of the retreat.





New Student Outreach

Immediately (Yes, Mark!) after the retreat ended we jumped into New Student Outreach. The freshmen were moving in and we wanted to meet them. All the leaders went full steam ahead for this and it was really fun to watch. We decided to play a massive game of capture the flag on the second night because nothing else was happening on campus and this would be a great time to get the word out about who we are. People invited from their dorms and we had about 170 people show up. It was hilarious and a really good time.

The next day was the new student convocation and picnic. We set up a table and in about 2 hours met over 60 people who were interested in checking IV out. Props to Lauren, Kelly, Nina, and Kayle (shout out to the ladies!) for doing such an awesome job at meeting people. Yes, the guys did stuff too but the girls just rocked it!

And remember the 80-foot banana split we did last year? Well, this year the students wanted to top it. So we went for 100 feet. The engineers developed a great system for holding it in place. Again, we had about 170 people show up. And again, it was hilarious.


And finally, two days ago we had our first Awake meeting. somewhere between 60 and 70 students came and I got a chance to share IVCF's vision with them. But the night was largely led by students. Russell was our MC. Kelly led the ice-breaker. Danny led worship. An shared her testimony. I was really impressed with the students as they stepped up.


I gave an invitation for people to join the communities (Bible Studies) that were trying to follow Jesus together and help the campus wake up to what he is doing. Many people were excited to join and once the night was over, a lot of people hung out and got to know each other. That is always a good sign.


Thanks for all your prayers! the year is off to a great start.

Reflection

I had a freak-out moment on Wednesday. I was finishing up my talk for the first Awake and was suddenly struck with a desire to crawl into bed and hide. It was weird. I suddenly felt like there was so much that wasn't ready. How would it go tonight? Were all the students ready to do what they said they were going to do? What if one of them didn't do as well as they could have?

In short, I felt out of control.

InterVarsity is a student mission. That means we want to see students learning to be missionaries on their own campuses. Staff are there to help this happen.

This class at OSU is great. They have tons of potential to create a truly student run ministry here. I want to see that happen and I want to be a part of making that happen.

But that means I have to let go of things. I have to entrust things that I used to do to students. That is the only way it is going to happen. Is this how parents feel? It was hard. I was literally praying and making the motion of opening my hands to let go of certain things.

And like I said. The night was great. It was not perfect. But these students rose to the occasion and did great. And the more they lead out, the more I will have to step back and let go. God was letting me know that this is going to be a process and it is going to be a bit painful for me. But the hope is that is will be worth it.

I think (and hope!) it will.

Snapshot of Summer

First off: A big thank you to all of you who filled out the survey back in July. That was very helpful and informative. As a result I will be updating this blog at the beginning of each month and sending out a quarterly newsletter. I want to be a good communicator of what is going on here and what we would like prayer for.

So yes, it is almost September! I can't believe it. Michael and I have been planning and praying for the new school year. I am very excited to see the students again. Summer was crazy busy but a lot of fun. It started with Summit and launched immediately into a month of fundraising with the other staff in Oregon. We gathered at an apartment complex four days a week to pray, work, and learn about support raising. Here is a picture. Note the awesome table that Birch built for us to use.



Very early on in this experience I felt something significant happen to me. I realized that by not putting in the work of fund development and getting fully funded, I was treating this work like less that it was. That isn't ok. Being on staff with IVCF is an honor and we get to be there to help college students make life-changing decisions to follow Jesus. That is worth getting funded for. So I decided to up my budget to more accurately reflect the truth of the work I am a part of.

I then went on vacation with my mom and sister to the east coast (New York, Connecticut, and Boston). I loved it. New York is my new favorite city. Here is a picture of me in front of 30 Rock.



Not much to say about that trip other than it was a blast and we ate some GOOD food.

Then I went to St. Louis to visit my awesome and wonderful girlfriend, Andrea. Here is a picture of that.



Notice how neither of us are wearing Cardinals gear. Oh well! Did I mention that she is awesome?

And now Mike and I are in full swing planning mode. We have a pre-school retreat to plan, Bible Studies, Leaders' meetings, Awakes and more. It is a bit overwhelming but we are getting it done. Check the sidebar for things we would love prayer for.

A Reflection:

Summer is often a hard time for students. It is hard for me too. During the school year we have a strong sense of purpose and community. In the summer, those things often disappear leaving us wondering what to do with our lives until September comes. For a lot of people, this means falling back into bad habits and making poor lifestyle choices. I have often seen students come back feeling guilty about the summer and not sure if they are worthy to lead in the coming year. I know how they feel.

I recently read the story in Genesis 12 where Abram goes into Egypt due to a famine. Afraid that Pharaoh will see his wife and want her for himself(which will mean Abram is most likely going to get iced), he pretends they are siblings and then sells his wife to Pharaoh for a nice price.

Gross. How did Sarai feel about this I wonder?

Abram made a terrible choice. It showed a lack of trust in God's ability to come through on his promise.

But the strange thing about this (and a bit disturbing as well) is that God doesn't punish Abram. He doesn't revoke the promise. In fact, Pharaoh is punished for stealing Abram's wife. That doesn't make a lot of sense but there it is.

Maybe what we are to learn from this story is that God is going to be faithful to his promises. We can't by our own failure ruin them. He is committed to Abram no matter what.

Regardless of what the students did or didn't do this summer, God still wants to use them to reach this campus. He still loves them and is still inviting them to join in the good work of waking this campus up.

Why? That is a great question. I think it has something to do with his ridiculous grace and mercy.

And we will never get to a point where we don't need to depend on his ridiculous grace and mercy.

So welcome back students. It is a new year!

Summit '10

At the end of each school year InterVarsity takes a group of students on a two week urban project to Portland. We live in community, study Scripture, work in the community with the poor, pray, talk about uncomfortable things, and have gobs of fun doing it.

In short, we try to wreck their lives.

This experience consistently changes people. It gives them a new set of eyes to see their world and their role in it. It expands their pictures of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. New life-long friendships are formed. People have a difficult time going back and continuing to live the same way they did before.

Each year, if I am honest, I kind of dread summit. It is a lot of work and I know it is always challenging. But by the end, I am always so thankful that I did it and that the students who went got to have that experience.

This year, there were about 30 students from three campuses who went to summit. Eight of those students were from OSU: Sean, Kelly, Kayla, Lizeth, Elena, Nina, An, and Tylee. I very much enjoyed getting to spend the extra time with them and watchign God grow their hearts. Good times.

For my money, one of the most significant things we did at summit was talk about race and ethnicity. This can be a touchy subject and it often gets ignored, but you can't read Scripture (especially Acts, which we studied) without seeing how God moves people to cross cultural boundaries and put themselves in places they are uncomfortable.

Oregon State's fellowship is quite diverse with a large group of awesome Asian-American students involved. Though sometimes it feels like there are two separate fellowships. One for Asians and one for everyone else (mostly, if not entirely White students). In talking about this, we realized that we need to begin to change things at OSU. We need to ask God to bring us together in a new way that could be a powerful example of the Gospel to Oregon State. I am excited to try this but I know it will be difficult. Your prayers would be greatly appreciated.

I would like to share with you a little reflection about what God was doing in me at summit. Then Michael and Sean (Sean is going to be a senior Bible Study leader next year.) will share some of their reflections.

But first, Here are some pictures! Hey-O!









Reflections

From Ben:
On the second full day of summit we watched a video about the life of Mother Theresa. She was an amazing woman and if there was ever something that could make you feel like you weren't doing anything worthwhile with your life, it would be watching that movie.

But I realized that that would be missing the point. The last thing she would ever want is for us to feel guilty about our lives. In fact, she didn't even become the Mother Theresa we all know and love until she was over 40 years old! What was she doing the rest of the time?

And that was where I found the pot of gold. You see, when she was in her late teens, she decided to commit herself fully to Jesus. She became a nun. And for the next twenty years, she was nothing special. She was disciplined in her spiritual life and was doing her best to learn to love the people around her. Eventually she moved to India to work at a Catholic school. Her students really liked her. And that was all she did. She prayed and loved. That's it.

Then one day, Jesus called her to minister to the poorest of the poor and she said yes. How did she do that? Well, she had been saying yes to Jesus for 20 years in little tiny ways. Ways that didn't seem flashy or romantic or daring. Just humbly loving people around her with the love of Jesus.

That is what I took away from summit. My role right now is to let the ridiculous love of Jesus sink ever deeper into my own life and then to extend that love to others. I can trust God with the big plans. Right now, I am called to lay my life down in love for the sake of others.

So simple, yet it feels like the hardest thing to do.

From Michael:
This was my second summit experience and it impacted me just as much if not more than the first time. I was challenged in several areas. I would like to highlight a couple. Prayer. We studied the Lord's prayer as well as a prayer in Acts 4 made by the early church community. We also had times of prayer where we saw God bring emotional, spiritual, and physical healing. Praise God! These experiences increased my understanding of who God is and what He is capable of. I realized my previous view of God was too small.

We watched a video about Mother Teresa and her work in India. It blew me away. She is a tremendous example of what it looks like to love people well. Sacrifice and giving of yourself. One of the many quotable comments made by Mother Teresa was "It's not how much we do or give it's how much love we put into doing and giving." God is doing a good work in my heart, revealing some selfish attitudes and teaching me how to love people well.

Lastly, I worked at a place in Portland called Dignity Village. This place was founded by homeless people. It allows people who were formerly on the streets to be housed and apart of a community. They village has five rules. No violence, theft, drugs/alcohol, or constant disruptive behavior. The last rule is that each community member must contribute 10 hours a weeks to upkeep and maintenance of the village. The people there was fantastic. It was a real joy being able to work alongside them. Many relationships were formed and a lot of stereotypes about homeless people were broken.

From Sean:
Entering into Summit this year as a student leader going through it again, I had a lot of expectations of what it should be like. I tried to anticipate how God was going to work in me and the things He was going to teach me. I quickly realized that I would have to let these feelings go. I was struggling to let the experiences and teachings of social justice and a multiethnic church sink deeper than the surface layer, it wasn't hitting any places inside me that would spark life changes.

Frustrated with myself, I gave all my expectations, burdens, sin, guilt to God; I wanted to release all the barriers. Through watching a video on Mother Teresa's work in Calcutta, an extraordinary time of Communion, and worship sessions, God totally revealed how much my heart truly longed for Him and took away a lot of my frustrations. Not only did Summit reinforce the need for social justice and love, it showed me how I needed to genuinely give and receive love from Jesus as the way I love others around me, whether they are homeless, a different race, or a different religion.


And there you have it! Thank you for all your prayers and support this year. I will be writing more this Summer so be on the look out! Peace!

Sexy Pizza Article

Hello!

So Sexy Pizza happened last night and there is much to celebrate about it. While I gather my thoughts, here is an article that the people form 2100 wrote about it for InterVarsity's main website. Enjoy!

Pray for . . . Sexy Pizza?

(I will explain the title in just a moment.)

Hello everyone. I hope you all called your mothers or sent them a nice card or some flowers.

I wanted to give you all a heads-up about something going down this week at OSU.

We are putting on an evangelistic outreach event called "Sexy Pizza." We have done it in the past but it has been more of a "we are InterVarsity and we are cool so you should come and hang out with us" type of event. This one is much more geared towards giving an invitation for people to respond to the Gospel.



We will have free pizza for everyone and then have a 30-40 minute Q&A discussion (led by me) about the Bible, Jesus, and sex. I always have a fun time doing this so I am anticipating a good time. I have not ever shared the Gospel and given people a chance to respond. So in that sense, I am a little nervous.

For me, this event will be a discipline in doing the work of an evangelist. I could wait until I am feeling like I REALLY want to give an invitation but I am pretty sure that will never happen if I never actually give an invitation.

We behave ourselves into new ways of thinking.

In addition to this, 2100 Productions, InterVarsity's media branch, is actually coming to OSU tomorrow and Wednesday to interview some students and I and film the event. CRAZY! They are wanting to document some things that are happening in the Northwest with regards to evangelism and it will be shown at the National Staff Conference in January. I think this could be a really great opportunity for us and it could be fun for students to walk into the lounge and see cameras and lights.

It makes it seem more professional.

All this to say, I would love it if you all would pray for us this week. Pray that people come to Jesus. Pray that students would be bold in their invitations. Pray that we can all be effective communicators of God's great love. The event is Wednesday at 5:30pm PST.

I will write another post soon to let you know how it went. Peace!

2/3 Done, but still a long way to go.

I believe that Spring is gaining some strength and beginning to push winter away. All I can say it that it is about time. I decided to enjoy the day by writing this blog on my porch as the neighbor's cat vies for my attention. She is quite talkative.

Since last I wrote, much has happened. I have flown and driven to states I have never been to to do things I have never done. The students have been taking significant steps in learning how to lead their fellow students. Our plans for next year are beginning to take shape and things are generally looking up. Here is a little bit of a recap.

JesustheRevolution: Our annual winter conference in Portland was fantastic as usual. An, a student I have mentioned before, got up in front of all 300 people there and shared her story of coming to Jesus. She nailed it and gave some great encouragement to the other non-Christians in the room, including her brother. He came to the conference slightly skeptical of us Christians but left feeling like we were cool and he understood us a little more. Praise God for people taking steps towards Jesus!

As a result of the conference, many students have begun spending their Friday afternoons in the Student Union getting into spiritual conversations with people they have never met. They have been very encouraged at the conversations they have been having. Please pray that their bold risks will lead to people coming to faith.

Leadership Selection: During the month of February, the leadership team spent a good deal of time thinking about what we wanted next year to look like. We asked questions like: Who should we invite to leadership? Where do we want to be next year? What new risks can we take?

It looks like we will have five Bible Studies in four dorms next year with an additional Bible Study for people who live off campus. I am excited to see how we grow next year!

WinterVarsity: As I mentioned in my last post, I had the opportunity to be a winter conference speaker for InterVarsity Colorado at the end of February. It was a lot of work but was a lot of fun. there were about 80 students there and I think God really spoke to them. There were a few students who gave their lives to Jesus at the conference. That was pretty exciting. Here are a couple pictures of the conference, including the CU Boulder silver medal winning broomball team! Booyah!





Here are a couple of things that I hope to see this term. If you feel led to pray for them, that would be fantastic!

New Leaders: We invited a handful of new people to be leaders for next year. I love to give new leaders the chance to try a bit of leadership before they dive in next year. This crop will get a chance to lead some Bible Studies this term. Pray for them as they take the risk and pray that God meets them and uses them.

Summit: Each summer, right after school gets out, we put on a two week urban project for our students. Our hope is that they will get a bigger picture for God's Kingdom and their role in it, that they will experience real Christian community, and that they will encounter God in a fresh way. in the past, it has been difficult to get students to go to Summit, even though everyone who goes has a great time. Pray that we have lots of excited students there this year. I will be leading the scripture studies while we are there.

Celebration: I want to take a lot of time to celebrate the work of God this term. I feel that this is a really important thing. Pray that we have much to celebrate and that we celebrate WELL!!!

A Reflection:

This one kind of hit me between the eyes about a month and a half ago when we were doing our invites on to next year's leadership team. The invites were difficult for some people to hear because saying yes was a big commitment. It was as if people were not used to being challenged with hard calls.

That was when it hit me. They aren't used to challenge because they have never had anyone challenging them.

Who is supposed to challenge them? Well duh. I am.

I have been pouring a lot of energy into putting good systems and structures together. I have been running meetings and training times and such. These things are good and they definitely have their place.

But they don't develop people. They can't develop people. I think the only way a person can really grow is to have someone else walking with them through their lives helping them learn to trust Jesus more. I may give a great talk at our large group meetings, but that won't change someone's life. That will happen when someone follows up with that person and asks them how the talk affected them. Then they will help that person apply it to their life.

That is kind of what Jesus did. He developed people. Yes, he preached to the masses, but he spent most of his time with a few guys. And those few guys changed the world. If I want to see OSU transformed, then I need to develop people, not programs.

This feels really basic, but like I often say, the basics of following Jesus are the most challenging, the most difficult, and the most revolutionary.

2010: The Distant Future

Wow, it really is 2010. Does anyone else feel like we should be driving our flying cars to the moon for work yet?

Anyway, here at OSU we are three weeks into winter term and I really couldn't be more excited about where things are heading and how God is working in our midst. But first you may need a little back story.

After Christmas, over 16,000 students from all over the world gathered in St. Louis, Missouri for the Urbana 09 convention. OSU sent 11 students and then we met a couple more who we didn't know. Students were challenged to participate in God's incarnational mission around the Globe. During the conference, we all studied the first four chapters of the Gospel of John. If you have studied that before, do it again! There is so much amazing stuff in there!

One of the challenges posed at the conference was to take John 1-4 back to campus and invite a non-christian friend to "come and see" Jesus for themself. We have taken this challenge seriously and are seeing an explosion of what we call "GIGs" happen on campus. GIG stands for "Group investigating God." It is a simple bible study for non-christians. The hope is that as they begin to encounter Jesus for themselves, they will want to give their lives to him. This is our prayer as we try these things out.

The first week back at our first Awake meeting, we sent out all the students in twos (like Luke 10) to do spiritual surveys. One of the questions was "would you be interested in a 3-4 week study of the life of Jesus?" we managed to survey over 300 people and about 40% were yesses or maybes. That is amazing!

Some students got serious about following up with those people. Kit has gone out each thursday night since then to find the people who said yes and invite them. He and members of his Bible Study are starting new GIGs all the time and it is very exciting to hear their stories.

Kelly knew she wanted to ask her roommate and friend to do a GIG. She was praying for God to show her when a good time to invite them would be. As she was walking back to her room one day, she found both of them in there. They asked about her Urbana experience. She knew this was the opportunity she was waiting for and she went for it. One of them gave a very enthusiastic yes and the other was a maybe. Kelly was very excited.

I knew I wanted to ask a guy named Matt. We have had a couple of spiritual conversations before and he has always been open to talking about spiritual things with me. I asked him if he would want to sit down and look at some scripture together so he could tell me what he thought about it. He was very excited about the idea. We meet for lunch on fridays now and look at John 1-4 together.

Pray for us and for the students we are reaching out to. We believe that God will change lives through these GIGs and long to see students give their lives to Jesus.

Pray also for our winter conference: JesustheRevolution on Feb 12-14. Pray that lots of students come and bring their non-Christian friends. We are praying for a harvest there, for many students to come into the Kingdom.

Reflection:

I could give you a big reflection about how Urbana impacted me, but instead I would like to share one of the best talks from the conference. It is from Alec Hill and was delivered on the last night of the conference. If you have a spare 25 minutes, it will be well worth your time. Enjoy!

Missions on Your Campus: Alec Hill from Urbana 09 on Vimeo.

On a slightly unrelated note, I have been invited to be the speaker for InterVarsity Colorado's winter conference at the end of February. I am super excited, humbled, and freaked out all at the same time. This will be a great opportunity and I pray that God will use what I can give and change lives with it.

Have a fantastic day and God Bless you!

Ben