Finishing Well

Before I start I just want to share a song with you that I heard at my church on Resurrection Sunday. It was great and I wanted you to get a chance to hear it. So if you have five minutes it will be worth your time.


Love it! It totally makes me cry. He is Risen!

Finishing Well
I am sure I have written about this before, but now that Spring Term has begun, there is a huge temptation to coast till the end of the year. We think to ourselves that if we can just get through then we can rest in the summer. I feel this and so do the students. So we came up with a way to try and fight it.

We made commitments.

At our large group we talked about what it meant to finish well. Then everyone made a commitment to run hard toward the finish and not coast. They committed to reaching out to their neighbors, reading Scripture more regularly, loving their roommates and so on.

I committed to hanging out with 5 students each week. I know that sounds silly as it is a huge part of my job but I can very easily get caught up in all kinds of other (important and not important) stuff that takes my focus away from actually being with students and loving them. There are meetings to attend. There are messages to write. There are errands to run and details to take care of.

I can get so caught up in these that I never get around to spending an hour with a student for lunch, asking them how they are doing and where they have been encountering God. I can forget to just go be with them as they hang out with other students in their dorms or apartments. So pray for me as I try to uphold my commitment.

Big News
Well, no sense in beating around the bush: I am engaged! I don't have the time to tell you the whole story but I will and trust me, it's a good one!

Andrea and I will be getting married in November but before that she will be moving out to Corvallis and will join the staff team at OSU. Hooray for new staff partners! (Who also will become your life partners!) She is amazing and you can read about her ministry here and read her personal blog here.

And another exciting development is that my current staff partner, Michael, just got engaged to his girlfriend, Dawn. She is also on staff with InterVarsity and will also be joining the team at OSU next year. Hooray for doubling the size of the staff team!

As you can probably guess, this is a pretty exciting time for all of us. But we know that all the transitions and changes are going to be difficult. Pray for us as we navigate these new waters.

Summit
And finally, Summit is coming up.  Two weeks in Portland after school gets out. We will be living the Jesus way in an intentional community: praying, studying scripture, and loving the poor. It is always an amazing time and we are hoping to have 15-20 OSU students go.

That feels like a lot to me but I believe it is possible. Pray that God moves in the hearts of the students and encourages them to go.

"¹³ Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" - Philippians 3:13-14

One Final note:
I have started a blog where I am working my way through the whole Bible. It is a pretty ambitious project but you are welcome to follow along or join in. It is called The Whole Dang Thing.