Yo.
So, when I am down and really struggling with sin I end up beating myself up and beginning to believe how worthless I am and that nothing good will come from me and that I should isolate myself to minimize damage and that I need to work on myself before anything happens. And then I get depressed because of how bleak my future would be looking.
But grace is sooooo much more than sin and God is sooooo much better than we can ever imagine. Even when I am down He picks me up. He shows me that He values me. He shows me that He can work in and through me. He shows me that following Him and helping others to do so is worth so much more than trying to hide. God can overcome anything in my life. He will bring to completion what He has started. He is good. Always.
A couple weeks ago I was given the opportunity to talk to a Masters student at Carleton. I hadn't met her in person yet, but she was emailing the P2C email account, which I was overseeing. So I messaged her back and we got to meet up. It was amazing! Like literally, we just started talking and getting to know each other and then she was asking about Jesus. God has been doing a lot in her life, various tough times, and a bunch of friends sharing Christ with her, and now she is seeking on her own. She doesn't want her friends to bias her search, which is cool, but they're gonna be so happy when she finally tells them. haha. We were looking at the Knowing God Personally booklet, which outlines 4 basic points of the gospel, and she was asking sooooooo many questions and was sooooo interested in hearing more! After point 2: we are separated from God because of our sin and there's nothing we can do about it on our own, she was pretty bummed out, but point 3 is amazing and I was so excited about it and then she got so excited about it! Man. We talked for like an hour and a half about the Bible and who God is and why we love sharing the good news with others in P2C. She told me about the Prince of Egypt movie and I told her more of the story in the wilderness and of God's faithfulness. So good. We haven't been able to meet up recently, but I am going to try meeting up this week. She said she'd be happy to meet up and talk more about God! Please pray for her!
And then at Summit this weekend, after the Saturday evening session I saw a girl sitting alone and felt prompted to go talk to her. Carleton was going to do something and I was told to hurry up, but whatever, I'd rather follow this prompting and talk to her. So I sat in a chair beside her and asked what was up? She was a little overwhelmed with what God had been telling her. In the session they had shown a video about mission trips and how there are so many people around the world who have never heard the good news of Jesus, and she felt really compelled to go. Well, actually, at first she was just kinda crying and didn't know how to explain anything, so I prayed for her a bit encouraging her that no matter what difficult situation she was going through or felt God calling her to that He is good, that He would provide, and that He loved her deeply. She also was feeling convicted in regards to decisions she had been making. She had felt called to go to a University away from her home town so she could be pushed outside her comfort zone and rely on God, but she had been not taking those steps, she had been coasting, she had been defensive. I don't remember all of the details anymore, but she was feeling super convicted by the Spirit to trust God more and follow Him wherever He was calling her, and that's amazing! So I asked if she could pray, and then I prayed for her too. She was so much happier afterwards and more sure of what God was telling her. Please pray for her too! I'm so glad I stopped to talk with her and listened to God. So much of what she was saying I resonated with and was also convicted of. < 3 God is so good!
I literally love ministry and experiencing God through it. I don't remember exactly what she said, but the speaker at Summit said something about how we don't do ministry for God, when we participate in ministry it is us experiencing and allowing God to live in and through us. I don't want to ever stop serving others around me. I don't ever want to believe lies about myself. I want to submit everything to God and continue to serve wherever I go by His Spirit in me.
God is so good.
Seriously.
If you've never really met Him you should read the book of John and ask for God to reveal Himself to you, and talk to a friend of yours who does know God. And if you do know God, let's pray that He lets us get to know Him more, that we take steps of faith and grow in our relationship with Him, experiencing His power and presence in everything we do!
God is sooooo good.
Ttyl.
D.Fa
Showing posts with label Evangelism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Evangelism. Show all posts
5.10.15
12.6.15
It Can Be Simple.
Yo.
Lately I've been thinking a bit about what it means for an organization or group or ministry to be 'parachurch' and how the parachurch should be working hand-in-hand with the Church.
I tend to meet two kinds of people: those who love parachurch organizations, have seen their greatest moments while part of them, and have seen God do amazing things through them and so they want to invest all of their time into it, often at the expense of being actively involved in a local church; and those who have seen parachurch groups lose sight of their partnership with the local church and as such these persons have decided to be involved solely in local churches to the extent of being wary of such organizations and keeping others from involvement.
And I don't have an answer per se as to how a parachurch group should work, or how the church should work. I do need to read up a bit more on this. However, from what I know and from the times I've spent as part of a seminary course on the book of Acts (the early church and Paul's work), I know that they should be working hand-in-hand. Often Paul's small missionary team is called a parachurch group. The way I've seen parachurch defined is that it is not the church in that it is focused to a specific task or peoples, but made up of people from the Church, and when done best seeks to support the mission of the Church in whatever means of evangelism, discipleship, or training. A campus ministry, a bible study group, a seminary; each fits into this category.
The question of how the two can work together is at the front of my mind since I've been so stuck between the two groups of people and have kind of flip-flopped between primarily being involved in parachurch or church 'activities' and trying to unify the two groups of people, but not really knowing how to do it.
I had recently talked to a friend of mine who is a staff member with Power to Change (P2C), a campus ministry in Canada and around the world under different names. I asked her, and asked specifically about how she sees it since I knew that she, herself, had not been so actively involved in both while in university. The way she answered was golden, and makes me love God, her, the church, and parachurch all the more. I will now attempt to paraphrase. The way she sees it P2C exists solely to help Christian students grow in evangelism and bringing the gospel to other students while in university. While doing that, to be encouraging active participation in the local church and preparing them to be so for the rest of their lives. The way she sees it P2C (or any parachurch for that matter) should not be trying to do 'church' things which would compete, such as deeper bible studies, sermons, worship services, generic fellowship, life discipleship, etc., but to do what it is called to do; in P2C's case, evangelism training, evangelism, and prayer for the gospel to reach ears that will hear, and nothing more. There isn't time in the life of a full-time student for 20 hours of overlapping content from both parachurch and church, in such cases a student will choose one or the other. To do so all of P2C's stuff would be concise and to the point allowing the students to best be a part of their churches and live as part of the family of God.
When things go like that, she tells me that students are actively involved in sharing their faith, are meaningfully involved in local churches, local churches suggest people to participate in the parachurch ministries while in school, it isn't a burden on anyone, and people are coming to know Jesus! So good.
I also asked then how new believers would be discipled. She replied that they would probably have a short 5 week or so basic lessons on the gospel and our life in Jesus, but in everything to direct them to a local church. I also asked about the desire for community in the parachurch groups. She said community around the mission is great, but that the real deep communities would be in the churches and as such, the students can have fellowship and stuff, it just wouldn't be a P2C event. If they wanted to have worship before a prayer meeting, great! That's a prayer meeting. haha
My desire is to see that day in Ottawa. To see the local churches and parachurch ministries on campus to work together, not against each other. And I think we've been seeing it go in that direction this year. Discipleship groups, acting more as 'action groups' where they learn how to share their faith and then go and afterwards they can do other stuff on their time. Weekly meetings focused around sharing Jesus with others, not on throwing a church service. Students involved at their churches, going on missions, living life together, and in everything lifting up Jesus.
So good.
I want to pray for that and I want to be a catalyst on both sides (church and P2C) to help communicate and work together for the sake of the gospel and good news of Christ going to all. May students be encouraged to share their faith, may they be encouraged to live their life in the body of believers, the church, may they seek after His kingdom and righteousness in everything, may God be glorified through His Church. Amen!
But what do we university students really need more from our church? I think discipleship is the thing. I'll talk more about this tomorrow.
Ttyl.
D.Fa
Lately I've been thinking a bit about what it means for an organization or group or ministry to be 'parachurch' and how the parachurch should be working hand-in-hand with the Church.
I tend to meet two kinds of people: those who love parachurch organizations, have seen their greatest moments while part of them, and have seen God do amazing things through them and so they want to invest all of their time into it, often at the expense of being actively involved in a local church; and those who have seen parachurch groups lose sight of their partnership with the local church and as such these persons have decided to be involved solely in local churches to the extent of being wary of such organizations and keeping others from involvement.
And I don't have an answer per se as to how a parachurch group should work, or how the church should work. I do need to read up a bit more on this. However, from what I know and from the times I've spent as part of a seminary course on the book of Acts (the early church and Paul's work), I know that they should be working hand-in-hand. Often Paul's small missionary team is called a parachurch group. The way I've seen parachurch defined is that it is not the church in that it is focused to a specific task or peoples, but made up of people from the Church, and when done best seeks to support the mission of the Church in whatever means of evangelism, discipleship, or training. A campus ministry, a bible study group, a seminary; each fits into this category.
The question of how the two can work together is at the front of my mind since I've been so stuck between the two groups of people and have kind of flip-flopped between primarily being involved in parachurch or church 'activities' and trying to unify the two groups of people, but not really knowing how to do it.
I had recently talked to a friend of mine who is a staff member with Power to Change (P2C), a campus ministry in Canada and around the world under different names. I asked her, and asked specifically about how she sees it since I knew that she, herself, had not been so actively involved in both while in university. The way she answered was golden, and makes me love God, her, the church, and parachurch all the more. I will now attempt to paraphrase. The way she sees it P2C exists solely to help Christian students grow in evangelism and bringing the gospel to other students while in university. While doing that, to be encouraging active participation in the local church and preparing them to be so for the rest of their lives. The way she sees it P2C (or any parachurch for that matter) should not be trying to do 'church' things which would compete, such as deeper bible studies, sermons, worship services, generic fellowship, life discipleship, etc., but to do what it is called to do; in P2C's case, evangelism training, evangelism, and prayer for the gospel to reach ears that will hear, and nothing more. There isn't time in the life of a full-time student for 20 hours of overlapping content from both parachurch and church, in such cases a student will choose one or the other. To do so all of P2C's stuff would be concise and to the point allowing the students to best be a part of their churches and live as part of the family of God.
When things go like that, she tells me that students are actively involved in sharing their faith, are meaningfully involved in local churches, local churches suggest people to participate in the parachurch ministries while in school, it isn't a burden on anyone, and people are coming to know Jesus! So good.
I also asked then how new believers would be discipled. She replied that they would probably have a short 5 week or so basic lessons on the gospel and our life in Jesus, but in everything to direct them to a local church. I also asked about the desire for community in the parachurch groups. She said community around the mission is great, but that the real deep communities would be in the churches and as such, the students can have fellowship and stuff, it just wouldn't be a P2C event. If they wanted to have worship before a prayer meeting, great! That's a prayer meeting. haha
My desire is to see that day in Ottawa. To see the local churches and parachurch ministries on campus to work together, not against each other. And I think we've been seeing it go in that direction this year. Discipleship groups, acting more as 'action groups' where they learn how to share their faith and then go and afterwards they can do other stuff on their time. Weekly meetings focused around sharing Jesus with others, not on throwing a church service. Students involved at their churches, going on missions, living life together, and in everything lifting up Jesus.
So good.
I want to pray for that and I want to be a catalyst on both sides (church and P2C) to help communicate and work together for the sake of the gospel and good news of Christ going to all. May students be encouraged to share their faith, may they be encouraged to live their life in the body of believers, the church, may they seek after His kingdom and righteousness in everything, may God be glorified through His Church. Amen!
But what do we university students really need more from our church? I think discipleship is the thing. I'll talk more about this tomorrow.
Ttyl.
D.Fa
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