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| Hi, Here's an RUF update on how things are going in Johnson City: Fall 2007 Our fall semester is in full swing here at ETSU, and the leaves in Johnson City are just beginning to turn. Laura and I had a busy summer with lots of traveling. I enjoyed teaching a four-day seminar about the church at our summer conference down in Laguna Beach, FL, and I had the honor of preaching at Red Mountain Church in Birmingham, which was Laura’s home church for a number of years. At our staff training in Atlanta I really enjoyed the fellowship with the other campus ministers, a number of us talking into the wee hours of the morning. My times studying at Starbucks back in Johnson City were encouraging and relaxed, and by the time the new semester began, I felt well-rested and excited to start the new school year. This semester, RUF at ETSU has experienced more momentum than I’ve ever seen here. We’ve basically doubled in size at our large group meetings compared with last semester. We’ve had new visitors almost every week, and the new freshmen are spending time together and really getting involved in the ministry. I’m preaching from the Gospel of John and learning to simplify my sermons, using the same simple outline every week: Jesus, Faith, and Life. The first week I did an overview of the book about Jesus being the Diving Son of God sent to be the Lamb of God and the Life that He gives through faith. I’ve preached on Jesus as the Word, the Light, the Bridegroom, the Temple, and the Christ. If you’re interested in hearing some of these sermons you can access them from iTunes through our website at www.etsuandking.ruf.org. Our girls’ group has grown tremendously from last year. Every Thursday night about 12 girls get together for a meal and a Bible study in Philippians. Our afternoon guys’ group that studied Romans last year hasn’t really gotten off the ground this semester, so we’re going to try getting together once a week to spend time together and get to know each other better through things like movie nights, poker nights, Halo 3, and fly-fishing lessons. Our ministry team is meeting once every other week to evaluate and plan and learn about the RUF philosophy of ministry. Through our ministry team we’re beginning the process of forming discipleship teams, or “D Teams.” Our D Teams will be organized around the four RUF Goals: Growth in Grace, Fellowship and Service, Evangelism and Missions, and a Biblical Worldview. This is a way to encourage students to discover and use their gifts to equip one another to grow. We continue to enjoy events that attract students not yet involved in the ministry. We had about 30 people over to our house for our back to school pizza party. And we’ve done other things like a picnic, a beach volleyball night, and a hike to Laurel Falls. Every third Saturday of the month we’re teaming up with Christ Community Church to deliver boxes of groceries in Memorial Park, which is a lower income housing area. I’ve had the most one-on-one meetings with students this semester than in any other. I have ten weekly one-on-ones scheduled with guys that I’m discipling, and I meet with some of our girls as well to be a pastor to them on campus. One student recently opened up about some really difficult things, and it’s such a privilege and an honor to have that kind of trust and to be there with the Gospel. Thank you so much for your prayers and support for RUF here at ETSU. It’s always a challenge to raise money for this ministry, and we deeply value the support we receive. Right now my account is in a deficit, but it’s the first time that’s ever happened since I’ve been here, which is pretty amazing. Your support and prayers are greatly appreciated, and we’re grateful for your partnering with us to advance the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. | | |
| I'm getting married!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm so thankful. On July 8th, 2006 in Birmingham, Lord-willing I'm going to marry Laura. We met on February 20th on a blind date!!! She is a nurse and was involved with RUF at Auburn. She is wonderful and godly and gorgeous! I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. | | |
| The Lord has been teaching me to be patient with myself more over the last six months, and He's been showing me His love more and my need to take Him at His word that He delights in me and is "slow to anger." He's been teaching me more about repentance, that if sin was like smoking, our attitude, while not taking a vow about it, should be "as much as is in me, and relying upon the strength God gives through our union with Christ, I've QUIT this. Not, "we'll see what happens." He's helping me to trust Him more in obeying Him and to be somewhat excited about how He'll provide for me. | | |
| I had a great evening at Starbucks yesterday. I was at the All Night Climb in the ETSU gym until 5AM early Friday morning, so I slept in pretty late. As I sat in Starbucks reading about Jesus' baptism by John, I thought once again about how I don't believe very strongly that God delights in me as a son of His. This is the most powerful, transforming, and hard-to-believe truth. When God says about Jesus, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," it's amazing to think that He says the same thing of us who are in union with Christ by faith. In John 17:23 Jesus says that the Father loves His people as much as He loves Jesus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is amazing!!! I know I can grieve the Spirit by my sin, and I know the Father disciplines those He loves, but I tend to feel like God is always either neutral or slightly annoyed. But He is SLOOOOOOW to anger! If I'm repenting and believing the Gospel, I am in good fellowship with Him. I'm saved once for all time by Jesus, but also my daily life is viewed through Christ's righteousness covering me. I'm still confused about some of these things, and I'm trusting God to help me understand and believe His love as Father more and more and more, and if I ever write a book, this is what I want to write it about when I understand and believe it more deeply. I think if I have my own family, that will help. But, besides being encouraged by the love of God and how much more there is to taste and believe of it than I do right now, my friend Dana made me molasses cookies with a sweet note with a robot on it. They taste like gingerbread, and Starbucks used to sell them here but stopped, so they were even more special to me. And then, some other sweet sisters showed up, and we had a great conversation and then joined up with some guys for supper at Johnny Carino's. Then I went home and worked on my sermon more. Some times when you read the Bible, it's like surfing the internet. You "click on" one passage, and it links you to another, and then to another, and you see more how it fits together, but also you get a glimpse of how much you still don't understand and want to learn. When people ask me how they can pray for me, besides "for a wife" (: I say, "That I'd read the Bible and pray." That's it. That's what I need. I think some people have been praying (: Thanks. | | |
| The Matrix
Well, RUF starts back soon at King College and ETSU. I'm teaching on the Kingdom of God as a topic this semester. I think the Matrix is a great metaphor. I know this isn't hip and cutting edge. I know the movie came out a while ago. But, it stuck with me. The matrix is like what the Bible describes as the "dominion of darkness," and the scene in the movie where Neo comes out of the matrix is one of the best ways to describe my conversion to Christianity when I was a senior in high school that I've seen in any film. When the Holy Spirit "regenerates" you, making you "born again," you can see the Kingdom of God, and you can look back at the matrix you were in and the thorough deception you were (in some sense willingly) under. Besides my name, phone number, and some other things, I was WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING!!! Everything that is of vital importance.
What if the Matrix was real? What if reality was really the way the movie describes it, with a false world of deception that enslaves and uses humans and the real world of awareness and freedom. You'd want to know it, wouldn't you? Well, maybe. That question can show us something of our nature. In part, we prefer fantasy to reality, don't we. On Startrek: The Next Generation, there was a thing called the Holodeck. It was a room of virtual reality, where the computer could simulate ANY experience you desire. As a little human nature test, I ask people, "What would YOU do in the Holodek?" Most of us would blush if someone asked that question if we're honest with ourselves about our hidden desires. We WANT the fantasy. We WANT the matrix. So, I ask, if the Matrix movie accurately described reality, would you want to know the truth?
Now, what if the Bible, not the Matrix, accurately describes reality? What if the Bible is the TRUE STORY of REALITY? Would you want to know? Maybe yes, maybe no. God had to change my desires by His Spirit before I wanted out of the matrix, the dominion of darkness. In one sense, He had to take me out before I could really want out. By the time I wanted out, He had already delivered me, giving me eyes to see and a joyful faith to believe and understand that the One had come and had accomplished all FOR me. He lived perfectly in my place and suffered for my crimes in my place and rose again from the dead. Now He rules as King of the Universe and is advancing His Kingdom through a foolish-sounding message, and all His enemies will be made a footstool for His feet. Now, He offerse peace and reconciliation through simply believing He is who He says He is and trusting in what He did. The world I've been delivered to, the world outside the Matrix, is a living relationship with the Living God, and I await the restoration of all things. The Matrix is an understatement. | | |
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