November 2008

Faith Week

Fall retreat is always a critical event in the life of our movement as students are taught from the Word and exposed to a vision of reaching their campuses for Christ. They often come away from the retreat with a renewed love for God and an availability to be used by him.

In order to capture momentum from the retreat we decided to give students an opportunity to take a step of faith by seeking ways to share the message of Christ with people around them, whether roommates, classmates, family members or other friends. One week of concerted effort to share the gospel with people around us—we called it Faith Week.

Many of the students in our ministry have never shared the gospel with another person and many of those took advantage of opportunities throughout the week to talk to the people around them. While some where scared to share their faith, once they had a chance to actually do it, they found that it was not as difficult as they thought it would be, and they found that people were much more open to talk about spiritual things than they ever would have thought.

Even though the week fell during a busy time of midterm exams, a lot of our students took extra time throughout the week to share the gospel. By the end of the week we had shared Christ with 98 people, seen one girl come to Christ and a few others indicate a desire to pray to receive Christ later.

Please pray that our students would continue to take steps of faith in sharing their faith and that we would see lost students come to know Christ.

An email sent by one of our student women during Faith Week:

Hello All!

I just wanted to share with you some ways that God is working on this campus!

I'm sure we are all busy with exams, and last night I was feeling (probably like most of you) stressed and in a hurry all day, and I was also feeling inexperienced at sharing the gospel, and intimidated by the thought of being asked questions that I didn't know the answer to. But thanks to the concrete goals we made for Faith Week, I decided to go sharing and just try to "show up" and see how God could work.  Last night I had the opportunity to talk with a sophomore girl in Lloyd [a residence hall], and I could tell that she was genuinely thirsty for the truth and having a spiritual life. She said that she really desired to know how to place her faith in God, and what it meant to have a relationship with Him, but that she just didn't know how.  We were able to go through the Knowing God Personally booklet, and she really began to understand how Christ bridges the gap between us and God and allows us to know Him and be saved from sin. After going through the Knowing God Personally book a few times she decided pray to receive Christ!!

Another amazing note is that Erin told me later that she had talked with this girl last year, and at that time she was really not interested in having a personal relationship with God. What an awesome example of how God can change people's hearts! I was so convicted of God's work in the situation! Just as it was mentioned on Monday night, you never know when someone is one life event away from turning toward the truth.

I hope that this will be an encouragement to you this week!

Kids' Column

Trick-or-treat time

Andrew horseback riding at a church campout

Playing flag football

Football is over now. I really enjoyed getting to play. In my last game I was able to catch a pass and run it in for a touchdown! I also got to go to a campout with TNT (part of AWANA). We rode horses so now I am teaching Lauren how to steer a horse.

Lauren on the balance beam

I like gymnastics! I got to do the vault, the bar, a high balance beam, a low balance beam and floor exercises. It was a lot of fun! We have been playing a lot in the woods behind our house. There is a girls’ club and a boys’ club. Our new house is great!