Hello, friends!
We are just 48 hours away from Fall Conference 2016 (FC16)! After months of planning and preparing, it's finally here!
Fall Conference is one of those things that you can always count on every year. No matter if you're planting a new campus or staffing an established chapter, in Missouri, New Student Outreach (NSO) season "officially" ends with Fall Conference. It's our chance to gather students from all over the state to come, worship Jesus together, build friendships, and hopefully make significant decisions that will impact them for the rest of their year, or even their lives!
I've always had a special place in my heart for FC's. It was at FC07 that I had a "come to Jesus" moment and would say that I moved from being a believer to a follower of Jesus. FC09 was the catalyst for our very first ACF conversion. I've had the pleasure of directing the past 3 FC's and there's a chance I'll be directing my fourth one next year too. I've seen students receive significant healing, other students make decisions to follow Jesus, and other students still take steps to becoming missionaries on campus. It's a beautiful thing.
FC16's theme is "Come and See." As the directing team and I tried to figure out what we wanted our theme to be, we kept coming back to this idea of "Come and See." I was hesitant at first because I knew that we had done that theme for a Fall Conference before and I didn't want to be redundant. Then I looked back at my notes and saw that the FC where we had used that theme was FC09; none of the other staff on the FC16 directing team were even in college for FC09. I guess I'm just and old man. =0).
Friends, please be praying for us these next few days. We have a lot of moving pars and a lot of things that could definitely use your prayer.
- Registration: We still have 10 spots left and would love to get them filled!
- Travel: Please pray that students will arrive safely and not get lost on the way there or back
- Health: I've already had one migraine this morning and would rather not that anyone, staff or student, get sick
- Spirit: With these conferences, it's always so important that the Spirit move. Pray that we as staff will be ready to hear whatever God has for us and that students will have soft hearts to receive.
Have an excellent day!
~Adam
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
So, how's ministry going?
Hello, friends!
One of the questions that I get asked pretty often is "So, how's ministry going?" Most/all of my friends and family know what I do and it's an easy way to start a conversation. Consider it the missionary version of "How's work?" or, "How're the wife and kid?" (For the record, I get that question a lot too).
A few days ago I was asked that question again and for whatever reason, this time I decided to stop and actually try and quantify "how the ministry was going." It led me down a very interesting rabbit hole of sorts.
Back when my sole job was ACF, answering that question was relatively easy. There were always different areas going well and other areas not going so well but usually everything was pretty simple to calculate and stuff was correlated so when one area was going well, it usually meant the chapter was doing OK.
Now that I have 4 chapters that I work with, 2 staff I supervise, 1 staff team to lead, and a host of other responsibilities (like this conference I'm directing next week), there are more levels to consider. If stuff with one chapter is going well but not with another, how do I answer the question? If campus stuff is going great but the conference planning has been difficult, does that mean ministry is going well or not so well? Should I just go with "net positive" and assume that if I add up all the plusses and minuses that it'll all work out?
In one sense, it doesn't really matter. I was praying a few days ago about different areas of ministry and the word that kept coming back to me was, "I require faithfulness, not results." I'm reminded of Psalm 50 where God reminds David that he doesn't actually need anything from him. I go back to one of my favorite stories from scripture where Jesus reminds the 72 after they come back from missions work to rejoice only because their names are written in the book of life. All said and done, I'm doing the best I can, following where I believe God is leading me, and trying not to focus on the results as much as the process.
The other side is that I want to be honest and transparent. Meg will tell you that honesty and integrity are two values I hold very high. When I started ministry, I said from the jump that since I was working in Missouri but most of my base was in California, I was going to be as transparent as possible in ministry. That means that the question to me is less of a rhetorical device asked with no care for the answer; it is a chance to re-evaluate, assess, and analyze, in hopes that it gives glory to God.
What does that mean for y'all? In short, it means don't worry if I take a second to answer that question. I'm just searching for the right answer. =0).
Have an excellent day!
~Adam
One of the questions that I get asked pretty often is "So, how's ministry going?" Most/all of my friends and family know what I do and it's an easy way to start a conversation. Consider it the missionary version of "How's work?" or, "How're the wife and kid?" (For the record, I get that question a lot too).
A few days ago I was asked that question again and for whatever reason, this time I decided to stop and actually try and quantify "how the ministry was going." It led me down a very interesting rabbit hole of sorts.
Back when my sole job was ACF, answering that question was relatively easy. There were always different areas going well and other areas not going so well but usually everything was pretty simple to calculate and stuff was correlated so when one area was going well, it usually meant the chapter was doing OK.
Now that I have 4 chapters that I work with, 2 staff I supervise, 1 staff team to lead, and a host of other responsibilities (like this conference I'm directing next week), there are more levels to consider. If stuff with one chapter is going well but not with another, how do I answer the question? If campus stuff is going great but the conference planning has been difficult, does that mean ministry is going well or not so well? Should I just go with "net positive" and assume that if I add up all the plusses and minuses that it'll all work out?
In one sense, it doesn't really matter. I was praying a few days ago about different areas of ministry and the word that kept coming back to me was, "I require faithfulness, not results." I'm reminded of Psalm 50 where God reminds David that he doesn't actually need anything from him. I go back to one of my favorite stories from scripture where Jesus reminds the 72 after they come back from missions work to rejoice only because their names are written in the book of life. All said and done, I'm doing the best I can, following where I believe God is leading me, and trying not to focus on the results as much as the process.
The other side is that I want to be honest and transparent. Meg will tell you that honesty and integrity are two values I hold very high. When I started ministry, I said from the jump that since I was working in Missouri but most of my base was in California, I was going to be as transparent as possible in ministry. That means that the question to me is less of a rhetorical device asked with no care for the answer; it is a chance to re-evaluate, assess, and analyze, in hopes that it gives glory to God.
What does that mean for y'all? In short, it means don't worry if I take a second to answer that question. I'm just searching for the right answer. =0).
Have an excellent day!
~Adam
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Starting Today!!!
Hello, friends!
Today is a really full day so it'll just be a quick post but I wanted to get this out there because two of the InterVarsity Chapters I lead "officially" start today!
At Columbia College, from 10-1 Central is the annual "Hey Day" tradition. This is essentially a big activities fair when students from all over campus come, enjoy free food, and look around at all the different clubs to get plugged in. I'm new to Columbia College but what I've learned is that 1) This year is the biggest ever for on campus students at Columbia College 2) When students get involved in something, they go 100% and 3) Students are way over involved so if they don't join your group early, they may not join at all.
Would you please pray for Hey Day? Pray that God will bring students of peace to our table, that we'll make good connections, and that this will be the beginning to a great year!
Just a few hours later, @ 3:30, Nurses Christian Fellowship (NCF) will be having its first meeting of the year. Apparently there's a big exam for second year nursing students @ 4:30 so our plan is to have a more informal meeting with snacks so students can come in, meet one another, grab some brain food, and get on their way. The cabinet has been working really hard on planning for today and I've been really impressed with their leadership.
Would you please pray for NCF? Pray that students, even though they have an exam, will still come for fellowship. Pray that the cabinet will not be overwhelmed. Pray that the 65 Freshmen who expressed interest in our group at the Nursing School orientation in August will take a risk and join us.
Have an excellent day!
~Adam
Today is a really full day so it'll just be a quick post but I wanted to get this out there because two of the InterVarsity Chapters I lead "officially" start today!
At Columbia College, from 10-1 Central is the annual "Hey Day" tradition. This is essentially a big activities fair when students from all over campus come, enjoy free food, and look around at all the different clubs to get plugged in. I'm new to Columbia College but what I've learned is that 1) This year is the biggest ever for on campus students at Columbia College 2) When students get involved in something, they go 100% and 3) Students are way over involved so if they don't join your group early, they may not join at all.
Would you please pray for Hey Day? Pray that God will bring students of peace to our table, that we'll make good connections, and that this will be the beginning to a great year!
Just a few hours later, @ 3:30, Nurses Christian Fellowship (NCF) will be having its first meeting of the year. Apparently there's a big exam for second year nursing students @ 4:30 so our plan is to have a more informal meeting with snacks so students can come in, meet one another, grab some brain food, and get on their way. The cabinet has been working really hard on planning for today and I've been really impressed with their leadership.
Would you please pray for NCF? Pray that students, even though they have an exam, will still come for fellowship. Pray that the cabinet will not be overwhelmed. Pray that the 65 Freshmen who expressed interest in our group at the Nursing School orientation in August will take a risk and join us.
Have an excellent day!
~Adam
Friday, September 9, 2016
A Fun Day Meeting Non-Christians
Hello, friends!
I've been spending most of my time at Lincoln University doing "proxe stations" which are interactive Gospel displays. Instead of asking students randomly if I could talk to them about Jesus, I set up a display that draws folk to me. They ask me what I'm doing, then I get to have a conversation with them that leads to a presentation of the Gospel. I love proxes because it makes talking about Jesus natural and not super awkward. It's also something that students can learn to do pretty easily and is a great way to get them started on doing evangelism.
Proxes at Lincoln have been really great for meeting people but not actually super great for evangelism. It isn't because folk aren't interested in Gospel. It's actually because most students at Lincoln identify themselves as Christians, which means the conversation about inviting them to follow Jesus is much harder. It's not really good strategy to try and convince students that they aren't Christians as a way to get them to want to be a part of your chapter.
The model that I use to present the Gospel is called the Big Story. You can see it here. Basically, you explain the world using 4 circles then ask students to identify which circle they identify with the most. The first circle says, "my world is great and I wouldn't change a thing!" Circle 2 says, "my world is messed up and that's just the way it is." Circle 3 says, "my world is messed up but I believe that Jesus has saved me." Circle 4 says, "my world is messed up, Jesus has saved me, and he's sent me to go heal the world."
Here's the "problem" at Lincoln. Most of the students who I encounter put themselves between circles 3 and 4, meaning they identify as Christians but don't feel like they're "ready" to go out and heal the world. Sometimes this means that students need or want to make a re-commitment to following Jesus. Oftentimes though, it means that they they grew up in the church so are "Christian by default" but really haven't thought about their faith in any substantive way for a long time. I'm sure this happens on other campuses too but I've noticed that this is very much true for students at Lincoln. These conversations are difficult because before you can invite a student to change, you first have to have a conversation about how their view of the world isn't actually accurate.
Wednesday, was an exception to the rule and it was terribly refreshing. More than half of the students who I met on Wednesday did NOT identify themselves as Christians. There was the self professed atheist. There was the woman who believed in a higher power but wasn't sure what to make of all the claims about who Jesus is. There were the two men who put themselves solidly in Circle 2 and knew that their world was broken. While on the one hand, these conversations are heartbreaking because students are lost and they need the Gospel, it was so uplifting to actually have real conversations about faith where students were free to share their doubts, fears, and questions. No one made a decision to follow Jesus on Wednesday but it was good for my soul to have real conversations about Jesus.
Friends, would you please pray for these students? Kloe, Diamond, Autumn, John, BlueMan, and a host of other students on Lincoln's campus need to know who Jesus is. Would you pray that God will reveal himself to them and that He will change their hearts. Please pray that I'll get another chance to interact with them and share the story of God's goodness with them. Pray for more interactions like this and that students will say "yes" to following Jesus!
Have an excellent day!
~Adam
I've been spending most of my time at Lincoln University doing "proxe stations" which are interactive Gospel displays. Instead of asking students randomly if I could talk to them about Jesus, I set up a display that draws folk to me. They ask me what I'm doing, then I get to have a conversation with them that leads to a presentation of the Gospel. I love proxes because it makes talking about Jesus natural and not super awkward. It's also something that students can learn to do pretty easily and is a great way to get them started on doing evangelism.
Proxes at Lincoln have been really great for meeting people but not actually super great for evangelism. It isn't because folk aren't interested in Gospel. It's actually because most students at Lincoln identify themselves as Christians, which means the conversation about inviting them to follow Jesus is much harder. It's not really good strategy to try and convince students that they aren't Christians as a way to get them to want to be a part of your chapter.
The model that I use to present the Gospel is called the Big Story. You can see it here. Basically, you explain the world using 4 circles then ask students to identify which circle they identify with the most. The first circle says, "my world is great and I wouldn't change a thing!" Circle 2 says, "my world is messed up and that's just the way it is." Circle 3 says, "my world is messed up but I believe that Jesus has saved me." Circle 4 says, "my world is messed up, Jesus has saved me, and he's sent me to go heal the world."
Here's the "problem" at Lincoln. Most of the students who I encounter put themselves between circles 3 and 4, meaning they identify as Christians but don't feel like they're "ready" to go out and heal the world. Sometimes this means that students need or want to make a re-commitment to following Jesus. Oftentimes though, it means that they they grew up in the church so are "Christian by default" but really haven't thought about their faith in any substantive way for a long time. I'm sure this happens on other campuses too but I've noticed that this is very much true for students at Lincoln. These conversations are difficult because before you can invite a student to change, you first have to have a conversation about how their view of the world isn't actually accurate.
Wednesday, was an exception to the rule and it was terribly refreshing. More than half of the students who I met on Wednesday did NOT identify themselves as Christians. There was the self professed atheist. There was the woman who believed in a higher power but wasn't sure what to make of all the claims about who Jesus is. There were the two men who put themselves solidly in Circle 2 and knew that their world was broken. While on the one hand, these conversations are heartbreaking because students are lost and they need the Gospel, it was so uplifting to actually have real conversations about faith where students were free to share their doubts, fears, and questions. No one made a decision to follow Jesus on Wednesday but it was good for my soul to have real conversations about Jesus.
Friends, would you please pray for these students? Kloe, Diamond, Autumn, John, BlueMan, and a host of other students on Lincoln's campus need to know who Jesus is. Would you pray that God will reveal himself to them and that He will change their hearts. Please pray that I'll get another chance to interact with them and share the story of God's goodness with them. Pray for more interactions like this and that students will say "yes" to following Jesus!
Have an excellent day!
~Adam
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Oh, What A Night!
Hello, friends!
First of all, a shout out to "Papa" John Leong because I'm sure he's the only one who got the the title of this blog. (That man sure does love his Jersey Boys...)
Anyway, this post isn't about December 1963, but rather September 2016, particularly September 2, 2016, when ICF held it's first ever English Club! Meg may be guest posting about this later but I wanted to give you a taste of what I saw from my perspective.
The plan was to combine what international students are always in favor of (English practice) with something that college students are always in favor of (free food) with something that ICF is always in favor of (studying the Bible in order to discover Jesus). English Club at 6, followed by Dinner (7) & Discovery (8). It's a good plan. Check that, it's a great plan. It just has a lot of moving parts.
I've said this before (although I can't find the exact post), that one of my favorite things to do is actually run logistics during events, particularly for ICF. I figure, I'm good at doing the small tasks, like taking out the trash, refilling the water jugs, and things like that, which allow folk who are more gifted at networking, having conversations, and generally connecting to people (read: my wife) to do their thing. At the end of the day, everybody wins! My job for Friday was going to be in that sweet spot with a twist: I was going to be running Ezra duty.
We decided that Ezra was going to join the ICF group for English Club/D&D number one because 1) it would be fun 2) he attracts lots of people and 3) while watching Ezra is a full time proposition, it would still allow me to be present to help as needed. Ezra and I got there a little bit before 6 and immediately things started to go off the rails in the best way possible.
6pm rolled around and there were a few people in the room, including volunteers. It was a small crowd for sure and I figured that more folk would be there. I just didn't expect to see the train of people entering never end. While I'm simultaneously watching Ezra go up and down the stairs in Memorial Union, I'm also seeing person after person come up for English Club. A few people became more, which quickly became more, then even more. It was at that point that I was commissioned with a very important task; I needed to order some pizzas because we didn't have enough food.
Now, at this point, I'm trying to keep my son from killing himself by going headfirst down a flight of stairs while also trying to order pizzas. Thankfully, there was a student who was there to help watch Ezra and the pizzas got ordered. The problem was that by the time the pizzas got there, the room was packed and we needed to make another order.
Mizzou has multiple pizza joints in town (as you would expect from a college town) but one that I often frequent is the Domino's on 9th because they usually have "hot and ready" medium pizzas that you can pick up quickly if you're in a hurry. I'd made the first order to Papa John's because we had plenty of time but for my second trip we were going to need pizzas faster so I literally ran to Domino's.
They didn't have any pizzas ready to go...
So, I place and order and wait for what seems like an eternity (probably only 15 minutes or so) then run back to see that dinner was in full swing. I plop down the pizzas and realize, it's 7:40 and Ezra, who is currently being watched by the whole group, needs to get home. I scoop up the little guy, much to his chagrin since he was having so much fun, get him home, give him a bath, get him to bed, and then attempt to decompress a little.
I'm not actually entirely sure of everything that happened during the "Discovery" part of the English Club/D&D night. I went to bed around 10:30, before Meg came home. I heard she preached the Gospel and then they got ice cream. Those sound like a good pair, to me. =0).
Friends, it was a crazy night but a total blessing. Running out of food because you have more people come than you'd anticipated is always a good problem to have in our line of work. To our financial ministry partners, thank you for all of your support and partnership. You bought those pizzas to make sure that we had enough.
Could you please pray for ICF and the English Club? Week 1 was so great but Week 2 is really when you figure out how big your group is going to be. That's when the folk who aren't just "checking things out" come back and you can start to get into a rhythm. Pray for good follow up, that students will continue to be engaged, and that the non-Christian students who come just to practice their English will discover Jesus in the process.
Have an excellent day!
~Adam
First of all, a shout out to "Papa" John Leong because I'm sure he's the only one who got the the title of this blog. (That man sure does love his Jersey Boys...)
Anyway, this post isn't about December 1963, but rather September 2016, particularly September 2, 2016, when ICF held it's first ever English Club! Meg may be guest posting about this later but I wanted to give you a taste of what I saw from my perspective.
The plan was to combine what international students are always in favor of (English practice) with something that college students are always in favor of (free food) with something that ICF is always in favor of (studying the Bible in order to discover Jesus). English Club at 6, followed by Dinner (7) & Discovery (8). It's a good plan. Check that, it's a great plan. It just has a lot of moving parts.
I've said this before (although I can't find the exact post), that one of my favorite things to do is actually run logistics during events, particularly for ICF. I figure, I'm good at doing the small tasks, like taking out the trash, refilling the water jugs, and things like that, which allow folk who are more gifted at networking, having conversations, and generally connecting to people (read: my wife) to do their thing. At the end of the day, everybody wins! My job for Friday was going to be in that sweet spot with a twist: I was going to be running Ezra duty.
We decided that Ezra was going to join the ICF group for English Club/D&D number one because 1) it would be fun 2) he attracts lots of people and 3) while watching Ezra is a full time proposition, it would still allow me to be present to help as needed. Ezra and I got there a little bit before 6 and immediately things started to go off the rails in the best way possible.
6pm rolled around and there were a few people in the room, including volunteers. It was a small crowd for sure and I figured that more folk would be there. I just didn't expect to see the train of people entering never end. While I'm simultaneously watching Ezra go up and down the stairs in Memorial Union, I'm also seeing person after person come up for English Club. A few people became more, which quickly became more, then even more. It was at that point that I was commissioned with a very important task; I needed to order some pizzas because we didn't have enough food.
Mizzou has multiple pizza joints in town (as you would expect from a college town) but one that I often frequent is the Domino's on 9th because they usually have "hot and ready" medium pizzas that you can pick up quickly if you're in a hurry. I'd made the first order to Papa John's because we had plenty of time but for my second trip we were going to need pizzas faster so I literally ran to Domino's.
They didn't have any pizzas ready to go...
So, I place and order and wait for what seems like an eternity (probably only 15 minutes or so) then run back to see that dinner was in full swing. I plop down the pizzas and realize, it's 7:40 and Ezra, who is currently being watched by the whole group, needs to get home. I scoop up the little guy, much to his chagrin since he was having so much fun, get him home, give him a bath, get him to bed, and then attempt to decompress a little.
I'm not actually entirely sure of everything that happened during the "Discovery" part of the English Club/D&D night. I went to bed around 10:30, before Meg came home. I heard she preached the Gospel and then they got ice cream. Those sound like a good pair, to me. =0).
Friends, it was a crazy night but a total blessing. Running out of food because you have more people come than you'd anticipated is always a good problem to have in our line of work. To our financial ministry partners, thank you for all of your support and partnership. You bought those pizzas to make sure that we had enough.
Could you please pray for ICF and the English Club? Week 1 was so great but Week 2 is really when you figure out how big your group is going to be. That's when the folk who aren't just "checking things out" come back and you can start to get into a rhythm. Pray for good follow up, that students will continue to be engaged, and that the non-Christian students who come just to practice their English will discover Jesus in the process.
Have an excellent day!
~Adam
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