Ever feel like you or groups you are a part of are just scratching the surface of scripture as you study it?
For 75+ years InterVarsity has cultivated methods for studying scripture, particularly in community, that lead to deep insights and life transformation. Check out this new resource, http://howto.bible/, to learn these methods yourself or for groups you are a part of.
Do you ever find you mind so cluttered it is hard to think, let alone pray? One of my monthly rhythms to counter this is to go to a solitary place to pursue connection with Jesus.
Sometimes it is just breathing and relaxing that helps. Other times I am stirred by something I see. The space and quiet gives my mind a chance to catch up.
This week I was struck by a point where the hiking path approached a highway. Being on foot it was quite startling to see the trucks speeding past. As I reflected on a recent experience, it gave me a chance to talk with God about the pace of my life.
Over the years I have been deeply impacted by The Long Wandering Prayer by David Hansen and have collected many resources for personal times of reflection. Please contact me and let me know if you would like some of these.
Have you experienced a season of answers to prayers long prayed? In the Central Region we are in a season like this.
Over a meal our Central Region leadership team shared why they are praising God. One after another the team members shared answers to prayers they have been praying for many years: an alumni saying yes to serve at a campus in Iowa we have been praying for staff to be raised up for ten years, Latino ministry starting in Missouri and at a new school in Omaha that we have been interceding for years to start, and new partners raised for a staff who has been chronically underfunded.
What is particularly remarkable for us is that we have intentionally taken a one year break (fallow year) in setting regional goals to see what God develops. In response we are seeing the fruit of long prayers being answered. Praise God with us for hearing and responding!
The only sermon I have heard on the “Saturday” of Easter week has stuck with me through the years. It was given by John Ortberg at InterVarsity’s National Staff Conference. I encourage you to watch it, particularly if you are in that in between place after your best dream has died and before resurrection has come.
John Ortberg 12/9 AM – Staff Conference 2014 from InterVarsity twentyonehundred on Vimeo.
Compelled by the restarting of InterVarsity’s campus work in Louisiana, students from Prairie View, Texas Southern, and Jackson State Universities came with their InterVarsity staff to Louisiana during spring break.
I was blessed to partner with students in prayer walking and doing outreach on two campuses University of New Orleans and Southern University at New Orleans. We prayed for many students and faculty that we encountered on campus and found many eager to be a part of something new.
Please join me in praying for the replanting of InterVarsity in Louisiana and for Beau Crosetto who is leading this team.
Watch this testimony from a student who attended the LaFe track at Corners 2018.
An exciting opportunity on college campuses are the chance for interfaith dialogue.
One staff in our region does an event called Peace Feast three times a semester where students look at texts from each other’s Holy Books. It gives students a new found appreciation for the Bible and the realization how central Jesus is in the Christian Faith.
Here is his report of the most recent one:
We looked at the birth and importance of Jesus with 11 Christians and 11 students of other faiths. The Peace Feast is a time where no evangelism is allowed and relationship building is central. We looked at the birth story from Luke and Surah 2 in the Qur’an. Many students were amazed hearing how Jesus is a sign from God, and we are called to obey what he says. A lot of new relationships were built so that more Bible discussions can occur in the future. One student exclaimed how interesting and in depth the Bible was. He loved the detail, and asked me to meet up more with him to look at the Bible.
Have you been in a meeting where you begin to expose areas for discussion that have not typically seen the light of day? Each track at Corners 2018 under the leadership of staff, volunteers, and students (pictured above) delved into these previously unexposed areas with the light of the good news of the Gospel through Ephesians 2.
We experienced a powerful time of confession, grace, and mobilizing our communities to ‘pursue peace together’ on campus.
By the numbers we saw at least:
Please pray for the follow up from our time, particularly for the light of the Gospel to do it’s work in places of darkness; for discipleship for decisions and substantial recommitments; and for students to step out in faith to start something new.
This weekend over 300 students, staff, and volunteers will be joining us in Kansas City for Corners Conference 2018.
At this conference students will learn about God-centered ethnic identity and their call into mission. We are focusing on Ephesians 2 and our call to “Pursue Peace Together”. I am so grateful for the five tracks we have. They are focused on serving Asian, Black, Latino, White, and International students.
Please pray for us: for God’s protection over the weekend, that students would encounter God in life-transforming ways, and that the students would be mobilized to partner with God in the work of His kingdom.
If you would like to connect with our prayer team throughout the weekend, let me know.
Have you seen a world changer in the making? As an InterVarsity staff at Washington U I was privileged to be a small part of what God continues to do with Nicole, an alumni from 2007. Below is her story of God directing her to a space of influence and impact.
Moving back to Africa was never a decision I made, it was my plan from the day I left high school in Ghana for Washington U in St. Louis. I was going to become a doctor and work in Ghana, although at the time I thought of my future profession as just that, a job, with no real connection to a larger plan or a location-specific purpose. Over the years, God’s plan was increasingly revealed to me. At every step it I saw a new piece added to the picture and a clearer overall view of where God wanted to be.
With my father’s death, my nuclear family’s gradual return to our native Liberia, and my increasing exposure to the huge deficits in the Liberian health system; I developed an irrepressible longing to intervene in the system and to re-integrate into my family. I left Ghana in 2002 with a desire to return and continue a comfortable, carefree life and I had now felt compelled to move to the much less developed Liberia to participate in the gargantuan task of supervising and restructuring a residency program. Only God could have turned my heart in that direction and given me the audacity to believe that my mission was achievable.
Now, two and a half years after finishing residency, three years after having begun this journey to return to Liberia and only ninety days into my new career here, I can already see God’s hand working. Even in the wake of significant challenges, I am fulfilled and challenged every day in my new role and have never before felt such a sense of purpose. I know for sure that I am exactly where God wants me to be. It’s a feeling that I pray for everyone so that Eph 4:16 is fulfilled “16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.”
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