Core 2-17-08

Leslie came to our core last night and it was wonderful! She spoke on our one-on-one relationship with God. Before she came, the girls gave her a list of questions they had about what it means to have a relationship with God, so Leslie did her best to answer some of the questions for us. The thing that stood out to me the most, well, I guess the several things that stood out to me was just the fact that a "quiet time" is not the relationship with God, but only part of how we spend time with God. She also stressed the importance of having a journal (which ironically enough I started one earlier that day) so that we, in a sense, set up spiritual markers for ourselves. She read several entries from some of her journals from over the years. It was so neat! She gave us a sampling of a time in her life when she was praising God, a time when she was struggling to hear God, and a time when God showed her a sin in her life and she was repenting. The girls in our group really seemed to love hearing from her and there was no shortage of questions afterwards.

Next week Cori is going to speak to us about forgiveness. I don't know her very well so I'm definitely looking forward to her getting to come to our group.

Another thing that has been on my heart lately is the idea of evangelism. Perhaps I can ask around and see if there are any women in our church who are really strong in this area and could come and encourage us. I know that I am really, really weak in this area.

One thing that occurred to me was that, as Christians, we are so excited to run into another Christian that we'll invite them to everything we're doing: hang outs, church, weekly small groups, etc. But, when it comes to meeting non-Christians, we're terrified to invite them to anything! Now, I do think its great to be excited to meet another Christian, but I know for myself that I have swung too far the other way and make it way too huge of a deal to "protect" non-Christians from God. Odd, huh?

What I'd love to grow in is to be more bold and real about about my relationship with God. Part of it too, is that I need to grow in my relationship with God so that I do have something real to share with non-Christians.

So I think the question I'm asking myself lately is what evangelism looks like for my life, here and now. Who does God want me to talk to? What does He want me to say?

Most of the time I feel like I just don't know...

Core 2-10-07

Last night we had our second student-leader-led core. Renee did an excellent job leading us through John 13-17! One of the questions she had us answer in our small groups was which passage out of the ones we read was the most encouraging and which the most challenging. The passage that I picked for both was John 13:1-17 which is the passage that talks about Jesus washing the disciples feet. Renee pointed out that John states that this was an expression of Jesus showing the full extent of his love...what an interesting thing for him to say. Jesus took the position of the lowest of the low in his culture to demonstrate the full extent of his love. It is encouraging that the God of the universe would be the ultimate servant. And yet, its one of the most challenging examples that Jesus could set for us. Our culture encourages us to work our way to the top so that others will be our servants, but Jesus wants us to work our way to the bottom and serve those who Jesus wants us to serve.

Next week Leslie Rowe will be visiting our group and speaking to us about our 1-on-1 relationship with God. Its gonna be good!

So I'm going to give this a try...

Well, I'm not much of a blogger and I'm pretty terrible at keeping up with myself much less keeping other people up to date. So here goes! Mostly I'm going to keep this as a "whats happening in my ministry" blog, but I'm sure other things will slip in as well :)

Just as an overview here's whats been going on:

For four years I lived, worked, and became a part of the ministry over at UTD. THEN I graduated. Exciting and scary. I moved over to be a part of the Collin College ministry pretty much the month I graduated. Thankfully I knew a few people over there. Amy was a huge help as I got to know some of the girls better and getting to co-lead with Casey and Tyler helped the transition tremendously.

Over the summer we met consistently in our cores on Sunday nights. Although Sundays had not worked in the past for the Collin College ministry, it worked this time. I was glad because it helped me transition more quickly into this ministry because there was no way I could go back and be a part of UTD Focus since it met the same evening. I had a great time developing relationships with the girls at CC and now I can't remember what it was like before I knew them!

When the semester hit, not much changed for our core. We continued meeting at the Richardson house, having dinner, and going through a lesson. During this time I pretty much always cooked and always led/organized the lesson. I'm glad to say, we've changed that! I certainly didn't mind cooking or planning, but its been great getting to have some new dishes and hear some new perspectives the last couple of weeks.

So I guess that brings me to the current semester. Casey and I had a genius plan this semester: a syllabus. Pre-planning makes things a lot easier (and a lot easier to deal with for me). Unlike last semester, as a leader team we're reading through a pretty tough book, Life of Christ, by James Stalker. Although I have read it before, I don't remember much. I've loved hearing from our leaders and getting to struggle with some of the concepts he's brought up.

An idea I stole from Casey was inviting, in our case, women from Northeast to come and speak to our group on Sunday evenings. I have talked with about 7 or 8 women to gauge their interest level and it seems that most are on board! Basically our girls came up with a huge list of topics they'd like to hear someone speak about. Last semester we tackled a few of them, but mostly they seemed out of any of range for any of us to really talk about to a useful degree. You can probably see where this is going... We have it arranged so that for about half the weeks these women will come to speak to us about a chosen topic and the other half our girl leaders are responsible for leading. I know, its perfect!

All in all, the semester is going great. Its hard to believe its almost mid-February! Before long, the semester will end. I'm not ready for that yet! Unlike UTD, the CC ministry is constantly moving and changing. Mostly because our people will graduate or transfer sooner. Lots of them this year will be transferring to UNT to finish their degrees. Some will go other places, but basically my heart will be traveling to other cities with them. But Jesus sent his disciples out to the far reaches of his country so I guess its not too much to ask those that I've worked with to do the same. Of course, most of them will only be 45 minutes away by car.

Other than that, God has really been taking me on a trip. Unlike four years ago when I knew exactly what I was doing with my life, only lately have I begun to glimpse an idea of what God has for me this next year. Will I continue to be with CC to serve and provide support to those who will still be there? Will God want me to transition to adult ministry in Segue? I'm just not sure yet... You should pray for me. I'm also looking into getting a full-time job teaching high school math and maybe even getting married.

So that's basically the past 8 months in a nutshell. Hopefully I'll do well keeping this up-to-date. My goals are to post about my interviews with other ministry leaders, how cores go, info about World Vision (so excited!), and other random things that come up. Maybe this will help me get my thoughts out and set some goals for myself :)

If you've read this far, thanks! Although it may not mean much for you, it certainly has helped me realize how far I (and many others) have come and the excitement of what is to come!