All I can really say is that God has been using me in a great way that I can feel his power, love, and mercy around me. These past couple of weeks have been as much fun as they have been challenging. I will say I go to a Christian school where, you would expect the kids there to be Christian. That’s just it, now a day’s parents are putting their kids in a Private School just to keep them out of trouble. The worst part is, is that when you get kicked out of Private school. NO Private school after that will accept you. Now I haven’t even come close to being kicked out, but I know a few kids that were kicked out. I don’t really know what to do on here, but hopefully God will speak through me on here.

Thanks, In God’s Love

JesusFreak

College life is… different.

Now that I’ve stated the obvious, I’ll get into specifics. There is a sense of freedom here in this tiny college town that no lack of curfew in high school can match. I live in an apartment with a fantastic raised-Christian roommate who is now my best friend. We go through everything together, which is comforting in an already-turbulent social scene. As the end of our second semester approaches, I find it hard to believe how much we’ve already been through and how much we’ve grown up over the last nine months.

Last summer, I thought I was going to transition into Super Christian mode. I had a big stack of tracts ready to go, my roommate and I were getting to know each other and making plans to find a new church and join the BSM, and I was gearing up for a spotless lifestyle. But all of that never happened… I think God had other plans for me and my roommate.

We are in an Honors College, a sect of a university that lives together and shares the burden of a heavier work load and high ambitions. We’re like a big family. The group of friends we immediately settled into were all sophomores, already well into the swing of college life and eager to take us under their wings above all the other freshmen. Several are Christian, but none are exactly the church-going, praise-song-singing kinds of people I imagined I’d like to be. But these were an awesome group of people! They were (mostly) responsible and knew how to have fun without being too stupid about it. As my roommate and I built friendships, school involvement also heightened. I joined the school’s Ipmrov Troupe, excited for the opportunity to be quick-witted on stage. Rehearsals just so happen to be at the same time as the BSM meetings. I wasn’t as involved in the purely Christian scene as I had hoped I’d be, but I was making connections.

The downer was that, a few months earlier, several of our close friends had been REALL stupid and committed a pretty big theft. Two of our closest friends were arrested just a month into the first semester, and several others were punished in other ways… The social utopia began to crumble. We had associated ourselves with thieves unknowingly, and were then caught in the middle of a huge storm.

But we didn’t abandon our friends. When explaining my situation to my parents, who understandably thought I was in the wrong crowd, I reminded them that Jesus hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors. My apartment became a sort of sanctuary where our struggling friends could come to feel safe. My roommate and I brewed countless pots of coffee. We prayed with them and talked with them, and our friends confided in us and developed a huge amount of respect for us. To this day, all of the sophomores we connected with still consider us the glue that kept the group from crumbling away completely. Seeing our loving example has even strengthened some of their faiths.

Even though our first semesters in college have been less than ideal and I’m not living the life I imagined I would, I really feel that I’m in the right place with the right people. God has purposes for all of us, and my roommate and I feel that we didn’t make a mistake by getting in on a social circle that wasn’t necessarily pure and Godly in every way. I doubt such a group even really exists in college… We just have to make the best of what we’re given, live lovingly with our neighbors, try not to judge others for their faults, and lead by good Christlike example every day. I couldn’t have learned that lesson if I had sheltered myself from the reality of college life.

Hey all. As I’ve previously mentioned I lead the young adult ministries (yes I know the acronym is yam, I try not to think about it) at my home church, this caters to those who’ve graduated high school and runs to mid 20s.

With this age group I feel like alot of the magic, excitement and joy of the Christmas season is dwindling. I must admit that I’m feeling the same way (I lost my grandfather this year and its been tough going into the holiday season without him). That’s why I reach out to you all. I recognize that its my responsibility to make Advent something m0re than the time spent waiting for Christmas to come and pass.

At the same time I dont want our Wednesday nights to be so focused on the “warm and fuzzies” and the hecticness that this time of the year brings that we lose track of why we celebrate in the first place. Thats why I turn to you, currently I have planned a taize style worship time that I plan to do next week and the following going choraling. For those who dont know about taize its style of worship thats heavy on prayer and silent mediation, the music is quiet and repetitious, normally a chant sang in latin.

Im also debating discussing the Christmas story on Wednesday, December 23, but my concern is the amount of repetition that they’ll experience will devalue its importance (We’ve started Luke last Sunday, play Jeopardy on the first Sunday of the month so its likely that the last Sunday of Advent we’d being talking about Christ’s birth, then they’d hear it again on Wednesday, most are regulars to my church so they’ll attend the Christmas Eve service on Thursday, and a few will be there again on Christmas Day, hearing the story a 4th time in  week. So its a concern I admit, though I hate to think of it as something mundane regardless of how often its discussed).

Also we’ll be going with several other ministries to visit an amazingly well done live nativity in the area on Sunday the 13th.

So I turn to you my friends, in addition to the taize worship, and christmas choraling what should I consider doing with my young adults that will instill the magic and meaning of the holidays? Please post any ideas below. Thanks and Merry Christmas!

The D.I.V.E. Project Is Coming Soon…..What Does D.I.V.E. Mean, It Stands For “Discovering IndiViduals with Epilepsy”. As someone that has suffered all my life with this, i believe it is time for us to truly be heard as a group. So here is the plan…..I’m going to talk to people in the Southern Maryland area to start and when i participate in the Epilepsy Walk IN DC in March, I’m going to take a video camera with me and I will sit and talk to anyone willing to tell there story.

This project didn’t come to my mind until i really sat down and prayed about what i need to do as a new Christian that is lost and seems to have no where to look to, so my last resort was to ask god what to do. This thought that was was in my head for about a year previous i found wasn’t there for no reason…..it was there cause god knew i needed to do this. So this past week i have been plotting and planning on how to do this, everything……and it’s slowly coming together in my mind. So as a new Christian i have found my calling now..it’s to allow the people with epilepsy to have a voice and finally be heard.