A New Year
Posted by Reid Jilek in Ministry Update on September 2, 2010
Bethel classes began on Tuesday and it has been exciting to meet new students and connect with students that were on our summer training project. I am excited for what the Lord will do this year!
We had our semester kick off meeting for Bethel students last night. Andrew Knight shared about how his life was impacted by two football guys well he was in college and how because of these men teaching him about Jesus Christ he is now doing the same thing. Then Andrew went on to describe how he would summarize what campus outreach is and he said, “It is a network of relationships centered around the Gospel and making the Gospel known.” I want other students to be able to have a testimony just like Andrew. Pray that students will be impacted through gospel centered relationship and the gospel being shared.
What We’re About
Posted by Eric Lonergan in Ministry Update on September 1, 2010
We just had our campus kickoff for NWC Sunday (Aug. 29th). The goal of this meeting was to cast some vision for reaching the campus this semester. I wanted to communicate something that would easily be remembered and was still motivating for reaching students for the sake of furthering the gospel. The simple summary of what I unpacked was that Campus Outreach is about a Movement of Leaders proclaiming a Message.
We want to define leadership in our ministry no differently than Jesus might have. We’re saying that as long as you desire to give your life away so that others might treasure Christ you are pointing yourself in the direction of leadership. A movement consists of a group of leaders committed to authentic community, and committed to helping each other give their lives away on the campus. Finally, the message that we are all about is the gospel. This is what Jesus wanted his apostles to proclaim (Luke 9:1-6 — this was the passage we read together). Whether we’re ministering to believers or not, the gospel is what we and they need to hear (Rom. 1:15, 1 Cor. 15:1-2).
We’re praying that our students would begin to see themselves fitting into this goal; that they’d become a group of leaders committed to a movement and proclaiming the gospel at NWC. Please join us in praying for the same thing.
Start of the School Year
Posted by Charlie Brooks in Ministry Update, Staff event on August 26, 2010
As a staff team we just finished our August staff training. We learned from our director, Ken Currie, 20 lessons that he has learned through 20 years of college ministry. The categories of topics covered were very broad from campus ministry to personal ministry to just perspectives on life. We talked a lot about the 4 e’s of our ministry (evangelism, establish, equip, and export). Some of the lessons included: the power of ministry through multiplication (as opposed to addition), evangelism is the lifeblood of campus ministry, people are both a means and an end, the gospel is the point of everything, never lose the call to radical living, and it is not a bad thing to be theologically orthodox. There were many more covered, but those are just a few highlights.
It is good to have all of those things in mind as we begin a new school year ministering to students on the various campuses in the Twin Cities. Our ministry has a very specific calling and mission, “to build laborers on the campus for the lost world.” And we have a very specific strategy for how we believe God wants to use us to that end. So it is important to have a plan and to have a specific way of thinking and to have wisdom from someone who has done this “kind of work” for 20 years. But our hope does not rest in that alone. Our hope ultimately rests in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16). So we want to use these things that we have learned and lay them at the foot of the cross and ask that God would use these principles, use our ministry, use us to impact many students on the campus for Christ this year – that laborers would be built on the college campus for the lost world.
Summer Training Project 2010 Video
Posted by COM Blogger in Summer Training Project on August 15, 2010
Expansion – St. Paul Campuses
Posted by Elliot Stokes in Ministry Update on August 5, 2010
This coming fall Paul Poteat, hopefully one other staff person, and I will minister on campuses in St. Paul, MN. For some time now we have been dreaming about expanding our ministry in the St. Paul/Minneapolis metro area and now, because of some good growth in the last few years, we have enough staff to launch out to some new campuses.
St. Paul has a few small private college campuses that are all close to each other. Most of the colleges have extremely successful academic programs and the students who attend them are generally successful, ambitious, and have big dreams for their futures. They have a lot going for them and aren’t “low-hanging” fruit. Most students at these campuses are not Christians and there aren’t many flourishing Christian ministries.
As of today we know five people who attend one of the colleges. Three of them are currently on the Summer Training Project with 120 other college students in Garden City, SC. Their names are Sahr, Greg, and Billy. These guys are believers who are hungry to grow in their relationship with Christ and who want to reach others for Him. I’m praying they will come back to the campus this fall with a new eagerness and vision to reach others on their campus for Christ.
Our plan for the fall is to meet as many people as we possibly can, share the gospel with them, and build relationships. You can pray that God would open doors for us in dormitories, on the soccer and football teams, and begin working now so that people would respond to the gospel when they hear it. I am VERY hopeful about what God can do on these campuses in the fall and am praying that He would open the hearts of many to receive the gospel (Acts 16:14) and amaze us in the process. I also want to encourage you to join me in trusting God for the advance of the gospel and praying for our ministry on St. Paul campuses this fall.
STP 2010: Matt Reagan – The Cost of Eternity
Posted by COM Blogger in Resources, Summer Training Project on August 4, 2010
In the last training session before our departure from project, Matt Reagan shared about heaven. He encouraged us to live with our heads in the clouds, never giving up the hope for more we have in Christ. He illustrates the splendor of our new body and souls to encourage us to see that the prize is worth any cost. As a practical, he pushes us to play the “heaven game” on the way back with others to remind each other the hope we have.
STP 2010: Jon Saunders – Grow Up
Posted by COM Blogger in Resources, Summer Training Project on August 3, 2010
Jon Saunders, the last of the RET speakers, tells us to grow up. Discipleship is not babysitting so we cannot approach it with an “I-deserve” mentality.
“Long for Jesus and you will grow up.”
STP 2010: Paul Poteat – How to Avoid a Mountaintop Experience
Posted by COM Blogger in Resources, Summer Training Project on August 3, 2010
In this RET session, Paul Poteat encourages us to make the most out of our time and our resources in order to avoid spiritual amnesia. STP is not a mountaintop that you climb and then coast down for the rest of the year until next summer. Instead it is a continual fight to battle our compulsion to forget the impact of the gospel on our lives.
STP 2010: Eric Lonergan – Relating to Friends and Family
Posted by COM Blogger in Resources, Summer Training Project on August 3, 2010
Eric Lonergan explores the dangers of being indifferent or overly passionate in sharing with others after STP. He reminds us that God loves us despite us, not because of us. He encourages us to share with love and with words, letting the gospel bleed out from us and define who we are.
STP 2010: Ken Currie – How Not to Fall Away From CO
Posted by COM Blogger in Resources, Summer Training Project on August 3, 2010
In the first Return Training talk (RET), Ken Currie, the director of COM, shared on practicals of staying in Christian Community by giving main reasons why people leave. He explains how our culture tends to value individualistic tendencies, but he defends the value of community from a biblical perspective.
Then he encourage us to commit to three P’s: A Purpose, A Person, A Process.
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