Archive for category Ministry Update
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.
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.
Student Testimony – Jay Ripley
Posted by COM Blogger in Ministry Update, Resources on June 22, 2010
Jesus Christ the Perfect Sacrifice Once and for All
Posted by Reid Jilek in Ministry Update on May 6, 2010
Hebrews 10:14, “for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”
Christ has become the ultimate sacrifice. No longer do we need daily sacrifices offered by the priests, which could never take away sins. “for it is impossible for bulls and goats to take away sins“ Heb 10:4. But through Christ’s blood He has taken away our sin! “By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all” Heb 10:10. Only Jesus can take away the sins of the world. Without Jesus we would be hopeless! Praise God that we have an advocate in Christ.
This is an amazing truth that I don’t take time to think about enough. I am a dirty sinful person that deserves Hell, but Christ has made me perfect in the eyes of God. God looks down on me and sees Christ, and not my sin! This is an amazing truth!
1 Timothy 1:15 “the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”
Retreat…To Advance
Posted by Ken Currie in Ministry Update, Resources on May 3, 2010
Jesus gave his church marching orders in Matt. 28:18–20. The church is to be about the business of making disciples. All resources; people, time, money, plans, etc. must be given to this end. One of the temptations that established churches and ministries face is to maintain the status quo. The stark realities of suffering, death, heaven and hell do not leave room for coasting. The apostle Paul gives us the template when he says, “For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe” (1 Tim. 4:10). Christians know that they are already forgiven and righteous in God’s sight. Through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the work of gaining God’s acceptance is finished. Now the church moves out with God’s favor to accomplish God’s mission by God’s grace.
Most churches and Christian ministries have retreats. In this update you will read reports of several Campus Outreach Minneapolis retreats. There is an opportunity and a danger in “retreating.” The danger is that retreats can become routine. The goal of the retreat can become obscured in the planning and executing of details, the focus of recruiting, and ideas like, “we always have a retreat in the spring.” Like any other program, sometimes retreats can become an end and not a means to an end. The opportunity in taking retreats is the chance to focus on God, strengthen relationships within the body of Christ, and give unbelievers an “inside look” at the gospel.
Our leadership continues to evaluate every program in light of our vision of “building laborers on the campus for the lost world.” So, our aim in having retreats is ultimately to advance. We aim to advance worship for the name above every name in the hearts and minds of our staff and students, to advance vision for students on our campuses, to advance vision for the lost peoples of the world, to advance understanding of God’s Word and its relevance for all areas of life, and to advance relationships built around love, truth and accountability. We have found that taking a group of students to a place that is out of the regular mainstream of the campus with time for worship, teaching, sharing, prayer and free time yields fruit as students step back and consider the most important themes of life. We hope that our students experience what the apostle Paul said of his disciple Titus, namely, that he had been refreshed by his fellowship with the Corinthians.
As always, our staff team and I are deeply grateful for the investment of our supporters through prayer and financial giving to this ministry. May you be refreshed in the presence of the Lord this spring!
Download the full newsletter here:
Spring 2010 QTR Newsletter: DownloadNot What They Seem
Posted by Andrew Knight in Ministry Update on April 19, 2010
In my attempt to pursue a thorough reading of God’s Word this year, my daily reading schedule had me in Psalm 57:3 a couple of days ago. I was really helped and reminded that God’s purposes and my Pleasure are not at odds! When God works his ways on this earth, they are not against the believer, but for him.
Even when things appear contradictory to that I am reminded of the cross. No one on the hill of Golgotha thought that day (except God), “Wow, this is such a good thing!” Even the Roman soldiers knew at the end that they had indeed killed the Son of God (Mark 15:39). So, what appeared to be a horrific tragedy has in turn been the best and most beautiful experience the world has ever known.
Christianity is the greatest Paradox, as Bruce Shelly states in his Church History in Plain English “Christianity is the only major religion to have as its central event the humiliation of its God.” What might have at first seemed humiliating, has in turn been incredibly humbling and honoring!
The Danger of People Pleasing
Posted by Elliot Stokes in Ministry Update on April 8, 2010
There are multiple sins I’ve detected in my heart over the past 3 years while doing college ministry. One that is particularly dangerous is “the fear of man” or people pleasing. I catch myself acting and speaking to gain people’s approval instead of obeying my conscience. Instead of saying the hard thing in a loving way to help them, I say the easy thing in a nice way so they’ll like me.
This is harmful for a number of reasons but it might be most dangerous because there are times when it can lead to obscuring the gospel. Charles Bridges notes this danger in his book The Christian Ministry, “The freeness of the gospel invitations, and the unreserved display of Evangelical privileges, are often fettered by the apprehension of giving indulgence to Antinomian licentiousness.” Meaning, people like me (and you) go “soft” in their presentation of the gospel to avoid being seen as “soft” on sin and appropriate Christian behavior.
I feel this fear when I teach in front of students at the college. I feel afraid to teach the gospel as freely and unreservedly as I might because people may think I am too weak to talk tough about sin and duty. And at this point you can probably see the danger. The big danger is that by obscuring the gospel you end up hurting (or even killing) people forever just because you want to be liked. That is a scary thought that helps me repent of my sin and look to Jesus so that I won’t mislead people for the sake of approval.
Waiting
Posted by Brittany Hayes in Ministry Update on April 5, 2010
This semester I have been studying the book of Colossians and reading Broken-Down House (Living Productively in a World Gone Bad) by Paul David Tripp with the girls I lead in my d-group. It has been a semester of going back to the cross and seeing how Jesus is at the center of everything. One chapter we just read was on learning to wait. It came at a very fitting time for me as I was walking through some issues in my family – when I was forced to wait on the Lord as I did not know what He was doing in this current circumstance and I knew I was completely out of control. It was hard. It was helpful to be reminded as I read the chapter that, “Waiting is hard precisely because it calls us to live by faith and not by sight.” Waiting is not something to just get through, but rather God uses waiting in our lives to sanctify us. “Waiting is meant to remind you that you live ‘between the already and the not yet.’” This has been worshipful for my soul. I want to be dependent on the Lord. I want to know Him more as I wait. I want to use my waiting to glorify Him.
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