College Evangelism with Soularium

Last week Brad, a girl from Philadelphia Biblical University named Krisann, and I went to Bucks County Community College for a couple of hours of evangelism.  Our goal was just to meet college students and tell them about Jesus, and our tool was a stack of picture cards called Soularium.  Soularium is a very common tool in Campus Crusade for Christ.  I used it a few times when I was in college.  We would get together outside the cafeteria at Concord University and lay the cards on a table with couches around and try to draw people in to check it out.  Basically it works like this:  It is like a spiritual survey, but the cards give it a less direct approach and really makes it conversational and fun as opposed to direct and offensive.  You just lay the cards on a table and ask questions that are fun and personal in the beginning and later move to more spiritual and serious questions once the ice is broken.  The goal is to listen and find an opportunity to use their answers to transition into sharing the Gospel.  The questions are:

1. What three images describe your life right now? Why?
2. What three images describe what you wish were part of your life right now? Why?
3. Which image would you use to describe God (or lack of God for atheist)? Why?
4. Think about your life so far, which image describes what you've experienced spiritually? Why?
5. When you think about your spiritual journey so far, which image would you use to describe what you wish were true? Why?

I was familiar with this much, so when Brad said lets go do evangelism with Soularium, I thought I knew what I was doing. Once we arrived at the campus, I start looking for a place to set up and wait for students to come to us, where they might see us and the cards catch their attention.  While I am observing my surroundings, I find myself following Brad to a table with two college guys at it just hanging out.  Brad takes the initiative and asks something along the lines of, "Hey! Would you mind taking a few minutes to do a short spiritual survey?  We work with a local ministry and are trying to find out more about spirituality here at the college."  As my mind comes back to reality, I realize I don't need to look for a table anymore... and by this time we are sitting down at the table with the guys and starting to lay out the cards and go through the questions.  The guys names are Conner and Luke.  It starts awkwardly, but as we get into the personal questions in the beginning, it really opens the door for conversation, and we all start to get comfortable with one another.  After the first two questions, another guy named Vinny comes by briefly, spends a long humorous time answering which card represents God, and then has to leave.  We then move towards more spiritual questions, and by this time the two guys are upfront, honest, and comfortable.  Luke seems to sort of be searching for God, and Conner doesn't really seem to care.  Brad asks them what they think a person has to do to get into heaven.  They both reply with similar answers, that being good and doing good things will get you there.  Brad then asks, "If your view were false, would you want someone to tell you?  Conner says no, and Luke says yes.  Then Brad asks if he can share his view. They both agree, and Brad goes through the Gospel using another Campus Crusade tool, a Knowing God Personally booklet, which is a small booklet with the four main points of the Gospel, and he gives them each a copy.  Conner's ride comes and he has to go before we get very far, but the Luke stays.  If he wanted to leave, that was his chance, but he decides to stay!  Brad then continues to share Christ with him and that Christ is God's only provision for our sins.  As we are about to finish up, Luke's ride gets there too, and he has to go.  He thanks us, and we part ways.  After that we meet some guys with another campus Christian organization called InterVarsity and a guy named George who is also there to share his faith.  While we talk with them, Krisann does Soularium with another group of students, and then we have to leave...

I thought this was a cool day, but I honestly never planned to blog about it until tonight.  Tonight we went to Panera Bread to treat our PBU volunteers to coffee and a study break from exam studying.  As we were in line to order, I tap Brad on the shoulder as I see Vinny, the guy who only stayed for one question.  We approach him, and he remembers us!  He then says Luke is there too!  Luke actually works there and we go talk to him.  We just get to talk to him for a few minutes, and ask how he's doing and part ways, but what are the chances?  Even in a small town it would be slim, but up here in the Philly area?  That's Crazy!!!  Even though we didn't get into any spiritual dialog, I know our running into him wasn't a coincidence.  Luke was definitely searching for God, and we told him how to find Him.  Who knows?  Maybe running into us again will get him thinking about our conversation at the college.  Maybe he will open the little Knowing God Personally booklet we gave him again... You never know how God is working in someones life, but I just thought that was a cool story and wanted to share it.  

Paintball with a side of Jesus

A few weeks ago, Brad had an idea to take the football players from Morrisville out paintballing.  His and some of the other local churches do a lot of paintball retreats, so we had equipment we could use for fairly cheap, plus a local Christian doctor from the area agreed to have the event at his house.  The doctor has a very nice home with fields, forest areas, basketball court, and all sorts of good paintball spots.  For the event, we had around 20 people show up, almost half were from the football team.  We also invited others from churches and our other groups.  It ended up being a great time!  I personally had never played paintball, so I didn't really know what to expect, but I really enjoyed it and so did all the guys.  After playing for a few hours, we cooked hot dogs for lunch on a fire, and the doctor came out and shared his testimony with the students.  His testimony was really awesome!  When he was growing up, he played football at one of the local high schools in an average income family.  Pursuing the American dream, he became a doctor because doctors make good money and get big toys.  He wasn't in it to help others as much as to help himself.  As he grew older, a friend of his told him about Jesus and he started going to church.  He said, now that he looks back at it, all the nice things he had, money, cars, women, etc... none of it ever really fulfilled him.  Only a relationship with Jesus can fulfill a person, and only a relationship with Him can bring a person true joy!  It was great because the doctor came from similar situations as some of the football guys we work with, yet was able to really speak wisdom into their lives about the inadequacy of earthly possessions, and the importance of a relationship with Jesus.  Afterwards, we played more paintball, and overall just had a great time!

Regional Staff Conference

I am writing now from my home in Galax, VA!  I'm home for the first time since moving up, and ready to spend some time with family and friends over Thanksgiving!  I haven't posted in a while, but just wanted to write a quick note about our Regional Staff Conference in Alexandria, VA.  Every year our region has a staff conference for all of the  Cru staff as far southeast as Virginia Beach, as far southwest as Virginia Tech, as far northwest art Pittsburg, PA and as far northeast as NYC.  This brought over a hundred staff together from various cities, colleges, and leadership positions.  It was a great time to come together and hear wisdom from people who have been in ministry for years.  It was very encouraging to hear them discuss some of the things I struggle with in my own ministry and it was great to see about 30 other Cru interns who I could really relate to.  It was just a great time of worship and fellowship, and we got a lot of stuff done planning for our college conference called Radiate which will be held over the New Years holiday.  I think the main thing I took away from the conference is that the most important aspect of my ministry should be my alone time with God.  I can work my tail off trying to do do do, but if God isn't working in my own life it will all be a waste.  I think this is something that is relative to people inside and outside of ministry.  I know that it is easy to get caught up in to do's, and lose focus on what's important.  Right now is an odd time for high school ministry as sports seasons change, holidays are happening, and theres a lot of uncertainty and planning as we start to head into the next year.  So, please be praying for me as I seek God's wisdom as I close one thing and start to learn something new.

The Bulldog Dinner

It's been a busy week here as we prepared for the annual Bulldog Dinner.  This is an event that has been held for the past few years just to recognize the hard work of the different Morrisville High School sports teams.  We invited them out for spaghetti and meatballs, and then later in the night had the chance to talk to them about getting involved with Student Venture, and we had a guy share the Gospel with them.  It went really well!  Katie (the new staff girl) and I were both in charge of the event.  Our director helped us a lot with the planning, but he could not attend.  Early in the week we spent a lot of time going over details for the event because we were expecting 50-75 guests.  In the past I heard they had even more, but this year there wasn't a junior high football team at the school, and we had the dinner kind of late in the year, so we knew going into it that we would have fewer students attend.

Wednesday night Katie, Brad, and I set up tables, chairs, and put down all the plates and utensils.  Then, the next morning we spent a lot of time preparing.  I was up early rolling and helping cook meatballs at 9am!  Once we had them all baked we put them in big crock pot like things, and they continued to cook and marinate in the sauce for the remainder of the afternoon.  We made 183 meatballs and probably close to as much in sweet sausages!  We finally finished all the meat stuff by around noon, and the cook said he could take it from there, so I went to get some other stuff done.  When I returned things were set up and everything looked great!  For the dinner we had about 40-50 guests, which was awesome!  We had way too much food, but that gave us the option to offer food for the students to take home.  Many of the students come from poverty, and don't get a lot of good meals at home, so it was good that we had extra.  For the event, I emceed, we had a girl from PBU come and share her testimony, and then a local youth leader shared the Gospel.  After the event, the students went up and played around in the Solid Rock Youth Center and we got to spend some time with them there and play some games.  Overall the event went great!

Some of the guys in attendance were from the football team.  I have been working with them some because we have an optional weekly chapel with them to talk about spiritual things.  We usually have 10-15 guys come out.  Many of these guys come from one parent homes, low income families, and rough lives.  Morrisville has a bit of an inner city feel at times, probably because it is directly across the bridge from Trenton, NJ.  These guys have had hard lives, and to be honest it is hard for me to relate to them.  I never played football, and never dealt with a lot of things they deal with daily.  We took them golfing once, and I have started getting to know a few of them.  Please be praying for me as I build those relationships.  Many of them really need good adult male guidance.  Just pray that I will be able to relate and love them like God loves them, and that God would use us to show them that He loves them.

Band Outreach Party

On my last post, I could have written much more, but decided to save some stuff for now since it was so long already.  After we got back from Texas, I had two days to prepare for my first big outreach.  Luckily, I had most of it in order before I left, but it really was a full week!  I had passed out flyers to the Morrisville Band at the previous week's practice, and invited them to a pizza party at the youth center.  The plan was to get them to come out and have fun, learn about Student Venture, and hear the Gospel.  The event went great!  We had about 1/3 of the band come out, we played a game called "Electricity" and they all played some of the youth center games like guitar hero, pool, and carpet ball.  Then, I shared about what Student Venture is and does, a student named Caleb shared his testimony, and Collin from the Texas trip shared the Gospel with the students.  They both did awesome!  During the Gospel presentation, the students were very interested!  They had tons of questions and were no doubt taking some of it in.  Afterward, one of the girls said she tried and tried to do good so that she could go to heaven, but she always messed up!  Brad, who is our director, explained to her that is why Jesus came, because we couldn't do it on our own.  It was awesome, she accepted Christ!  At the end of the night we gave them all a little survey to ask what they thought about the event and if they had made a decision.  We had several who marked that they made decisions, but I will be checking back in with them soon to talk to them more about it.  Overall it went great!  A couple of days later, I heard from a mom that had heard from some moms who had kids at the event, and she said the kids really had a great time.  I'm hoping to start up a bible study with some of these students, so please be praying for me as I seek to help these students grow, and as I interact with them at band practices!

Collin sharing the Gospel

 

Hanging out with carpet ball in the background

Pizza!

Guitar Hero!

Lastly, Brad (the SV Philly Director) and I have been meeting once a week with the football team for team chapel.  Each week we try to have a guest speaker, some food, and a short spiritual / team building talk.  We have been building relationships with the guys, a lot of them come from broken families with very few good male role models in their lives.  A couple of days ago we just grabbed a few of them after practice and took them to Burger King for fries and drinks.  We got into a great conversation about the Gospel, and enjoyed the time together.  Please be praying for these guys as we work with them, I know many of them come from hard lives, and I pray we can help them to see who Jesus is and why they need Him in their lives, and give them good male guidance in the process.  We are taking the whole team chapel out to play Par 3 golf today, so I'm excited to interact with them more.  Though I must say working with football players is a new thing to me, please pray that I will be real and sincere with them.

No such thing as luck?

Wow, I have sooo much to write about!  God has truly blessed me over the past week.  First off, last Friday we had a very nice banquet that we had been planning since before I arrived.  We raised a lot of money for Student Venture Philly and our partner The Solid Rock Youth Center.  At the banquet, we had around 220 guests show up, many of which donated to our ministries!  We were very blessed!  The morning after the banquet, I flew down to Houston, TX for "It's Time" National Student Venture prayer conference.  It was my first time flying, and I took two high school guys with me who had never flown either.  Let's just say I was a little stressed about leading a trip and having no idea what I was doing, but God really blessed us on our way down!  Here's the story:

After arriving at the airport, none of us really had any idea what to do or where to go, so we saw a guy who worked there and asked him.  He was very nice and asked us where we were going and what for.  We told him about the prayer conference and he thought it was awesome!  Then he told us where he went to church only to find out that he actually attended the same church (different service time) as one of the students that was with me!  He then pointed us in the right direction and we got our tickets and went though all the checks and finally made it to our plane.  As we were about to get on the plane, we noticed that we didn't have seat numbers on our tickets.  Only one of the students had a number, which meant we would have to split up, which I wasn't too happy about because they were my responsibility.  We asked about it, and the guy said "hang on and I'll print you new tickets."  He then told us the only place there were three seats together was in First Class! So he gives us First Class tickets for our first flight ever and tells us to behave!  Once we get on the plane, the two boys sit together, but I had an empty seat next to me.  After waiting a few minutes, an interesting looking lady with spiky hair and a little Chihuahua dog in a bag boards the plane and sits next to me.  At this point, I'm thinking "Oh boy, here we go!" and "I hope the dog doesn't bark the whole time!" After a few minutes of silence, I decide to start conversation by asking her why she was flying to Houston.  She said she was going down to get ready for her son's wedding.  After talking about that for a few minutes, she asks me why I am going.  I tell her about the boys and how we are on our way to a prayer conference.  She seems very positive about it and asks me what church or organization I work with.  I tell her Campus Crusade for Christ, and she is familiar with the organization.  She thinks what we are doing is wonderful, and I tell her about our luck getting First Class on our first time flying!  She then tells me, "There is no such thing as luck," and I laugh and agree with her!  Then we proceed to talk about various things throughout our three hour flight to Houston.  As we are coming down for a landing, I curiously watch our descent from my window.  As I watch, out of the corner of my eye, I see her reach over and stick some money in my Bible which is sitting in the storage thing in front of me.  I ask, what is that for? And she says just a little extra money to help with your trip.  I then very graciously thank her, and we land and part ways.  As we are about to get off the plane, I find out that while I had talked to the lady with the dog, the boys had been befriending the flight attendants.  The flight attendants just thought the boys were adorable!  They then invite the three of us to meet the pilots and take pictures in the cockpit!  It was so cool, but I was sooo afraid I would break something!  We then say our goodbyes and get off the plane.  I take the money out that the lady gave me and count it.  She gave me $300 dollars!!!  Each plane ticket cost about $300, and it just so happened we had paid for two out of three of us.... so basically this amount completed our expenses for the trip!  I was so amazed and I told a lot of people about it once we got to the conference.  During the first session, the emcees asked if anyone had anything crazy happen with their trips getting there, and I stood up to share the story.  Shortly afterwards, I meet the Boston team and they tell me that they were on our plane!  They walked right past us in First Class and laughed at us because we looked out of place, and they even rode the bus over with the lady with the Chihuahua!

Remember what the lady told me?  "There's no such thing as luck!" God showed me before the conference even started that He wanted us there!  His hand was evident in our trip, and we were truly blessed to be there!  The conference was great, it really taught us great ideas for prayer, and how to pray big and trust God for amazing things!  We heard from some great worship leaders and speakers, and had an awesome time!  We were also blessed because we didn't have to pay for a hotel or car rental.  A staff guy from Orlando, had supporters in Houston who were out of town and they allowed us to use their home and vehicle during our stay!  Thank you so much for your prayers for our trip, it was amazing!

Collin, Scott, and Me in the cockpit!

 Your love never fails!

 Students writing praises on who God is

Students thanking God for specific things.

Here students wrote a worry on a stone, surrendered it at the altar,
and picked up a new stone and wrote a characteristic of God on it.  

Prayer for other countries

This was cool.  The students wrote a sin on an index card, 

painted it red to "cover it with the Blood of Jesus" and then nailed it to the cross.

Scott

Collin with a guy from another city

Worship with Sarah Reeves

 Worship with Altar

Scott Bartelt picked us up at the airport and we stayed with him, 

Dave, and Dave's son Jeremy at one of Scotts supporters homes for the weekend.  

Me, Scott, and Collin with Dave and his son Jeremy

The return trip

It was an amazing weekend!  I have more to write, but it will have to wait cause this one is already fairly long.  Thanks for reading, and please be praying that the kids who experienced this conference will be going back to their schools and praying for God to do Big things!  

Finally... The First Blog Post!!

I have been meaning to get this blog going ever since I moved up to the Philadelphia area!  Finally I am posting!  I have been busy with other things, but really wanted to get this going, and finally made the time to get it up and going.  I pray it will both show you a little bit about my life in PA this year, and that God will speak to you who read it from the experiances I am blessed to share with you.

A few activities so far:

Planning Retreat with Student Venture team 

and students from Philadelphia Biblical University

Action Team!

A group of high school age students who want to put their faith into action.  

We also have college students from PBU to help with leading the meetings.

At this meeting the girl in the center of the floor (Kylie) is sharing about

her summer mission trip to Uganda.  It was awesome!

See You At The Pole - Morrisville High School

Praying for the school and government

We have done a lot of things here so far and I'm really excited about things past, current, and coming!  One thing I was asked when support raising is "How will you minister in schools?"  The answer I have learned is SERVE the campus and LOVE the students and faculty.  I look forward to sharing more about my time here so far, but for now I'm signing off.  God Bless