Have You Ever Been Lost?

Monday was a crazy day... between the class work, sending out a newsletter, and meetings for ministry, it was pretty tiring.  After lunch that day, I went to the library for a quiet place to read before two back to back meetings I would be having starting an hour later.  After I had finished reading and was leaving to go to the first meeting, a random stranger who was walking down the street approached me.  He was lost.  He knew he was looking for a park in the area near West Oak, but was a good bit off course.  I briefly tried to explain how to get there, but wasn't sure what was the quickest way on foot because I always drive there and I never go directly from the library to the park.  Once I gave him directions, and hoping that despite my terrible directions he would find it, I got in my truck and started on my way.  As I put it into drive, I got an idea… the park really wasn't that far out of the way from where I was heading, so why not offer him a ride?  I pulled up beside him and asked if he'd like a ride. He said he would and hopped in.  Once we got to the park, he got out in a hurry and by the time I asked his name and told him mine, he was off. I went to my meeting feeling kind of bad about the missed opportunity I had just had to talk to him about Christ, so I prayed for him hoping maybe we would cross paths again.  

Later in the day after my meeting, I headed home.  When I pulled into my parking spot at my apartment I noticed someone else pulling in right next to me.  It was a woman in an SUV and she got out and started walking towards me.  As she approached, she said something along the lines of "I am hopelessly lost, could you tell me how to get back to Raleigh?"  Finding it odd that she had somehow got lost in my neighborhood, I started to explain where we were and how to get back to Capitol Blvd, which would take her back to Raleigh.  Once I started explaining it, I saw that she really was hopelessly lost, with absolutely no idea how she ended up where she was!  She didn't know any of the landmarks I referenced, so I slowed down and tried to explain it in more detail and finally gave up and got a piece of paper to draw her a map.  After explaining the map, she thanked me and was on her way.  

Once I got in my apartment, I started thinking… I don't even remember the last time someone asked me for directions, but this time I got asked twice in one day!  Lately I have been praying for God to give me more opportunities to share his love with people... could it be that God brought these people into my life for a purpose? I then started to realize that God was teaching me something.  There are people all around me daily that are lost and don't know where they are going.  By this, I am not just talking about being lost geographically, I am talking about being lost spiritually.  In other words, there are people all around who need to hear about Jesus and how he died on the cross for their sins, but many of them do not even know they are lost because no one has ever told them.  When talking to the lady who came to my apartment, one of the landmarks I referenced was Southeastern.  When she asked what it was, I told her it was a Bible college, and she said she wouldn't be very interested in that sort of thing and had never heard of it.  Looking back at it now, when she said she was "hopelessly lost," she meant geographically, but it was quite likely that she was also lost spiritually.  This really convicted me… am I willing to help give directions to Raleigh and to the park, but not willing to give directions to the way of eternal life and forgiveness of sin?  Its hard for me to go up to random strangers and initiate conversations about the gospel (It's hard for me to go up to random strangers and initiate about anything!) but here were two times that God in his grace brought people to me and I missed it… I just wanted to share this lesson that God is teaching me, and I hope that it will remind you as it has me that there are people all around us who are lost and looking for the right path.  The question is, will we show them the way? 

Cru RDU Winter Conference

For the past three years I have been at the college Cru conference called Radiate in Baltimore, MD for New Years, then Philly had FastBreak our high school conference usually around Feburary or March.  This year I had a very different experience as Cru Raleigh-Durham had our high school Winter Conference in the same hotel and at the same time as the mid-south regional college conference called Encounter.  Our conference was in Greensboro, NC at the Koury Convention Center which was a much easier drive traveling back from Christmas in VA.  The college conference had around 1,000 students from schools in NC, SC, KY, and TN.  The high school conference had around 200 students in attendance.  Most of them came from Cru ministries in Raleigh-Durham, but some came from churches in Raleigh-Durham, Winston-Salem, Statesville, and even a few from our Cru High School ministry in Chattanooga, TN.   It turned out to be a great event!

I was on the program team and very involved in set up, tear down, and overall effect of the main meeting room.  I was specifically in charge of running lights for the main sessions.  Here are a few pictures from the main meeting room as we set up.  

On the first night of the conference, as with many Cru conferences the gospel was shared.  Mike Donehey from Tenth Avenue North shared a clear presentation of what Christ did for us and it was a great kick off to the conference.  After our session was over, Tenth Avenue North had a concert in the college conference ballroom that we joined in on.  Unfortunately I was still working on stuff as we needed to finish and fix a few things, so I didn't get to go to the concert but I heard it was awesome!

Hanging out with the program team and running lights in the back was fun, but a lot of work!  It was just cool to see how our hard work paid off as things came together and we could see students starting to open up and worship God freely!

On the second day of the conference we had free time and different activities for students to choose from.  I was in charge of organizing a trip to Celebration Station.  God taught me a lot of patience as Celebration Station forgot to put our reservation on the books and I didn't find out until about an hour before taking a group of almost 40 students.  Thankfully it all worked out and everyone seemed to have a blast!

The third day of the conference was our community outreach day.  Cru conferences generally incorporate some sort of outreach element in them.  Similarly to the way we did it in Philly, we mobilized students to go into the community to knock on doors and ask people to give canned foods for a food drive.  Students then asked if they would go through a short spiritual survey that lead into the gospel if the person was receptive and interested.  They then left a bag for them to put food in and a local church came back to pick the bags up and follow up with people we talked too.  I unfortunately didn't get to go because I injured my foot, but I heard it went really well from the students as many of them were sharing their faith for the first time.  Each night we had "chat rooms" which were small discussion groups to end the night.  I led a group and one of my students said he felt so much more comfortable sharing with his friends back home after going out and sharing with people in the community that day!  The church also gathered 160 bags of food as a result!

One of the most powerful things that we did in the main sessions was the way we used the chalkboards we made for the conference.  On the second day we asked students to write down their struggles and sins on an index card and leave it after the session.  We gathered the index cards without knowing who wrote what and we wrote their struggles on the chalkboards.  When the students came back in, they saw what everyone had wrote on the boards.

The next day our main speaker Jason Gaston spoke about how Christ had freed us and cleansed us from all of these things and that all we need is Jesus.  Then, as our band Civil Parish played, we washed the boards clean and wrote FREE!

Finally on the last night of the conference during worship, we let the students go to the boards and write something that they felt freed from while at the conference.   It was powerful to see how God had worked in these students lives during their time there!

Finally it came to an end as we came together with the college students for prayer and praise and worship as we brought in the New Year!  Afterwards we had our separate New Year's after party in what was an old dance club that the hotel rented out to us as it is no longer in use.  The students really enjoyed dancing and hanging out with their friends as a way to close out the conference!

It was so great to have our college volunteers who put in a lot of hard work to help us pull the conference off!  Below is a picture of them and then a picture of the whole group that came from Raleigh-Durham, NC.