In the Last Day of Project...

Man. Today is the last full day of project. I can hardly believe that. It just seems to end so abruptly. It really only hit me today that I will be leaving this mission and family down here in Clearwater. Though I am excited to reunite with my real family and all of my friends from Purdue, it is still is hard to say goodbye to everyone.

When I was preparing for this summer, I didn't know what to expect. I knew that I would be driven to grow in my faith, that the Lord would open my eyes like never before, that I would trust Him to empower impact-making in the community, and give me a team of men and women who love the Lord dearly. All these things have been true, very true indeed. However, I do not believe I would have been able to understand or comprehend what all that meant without experiencing it.

I have seen the Lord do incredible things for His glory. Our team has watched Him bring new Brothers and Sisters to faith, encourage and revitalize believers, help and heal the community, and even break ourselves down for some good ol fashion loving discipline.

I myself have learned some pretty key things:

1. My Identity is IN CHRIST. Like i mentioned in posts before, this was something I have been struggling to grasp. The Lord however gave me so much understanding and insight into this area, nonetheless. My heart literally wants to burst as I think of this truth now. Understanding my indentity has impacted so much of my walk.

2. I am so selfish. I can often view relationships as ways that people provide for me, rather than an opportunity to love and serve others. Learning how to love others no matter how 'beneficial' that relationship is or isn't had been a great challenge for me this summer.

3. My ability and desire to share the gospel has grown tremendously. I have gained so much valuable experience in this area. I cannot wait to take it back to Purdue.

4. I have learned a lot about myself in regard as how I view myself as a Man and the qualifications I put on myself and others in order to be considered real men. I am coming to understand how past sins and circumstances have shaped this, present sins that derive from this, and how I can trust the Lord with this in the future.

Like I said, its been a huge summer. Thank you to everyone who has supported me! Post project letters will be coming out in the next few weeks to all who were able to support me financially.

I cannot wait to be back home. I cannot wait to see the Lord's there!

A Letter of Forgiveness

In our last LifeGroup (bible study), I lead the guys through how we apply the gospel to relationships, specifically in the area of forgiveness. The big idea of the study was this-

"The Gospel frees us to forgive. When we are witness to the forgiveness that Christ has for us, our hearts should be turned to forgive others in the same manner. Though each of our sins is a sin against the Lord, only a small portion of each persons sin is sin against us. Through both experiencing and reasoning through the gospel, our hearts are shaped to forgive.

At the end of the study, each guy wrote a Letter of Forgiveness to a person who had hurt them greatly. I got the idea from a few counselor-friends who use the technique in situations of abuse or conflict. In order to tie everything back to the gospel and give the men in my bible study an idea of what to write, I constructed an example Letter of Forgiveness. However, this one was as if God were writing to us. I've copied and pasted the letter below. I hope you like it!

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 My Sons,

Before you were even born, I knew everything about you. I knew which sports you would like (if any). I knew which subjects in school you would enjoy most. I knew all of your little quirks and kinks. I couldn’t wait to form you.

I watched you grow, so little, so curious, and so afraid. Your body was so small and so delicate. I protected you and cared for you, gave you a mother and a father to love you.

But even in your innocence, you left me.

You ignored me and instead turned to other things to feel protection and love. You chose them over me.

You thought me boring, a chore. You were ashamed of me. You spoke my name with disgust. You rejected me and looked away from me. You heart became hard and cold against me. You separated yourself from me. You became my enemy.

You turned my creation against me, perverting things of purity and beauty into objects of pain and sin. You attacked others whom I love with your words and actions. You lived for your own good and allowed others to suffer at your expense. You allowed corruption, perversion, death, and pain… you allowed sin into my world.

You deserve death. In fact, you have chosen it. Do you not know who I am? Do you not see who you have been messing with? Against whom your sin has been this whole time? I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am your Creator and Heavenly Father. I am the Righteousness Lord. I AM.

With every act of pride, trickery, hate, lust, and abuse, my nature burns for justice. But also within my nature, my heart breaks.

For even when you hated me, even when you fought me as an enemy, you will still my creation, and I still desired for you to be my son.

So I made a deal long, long ago. I promised a way for your debt to be cancelled. I promised a way to restore a relationship with you.

“Instead of taking out justice on you, I will take it out on my Son, Jesus Christ,” I said. Is it fair for him? Is that fair for you? Is that fair for me? No. But along with my Son, I sacrifice my right to what I deserve, so that you will not receive what you deserve either. So don’t worry. All that death and pain you brought upon yourself? Jesus experienced it for you.

I forgive you.

It is only because of Jesus Christ that I am able to do this. In Him, I am able to forgive you for your sins committed against me and offer a restored relationship. In Him, you can experience the gifts of my mercy and grace.

I want to offer you one last opportunity. I want to offer you the chance to return to me. I want to offer you a renewed and restored relationship. I want to call you my son once again. If you accept, you can trust that I will never leave you, that I will always provide for you, that I will protect you, that I will bless you, that I will work ever circumstance of your life out for your good, and that we will spend the rest of eternity together.

I cannot wait. I have so much planned for you and I. You’re going to love it.

I have loved, do love, and will love you for the rest of eternity.

Your Father.

Living On Mission

I wanted to post and ask for prayer and support over my mission for the end of project.

With less than 3 weeks left, it could be easy to become comfortable, complacent, and apathetic. It could be easy to spend all my time on a "bucket list" rather than the Lord's will. It could also be easy to sit around and wish for all the "shoulda, woulda, coulda's".

I don't want to do that.

I would much rather witness the Lord do amazing things in our team and the community of Clearwater, things that may seem impossible at the moment. Whatever my role may be in the Lord's plan for the upcoming weeks, I want to be prepared and ready.

Romans 12:1 encourages us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices as an act of worship. This is my hope and plan!

I will be waking up in order to spend about an hour and a half with the Lord each morning. I will also be renewing my heart towards loving and serving others. I want to use my spare time (besides obvious periods of needed rest) to serve my teammates or bring the gospel to the community. I want to be using the last couple weeks to Glorify the Lord.

Its hard to say exactly what will happen. I do not know His will, but I will keep you all updated on what he does through me!

Thanks so much for all your prayer and support!

Accepting My New Identity

I am terrible at receiving gifts.

I don't know what to say. It makes me feel awkward. I want to say thanks, I really do. But I don't know how. To be honest, I sometimes wonder if I'm really thankful. It doesn't make sense to me. Why am I getting a gift?

I mean, birthday and Christmas gifts- that's expected. And when I earn it- like my Eagle Scout award, or awards, or scholarships- that makes sense to me. I earned it. I worked hard and I deserve what I get. 

However, this idea of a free gift, something given randomly or simply out of love, its hard for me to accept.

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I think this particular trait has carried over into my spiritual life.

It has been a constant struggle in my walk to accept the gifts the Lord has given me in His grace. In my freshman year of college, I finally allowed Christ to forgive me for my past. This summer, I am finally accepting the new Identity he has given me in Christ.

You see, it just doesn't make sense to me. An identity is something I create. I am defined by what I am, what I do, and what I say. I create my identity. It is something I deserve or earn. 

However, the word says that our new identity is in Christ. As I have learned what that means, I have come to understand that we literally inherit all of Christ's righteousness. We are granted his perfect life, his perfect reputation, and his perfect love in the eyes of the Lord. 

This is where I hit a snag... I didn't earn that. I have not lived a perfect life. I am very far from righteous at times. It doesn't make sense for me to have the identity of Christ. It doesn't seem fair.

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But isn't that what makes Grace so beautiful. While I am broken and sinful and far from perfect, the Lord has given me an identity that is wholly and completely righteous. Is it fair? No. Grace and Mercy have never been fair.

That is the beauty of the gospel, that we are allowed this new identity because the Lord loved us enough to satisfy His justice on His son, rather than us. But His Son was more than just a man, but fully God as well. Because of this, He was able to conquer death and give us His identity. 

This has been something that the Lord has been teaching me a lot this summer. As I have grown in my understanding of my identity, it has affected my understanding of manhood, how I deal with sin, heart issues, and much more in my walk. 

Hopefully this has been easy to understand! Haha, I know sometimes a thought process really only works for the original thinker. Be praying for me as I continue to grow and minister in the Clearwater area!

Updating on the Ministry in Clearwater

Hey all,
Sorry this seems so long since my last post. The wifi here does not want to work with my computer, so I am having to write this on my phone.
These past couple weeks have been quite insane actually...
One big thing is that our staff are now gone! That's right. The ministry here is now all college students. Before the staff left, they gave each of us roles to fulfill and responsibilities to take over. I was asked to be a LifeGroup leader. This means that I lead a Bible studies each week, I meet with all 8 guys in my study to check up on them spiritually, and I help them arrange times when they can be sharing their faith and doing ministry in Clearwater. I must say, I'm pretty pumped. I definitely need lots of prayer, though.
I've been growing a lot personally in the last couple weeks as well. I have made huge jumps in my understanding of my identity in Christ. I have been growing in my ability to share my faith and love on nonbelievers through practice and chatting with the staff. I have grown a lot in understanding myself and my sin as well. In the next couple weeks, I think my focus of growth will be understanding and embodying biblical manhood. If you could be praying for this as well, that would be so encouraging.
One last thing to pray for- lately, even amidst all the awesome people here on project, I have felt really attacked with loneliness. If I'm being honest with myself, I do not feel like I am connecting with others well and I feel overwhelmed by petty conflict and drama. I could REALLY use prayer in this area.
Thanks everyone!
Oh and one more thing! Go check this out-
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DtTv12uxixDc%26feature%3Dplcp&feature=plcp&v=tTv12uxixDc&gl=US

Challenges that We Get to Face

If you have ever heard someone talk about a summer project, sometimes all you hear is the fairy tale version.

I was often skeptical of summer projects during the course of the last two years because of the lack of negative things I heard about them. Every person who ever spoke to me about their experience said: "it was the best summer of my life" "I made my best friends on project" "the Lord blessed me a ton." Honestly, it seemed that nothing bad could ever happen. I don't really remember hearing much in the way of conflict, challenges, trials, or failures.

Now, I'm not dogging on anyone who has ever told me about project. I get it. They wanted to encourage people to come, so naturally, they through out all the Pros. Nevertheless, in my mind, I had decided I wanted  to come back and be open and honest about all the hard things about project. I didn't want to experience a fake paradise, but instead a real-life situation.

I am blogging now to let you know that I am living that conflict, challenge, trial, and failure-filled part of project.

These past couple of weeks have really been hard to put into words, so I'll try my best. To put it bluntly, I haven't really had any of those "rosey, confirming, heart-melting, euphoric" experiences we so often strive for in our walks in faith. Instead, I have been witness again and again to my own brokeness getting in the way of the Lord's Will and Plan. I have had to deal with conflict, which no matter how you handle, is almost always messy. I am currently battling a cold that is taking my ability to concentrate, breathe, talk, and have humor. Lastly, I have been frustrated with my inability to figure myself out psychologically (something I'm usually fairly good at).

So yeah. It definitely been a hard few weeks. BUT! I have been fairly content through it all. Why? Honestly, because I know that despite my brokeness, sickness, and ignorance, the Lord's perfection, healing, and wisdom does not change! He has been teaching me throughout, as my heart draws to Him.

Now don't get me wrong, things haven't been THAT bad. I've still got all 10 fingers, both my eyes, and what's left of my ACLs.

Actually, there have been some pretty cool stuff going on down here!

In the past week, I have building some pretty sweet relationships with the guys I work with. There are a ton of cool guys there. I'm hoping to be able to hang with them after work. Also, yesterday we all went and helped serve in a homeless community in the area. We served dinner and ate with some of the people currently in the community. I got to meet this guy name Shad, a former wrestler who had recently come to begin a relationship with the Lord. He was a tight guy with a cool story of redemption and hope.

I'm going to update some prayers and praises on the other page. Check that out and go to the thrown for me. The prayers of a righteous man or woman are powerful and effective!

Has "In Christ" Become Cliche?

Well, it has for me.

One of the major questions I have been wrestling with over the last few months is "what does it mean for my identity to be 'in Christ'?" Perhaps I'm over thinking it. Perhaps I care enough to gain more than complacent understanding.

Since coming on project, I have been growing in this area with the Lord. Growth has come about through understanding myself and my ways of thinking. I have been identifying some of the lies I commonly believe about my identity. I have been lead to verses that speak about our new-found righteousness in Christ. My discipler and I have talked for quite a while together on the subject, particularly my identity as a man. I do not want to prematurely conclude on some of the lessons I have been learning, for I feel as though I have much of a ways to still travel. By the end of the summer, Lord willing, I will be able to post about this subject in a more in-depth manor.

For now, I wanted to talk a little bit more about the evangelism we do here on project. I had been getting a few questions about what exactly it is that we do.

Well, there are a number of strategies that we have used to engage the community. Before I mention them, I wanted to give everyone a firm foundation. You know missionaries who go to Africa and build an Christian orphanage, which leads to both the example and the preaching of the gospel? Well that's not what we do.

A good foundation perhaps is to go read Acts. You see how Paul simply walks into the market and begins preaching? That's a little more along our lines. Let me explain some of the differences first, though.

Firstly, we don't really just pick a random barrel and start preaching. Rather, most of our evangelism begins through normal conversation. The general way we share the gospel in Clearwater is by engaging people in conversation that is initiated by us students. There are a number of ways we do this, all focusing on allowing the people we meet to share their thoughts before we ever start talking.

1. Spiritual Surveys: Cru collects data each year through these quick spiritual surveys. We will take these out to the beach and engage people to see if they would be interested in taking it. We are trained to transition these surveys to an opportunity to share the gospel.

2. Soularium: This is similar to the surveys mentioned above, but we use picture cards to and ask people to pick cards that represent their answers. (A lot of people think this is kind of fun, whether or not they wanted to talk about the gospel afterwards).

3. Question Boards: Sometimes, we will take massive wooden boards out to the beach/pier with a simple question written on them. For instance, the board I worked with last weekend said "Who is God?" We then invite people to write their answer on the board. After they have finished, we try and engage them about their answer.

These are just a few of the methods we have used so far, and they have been awesome to experience! I have lost track of how many people have come to Christ since being down here.

Please continue to pray for my team and I. We are expecting God to do big things!