The End?

Hey everyone,

So in case you couldn't tell, I haven't really been updating this site regularly.... Although for the past year I have used this blog as a way to update my supporters on a week-to-week basis, I found that not only was it difficult for many people to stay up to date with, but it was also a lot of work for me to keep it updated on what I was doing. And so, for I am officially decommissioning this as my normal way to reach my supporters. Instead, I am sending out monthly email updates about my work. If you would like, I can add you to my email list. Just send an email to michaelsiegrist88@gmail.com.

For now, I have no plans for anything to do instead with the blog. I might at some time retool it to just be a place for me to talk about what's going on in my life, and if so, I will try to let you all know. For the time being, though, goodbye and thanks for being a part of this experience for the past year!

God bless,
Michael Siegrist

Bigger and Better Things

A lot has happened in the last few weeks, but then again the end of the school year is always a time of big changes.

With the end of the school semester, my time as an InterVarsity staff intern has also ended, meaning that I am now officially a full Campus Staff Minister! What does that mean? Well, for one, it means that I am no longer being trained. Whereas this past year has been peppered with things like trips to other chapters, reading books, and meetings with various staff workers, my time is now going to be devoted more to simply working on campus and building up the students there. I loved the experiences of the internship, especially the opportunities to grow in my understanding of spiritual disciplines like prayer, but it is also exciting to have now "arrived" in a sense and to really devote myself fully to being a part of God's work at UNM.

I did have a few final experiences to round out my year these last weeks, though. One really exciting opportunity was to get to experience worshiping God in a new way by attending worship services drastically different from my own.

One Sunday, rather than attending my home church of Hope, I went to Christ the King Anglican Church. It's a great place - a beautiful combination of simplicity and extravagance that emphasizes both highly liturgical worship and accurate, straightforward Bible teaching. I'm not very familiar with liturgical practices, but being able to attend the service was a great experience. In fact, if I didn't already have a church that I love, I think I would really enjoy becoming a part of Christ the King.

I was also able to take a prayer retreat for a full 24 hours at a Catholic retreat center, the Norbertine Community. There I took up residence in a small hermitage to spend my time in reflection, prayer, and worship. The center has two masses each day - one in the evening and one in the early morning - which I was able to attend during my time there. The masses were performed using a prayer book, marking my first time of singing antiphonals (a kind of Gregorian Chant) and partaking of Eucharist in the traditional Catholic fashion. While my time became a little uncomfortable at times, the time there was well worth it, and I am glad to be able to know more about ways I can worship my awesome God.

My other big event of these past weeks was Chapter Camp. Every year, IV chapters from throughout the Rocky Mountain Region gather for a week of fellowship, Scripture study, fun, and worship. We meet in Bear Trap Ranch, a wonderful camp owned by IV tucked away in the mountains outside Colorado Springs. After a long and hard year, a week spent at Bear Trap around friends is always a wonderful respite, and this year was no exception.

An average day at Chapter Camp is a glorious thing. You begin with a hearty breakfast in the dining hall, providing an opportunity to mingle with the dozens of other students from around the region (161 total for our week). From there, students attend a manuscripting session, where they explore a section of Scripture by making observations, discussing questions as a group, and then choosing applications related to the central theme of the passage. Students then go to the creative response time, which provides an opportunity to explore what God is calling them to do more fully as they pray, paint, sing, or do any number of other exercises related to the passage. Lunch follows and then leads into free time, which is usually filled with hikes, horseback rides, basketball or volleyball tournaments, and a bunch of other activities. Next is track time. Each student chooses a track for the week (1 of 4), which provides specific training in areas such as prayer or Christian leadership. Track time continues until dinner, and after dinner everyone heads to an all-campus worship session. There is also a sermon on the passage from the morning given by a speaker chosen for the week, who delves deep into what God is telling us through His Word and what that means for us. The night ends with chapter time, where each chapter is able to meet together and share how God is at work in the students.

Honestly, I was a little nervous going in; as a part of the staff team, I was responsible for helping run the camp and could no longer simply enjoy the week as a participant. My specific jobs were to help with our creative response times and the afternoon games each day. God really showed up, though, and this was one of the best Chapter Camps I've ever been privileged to attend. In fact, day after day I continued to see God at work. We studied the life of Moses, targeting especially the ways that he continuously brought up his inadequacy before God and how God worked in spite of the weakness of Moses and the Israelites following him. Throughout the week I heard students praying for God to release them of their excuses and feelings of inadequacy, asking to find a way to be a small part of the big work that God is doing around them, and taking the first few steps toward obedience as they recognized what God was telling them through the week. How awesome to see God at work!

And I ask that you pray for these students. We had 24 from UNM alone, and I believe that God had a message for each of them at Chapter Camp that they are called to follow. A summer is a long time, though, and it's easy to lose sight of a calling within a few months' time. Please pray that the things God has been doing in the students of UNM would continue to work in them and that they would be ready to follow Him wherever He leads this next year. Pray also for me as I enter this summer of fundraising once again. The first few letters have gone out, and already I have begun to hear from people who would like to support me! Thanks to all of you.

"Then Manoah inquired of the angel of the LORD, 'What is your name, so that we may honor you when your word comes true?' He replied, 'Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding.' "
- Judges 13:17-18

P.S.
Since there won't be much going on with InterVarsity this summer, I will probably make updates more seldom. In fact, I'm considering dropping the blog format in favor of a monthly email newsletter, though for the time being this blog is my update location of choice. In any case, check back in sometime in mid to late June for my next post.

Underground

Yes, yet another tardy blog post. Sorry for not staying on top of things; the past week has been rather uneventful as far as ministry things go, so I haven't felt a strong need to update. Things are largely starting to wind down, especially with finals coming up for the students next week (or even this week for many of them).

The past week has been fun, though. For Large Group, we had a special underground church night. This meant essentially using the entire Students Union Building as an arena for us to try to hold a secret service for the Christians, who had to hide from the undercover police in the group. I happened to be one of the police, and so my goal was to find my way into the meetings by blending in with the Christians, then arrest those who did anything overtly "Christian", especially targeting the leaders of the group. It was a lot of fun to run around trying to be under cover (though after a couple of arrests I did become somewhat infamous), but it was also interesting to see the ways that the groups naturally reacted to the situation. We had some students resist arrest, while others would be really discreet or even just avoid the meetings altogether. Meanwhile the leaders, when put in our makeshift prison, would try to evangelize their captors, and in the absence of leadership, others would take on the mantle of leadership and organize meetings on their own. It was supposed to be a really open-ended simulation, but it was cool to see it take on aspects of reality down to covert communication between the Christians via text messaging. We ended the night in a time of prayer for those around the world for whom church oppression is the reality, and I think we all felt a renewed sense of unity and brotherhood with those far-flung churches after spending a short time seeing things from their perspective.

Though the semester is coming to a close, there are still a number of events that I would appreciate your prayer for. This week marks the end of our regular meetings, so we are having the final Small Groups and Large Group. We will also have an end-of-the-year party and a farewell party for seniors this weekend, and then for a couple of days next week we're giving away coffee as a service to help energize students needing a little pickmeup for finals. Not to mention the week of Chapter Camp the following week, which is going to be an incredibly important occasion. Please remember all of these things in your prayers, and please also pray for the students as they undergo the craziness of finals week (and graduation in some cases). Also, I can tell you all now that I probably won't be able to update until sometime next week, so don't be expecting my next post to be on time....

"What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?"
- Romans 8:31

Visionary

With the ending of this semester, the thinking in IV is beginning to shift to prepare for the new year. Well, for the staff at least that is. I think that the majority of the students are focused more on just surviving the semester at this point, preparing for finals, all of that. In any case, the time has come to begin preparing next year's leadership team for the tasks ahead of them.

To that effect, this last Friday we put on a special leadership retreat at my place, welcoming in the new leaders and drawing up the foundations for the coming year. Since the focus in InterVarsity is on indigenous (i.e. student-led) ministry, these kinds of meetings are incredibly important since they give the students a chance to really determine where the ministry will go in the coming year.

We started with some fun time - ate pizza, played some video games, and spent a good long time with a game of Signs. Then Hans spoke on the history and purpose of InterVarsity as a whole and took the students through a short IV introductory course on visionary leadership. This led to the meat of the evening, a big planning session where we tried to figure out what out chapter is all about and where we feel God is taking it in the coming years. It was actually probably the best planning session I've ever been a part of; the students were all full of really great ideas and really wanted to get at the heart of what makes the chapter great. We came up with a core vision oriented around strong discipleship, community, and Christian living, along with some really exciting ideas of how we plan on achieving those goals. Man, the semester hasn't even ended yet and already I'm looking forward to the upcoming one!

In other news, it looks like the Rio Area (that is, UNM and NMT) will be bringing almost half of the students attending Chapter Camp this year! It's a really great blessing to have so many students going from our two chapters, and it's sure to mean a lot in the coming years. Plus it'll be a whole lot of fun having our chapters together for that fun and powerful week.

Please keep be praying for the students as they prepare for the end of the semester and also for the other staff and me as we prepare for running Chapter Camp. Please also keep Chapter Camp itself in your prayers; it's an incredibly important time for all who attend, and so it's a pretty big target for spiritual attack. Finally, please also pray for me as I make the final preparations for beginning my next round of fundraising. I'm still a little nervous about it, but I'm sure God will provide.

"I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile."
- Romans 1:16

Mission: Improbable

One of the great things about working in ministry is that I get to see more often how God is at work behind my back. Whether it's a message that hits someone at just the right time or a meaningful spontaneous conversation or whatever, things just seem to fall into place some of the time. That seems to have been the "theme" for this week.

Once again, I changed up my small group for the week. We have only 3 more lessons left, and 3 weeks of school to do them in, so we had a bit of room to have a change of pace this week. More importantly, I had been trying to find a way to incorporate some worship into our group, and it just so happened that the Rock & Worship Roadshow was passing through this last Tuesday. So I conferred with the group, and we decided to attend. The music was great, featuring the likes of Flee, Family Force Five, David Crowder*Band, MercyMe, and others. We were also lucky enough to run into some of the Tech IV group and hang out with them during the show. It was a really great time of worship and fellowship. I also found out it was also my friend Frank's first outing to a Christian concert, and it really changed his opinion on Christian music (namely, that it's actually fun!). Though I wasn't planning on helping my group discover a different kind of worship, it's great to see that that's what God had planned for Frank.

For Large Group, we had our Evangelism Coordinator, Nikki, speak more on prayer. Following up from my talk a couple weeks ago, she had us do some more listening prayer to see what God was trying to tell us at that time. Then she added a bit of a twist, though, and sent us out in small groups to do something called "treasure seeking". No, it's not some kind of an Easter egg hunt; it's a way of walking around and staying prayerfully in tune with what God is doing, ready to participate as you feel led. I went with my group to pray over the fine arts building, especially for a friend who is preparing for a major performance in the coming weeks. Though nothing especially dramatic came out of the evening, I was glad to see another way that prayer is becoming a part of our chapter and how the students can use it to directly affect the campus.

Friday was the Guys' and Girls' Night Out, and though I can't speak for the girls, the guys had a blast. We try to combine food, fun, fellowship, and uh... (f)learning at this events. This semester that meant starting with a trip to Pepper's BBQ to enjoy piles of roasted meat slathered in BBQ sauce. Then, after thoroughly stuffing ourselves, we undertook a special "mission". Traveling into the foothills of the Sandias, we split into two teams: Impossible Mission Force and KGB. The task of the IMF was to retrieve 3 canisters of nuclear material (glowsticks) being guarded by the armed KGB (who all had Airsoft guns) and return them to our vehicles without being caught. We scrambled around for a while and had a great time, and though it was windy and rainy the whole time, that just made the experience all the more fun. Finishing the game, we returned to my house and received a message from the Guys' Small Group leader, Clayton. He spoke on spiritual warfare and had us spend time in groups discussing ways in which we are vulnerable to spiritual attack, banding together to pray for and support each other. Once more, though I wasn't sure what would come of this night, I kept hearing people share meaningful issues and knew that this was just what God had planned for us.

There's some other stuff coming down the pike that I would really appreciate you all praying for. First is our welcome party for the new student leaders for next year, which will be happening this Friday. Second, we're planning an end-of-the-year party and a separate party to say farewell to the seniors. Finally, we're gearing up for Chapter Camp, our annual region-wide retreat in the heart of the Colorado Rockies. These are all some final opportunities for us to really disciple the students this year, and so I ask that you pray for them to be effective. I would also appreciate your prayers again as I restart my fundraising for the coming year, which will begin in the coming weeks. I'm still a bit unsure of how I'll get fully funded, but we do serve an awesome God!

"Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom."
- Psalm 145:3

InterVarsity: Serious Business

One of the things I love about being an IV staff worker is that part of my job is getting to do fun things with students. This week, it was hanging out with my disciple group - something I've been unable to do for a while. It was actually a great chance to just hang out with the guys, which I've been realizing lately that I've been a little poor at. So, by way of remedying that, I took them out to Kelly's a local burger place converted from an old car dealership with some pretty excellent food. We conversed over buffalo burgers and an enormous grilled chicken salad, which might not have been the best choice for the next part of the day: rock climbing. I haven't been rock climbing in years, which was really an unfortunate turn of events since I really like it. Granted, I've never really been any good at it, but it's a great way to hang out. I took the group out to the Stone Age Climbing Gym, where we got to spend a few hours scrambling over (and occasionally falling off) the wall and bouldering areas. Great fun, and a nice change of pace from our normal more serious meetings.

The Large Group was fun as well. This last one was our worship night, so the worship team prepared a set to take us all the way through the night. It was great to devote a significant time to worship. I also really enjoy seeing other people getting into worship in their own way, and the night definitely had that. Students felt free to raise their arms, kneel on the ground, and sit off to the side making art. It's interesting - I've actually found that I feel much freer to worship at IV than at my church. I guess it might just be a matter of precedent, or maybe just the music choice at church versus Large Groups, but there is a strong sense of the presence of God at these kinds of worship events that I seldom feel anywhere else. To spend an hour and a half worshiping in that way is really an awesome experience.

This past weekend was our work day, a fundraiser to help students get to Chapter Camp this summer. We generally get a fair number of odd jobs involving things like raking leaves or pulling weeds. This year was a "bumper crop," though, with 22 jobs to split between UNM and Tech. Not only did it end up being a fantastic opportunity to serve and fellowship with one another, but we also were blessed to receive a really great amount of money to help the students.

Well, the time is approaching for me to begin my fundraising for the next year officially. Please pray for me as I begin this process. I feel pretty busy now, but I know that I'll really need to get it started quickly since I'll be even busier in the coming months. The official number is just over $33,000 or about 2.5x what I raised for the internship, which honestly seems pretty daunting. But I'm sure that if God is truly calling me to this endeavor, He'll certainly provide for my needs in this fundraising.

"Surely the righteous will praise your name
and the upright will live before you."
- Psalm 140:13

The Belated Blog Post Title...

One of the more interesting features about working with InterVarsity is that it teaches/forces you to think on your feet some of the time. That was my experience, at least, this last Tuesday. Rod, the Area Director, and I were supposed to take my discipleship group to do some contact evangelism (stiking up spiritual conversations with random students around campus), but at the last minute Rod found out he wouldn't be able to make it. That meant I had to find a quick solution that didn't require any prep for either me or the other guys.

Thankfully, a conversation with Hans led to the idea of a special prayer walk - easy, effective, and a good opportunity to grow. We ended up taking some time individually walking around campus, trying to open our hearts to see how God was already at work around us and praise Him for those things, as well as looking for ways in which we saw a need for God and praying for them. Then we came back together and discussed what we saw, praying and praising as a group. It was a cool way to become more aware of the spiritual state of the campus as well as a wonderful way to enjoy one of the first really warm days of the year.

I also had some trouble preparing for my James small group, but since it occurs rather close to dinner, it was fairly easy to come up with an alternative. Namely, taking the students out to eat. I've been wanting to work in some more challenging applications into the group as well, especially since James is all about living in a Christ-like manner. So rather than just go to dinner, I challenged the group to try to invite some of the homeless people that frequently show up around the school to come to dinner with us.

We decided on going to the Brickhouse, a local pizza shop with some relatively cheap but monsterous slices. On the way, we actually were approached by a guy asking for food, making my little challenge pretty easy to follow through on. He came with us, chatting (and cursing) along the way about how few people will actually take any time to notice him. The dinner itself was interesting, in part because the man 1. was drunk, 2. wanted more beer but didn't have an ID, and 3. got up at one point to ask the people around us for cigarettes. Still, though, it was good to chat with him about his life, sports, and TV. Also, when we said the prayer for the food, he offered to translate it into his language (he's from Taos Pueblo), which was a cool treat. While it certainly wasn't the smoothest encounter I've has with serving the homeless, it was still a good growing opportunity for the group and a good way to demonstrate some love to someone in need of it.

I also had the opportunity to teach this week's Large Group. The focus was on prayer, so I decided to talk about listening prayer and then spend the rest of the night looking at different methods of hearing God. One of the most important lessons I've learned about prayer is that it's not unilateral but really should be an active conversation between us and God. This seems rather obvious to some people, but it's rare that Christian prayer is characterized not simply by what we say to God but also how we listen to Him.

It was great to share how my prayer life has been transformed by trying to really hear God speak, but it was even more exciting to watch as we explored different methods of prayer. We began with a time of confession before God, preparing our hearts to hear Him. We then moved to Lectio Divina, meditating on God's character as revealed in Psalm 46. Then we spent some time just silent before God, trying to listen to Him as He spoke into our hearts. We had a time of group prayer that spontaneously transformed into prayer for the needs of others. Finally, we worshiped together in song and in one-word prayers, shouting out aspects of God's character that impacted us. It was a great and holy night, and I was really privileged to be a part of it.

I got the final details for my appointment as an InterVarsity Campus Staff Worker, meaning that pretty soon I'll need to start again on the process of fundraising for the coming year. While in some ways it's stil a little ways off, please pray for me as I prepare for that in the coming weeks.

"But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God."
- Acts 7:55

Pit Stop

Whoops, this update is coming out a bit later than I meant it to. Guess time got away from me a little there....

Life in InterVarsity is actually in a bit of a lull right now. We're in kind of an in-between time, having just come out of the Spring Break but not quite geared up for the end of the year activities. Something that has been happening, though, has been the completion of our leadership selection for next year. We're having almost a complete turnover of our core Vision Team, with only one student staying on (the rest are graduating or moving) and four new students stepping into those roles. We're also replacing almost all of our Small Group Leaders as well, with two staying on and four more joining them. It can be a bit of a gamble having such a large turnover, but I'm really excited about this group. We have a lot of great potential for leadership in the chapter, and these official leaders represent only a part of the work that the students pour into the work we're doing at UNM. I would appreciate it, however, if you would pray for these leaders as they prepare and train for the work they'll be doing next year. Please pray especially that they would be able to make it to Chapter Camp, our end of the year retreat, so that they can have that chance to grow together as a team and get some really essential training.

Speaking of Chapter Camp, it's been great to see how much excitement the whole chapter seems to have about going. We made a bit of a wager with NMT on who would bring the most people, and I think that we're well on the way to accomplishing that goal. It's not just about numbers, though; we know that the students who come on the retreat will really receive some great training and grow spiritually through the study there. It's always a wonderful time, and I personally look forward to it every year. As part of the staff this year, I'll also be helping with the creative response for the week, and it's been great to see the way the week is coming together. Having peeked behind the curtain a bit, I'm really excited for it. Pray for the students who are still on the fence about going, that God would provide for them to be able to go. Pray also for me and all the (many) other staff running the camp to be able to really provide a space for students to meet with God and grow.

Though this past week was a little slower, things are going to start ramping up starting this week. I'm actually speaking this week at Large Group on prayer, showing students ways in which our prayers should reflect listening to God and not just presenting a grocery list of requests and then going on our way. I hoping that it'll be a good learning experience for all of them, and hopefully fun as well as we try out some different techniques like Lectio Divina and listening prayer. Please pray that it will all come together, though, and that I'll be able to share what God has for them and not just give my own message.

There's a lot more coming down the pike, but I'll be sure to tell you more as they get closer. For now, God bless and have a wonderful week.

"Every word of God is flawless;
he is a shield to those who take refuge in him."
- Proverbs 30:5

Michael's Spring InterVarsity Ministry Update

Ok, so once more I've sent out my ministry update letter. Again, many of you will get this in your email, but here it is for those of you who do not. As a side note, let me know if you would like to be on my email support list, and I'll definitely add you! Here's the letter:

Hello to all my wonderful supporters!

God has certainly continued to bless InterVarsity at UNM this spring semester. While it is very common for a chapter to dwindle in the spring as schedules change and students become busier, this semester seems to really be the exception. We've continued to see new students coming and getting involved. We've also been able to have a number of really great events this semester, and while I can't talk about them all, I would love to tell you about a few of them.

We wanted to have another big evangelistic event this semester, so in February we held an event called "Sexy Pizza". For two days we set up a table in the SUB, inviting people to respond on our board to the question "What do you think Christians think about sex?" As with the Proxe Station we set up last semester, this allowed us to start conversations with students about what sex means to them, how their relationships have been affected by their views on sex, and how they think God feels about their lifestyle choices. We then invited them to come to a special Large Group meeting, where we had a panel of Christians including a pastor, a sex therapist, and some married and unmarried students willing to discuss any questions students raised. As you might imagine, there was certainly some interesting discussion! We ended the night with an invitation to accept Christ's offer of a relationship with us. Though no one wanted to make that commitment that night, we did have a number of students interested in getting together over the next few weeks to learn more about God's desire for a relationship with them.

The last weekend in February was our annual spring retreat, Cresciendo en Christo (Growing in Christ). From Friday through Sunday students from UNM, NMT, and UTEP gathered in Socorro to fellowship and learn more about what it means to be a Christian leader. We studied Titus, looking at how Paul encouraged Titus to raise up men of character to lead the church in Crete and battle the false doctrines that surrounded the church. We also held different short seminars which students could sign up for to learn more about discipleship, dating, evangelism, or godly living. I took the godly living one, and it was really great to teach how basic disciplines like Bible study and prayer. We had about 55 students total, 28 of whom were from UNM, and it was great to see them all growing through the studies, the worship, and the fellowship of the retreat.

One final opportunity we have had was the Albuquerque Urban Plunge, which happened this past Saturday through Wednesday, coinciding with UNM's spring break. The idea of the AUP is to show students God's heart for the poor by experiencing poverty homelessness. We had a total of 9 attendees including Hans, who was running the project, and myself. We also had 3 students from UNM, 2 from NMT, and 2 from NAU. We spent the first 2 days doing orientation - getting to know one another and bonding as a group as well as preparing ourselves for the cross-cultural experience of dealing with homelessness. Then the following two days, we experienced homelessness firsthand as we were sent out on an "urban scavenger hunt." We dressed as homeless people and were able to take only two items with us, which we had to carry wherever we went. Acting as if we were new in town, we engaged with the homeless, ate with them at missions, saw their health clinic, and tried to experience life from their point of view by going through the processes for a mailing address, food stamps, and bus passes. It was a truly eye-opening experience, both in seeing how well the homeless are cared for here in Albuquerque but more importantly in seeing that the homeless are not "lowly" people and that they deserve our care and friendship, not our snubbing and arm-length giving. I believe that I and all the other students now have a much fuller appreciation for God's love for these people, and I'm so glad for the opportunity to see life from their point of view.

A last big development that I would love to share with you all is that I have accepted a long-term position with InterVarsity. It will be a 5-year commitment beginning at the conclusion of my Intern year in August. For the first 2 years, I will be on staff at UNM, but after that there is a good chance that I will switch over to NMT for the final 3 years. It is a part-time position, so I will be working about 29 hours a week and likely continuing my work on the side with the game company SP Entertainment. I will try to tell you more about what this all means as later, but for now I would really appreciate your prayers as I begin this next phase of my ministry through InterVarsity.

I have some other prayers and praises that I would like to bring to you all:

• A number of our students have really shown a desire to become more evangelistic, which is a real praise! For now, though, they don't have much direction, so please pray that we would be able to find some really good avenues for them to engage their friends and fellow students with the Gospel.
• One of the students who has started attending this semester, the younger brother of one of our other students, does not seem to be a Christian but is also very interested in learning more about what Christianity is all about. Please ask God to soften his heart and make him receptive to the Gospel, and also pray for us to have the courage and the understanding to invite him into that relationship when he is ready for it.
• As I mentioned, a number of students indicated that they would like to learn more about God after coming to Sexy Pizza. We already have one guy meeting with Hans and one of our students, which is a great praise, while the other groups are still in the being scheduled. I ask that you would pray for the group that is already underway to be effective and for the other groups to come together soon and to also guide those students closer to a true relationship with God.
• Pray for me as I prepare to become a full Campus Staff Minister. I'll need to do a great deal of fundraising and training over the next few months, so pray that I would be prepared for that work, that God would guide my fundraising efforts, and that I would be effective in working for God's Kingdom over these next few years.
• A final praise is that my father's chemotherapy treatment has finished a little earlier than expected since there is now no sign of cancer in his lymph nodes! We had been worried for a little while since the chemo seemed to be affecting him more recently (though he still has all his hair), but for now he is able to do maintenance which will just mean taking some medications without full chemo treatments. Thank God for this turn of events, and please continue to pray for my father as he goes through the maintenance.

Thank you for your continued love, prayer, and support. It is a privilege to work alongside you in this ministry. God bless you all in the coming months.

His servant,
Michael

Addendum

So I know that I just updated last night, but I wanted to share with you all that I got a job offer from InterVarsity today for a full staff position! It's a part-time job: 29 hours a week. It's for 5 years total, with the first 2 being at UNM and then possibly at NMT the following 3 years. For now, that'll mean that I can both continue working with IV and with the game company I'm also a part of, which is really what I was hoping for. This is a really exciting opportunity, but I definitely don't want to go into it without proper guidance. Please pray for me to make the right decision about this job offer. I have two weeks to make my decision, and while I feel like I could just accept it right now, I want to be sure I have God's backing in this and don't rush in without Him. Thank you so much, and I'll be sure to tell you more as this whole process continues to develop.

The other thing I wanted to mention, which I completely forgot to talk about in the last update, is that I'll be gone next weekend, so I won't be able to update as usual. I'm doing an urban project in Albuquerque this Saturday through Wednesday, so my next post will probably come sometime on Wednesday or Thursday of next week. Please keep the project in your prayers as well. I don't really know what to expect (the details are kept minimal on purpose), but I'm excited about going and know that it'll be a great experience. Have a great week!

"Choose my instruction instead of silver,
knowledge rather than choice gold,
for wisdom is more precious than rubies,
and nothing you desire can compare with her."
- Proverbs 8:10-11

Witness

It's really funny sometimes how God works in ways we don't expect. Following the intensity of Cresciendo last weekend, I was completely wiped. Yet each time that I was starting to feel a little pressed for time, my schedule managed to open up. In fact, all told this has been by far the most laid back week of the semester; I ended up with so much free time that I almost didn't know what do to with it! It's great having God work things out.

A couple cool opportunities happened this week as well. On Thursday at our Large Group meeting, we had a woman come in from East Central Ministries to talk about her testimony and how God has used her to work for His kingdom. East Central Ministries works right in the middle of the "War Zone" in Albuquerque doing incarnational ministry. The people there live and work amongst some of the worst neighborhoods in the city, sharing the Gospel through relationships with others and providing ways to care for the community. The speaker talked about how she had felt the call when she was about to graduate not to seek a "mountaintop experience" with God, but to descend to the inner city and share His love amongst the poor. It was a really cool look at how we can follow God's missional heart.

Then, as a kind of follow-up to her talk, we actually got to take a group out to ECM on Saturday to help work there as a service outreach. There we took on different jobs to help the ministry including helping construct a new greenhouse they will use to provide work for the needy in the area and labeling the planters made by the ministry as a source of income. While there was no strictly evangelistic element to the outing (we were working completely with Christians), it was great to see firsthand how the organization is reaching out to the community and to witness their hearts for the poor around them. We had gone to ECM last semester as well to help out, and I really hope that we'll be able to continue this partnership and help however we can in the spread of the Gospel through their work.

I had another great opportunity this week as well. My church runs an AWANAS program, and this Friday was their annual Grand Prix. The kids get to make cars out of blocks of wood and then race them down a track, with the winners taking home trophies. Anyway, since many parents take their kids to AWANAS as a kind of free child care rather than as a way to teach them about the Bible, and since the Grand Prix is one of the few times that both parents and kids from AWANAS gather, it is also a good time to share a bit about the Gospel to those who otherwise might not get a chance to hear about it. I was invited to give a short Gospel presentation this year, and while I was a little skeptical about how such a message would go over with a group who just wants to watch some races, I thought it could also be a fun opportunity and accepted the invitation.

I talked about my own time in AWANAS: how I had loved the fun of things like the Grand Prix and really got to know a lot about God, but I also shared what a difference actually having a relationship with God (rather than just learning about one) has meant to me and my life. I invited anyone who wanted to know more about a relationship with Jesus to come talk to me or one of the leaders, but the vibe I was getting seemed more in line with just wanting to get on to the awards ceremony. That pretty much met my expectations; I had been told earlier that no one had made a commitment to Christ as a result of one of these presentations. The night ended, and I went home glad to have at least practiced a bit of evangelism. But just today I got an email; apparently one of the first grade girls at the event talked with her parents later that night and asked Jesus into her heart! I hadn't really expected anything to come of the night, but I'm so glad that God was able to use what little faith I had to further His work. Please pray for the girl, Emma, that this would be the start of a long and beautiful relationship with the Lord.

I've also been thinking about evangelism in general, and one thing that keeps sticking out for me is the almost complete lack of any contact with non-Christians in my life. Ironically, by being in ministry I have almost no relationships to invest in evangelically. Honestly, this is a bit of a stretch for me spiritually, but I have decided to start praying for God to put some non-Christians in my life so I can share God's love with them. I ask that you would join me in this prayer. Though I don't know what it will look like, please pray that I would begin to build relationships with non believers for the sake of the Gospel. Thanks so much!

"I run in the path of your commands,
for you have set my heart free."
- Psalm 119:32

Growing in Christ

Man, what a weekend. I just got back from our annual IV Spring retreat, which we've "newly refurbished" and renamed Cresciendo en Christo (Growing in Christ). Over the course of this weekend, students from our chapters at UNM, NMT, and UTEP gathered at the First Baptist Church in Socorro to learn more about what it means to live Godly lives as we explored the book of Titus. It was a weekend of fun, fellowship, growth, and worship, and I absolutely loved it.

We changed the style of the retreat from previous years due to the changes in our capabilities as a staff team. We used to have separate tracks, usually 4-5, throughout the weekend that students would choose between as the focus of their experience. There would be times of unified worship, but most of the retreat was spent in the track, meaning that there was a huge amount of preparation involved for the staff. Well, our staff team is significantly smaller now: only Hans, Rod, and myself. There was no way we could effectively put on that kind of a conference, so we opted instead to focus on group study of a single passage and devote only a limited amount of our time to what we called "breakout sessions" in which students could get some more specific instruction.

Titus was the focus of the weekend this year. It's a short book, but it says a lot about what it means to live a Godly life. Hans gave an intro to the book Friday night, describing how trying to live a Godly life is important for our credibility as Christians as well as our ability to answer the call that God has given us. Then Saturday morning we dove right in, spending about two and a half hours studying the first half under Rod's leadership and looking at the characteristics of a Godly, upright person versus one who is unsaved. It was the first time that many of the students had experienced a manuscript study, but they really seemed to take to it and got some good insight into the passage. Then that night I got to lead the group through the second half of the book over an additional two hours. It was my first time leading in that kind of context (I'm more used to leading a group of about 2 or 3, not the almost 60 students we had), but in spite of being exhausted from the weekend up to that point, I really enjoyed it. We looked at how Godly character stems from the work of God in us - it is our response to the gift of salvation we have received and is evidence of how God has changed our lives for the better. On Sunday we attended service at First Baptist, and the pastor even focused his message on a section of Titus to bring in some extra insight about how God's salvation works in our lives. Finally, we switched venues over to the NMT campus, and Hans closed off the weekend with a call to action in response to what we learned throughout the weekend.

As I mentioned, though, the study of Titus was only a part of what we did this weekend. We were also blessed to have the Tech chapter worship team lead us in several worship sets during the retreat as well as for the service on Sunday. It was really great to have them leading us through some moving worship, bringing us into fellowship with one another and with God.

Another big part of the weekend was the breakout session time. We knew that we couldn't spend as much time as we used to on specific topics through the retreat, but we also realized the great value of the training for the students. We had 4 topics: Godly Dating Relationships (Rod), Evangelism (Hans), Helping Others Grow (Matt, a volunteer from UTEP), and Putting God First (me). I focused mine on some practical aspects of growing in a relationship with God, going through how I have grown by studying Scripture, praying, attending church, tithing, and participating in missions.

I was honestly really worried about mine going into it. I had no idea if students would be interested in a seminar on basics of living a Christian life; generally those tracks are the lowest in attendance at the retreats I've attended. I led 2 sessions, though, and both were completely full. I got a lot of positive feedback as well, with some students saying it was the highlight of the weekend for them. I'm really glad that God used it the way He did.

Overall, the weekend was simply amazing, but only because of your continued prayers and support. Thank you so much for lifting up Cresciendo to God. He has certainly done great things through it, and I can't wait to see how the lives of our students continue to change as they put into practice the lessons of the retreat. I ask that you would continue to pray for them as they return to the realities of school and homework, that life won't snuff out the lessons they've learned. There are also a number of students who came to us for prayer during the retreat for various reasons. While I can't really go into their specific requests or situations, it would be wonderful if you would pray on their behalf as well. Thank you again so much for the ways you support my ministry and the ministry of InterVarsity as a whole. May you be blessed for the ways you have been a blessing to us.

"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good."
- Titus 2:11-14

Danger in Denver

It's been another really interesting week here with IV. Whereas last week was centered mostly around Sexy Pizza, this week has been almost entirely consumed with prep for Chapter Camp this year.

What's Chapter Camp, you ask? It's our annual region-wide week-long retreat held at Bear Trap Ranch at the end of each Spring. It is, in a word, incredible. I likely explain about it more in depth later, but for now I'll say that we center the whole week around a set of passages, which students study in the mornings and hear talks on in the evenings. There is a time of "creative response" each day as well, and I have the privilege of being on the creative response team this year. That meant a trip to Denver this week to meet with the rest of the team as well as the "manuscript team" - those who are responsible for leading the morning study sessions and really try to get across the main points of the passage.

The trip lasted from Tuesday through Thursday, and while out-of-town business trips aren't generally known for being "relaxing", it was certainly a nice change of pace for me. I ended up canceling my discipleship group and handing the small group over to another leader (who I hear did a bang up job; thanks Marcie!), so I had a lot less work to do for the week; just go out and study the Bible for several days.

However, the trip was anything but uneventful. Hans and I both woke up feeling sick on Tuesday morning, meaning that for the whole trip we were fighting our illness through sleep deprivation and the occasional sugar/caffeine downer. A note of warning: if you are starting to come down with something, a diet of Sour Patches, Cadbury Eggs, chocolate, Coke, and coffee might not be the best idea.... So anyway Hans and I flew out, only to find that the guy who was supposed to rent the car to take us from the airport had missed his flight and wouldn't be able to make his way out until about 9 that night. We waited in the airport for a few hours, had lunch, and met up with the next group of staff leaving, at which point we found out that another two staff workers coming out of Flagstaff were delayed several hours - something about their plane smoking in the terminal - so they also wouldn't be out until late that night.

We went to the church we were meeting in and decided to study the first couple of sections. I must say, it's a blast doing this kind of in-depth study with a bunch of other staff. We got to spend hours looking at a passage and evaluating what it was saying and how we would get that message to the students. That led to some great passage-related conversations like can God change His mind or do we consider the Angel of the LORD to be a pre-incarnate Jesus. To study these topics with such a knowledgeable group was a real treat.

We also got a fair amount of time to just hang out and relax a bit, whether that meant going out to dinner or playing some Mario Kart at the house many of us were staying at. I've decided that I really like hanging around IV staff, especially in down time.

The week still had one more curve-ball for us, though. Wednesday morning we got a call that one of the guys (in fact, one of the speakers we were learning from, who also happened to get in late on the smoking plane) had been hit by a car when he was out for a morning run. Thankfully, it was a small Smart Car going relatively slowly, and so he didn't have any noticeable injuries, but x-rays at the hospital revealed fractured ribs. He wouldn't be joining us for any study. It's truly a blessing that he is doing as well as he is; the situation could have been so much worse if it changed only slightly. Please pray for him, though, as he recovers. I'm sure the flight back alone wasn't a wonderful experience for him.

We finished the study on Thursday, and so the creative response team was able to get together to go over the things we want to do for each day. I can't really say much about the study or what we'll be doing, but I'm really excited to see what will come out of them during Chapter Camp!

I managed to get back into Albuquerque Thursday at about 7:15 - just enough time to get my car and go straight to Large Group. It was a good meeting, and we were able to study Jesus as the bread from heaven, but man was I wiped out the whole time. I was really glad to be there, though.

We also got pretty much a final count that night for our upcoming spring conference: Cresciendo en Christo. It's this coming weekend, so please be praying for it. We're going to be down in Socorro going through the book of Titus and seeing how we are called to live Godly lives in response to God's work in us. I'll be leading a couple studies for the weekend, so please pray for effectiveness for me as well. In any case, it looks like we'll have at least 25 students going, meaning that over half of our chapter will be there! Even more exciting is that some of these students have only just recently joined IV, so they are really showing an eagerness to get involved. I also know of one girl who is bringing her younger brother, who isn't a very strong Christian (if one at all) but who is willing to give the retreat a try. Please join me in praying for all of these students. It's really a blessing that so many are willing to come, and I hope that now we can bless them with a great experience on the retreat.

"The LORD replied, 'My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.'"
- Exodus 33:14

Lighting Up the Darkness

After weeks of buildup and preparation, we finally had Sexy Pizza and the Proxe Station at UNM, and both went really well! I don't know how many people actually came and talked to us at our table, but we got dozens of responses on our board to our prompting question "What do you think Christians think about sex?" Interestingly, the responses quickly moved from what Christians think (for instance, sex is for making babies only) to what people think about the Christian position (Christians shouldn't be so unrealistic in making everyone get married first). We also had a number of really great conversations with students at the Proxe. I was personally amazed at how well they seemed to go; pretty much everyone I talked to said that they thought people treat sex too lightly and that it should at least be reserved for very devoted relationships. Granted, one guy said that his definition of too lightly was basically "involving more than four people at once", but there was at least some recognition of boundaries... I guess....

Sexy Pizza itself went pretty well also. We had really no clue how many people to expect, especially since we advertised constantly for almost a week. That meant having students hand invitations to friends, telling those who came to the Proxe, chalking sidewalks, and hanging up a ton of posters. We ended up with a total of 76 people in attendance, and more than a third of them were totally new to IV! We were also able to have 4 panel members for the event: a local pastor, a Christian sex therapist, an IV alumnus (the former UNM chapter president), and one of our married IV students. They were given questions which we had received as part of the Proxe, including topics like "Why does God want people to be married to have sex?" and "What do you think about homosexual marriage?" and they answered consistently with both grace and truth. Then we opened up the floor for questions from the audience, and we got even more great questions. Finally, we had another student give a brief explanation of the Gospel, emphasizing that God has made us for relationships and that He desires to have a relationship with us. I don't think that anyone made a decision to follow Christ that night, but I'm sure that some relationships were formed, and I'll be really interested to see how we can follow up with those who came.

Please pray for the students who did show up for Sexy Pizza and the Proxe. As I said, we had a fair number there, and at least one indicated interest in learning more about being a follower of Christ, and it would be so great if we could continue those relationships. How great would it be if we could see 30 students come to know God through these events as we build relationships with them!

I must say, though, that overall I've been wondering how effective our outreach on campus is. It's a difficult thing trying to evangelize on campus. From my experience, evangelism occurs most easily in the context of a relationship, but the few years students spend at the university often seem far too short to train students to seek such relationships and to also invest significantly into their non-Christian friends. That's why so much of the time we focus our time and energy into one-time events, hoping that we can attract some non-Christians and get them interested in spending more time with us. Yet from all of these events over the past few years, I only know of one students who has been interested in really finding out more about Christianity. I think that there really should be a more effective way for us to build relationships with other students and share God's love with them, but I'm a little at a loss as to what that would look like. I'd really appreciate it if you all would pray for me and for all of us as a chapter that we would come to an understanding of how best to engage the campus. If we are called to do more events like Sexy Pizza and the Proxe stations, I would love that, but if we are being called to move in a different direction, I want us to get there.

I'm going on a short setup trip for Chapter Camp (our end-of-the-year conference) this week. I get to be part of the "Creative Response" planning committee, meaning that I will help set up stations where students can respond to the message being presented through things like art, silent prayer, or symbolic action. It's a pretty cool opportunity, but it also means that I'll be away in Colorado for a couple of days and will miss a good number of things here. Anyway, I ask that you would pray both for safe travels and that I would be an effective part of the team, that we could come up with some really great means for students to connect with God this year.

Oh, and I have some other really exciting news: apparently several students from the chapter are interested in the Kenya Global Project, and at least one of them is actively filling out the application! I know that it'll be a great opportunity for any who are willing to go. Please pray for those who are still undecided to know what God's will is for their summer, and for those who have decided to commit to the project this summer that they would be able to find all the support they need in the coming months.

"I will proclaim the name of the LORD.
Oh, praise the greatness of our God!
He is the Rock, his works are perfect,
and all his ways are just.
A faithful God who does no wrong,
upright and just is he."
- Deuteronomy 32:3-4

Sexy Pizza

Well, I can't really say much about this week; now that we're pretty much done with the New Student Outreach events for the semester, InterVarsity is starting to take on something of a normal pace. I'm definitely not complaining.

So, yes, my small group went well, though again only 2 students were able to show up. I also had to cancel my discipleship group for the week since all of the guys had other things to take care of. That pretty much leaves the Large Group, and well, let me start off by explaining some things:

This coming week, we're holding a special outreach called Sexy Pizza. We got a grant from the region for holding an evangelistic event, so we're offering free pizza to anyone who stops by and then having a panel discussion of the Christian view of sex. Our panel includes pastors, and even a Christian sex therapist, which is good because as an outreach event, we're sure to get all kinds of, um, interesting questions from the audience.

To lead up to the event, though, we're going to run another Proxe Station - one of our interactive evangelistic tables. As with the Proxe we did last semester, we are again providing a place for students to respond to our prompt: "What do you think Christians think about sex?" We hope that through our interactions with students we will be able to really show them the reasons that God has set standards for our sexual lifestyles and reveal their need for Him.

All of this to say that we wanted to have our training for the Proxe Station for the last Large Group , and I had the privelege of leading it. We had a demonstration of me running the table while one of the student leaders, Nikki, was our student for the demonstration. The presentation went well, but apparently I was blushing the whole time. (It was unscripted, and some of the questions ended up a little awkward, haha.) After the demonstration, we had the students split up and practice with one another and attempt a Gospel presentation as well. All in all, the night went really well, and even my little blunders helped make the whole thing a bit more fun and hopefully less intimidating.

We'll have the Proxe this Wednesday and Thursday and then Sexy Pizza Thursday night. Please keep both of those events in your prayers, especially that all of us would be able to effectively engage the students with both truth and love. I expect some great things to happen both for those who show up and for our students who will be running it, and I'm really excited to see what God has in store!

"May your fountain be blessed,
and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
A loving doe, a graceful deer—
may her breasts satisfy you always,
may you ever be captivated by her love.
Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress?
Why embrace the bosom of another man's wife?"
- Proverbs 5:18-20

Once more, with feeling!

Well, the semester is really underway now. The New Student Outreach is all over now, and we're starting to get into the meat of the semester. For me, that means returning to my small group and discipleship group. This last week my discipleship group looked at the idea of "the still small voice" and discussed why God would choose to communicate with us in that way, especially when we are so eager for more spectacular communication like visions or angelic visitations. It's been a great learning experience for me and the other guys in the group to look more closely at the ways that God communicates with us and why. It proves just how much I don't really know about subjects I feel like I have a good grasp on.

The small group started off a little rough, but not too bad. Two students showed up, though many that I talked to said that they should be able to come some of the time, just not that week. In any case, we studied the first half of the chapter of James: enduring trials and temptations. We had some really good conversation, and I was impressed with some of the insights that came from the study. As I mentioned before, I've been part of a study of James before, but repeating the study manuscript-style allows for a whole new set of insights. We approach the text with as few preconceived notions as possible and try to get a lot of input from one another on our interpretations, so each study opens whole new areas of insight. I'm excited to see what else comes out of this study.

The Large Group meeting last week was really great. We had about 42 students there, and many of them were returning new students and even some first-timers. That's a really great sign for the semester as a whole, especially since last year at this time there were only about 25 people coming to the Large Groups. This time we had the other staff worker, Hans, speak on the Gospel and Culture. He challenged our ideas of what Christianity is supposed to look like, revealing how quickly we equate cultural traditions with the Gospel. He encouraged us to have a strong knowledge of the Bible so that we can know what is really required of a Christian and also to be open and accepting of the ways other cultures define Christianity even if it doesn't feel comfortable to us, so long as it is Biblical.

We finished our New Student Outreach last night with a special movie night. We watched Blood Diamond, which highlights the conflicts and atrocities that arise in many countries (in this case, Sierra Leone) because of diamond and weapons smuggling. The story shows with brutal clarity just how horrific the social unrest generated becomes: mass killings, inhumane forced labor, child soldiers, the worst kinds of corruption. We spent the second half of the night discussing the social issues we witnessed in the movie and tried to understand what our place as Christians is in dealing with such injustice. There is a sense of helplessness, especially when the problems are so deep-seated and widespread and the people are so far away. We came away, though, understanding that God has called us to end the injustice we see around us and to cross racial boundaries to bring reconciliation to all those hurting whom we meet.

Again I would like to ask you to keep the new semester in prayer, especially things like the Large Group, the different Small Groups, and the other events we have going on. I think that God can do some great things with this chapter, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they are. Another event coming over the horizon is our next evangelistic outreach. We're holding an event called "Sexy Pizza", where we will have free pizza and a panel of Christians talking answering any questions that students have about sex from a Christian perspective. To kind of get the ball rolling on that, we're also having another proxe station similar to the one I made last fall, only this time the prompting question will be "What do you think Christians think about sex?" Some students will run the table for a couple of days leading up to the panel, and we're really hoping that the whole thing will provide an opportunity for some good dialog and maybe even some students becoming interested in pursuing a relationship with God. Please pray for these events to be effective and for the students to be well-prepared for all that will happen. Thanks so much!

"Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
bring an offering and come into his courts.
Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness;
tremble before him all the earth."
- Psalm 96:8-9

The Next Wave

So due to some changes in my schedule for this semester, I'll be trying to update on Saturdays rather than Wednesdays. Yes, I realize that I kinda missed last Saturday. I'm a slacker....

This last week was the first week of the spring semester for the students at UNM. Because of that, we at InterVarsity had another round of NSO (New Student Outreach). There aren't nearly as many new students in the spring compared to the fall, and most students have largely found groups that they want to be a part of if they are looking for them, so we don't usually have as many events as we put on in the fall. However, though we haven't planned as many events, the ones we've been having have been really pretty great.

We started off the week with a welcome back party for IV students on Monday (MLK Day). Somewhere around 25 people showed up, pretty well filling up my little house where we hosted it. We had pizza, played some games, and talked about the fun/cool/interesting things we did over the Christmas break. We also wanted to use the time to put the students in the right mindset for the semester, so Hans, Jen the chapter president, and I shared on different aspects of vision. Hans talked about how vision helps us see the world as God sees it, preventing us from being wholly focused on ourselves. Jen talked about her own experiences in IV: how the carrying out of vision among the chapter when she first came to IV is what made her stay around, and how she hopes for the same vision will grow more in our chapter to continue drawing people in. Then I closed us off by talking about how to have personal vision, answering God's call and being confident that as we pray for His guidance, we can rest assured that His place and plans for us are good. It is easy for messages like these to slip away as students return to their busy semester schedules, so please pray with me that they would truly take them to heart and desire to connect with God's vision for our chapter and for their own lives.

We also had a few days of info tables in the UNM Student Union Building to raise awareness about IV among students passing by. We had students running the tables from 10-2 both Wednesday and Thursday, and though we didn't have nearly as many students come by as we do during the fall table times, those who did come by seemed very interested in getting involved.

In fact, the first Large Group of the semester really showed how many of those students really wanted to get involved. From my experiences, the spring usually brings in maybe one or two new students, but this last week we had about 8 new people show up! We wanted to make all the new people feel welcome, so we spent part of the night doing "speed friendships". It's like speed dating except that (as far as I know) no couples formed at the end of the night. We just spent about 2 minutes finding out about the person across from us, then switching once the timer went off. We also took some time to have all of the students fill out a personal spiritual evaluation, which we hope to use to develop our Large Group curriculum this semester. We feel that we need to help the chapter grow in their understanding of the Christian faith as a whole, so we should be entering some interesting territory including prayer, the trinity, and criticisms of Christianity. Please be praying for Heydon, the Large Group Coordinator, who will be trying to structure these lessons to best meet the needs of the students. I also ask that you pray for those new students to have a desire to stick around. Most of the ones I talked to seemed really interested in IV, but it is very easy for students to stop coming once school really starts setting in.

The last event of the week was a night of broom ball at the Outpost Ice Skating Arena. In case you don't know, broom ball is like ice hockey except that you run in shoes across the ice rather than skating. Also there is moderately less brawling. Usually. We had about 24 people show up for the game, and somehow we managed to cram all of them into one of the small side rinks of Outpost. It was really a blast, and to my knowledge, no one is missing any teeth! Afterward, we went out to Dion's for some dinner (a first for some of the students!) followed by a somewhat impromptu movie (the new Star Trek) at my house.

This semester is also going to mean some changes for me. For one, I'm no longer going to have my prayer group. No one was really showing up, so I'll be freeing up my time for other things. I also am no longer leading the Truth Project small group, partially because my co-leader decided to step down. I'm a little bummed that I won't be finishing the study, but I'm also really excited about my new curriculum: a study of the book of James. I actually was part of a Bible study in middle school that attempted to memorize the whole book of James, and that study has a really special place in my heart, so it'll be great to be returning to the book. Please pray for that group to be a place of growth for all who attend. Please also keep my discipleship group in your prayers. We're continuing to look at the ways God communicates with us personally, and I really hope that the guys I'm leading will really continue to mature this semester as a result of our times together.

I'm also going to be a part of the new leadership selection committee, which will be responsible for determining which students will become the leadership team for next year. A large portion of our Vision Team is leaving after this semester, so it will be very important for us to find students who will be able to carry the mantles they leave behind. Pray for wisdom for us in trying to discern which students can best lead the chapter and in what capacity. Student leaders are the ones who are really responsible for making the chapter run, so it's very important that we pick those whom God has called.

Finally, I would like to let you all know that I've decided to apply for at least a part-time job as a true IV staff worker for the next few years. I've been praying a lot about this for a few months now, and I really feel like God wants to continue to use me in InterVarsity at UNM. I'll be starting on the formal application process pretty soon here, so please pray for that to go well. Also, thank you for your prayers for my discernment in this matter; I really feel like this is where God wants me to be and am confident in His provision as I pursue this career. God bless you all for your support this past semester, and I look forward to what both this spring and the years ahead have in store!

"LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
you have made my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance."
- Psalm 16:5-6

Urbana!

Well, this update is certainly coming much later than I had meant for it to. But in any case, I really wanted to share more with you all about Urbana '09!

As a part of InterVarsity staff, I had the privilege of going to Urbana this year to help run the conference. I went back in '06 as well as a student, but seeing the conference from the perspective of someone working for it. In a good way, too. I actually arrived a day earlier than all the students with the rest of the staff, and when we had our staff dinner that night, it was like a huge family reunion. In fact, that feeling only grew as I continued to meet people I hadn't seen in months or years and once again experienced all of the great things Urbana has to offer, remembering the life changing experiences I had my first time there.

The first actual day of the conference was mostly check-in, and I was one of the staff workers designated to help give out name tags. Not hard, but it did take up a large portion of my first day, and I had to miss the first hour of the welcome session. All in all, not hard, and I actually got to run into some of the students who went with me on the Kenya GP this summer! I then came in part way through the plenary session, seeing the 17,000 Christian crowd filling the America Center Stadium. They were worshiping when I got there, and immediately I realized what a great thing the event would be.

The next few days made up the body of the conference. In the mornings, we had what are called Manuscript Bible Study sessions. Manuscript study is a common InterVarsity method. It is an inductive style that allows the students to look at a passage without relying on presuppositions and to approach it at their level of understanding while also learning from what others are learning from the same passage. We usually do this kind of study over 1:30 to 2 hours with a group of about 10 students, but for Urbana we were doing the study in a shorter period and with 200+ students per study leader. Hans happened to be one of the study leaders, and so I got to help him those mornings alongside his wife, Jill, a UNM IV alumnus, Glory, and another staff worker, Ryan. The others ran mics to students who had input while I ran the PowerPoint slides. It was a lot of fun, and while I didn't get as much out of the sessions as the students (it was hard enough just getting my job done by itself), I really had a great time in those sessions. Plus we managed to wrangle some students from UNM and from the Kenya GP into our group, so that was fantastic!

After the manuscripting sessions, we went to the morning plenary sessions where our expositor, Ramez Atallah, preached from the passages. The whole week was focused around John 1-4, so the manuscript sessions focused on some passages while Ramez took the others. These morning sessions were also another chance to worship together and to see some incredible skits and other performances. We got to sing songs from a variety of Christian traditions, styles, and ethnic backgrounds - songs in English, Spanish, French, Swahili, and Arabic. The performers acted out scenes from the Gospel of John, danced, sang, and even rapped on occasion. Then Ramez brought the whole thing together with his messages on John, showing us the incredible nature of Jesus's incarnational ministry. He described just how astounding the incarnation is, passing all boundaries while defying our expectations for missions, especially compared to how we think of missions today.

Afternoons were open times for the students to attend some of the dozens of open conferences designed to explore more specific topics on missions and Christian life. I got to sit in on some and helped as an assistant for others, all of which were great. Probably the most influential sessions for me was an excellent seminar which was part of the Business as Missions track. The speakers described how they have gone against cultural norms, using their successes and drives to further missions work and allowing them to live humbly. I was convicted deeply about how much I desire to acquire wealth and affluence for my own benefit, but feel now that I want to live below my means, using my money more and more for God's work than for my own pleasure.

Besides the seminars, I also got to use my afternoons to explore the bookstore and Global Connextions areas a bit to see the many missions organizations that came to the conference to try to recruit students. While I wasn't really looking for any real missions opportunities myself, it was still fun to see what kinds of work is being done by these hundreds of agencies. I found time to hang out with my church group, the Rio Area IV group, and even a Kenya GP reunion. The reunion was really special to me; it was the first time most of us had seen each other since the summer. We got to catch up with one other, reminisce on all the things we miss (or don't miss in some cases...), and really just enjoy once again the fellowship we shared together this summer. I had another opportunity to just hang out with two of the students from the small group I lead that summer (the others couldn't come to Urbana), and it was such a blessing to spend some quality time with them.

The evenings, though, were probably my favorite part. Each night we had even more worship and skits plus two special speakers each night to talk about topics related to the morning's plenary session. They spoke on living among the poor, the modern sex slave trade and AIDS epidemic, environmental responsibility, and a variety of other topics. My favorite, though, has to be Oscar Muriu, who talked on the ideas of money and power. He compared our modern methods of evangelism to those of Jesus and the cross. We are so concerned with funding, safety, and carrying our American affluence with us on our missions, but God was willing to come down from heaven and become one of us, taking on the nature of the people he ministered to. It was really convicting to think of some of the ways that we have hurt people we try to witness to by being unwilling to stoop to their level. He then encouraged us to witness as Christ did: incarnationally. I'm still trying to process what that will mean for me, especially while working with the students at UNM. All the same, though, I'm really thankful for the perspective Oscar gave us all on being part of God's mission.

Urbana was awesome, and I'm so glad I was able to go once again. I know it's been a huge influence on the students that went as well. Please pray for them and me as we continue to process the lessons we learned there and work to become the next generation of missionaries in God's kingdom.

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
John 1:14

Michael's Winter InterVarsity Update

Hello again everyone,

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! I have here my latest ministry update, basically a review of where the internship has taken me since October. Many of you will receive this update via email, but here it is for the rest of you. Also, you may notice that I have given the site a bit of a face lift (the new title banner). Let me know what you think - like it? hate it? indifferent? Oh, and I plan on having a more complete description of Urbana up in a few days, maybe even this weekend, but I couldn't really fit everything I wanted to say in this letter. In any case, here it is:




Hello to all my wonderful supporters!

Welcome to the new year! A lot of exciting stuff has happened since I last wrote to you all in October. But before we get into all that, I first want to thank you all once again for your wonderful support. Your financial gifts and prayers have been such a blessing, and without you all I wouldn't have the blessing of being able to work at the UNM campus. Thank you so much!

November started with another big evangelistic event for the chapter. However, this time I was the one who had to prepare it - a huge challenge for me! We had a table with a big, blank display board on it and at the top wrote "What do you hate about Christianity?" For two days we invited students passing by to write their thoughts on the board and then spend some time talking about what experiences they have had with Christians that lead to those feelings. Honestly, I was a little worried going in that the event would result in a lot of heated arguments, but by God's grace we were able avoid anything like that, though there was a lot of discussion on some controversial topics. We had great, honest responses from Christians and non-Christians alike, including frustration with hypocrisy, anger toward the hateful attitude Christians often have for people "under sin", and heartfelt requests that Christians return to the heat of the Gospel: the love God shows to sinners in spite of their sin. While we didn't have anyone who wanted to make a commitment to faith, I'm sure that God used us to soften some hearts.

I also gave my first talk at Large Group that week as a kind of follow-up to the table. I spoke on John 9, where Jesus heals a man born blind. Unfortunately, though we passed out at least 70 fliers through the tables, we only had 1 new visitor that week. No one decided to take up the call to faith, and I feel like the talk itself could have gone much better (though it certainly wasn't terrible). All the same, I'm glad I was able to have the opportunity even if my expectations happened to be a little different from God's.

Another big development of the past months was the creation of my discipleship group. I have the privilege of discipling 3 guys from the chapter, and we are going through the book Hearing God by Dallas Willard. It's been a very fulfilling experience for me and the guys as well. We've had a great time getting to know one another, and I'm excited to see what will come out of the group as we put what we've learned into practice in the coming semester.

We've had a lot of other awesome events this semester, and it's really been a blessing to be a part of them. We had guys' and girls' nights out that lead to some great fun and fellowship. We had a special AIDS awareness night for our Large Group meeting that challenged students with the reality of the worldwide AIDS epidemic and resulted in $340 being raised for World Vision. We had a Kenya night that Hans and I lead in authentic Kenyan style, including interactive Swahili songs and chai time. So great!

It would of course be terrible of me to omit the biggest event of the semester, though: Urbana! InterVarsity organizes the Urbana conference - the largest college age missions conference in the world - once every 3 years, and I was privileged to be a part of it this year. We had 16 students attend in St. Louis this year, which is really amazing considering the conference generally costs students upwards of $700 to attend. It was worth every cent, though. The theme for this year was "He made His dwelling among us", coming from our study of John 1-4. Our speakers and expositors used these scriptures to look at the what the incarnation really meant for Jesus's ministry and challenged us to live "incarnationally" as we minister to those God has put on our hearts. We were also given a new look at the world as we learned about the issues of poverty, the modern slave trade, the 2 billion completely unreached people around the world, and the dangers of approaching missions from a business mindset. As part of the Urbana staff, I got to help my fellow staff worker Hans do manuscript Bible study in the mornings with around 120 students and then spent the afternoons assisting with the different seminars, which covered specific topics like contextualizing worship for different ethnic groups or using art in a missions environment. I and the rest of the 17,000 students got to experience all this over the 5 days of the conference, plus some excellent worship involving songs in English, Spanish, French, Swahili, and even Arabic. And hardly begins to describe all that we got to experience that week! In fact, I would encourage all of you to visit the Urbana website and check out some videos; I especially recommend Oscar Muriu's talk on incarnational missions.

I wish I could tell you all more, but honestly it is very hard to describe just how impactful such a week can be. I will say, though, I am really excited by how much the conference has already influenced so many who went, challenging them to make bold changes to the ways the live or the plans they are making for the future in response to God's mission in the world. Please please pray for all who attended. These are the next generation of missionaries, and they need all the prayer they can get to make sure that Urbana isn't just a one-time event that fades into the background of college.

Finally, I would like to let you know about some of my current prayer needs.

• I am almost finished with my fundraising: only about $100 left! Praise God for His provision, and please pray that I would find the last couple of donors who would help me complete my fundraising.
• Please pray for the coming semester and all of the InterVarsity events starting back up. I'll be leading another Bible study, this time on James, as well as a prayer group and my discipleship group. We will also have our spring conference in February, so please pray for the preparations and execution, that it would be a time of rest and growth for the students.
• As I mentioned, it is essential that Urbana isn't forgotten as the business of school sets in. Please pray that the students would be moved to be missional on campus and that we as a chapter would grow stronger in our evangelistic efforts.
• I will soon need to decide whether or not I will go onto full-time staff with InterVarsity after this year or if I will pursue some other line of work. This ministry has been a great blessing to me so far, but my greatest goal is to be where God wants me to be. Please pray for discernment as I try to determine where God wants me to be in the coming years.
  
• My father has is about half done with his chemo treatments, and a huge praise is that he has had almost no side-effects as a result. He still has all of his hair (almost a frustration since he doesn't want to cut it if it will just fall out...) and is still busy around the house re-tiling floors and repainting rooms. Please continue to pray for healing and for the chemo to be effective as he undergoes the final 3 treatments coming up. Pray also for my family as a whole, that we would use this experience to grow in our knowledge and faith in God.

Thank you once again for your prayer and support. I wish I could tell you more about just how much you have all meant to me and the ministry of InterVarsity at UNM. God bless you as we move into a new year and a new decade!

His servant,
Michael