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