Today's Golf Course

I noticed that it has been over a week since I updated my blog and there is so much to tell. I guess I will start with the beginning of the week. I have been going to a church called Ekklesia for the past few weeks. From the time being there, the impression that I have gotten from the church is a church that really preaches the gospel and seeks to share the word to the city of Eugene. But what really stood out to me was that the people there were really inviting as it was impossible for me to walk into the church without being welcomed by someone.

Apparently a lot of the Epic students still have to yet to find a church that they can call it their church while attending college. So to my surprise when I openly invited students during the weekly Epic meeting, the majority expressed interest in going with me.

Speaking of the Epic meeting, it was an intriguing meeting. While I had planned all week for a leadership dinner where we could as a group talk about the vision for the ministry, the goals for the year, and how students can be get their feet wet, the students spent an hour during the meeting discussing their desire to start seeing things happen on this campus. So I'm hoping the momentum from their passion continues into this leadership dinner Sunday evening and into the rest of the school year.

On Thursday we had a guest speaker by the name of Doug Polluck. He came to the campus with a message to the staff and students of our ministry by bringing to our attention the current situation of many ministries, not just Campus Crusade for Christ. It is something that I have been contemplating in my mind for awhile, but have yet been able to illustrate it into words. I felt for awhile that the way that we (as in the general body of Christ), lately have not been effectively reaching out to the non-believers. All I was able to put together in my head was that it was simply the tools/methods that we were using doesn't work.

Doug took that thought and put it into an illustration that is fairly easy to understand. He used an illustration of a golf course. The golf course represented where people were at in their spiritual lives, the golf balls are the people, the hole is where people are saved, and the golf club as the tools/method/approaches that we use to reach the lost.

The thing is that we have been using the same tool (golf club), to reach the lost for the past few decades. In the past it has worked pretty effectively, but in today's world we have seen a significant decline of reaching the lost. That brings us to wonder why aren't we reaching people like we have in the past? Is it that our approach simply doesn't work anymore?

The answer is both "yes" and "no". "How can that be?" you might ask? It's simple. In the past decades Christianity has been very favorable amongst your general Americans. Whether people were believers or not, they most likely were from a time where exposure to God was high. Talking about God in the schools, work, media, government, and even sports team was commonly acceptable by the general public. Because of that you could imagine that with the right tool, we could easily back in the day reach out to people and bring the ball home to the hole. Once again try to imagine a golf course, and you have hundreds, thousands, millions of golf balls all sitting on the green and not too far from the hole. All you need is to pull out your putter and putt people home.

However, today is a different story. Nowadays you will find people scattered across the golf course. While we do have people on the green near the hole, we have a much larger number of people in many different locations such as the rough, the bunkers, the fairway, the water hazard, and the tee ground (click here to see for definition of parts of the golf course). Here is the problem.

Back in the day everyone wasn't that far away from the hole, most of them sat somewhere on or near the green. The problem of today is that we are still trying to use the same golf club (the putter) that has been used for the past few decades to reach people. It's not that the putter is no longer effective, but could you imagine bringing someone to Christ by using a putter if you were in the fairway, tee ground, or other places on the golf course?

We live in a different culture now, and we must use the appropriate approaches to reach the lost. That doesn't mean that we should throw away our putters, as there are still uses for it for people who are lingering around the hole, but consider pulling out other clubs to swing at the balls.

Rain

I woke up yesterday and was excited because it was Tuesday, meaning that we were going to have our Epic meeting later that night. I had an appointment earlier in the day with a student that I'm trying to continue following up with after meeting him the first time a week ago, where I got his contact information when we went around and surveyed students. When I got out of the apartment and hopped on my bike, I made the simple observation that it had rained and thinking to myself that I should be careful.

As I tried to start peddling, my bike wouldn't move. The gear on my bike was stuck. I started to panic, thinking that I was going to be late with my appointment with this student. After about 10 minutes struggling with my bike, I eventually was able to get it back in gear. With my focus now being on time rather then being safe, I tried to quickly get myself to the memorial union where I was meeting him. As I was pedal to the building I noticed that my phone was ringing and I took it out (with one hand still on the steering bar) to see if it was him calling me to wondering if I had arrived yet. It wasn't him, and as I was about to put my the phone back, my bike's gear got jammed again and I found my wheels skidding and eventually myself losing balance and hurling off my bike. As embarrassing as it was, I was okay... just some minor scratches.

As I got to the meeting location, and finding myself about 10 minutes late, I gave him a call to see where he was and after not seeing him wondering if maybe he had left because he didn't see me. Eventually I got a message from him saying that he wasn't able to make it due to a class group project he had.

In my mind at that moment what seemed to be a day that I was really looking forward to, wasn't looking that attractive. However, towards the evening my outlook of the day was very much different.

With an extra hour on my hand, I now had extra time to prepare the Epic meeting; which I found out that I really needed. If you haven't seen a Nooma video before, they're quite good. The one that I chose to show during the meeting was called Rain (watch the video and you'll know what I'm talking about). But I noticed that during the morning, despite literally raining that day, it was raining in my life. However, through all the mess that happened to me earlier, I could have looked at it from a different perspective. Through all of the mess I was given the opportunity to spend that extra time with God, a moment that I wouldn't trade for the world.

First meeting today

So today was the National Day of Prayer. We as a team prayed as we walked around for a couple of hours. It was actually really interesting as we had a list of things to pray for from other people in the Northwest.

Today we had our first meeting. We had a couple of new students that we had never met before. So the day was ultimately good. Hoping that they would come again. besides our meet and greet, we did something very simple... It's called Soularium. Basically what it's a bunch of cards that have pictures of various things. Typically you could use it to evangelize by using to start conversations by showing people these pictures and asking them to pick pictures that they'd identify with and what pictures represents where they want to be. Also asking questions about their spiritual walk and where they want to be. However, instead we used it on ourselves.

We broke up into groups of about 5 and we asked each other those questions. It was a great opportunity for us to get to know each other and have an idea of where we are each coming from and what our desires are.

I like how things are starting out. We are building momentum for this coming year, and things look bright. I(we) just need to continue to focus and push forward for His kingdom.

I'm sick... but I'm Excited!

In the past week things have been interesting. I still have trouble remembering people's names as it gets even harder as I continue to meet new people. I have a little cold right now (I like to blame the weather for it); besides getting tired faster than normally, I'm still able to get around and function normally. Thank God for that.

Last Friday we had a little potluck at my place for the Epic students. Initially I wasn't expecting many students to come (maybe 6-8 students), but in the end there was around 12 of us. It was good being able to get everyone together before we start our first meeting this Tuesday. We've been in discussion about how to edify the student body as well as formatting our meetings so that it would encourage people to come and bare witness to the body of Christ. As of right now, I think we may have an idea of what that may look like.

Last night I went to my very first football game. One of the volunteer staff who happens to be also a financial supporter of the ministry here, gave our staff free tickets to see the Ducks play against the Washington State Cougars. After the first quarter the game got very boring as the Ducks had already taken a huge lead. On top of that, I don't think being in the out there was good for my cold either.

Praises this week:

1. God bringing excitement to students as they are beginning to see God's plan for the Epic ministry at UO. It has been encouraging for myself to see students starting to invite people to our meetings, taking up leadership roles, and willingness to go out there and reach the campus.
2. My apartment looking presentable and clean (at least every place besides the restroom).
   

Prayer Request:

1. That God continues to reach and transform the lives of students.
2. That God will prepare us for our first meeting
3. That we will continue reaching the students at the University of Oregon