Sin Costs More Than Parking

I was dropping Titus and Joe off at preschool this morning and I started talking with my friend Jon. We were talking about snow blowers, 4 wheel drives and eventually the high cost of parking at Cornell. Like us, most people don’t invest in parking permits because they cost around $800! Talking about the exorbitant price of parking on campus triggered a thought in my little man Josiah’s brain and he looked at me and said:

“Dad. Remember that kid who paid for his own sin?”

I said, “Yes Joe, I do remember him. And we are praying for him that he would love Jesus and accept his payment for our sin.”

Recently we’ve been praying for a guy I met in Boston a couple of weeks ago. He was raised a Jainist, and with solid conceptions of personal responsibility and Karma factoring into his worldview he can not believe that Jesus would take the punishment that we deserve. In his religion, every person gets exactly what they deserve, and there is no such thing as amazing grace. When you sin, you suffer your own consequences, and to be “liberated” you would need to live a perfect life in order to earn your own way to heaven –which he would call simply ‘enlightenment’. You are your own savior.

My boys and I were praying for him, because we don’t want him to pay for his own sin! That is an option…. And in fact it is the option that we all deserve! Paul says very clearly in his letter to the Romans that we have all sinned and that “the wages of sin is death.” That had already been made clear in the Old Testament starting in the beginning of Genesis. The price that must be paid for sin, the wage for sin is death. If you sin, you deserve to be paid with death. Because God is Holy, our sin earns one thing; separation from him for eternity. And it is more than just our physical death, it is spiritual death. It is Spiritual exile, spiritual annihilation that goes on forever in Hell. If you want to pay for your own sin, you can. But the price is very high and very painful. Jesus knows exactly how high, because he paid the price, becoming sin and dying on the cross. He paid that death penalty, and when we put our faith in him, his payment is credited to us. He died the death we deserved.

This was the stumbling block for our friend in Boston. And so, presently, he is rejecting Christ as savior, and choosing to try and save himself. To him, it makes more sense to pay for his own sin. It’s a terrible option, and so we pray that The Holy Spirit will open his eyes to glory of the Gospel. We pray that what he presently finds disturbing about God’s grace would turn to amazement and gratitude. Because Jesus died for us, we don’t have to pay our own way.

Boston Day of Outreach

Two days ahead of time, I intentionally asked for a specific outreach assignment so that our group would have an experience that was well organized and hopefully unambiguous. During the Boston Winter Conference we spend one afternoon spreading out around the city partnering with local churches and ministries with one very simple goal: bless the city with the love of Christ. There is no bad assignment, but the reality is, some churches are more prepared and organized than others. Depending which neighborhood you end up in and which ministry or community organization you end up volunteering with the time can feel very productive or extremely haphazard and random. (God uses both of course!)

I was hoping to be able to hang out in the low income housing projects distributing commodities. I've done that before in Boston and even when you aren't handing out the boxes of food, it's a great place to hang out and meet people and talk about Jesus. We were given the green light, but at some point the deck was re-shuffled and Cornell was placed in another group. We were supposed to meet up with a local pastor, but something came up and at the last minute he informed us that he wouldn't be able to connect with us after all. So, essentially we had no assignment. Complete ambiguity; exactly what I had tried to avoid!
They told us to simply take some spiritual interest surveys down to a subway station sort of near the church and hang out and try to engage people in gospel conversations. We didn't feel like that was the best idea -mostly because people don't usually hang out too long in subway stations. They pass thru and they don't have much time to talk. Plus, it's usually cold there, people are standing around so there are many factors that inhibit too much serious impromptu dialog. We took some time to pray together before we headed out. I think we were all kind of bummed, but we decided to trust God and go for it. We had no idea what to expect, but we were just going to step out together in faith. Plain and simple. We told our group to keep their eyes open. If the Lord opened any doors or presented any opportunities for us before the we got to that T-station we didn't want to miss them.

Walking down the road a ways, we came upon Northeastern University. That was awesome! School wasn't in session but when we walked inside one of the admin buildings it was clear there were students on campus -mostly international students. Rather than head on to some random t-stop, most of us decided to take this as an answer to prayer and find the student union building and meet some people and talk about God. The union had a Taco Bell, but unfortunately it wasn't open. Can't have it all i guess, but the Wendy's was open and people were hanging out.

Our afternoon there was great! We initiated conversations using a couple of creative spiritual engagement tools. Soularium is a stack of postcard sized images of all kinds of different stuff. You lay out all the pictures and then ask people to pick different images in response to certain questions. For example, you would direct people to "choose 3 images that represent your life right now." They pick three images, and you can do it too. Then you talk about why you chose those pics and what's going on in your life right now. You continue to questions like "Which image would you choose to illustrate your spiritual journey." It can be pretty cool in the right place. Another tool is called Perspectives. It's a deck of cards and it functions in a similar way, but things are a little more concrete. I like the perspective cards because they really foster discussion.
Everyone got to have some great conversations with people and we all felt very encouraged!
Our friend and fellow staff member Oscar Avolos met some guys from another country and actually invited them to the conference! They came out the next night to hear an awesome message by Bret Ogburn. Bret is our friend, he was our campus director when we were in college, and he is responsible in many ways for our being up here in the northeast.

Our day of outreach was certainly redeemed and the Lord had lead us into a great situation. His plans are always good!

What's with the sweaters?

Last week we were in Boston for our annual Boston Winter Conference. The highlights included spending time with some of our students, messages by Bret Ogburn and the day of outreach. I don’t have too many pictures of the week yet because Edgar took most of them, and he is currently in Haiti right now.

Edgar and Nic are serving in Haiti with a team that left directly from the Boston winter conference. They are serving alongside the Campus Crusade ministry there just like our students who went this past summer. Please pray for them as they serve the people of Haiti!

One picture I do have is this one of Steph and I in our “ugly sweaters.” It seems over the past year ‘Ugly Sweater Parties’ have become popular, but unfortunately, at our New Years Eve party ugly sweaters were very unpopular! Stephanie and I were the only ones sporting these tacky things –we ended up flying totally solo! It was New Years eve, and we were getting together with a number of staff the night before the conference, and Stephanie had sent out an email a couple weeks before to encourage everybody to wear a cheesy sweater. But most people either didn’t get the message, ignored it or failed to be inspired enough to take a trip to the Salvation Army and pick out something terrible! Thanks for nothing my fellow staff friends J

Here’s the worst part about being in that situation. Since no one else is wearing ugly sweaters and since some people didn’t get the email –there are people who look at you think that you are wearing a hideous sweater simply because you lack fashion sense or a functional mirror! And if it’s people who don’t know you at all –who really cares! But it’s the people who should know you better who do a double take, and for at least a few seconds, ponder whether or not you are really that much of a sad sap who would wear an ultra feminine knit jobber (in my case) or a truly pathetic Panda Print sweater vest (in Steph’s case!) You can see the uneasy confusion on their face and then later, when they realize it was all a joke they say things like “Yeah, I didn’t really take you for a vest person….” Hurting!

A Sure Foundation for Encouragement

The other day I mentioned some of the things that we have found encouraging about our ministry this year. And we truly are thankful for the ways that God is moving on campus and in peoples hearts, and we have much to be grateful for in every area of our lives. But our thanks is to God and we give our praise to God because he alone is the sure foundation for our encouragement, comfort and hope.

Since this past summer I have been drawn to Philippians Chapter 2. Paul writes a whole slew of amazing things in that chapter, but I love the way he starts out; “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love…” He goes on to exhort us to be imitators of Jesus who perfectly exemplified humility. But Paul begins essentially by inferring and acknowledging that being united with Christ should be encouraging and there should be a true sense of comfort from God’s love. This is foundational, and it is in light of these realities, and because of this truth we are able to contemplate, and imitate Jesus’ example.

So often I allow my encouragement to be based on my circumstances. We all know that that’s a pretty shaky thing to build anything on because circumstances always change and are virtually never predictable! But I find myself seeking comfort in all kinds of places and things, when I should be resting in God’s love.

Again, there are many things on campus and at home that are going well, but there is plenty of struggle and trial as well. Life is difficult, and the reality is there is never a time when everything is going good.

So what do you do when things are going bad, or when there is hardship and disappointment? What do you do when you are feeling down or discouraged? My default is to “count my blessings” and “focus on the positive”. I think those are generally virtuous options, but sometimes the math doesn’t add up and the negatives are actually outweighing the positives! (Circumstantially speaking that is.) Merely having a positive attitude and trying to focus on things that are going well doesn’t always cut it. And, that isn’t a Christ-centered approach.

No matter what is going on in life –even if we are bound with chains sitting in a jail cell for no good reason as Paul was when he wrote this- we can be encouraged. We can be comforted because present circumstances are not eternal, but God is.

So, here is a very simple example from our life. We were bummed to be here in Ithaca separated from our families for Christmas. It is disappointing not to be able to spend the Holidays with our relatives, for our kids not to be able to be with their grandparents for Christmas. It is unfortunate that we could not afford to fly to New Mexico or Colorado to celebrate with those we love. It was kind of lonely actually, to be chillin in our house for days. So, to combat my discouragement, I can do a few things. I can be positive, (and as an optimist I generally am.) I can acknowledge that we have a wonderful little family right here, and that it was great to have our friend Larry spend Christmas day with us. And I do consider it a blessing that we are all healthy and none of us is in chains in some dungeon! Those things are encouraging, and are evidences of grace that we are grateful for.

But what truly ministers to me is this reminder from God’s word that I am united with Christ and his love comforts. I wish I could have been with extended family in the southwest for Christmas, but it was just not feasible. But I AM with Jesus, and He is with us. It would be great to be munching green chile enchiladas and enjoying some warmer weather; but even better than that, I can know and experience the personal love of our great God.

There is encouragement because I’m united with Christ.

Titus in the Dirt

My hope is that over the Christmas break I can take some time to edit some home videos. This is just a short clip of Titus playing in the dirt this past summer in Santa Fe, NM. He was in the back yard at my parents house with the dogs 'Jigs' and 'Banjo'.

Ministry Encouragement

Of course it's true that “numbers aren’t everything” but as we labor to put the gospel within arms reach of thousands of students, it’s good to take account every now and then to see how things are going. So as this semester and year come to an end; how many people are involved in our ministry? The difficulty lies in both knowing who exactly we should count, and then figuring out how to count them. The fast paced and organic locomotion of this ‘movement’ compel us to operate mostly on estimates. But there are some solid numbers that we find encouraging as we praise God at the end of this semester.

We had over 105 people at our Christmas party! (We lost count at 105) Our end of semester party numbers serve as a pretty good ball park figures of how many people are involved with us. Our weekly large group meeting attendance fluctuates anywhere from 70 to 150, so the parties usually give us a nice number of how many people are most connected to Cru at Cornell. Many people came and brought friends.

This semester we had 9 Community Groups. We have been emphasizing the importance of small groups as our primary vehicles for both evangelism and discipleship. Every community group had at least 2 leaders and a couple of them had even larger leadership teams. This year we started our first grad student small group lead by one of our great friends Barrett Keene. Our small groups have an average of 8 people in them, and a vision to reach out to those living around them.

One of our most rockin’ small groups has over 20 girls! Abbi is a junior who went on the Yellowstone summer project this past summer. She is a hotel management major and she co-leads this group with one of her sorority sisters named Nicole. Their leadership and enthusiasm are blessing many of the women and most of our freshman girls are hooked up with them.

Back in September we had over 50 students go with us to our fall retreat. That retreat always serves to help students bond together and get a bigger vision of God.
We’ve got 5 Cornellians coming with us to the Boston Winter conference and two of our students will actually be playing in the BWC praise band!

Two of our staff will be going to Haiti over Winter Break. Edgar and Nic will be traveling with a team to help serve the people alongside the Campus Crusade ministry there.

Last year we took 11 students down to Florida for our Spring Break mission trip. This coming spring we are planning to drive a bus down there and we already have 26 students pre-registered for Big Break as well as 10 students gearing up to serve in Guatemala.

This semester, a group of Cru students re-launched “weekly EV”. This is a scheduled time when students gather together, pray and then go eat dinner intentionally striving to engage others in conversations about Jesus. A few weeks ago, they had 20 evangelistic conversations at dinner time.

Tree Cutting (video)

The weather is cold, the snow is over-abundant and the road salt destroys your cars.........but on the positive side; upstate NY is a pretty cool place cut your own Christmas tree!