Just Do Something!

What is God’s will for your life?

Is that an easy question or a difficult one to answer?

I’ve been carrying Kevin DeYoung’s book Just Do Something in my bag for past two weeks promoting it and passing it around because it’s full of good theology, it’s very short and it is extremely relevant. It will only cost you $10 and take 2 hours of your life, and if I were you I’d get online and buy one right now.

Hanging out on campus I hear students constantly talking about trying to “figure out God’s will.” Mostly, they are talking about the big life decisions like who does God want them to marry? Should they get married? They ask questions like “Am I studying the right thing, or does the Lord want me to change my major?” People pray and ask God to show them which internship to take, or where they should spend their summer. I wave the banner for summer missions and hear people say “I’ll pray and see if God wants me to go somewhere this year.” Some add, “I don’t want to go on a summer mission just because I think it’s a good idea, I want it to do what the Lord wants me to do.” It’s not just students who do this of course. Every time a Christian has a big decision they will talk about trying to discern God’s will.

And of course, in many ways this is a good thing! –except that there are so many misconceptions about how God operates and what God’s will is. And when you combine these skewed ways of thinking with all the many decisions we have to make these days, there can be lots of confusion. Paralyzing confusion actually. We can become so caught up in trying to find God’s will for this or that situation that we end up not doing anything! People become stagnant and ruled by fear. The question God cares about most is not “where should I live?” but “Do I love the Lord with all my heart?”

This is Country Music

I just wanted to share a song we've been jamming to for the past couple of months.

I'm a big fan of country music, and if I had to choose an artist who consistently produces great songs it would be Brad Paisley. He's had a couple of duds, but overall it's easy for anyone to acknowledge that Paisley is at the top for a reason.

This song is one of his newest. It's released as a single at this point, and he debuted it the CMA awards a couple of months ago. This song proudly embraces all that some might consider cheesy and lame about country music and rolls it out in heartfelt two step rhythm. If you don't like country music, then it would make sense why you wouldn't like this song. But all the same, Paisley does a great job of laying out some of the basic reasons that country music appeals and connects with people.

The first lines are great:

"You're not supposed to say the word 'cancer' in a song;

And tellin' folks that Jesus is the answer can rub em wrong

It aint hip to sing about tractors, trucks, little towns and momma!

But This is Country Music and WE DO!

The country music industry is definitely a business, and in my opinion, there are some country stars who are nothing more than products of the Nashville machine. But Paisley is authentic, creative and super talented. His guitar skills are ridiculous; one guy I used to work with called him the Eddie Van-Halen of country music, and I think that is a good description. Listen to his songs and notice that he is the one playing the most complicated riffs -not some paid studio musician. And he's also written most of his own songs which is sweet.

Why we are Here

A couple of weeks ago I was hanging out at the Mott House on North Campus. I met a guy there named Michael. He was a Cornell grad class of 1978. We got to talking and he informed me that he is a missionary in Northern Europe and he’s currently studying in the U.K. When I told him that I was on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, he cordially said “I have to thank you! It was through Campus Crusade that I came to know the Lord.” We praised God together.

A bit later I learned though, that in fact Michael did not come to know Jesus Christ at Cornell. Though God had used our ministry in his life, it had been in Japan some years later. That’s a cool story, and God gets all the credit for sure, but there was also a sad and tragic part to the tale. While Michael was in school here at Cornell over 30 years ago, no one ever talked to him about God. He studied and lived in Ithaca for 4 years without ever being exposed to the glory of the Gospel!

Compelled by the love of Christ, we labor together so that doesn’t happen! Our hope as CRU is to put the Gospel within arms reach of every student. We want to be a group of people who make Jesus known all over campus. Jesus said plainly that HE is the way, and the truth, and the life and nobody can come to know God except through a relationship with him. (John 14:6) Jesus died on the cross so that we could be reconciled to God and we want everybody to know that. It is our goal that every student at Cornell would know someone who is truly following Jesus.

What would our campus look like if everyone who followed Christ was truly living out their call to “declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light?” And beyond that, what would the world look like?

Cornell is an extremely strategic place to declare the good news. At the end of his time on earth, Jesus commissioned his followers to go out into the whole world and make disciples. When Bill Bright started Campus Crusade for Christ at UCLA in 1951 he did so because he recognized that the college campus is a place where the leaders of the future are gathered. He said “reach the campus today, reach the world tomorrow”. Over half of all Cornell students are from outside New York and 7% of our undergrad population is from outside of the United States. If more students can come to know Jesus while here at school, we will see the love of Christ leave here and go all over the place!

We want to spread out all over this campus, extending the love of Christ into every corner and culture. As one senior staff shared with me about a year ago; “we want to be like the vendors at Yankee stadium.” We want to be all over campus making the gospel so available, that no one would go four years here never hearing the name of Jesus.

As a ministry, we want to help students live for God make the most of the opportunities that college affords. CRU exists to help students live lives that count for eternity; to help each other to not waste our lives!

This post also available at www.cornellcru.com

Article: Divisive vs. Persuasive

World Magazine is a periodical that I like to read in order to keep up with current events. Thru World, I have been introduced to author/contributors such as Anthony Bradley. His posts and online videos have definitely blessed me as well as challenged me and I encourage you to check him out and read anything he's written.

The Magazine seeks to bring the Christian worldview into focus while reporting on life, politics and current issues. Though a 'conservative' myself, I think that the magazine has become a bit too focused on politics in the last couple of years; or rather, I think the magazine has become too overt (though un-officially) in aligning with the republican party. Every one is entitled to their position, but I think this overt alignment will only lead to less readers, and that's unfortunate because there is a lot of good stuff in this magazine.

I like articles like this one a lot. Lee Wishing is bringing Jesus' words to bear on our current political discourse. His post is educational and applicable to everyone; whether conservative or liberal. This article highlights the way faith in Christ is supposed to affect our lives in this World -which I think is the point of the magazine. Our citizenship in God's kingdom should shape our involvement as citizens in earthly kingdoms, and the ways of our King transcend party lines.

Click above, or check it out here.

http://online.worldmag.com/2011/01/31/divisive-rather-than-persuasive/

Anthony Bradley Links:

http://online.worldmag.com/2010/08/25/the-island-of-black-and-not-progressive/

http://online.worldmag.com/2010/07/21/progressive-christianity/

Inspiration from Boston

Though the Boston Winter Conference is almost a month behind us, I wanted to share these highlights from the Student Evaluation Forms.

Q: What was the most important thing you learned at BWC 2011?

A:

• "My passion and desire to intentionally bring Jesus Christ into my friend's lives is literally bursting from my heart."
• "What I have learned was to be free and not be bound to sin. To be a slave for Christ."
• "That I am "on the hook" when it comes to spreading the gospel. I am still terrified and unsure bu I know I don't want to be a silent Christian anymore."
• "sealed with the Spirit isn't fleeting"
• "freedom is found in Christ, but experienced in the body."
• "Re-learning the importance of prayer"
• "getting back to the heart of worship, my first love -being ignited, passionate for Jesus again and grew more by praying and need for intimate time with God."
• "Freedom doesn't mean I can just do whatever I want - it means I'm free to struggle and free from sin"
• "The importance of sharing my faith with others"
• "Surrender, serve, speak all for Jesus!"
• "How to share the gospel"
• "A passion for evangelism."
• "Life isn't about my plans according to the standard expectation. The only everlasting impact is winning souls to Christ."

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!