So! I will say the most important update first! The main reason we are here on project is to tell people about Jesus, to tell them the gospel. To put the gospel in quick bullet points, it'd be something like 1. Jesus loves you and created you. 2. All are sinners and therefore eternally separated from God. 3. God responds to this by dying on the cross and bridging that gap, reaching down to us. 4. We have to respond to this action of God by accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior. Our goal on project is to make it a lifestyle to tell people that. We have a little booklet called "Knowing God Personally," KGP for short, that we use to visually show them the gospel. You can download it as an app on your android or iphone, it is called God Tools. We have learned various simple ways to initiate conversations with people and start talking about spiritual things that lead into sharing the gospel. Already I have had the privilege of talking to 17 people on the boardwalk here in Ocean City. Every time so far I've been able to give them the KGP. I have been able to go through it with about 10 of them. None of have decided to accept Christ yet for my encounters. Within those 17 people, I've talked to 6 Christians, being able to equip 4 of them on how to share the gospel themselves. Of those 4 people, 2 were about 5th grade and the other were seniors in high school. The crazy thing about that is that before we let them know we were Christians, we asked the question, "If you could make sure you do one thing in your life, what would it be?" The little girl responded that she wanted to share Jesus with at least 2 people. Wow! How great is that!? She was excited to receive a tangible way to do that. I praise God for that encounter! So far as a project, we have talked to over 500 people, 22 of them accepting Christ. I can only be in awe of God's power already here on project.
We have heard from many great speakers here on project already. The staff here on project are probably some of the best within Cru. There wisdom that they've been able to pour into us is incomparable to other moments in my life so far in such a short window of time. The director of project, Bob Fuhs, told us at the beginning of project that this summer will be like a firehose of Christ. We will be getting so much life from the Spirit this summer that it will change our lives forever and hopefully those we interact with forever too.
We have learned so much on project so far that I can't put it all in my blog. I will try and put a few tidbits here within my blog. The theme of the first week was "Setting the Pace" for the summer and for the rest of our lives. That meant pursuing other Christians and opening up to them, getting into the habit of good times with Jesus, and sharing the gospel. The most influential talks I've heard in awhile was by Roger Hershey, a well known person within the Cru community. He was here to visit. He talked about being finishers and world Christians. He believes that my generation may possibly be the greatest generation of all time (or the second, the first being the initial group at the time of Christ's death and ressurection). He believes this for four main reasons, the worldwide explosion of the church, technological resources the church has never had, American colleges roles in reaching the world, and financial resources.
Matthew 24:14 says "And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." This helps with what Roger Hershey was trying to say. In todays world, the gospel could finally reach all the ends of the Earth.
John Piper said "Missions exist because worship does not."
So! Lastly. I got a job at McDonalds! It was the first place I applied and I've been pretty busy with that. I've learned a lot about what it is like to be on the other side of the register and how I can be a good customer in the future. The McDonald's people are trying to do their best to do your order, but when its busy, it can't always happen in a timely manner.
Prayer requests!
- Spread of the gospel
- For me to befriend coworkers at McDonalds and be a good witness
- To learn from the messages we hear twice a week.
- The community to grow close and closer to God as a result
- for me to grow closer to Christ
