So for those of you who may not know, my parents work for Family Life which is a division of Campus Crusade. Anyway, dad works in the publication department of Family Life and manages what they place in the store and how much to price it, that sort of thing.
Since I am the Freshman Coordinator for the Arkansas Tech BCM, as well as a youth intern, dad thought it would be great for me to test out a new six week study called College Ready. This material is ment to help students with their transition into college life. This can be shown to both high school students as well as college freshman. I even remarked to a friend that I got something out of it as a sophomore in college.
I watched one session from the series just to get a feel for what the material was like. The session I selected was 5. Have Fun, simply because it was the only one not on the list of topics for Freshlife, as well as it had the potential of being a weak topic. However, they pull it out well and it proves to be just as valid topic as the others.
This definitely appears to be very solid curriculum to use, and should you have any questions direct them to Family Life. I really hope that if you have the need for a Freshman or High School senior curriculum to take care of this curriculum and reuse it.
Prep for spring break is coming to a close very fast. I'm headed out to Montana as soon as classes are over on Friday which is extremely exciting. Why is it though that we want to go see the world? Why are some of us not content with living in the same town our entire lives? A friend of mine very astutely pointed out that people spend their entire lives in New York City. People here in Arkansas hardly ever leave their county, so why do some of us want to get out of here?
I really don't know how I feel about this whole thing. I guess it's a good thing, if it is something that revolves around what Christ wants and not what the people want. The premise behind the challenge though is very cool. This challenge is for churches to begin to look for places within their own city, state, nation, and world to impact people for Christ. The thing is though, some churches are simply called to minister to their areas, while others are called to international missions.
I guess truly the thing with all of this is that Christ remains center. The thing that we must not ignore is that we are called to connect the unconnected to Christ, if we aren't doing that then we are failing as believers. So first we have to be connecting others, before we are able to do things like going elsewhere. We must be creating a positive impact, otherwise where is our credibility?
Think on this as you try to decide whether or not to go on missions.
For those of ya'll who don't know who I am, I am Seth Fendley, Head of Freshman Leadership at the BCM, Ministry Intern at London FBC, Resident Assistant in Paine, a PR and Speech Comm double major here at Tech. I am excited to be bringing the message tonight that has been laid on my heart. In case you haven't noticed I am talking about What Church is, and how we as college students can be active members. I will be honest with you guys, I really don't enjoy the term "Church" I tend to lean more towards the term "Community of Believers" or "Community of Disciples." I relate most of this back to my history in church, I have been in church since before I was born. I actually was in my second church before I could walk, not because of any major issue, mainly because the church we were at in Arkadelphia was mainly a senior citizen church, doing great things reaching that generation, but there was no peers there for my parents to relate to. We were members at Park Hill Baptist in Arkadelphia for a while, then dad was asked to be the pastor of Southfork Baptist. While we were at Southfork some issues arose. Surprise Surprise right? what's a church without it's issues....We had been bringing college students from OBU and HSU to church with us, including some exchange students, and the deacon of the church decided to inform my father that if we brought any more of "them" mainly pointed towards the exchange students, that we would have to be asked to leave, cause it made the church members uncomfortable. This was after we had had our first church "split" which is crazy when your church averages 30-40 people...So we moved on, and planted a college student church that met on Saturday nights in a Nazarene church in Arkadelphia, this eventually transformed into Christpoint, which was housed in the HSU BCM (BSU at the time) and then later moved to Trios (a coffee shop downtown) and is now a house church. After we felt our time at Christpoint was nearing an end, we ended up at Second Baptist HS, which we had visited before launching Christpoint. It was "worth the drive to the church that's alive" was our slogan back then, it wasn't until we began to move to our new facilities known as "The Church at Crossgate Center" that things began to go awry, questionable staff hirings and budget concerns, then my dad was asked to go on staff there, and another layer of the church was revealed. Now I work for London FBC, it's a great church to be at, possibly the happiest I have ever been at a church, but that may just be cause I'm actually serving and not just sitting (something that we will touch on here in a bit). I feel like all of my experience with churches, as well as some key things that Christ has revealed to me, that I could write a book on church and what it should look like, The whole book would be centered around the Scripture Passage Acts 2:42-47. How does this work for the BCM? We obviously are the church, not in an established sense par-say, but in a group meeting sense we are. So we meet as a group, this is where we plug in, as the video pointed out. Then as a group, we are to devote ourselves to the things laid out in verse 42, the teachings, fellowship, breaking bread and prayer. We come here on Tuesdays, we meet in 1140 and Freshlife, all a part to learn the teachings from the Bible as well as devote ourselves to them. Fellowship and breaking bread, this is what we do through Inreach and Noonday. Then prayer, something that we do here during worship with FUEL. FUEL, 1140 and Freshlife is also the place where we come to Charge Up, as stated in the video. These things we are to be devoted to, as well as all being on the same page, something that we are striving to do as a BCM, as well as something that hopefully we will be sparked to do more in depth through the prodding of the Spirit in this message. After these four keys in verse 42 we come to the part in the video where it talks about Live It Out. We are all have a purpose as Christians, as shown in the video, this purpose is to Love God as well as others. Our mission that we have as disciples and followers of Christ is to Connect the unconnected to Christ and together grow to a full devotion to Him. This shown first through the rest of Acts 2 verses 45-47. Then later on in 1 Corinthians 12. In verse 45 it talks about selling our possessions, and giving to anyone with need. This is something that as a materialistic generation we have a hard time grasping, giving everything to those in need. Recently I watched a documentary about three kids from three different schools who helped their schools raise money for a group called Invisible Children. The two girls that the film focused on were typical, you had the valley girl and the bible belt girl, the guy from the film though was the interesting story. He was from an inner city school where 80% of his classmate including him, lived under the national poverty level. His school was in the top ten that raised money for Invisible Children, they raised over $20,000! This is crazy high school students from below the poverty level raising as much money as a valley girl! Why can't we as a Community of Believers do more? Verse 46 Eating together and meeting together. Now are we going to have FUEL every night? No, but we meet together already everyday casually. We all have our groups of people that we eat lunch with, that we do life together with. The question is, are we living Christ out? Are we taking it to the point that people recognize that we are Christians that we pass it on to them? We are called just like the mission in the clip stated, to connect the unconnected to Christ. The best way to do this is through a small group community such as lunch, dinner, classes, everyday life together. We are supposed to be living mission minded, always looking for ways to minister to the nonbeliever. If we do this then verse 47 falls into place people will notice us, living life intentionally, following the teachings of Christ and the Apostles. This is where we have the option to pass it on to others as they notice, and as we are living intentionally our lives will show people how to be disciples of Christ. And they added to their number daily. Many of you may ask how does this work for me, this is shown through 1 Corinthians 12 (The Message) Some of you have heard this before, everyone has individual spiritual gifts and we are called to use them in unique ways, we have several places within the BCM to serve. These as Evangalism, InReach, OutReach, Missions (both International and Local), Noonday, FUEL, Discipleship, DNOW, Intermurals, Church Relations, Publicity...The leaders and members for these groups will be hanging out here along the walls in order to help you if you feel directed to help out in a group. As Followers of Christ we are called to be a part of a community of believers, so I would hope that if you are not already involved in a local church, that you get involved, we can help you do that. We would really like everyone who attends FUEL to be involved in BCM, even if it's a part as small as attending an 1140 group. So please don't hesitate as we leave this place to get connected to people in a ministry that uses your spiritual gifts, so that you can be a part of this community of believers.
--- The video above came from Central Christian Churches Youtube Page it has a wealth of videos for different topics
So last night I had a program that I called "Bubba Gumps." I showed Forrest Gump and we ate shrimp in honor of Bubba. This was a diversity program, where we talked about all of the diversity that Gump encountered throughout the film.
I'm not going to write about diversity however. What really touched me was the line that I used as the title. This is just one of the many times where Gump shows his innocence in the film.
In Matthew 18:2-4 it talks about having Faith like a Child (those two links are the song and lyrics by Jars of Clay). Gump portrays this same innocence throughout the film. I really wish that we as followers would do the same thing. I truly believe that if we had this innocence, this faith like a child, that we would be able to change the world. We would see an effective change in the group of believers across the nation, that people would want to follow who we follow.
So within the last week I've been able to see Bluetree, Mike Keahbone, Charlie Hall, and Robbie Seay Band.
Seeing all of these fellow seekers brought out alot of great things for me. I believe though that the coolest of all of these things was what came out of the time of reflection that I had.
This was thinking about the concept of grace. Grace is something that I really don't know if any human can truly grasp the fullness of grace. As humans showing grace and mercy isn't something that really seems to come natural to us, we tend to lean more on the showing "discipline." We would rather people see a consequence for their action than to see mercy and grace overwhelm their transgressions.
This is where the concept of Christ and His love comes in and intercedes. This is the part that as humans I believe we have a hard time grasping. Mainly this is an issue for us, because we ourselves can't grasp fully forgetting about wrongs a person has caused towards us or someone else, and then actually allowing them a full blown second chance.
All of this is general statements though, I'm sure people out there fully grasp grace, but I for one can't really get it, and the thing is I have been covered with grace just as much as anyone else. The amount of grace that I have in my life baffles me, and that I suppose is the part that I don't grasp about it, the unconditional grace. Even though I am a sinner, I am covered by grace, regardless of if it is a sin that happened four years ago, or one that will happen in four months.
I feel like I have rambled this entire time, anyway here is the video for where the title has come from:
So this past weekend I went to Little Rock to a benefit concert that included the likes of Listener, Deas Vail, and a bunch of other forgettable bands (to note I don't remember them because we left after Deas Vail. Anyway the concert was to benefit Invisible Children an organization that is helping provide for children in Uganda. Before the concert though they showed one of their documentaries entitled "Go" it followed three American students as they went to Uganda and bonded with three students there.
What impacted me specifically was how a student from Louisville KY connected with one of the guys in Uganda. (I know you can at least see the guy in the promo video below.) Anyway this kid came from an inner city school, that raised enough money to make it in the top group of schools. The kid who was selected shares his story throughout the film. He tells of how poor his school district is, and how no one would every expect them to raise the money that they raised. Once connecting with a Ugandan student, it is revealed that the student from Louisville lost his brother to a senseless shooting before Katrina in New Orleans, and that the student from Uganda watched his sister and father killed before his eyes.
It really affected me, to realize that this student lived below the poverty level here in America and his school was able to impact students in Uganda in a major way. Why as people who live above the poverty line, are we not willing to "give until there is nothing left" as Relient K says. Jesus said "even as much as you do to the least of these you have done to me" as well as the verse in James that speaks of how we are supposed to help the "widowed and abandoned." So why don't we?
So this past week was an interesting one for me, I thought of several things to blog about, forgot a few, ended up writing down two ideas, which is all I need for a week.... the constraints of writing on deadline...
So this past Saturday I was watching the movie Up, and I watched a special feature on the DVD that I had not seen before...It's a short entitled "Dougs Special Mission" (This is in Spanish, it was the only way I could find the full thing).
So here's the plot of the short, it's Dougs birthday, and they are out hunting this bird, doug is not the brightest dog but he is very loyal. The other dogs in his "pack" assign him different "special missions" and they keep failing, after the latest failed attempt, his "pack" sends him away. Doug remarks how it has been a terrible birthday, then among the rocks he sees what he thinks is a man, Doug believes that this will be his new "master" during this time he is talking to himself, The old man and the boy in the movie, see the same rock from another angle and think they are talking to a person. At this point Doug meets the boy and the old man (as seen in the following clip).
I don't know if I conveyed it well, but the premise of all of this, is we never know what kind of affect we can have on people, we don't know what kind of day they are going through. A person just seeing our smiling face, could be all the encouragement they need for the day. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 (The Message) talks about how God places us in order to encourage others who are having struggles. So as you go about your day, remember that there may be a reason why you bump into a certain person at a given time...
