The Longest 28 hours of my Life, The Santa Rosa Dip

In what felt like the longest 28 hours of my life, a group of 50 students and staff simulated what it might be like to be homeless in Santa Rosa, during the "Santa Rosa Dip". Without exaggeration, it was one of the most intense and impactful ministry experiences in years.


In order to live like a homeless person might live, most of us slept outside, on the church property. We only had a sleeping bag and cardboard. Our sleeping bags were wet from the dew within 2 hours, and the temperature dropped to 35 degrees. There were sleeping bags that became frosted by the morning. Most of us slept only a few hours that night, if we were lucky. Here is a 30 second video showing our sleeping arrangements.



We were awoken at 6am and told that we had to leave, because we were trespassing on private property (this was part of the simulation). We spent the next 2 hours wandering in Santa Rosa trying to find food with the 53 cents we each had. "7 eleven" would not accept our change, but thankfully a half mile down the road, "Donut City" did. We could only afford 3 donut holes each, but we were all very appreciative of that food!

The weekend consisted of many experiences that changed peoples' perspectives. We did a scripture study on God's heart for Justice in Isaiah 58, we went in pairs downtown with bagged dinners and ate with homeless people. One of the best parts about the whole weekend was that it was almost entirely planned and run by students. The ministry is about raising up young leaders, and they stepped up.

Here is a video testimony from 3 freshmen students who went. The video is just under 3 minutes long.

How You Can Help

Please pray for:
Invitational Outreach - The students in the fellowship are putting on a 4 day outreach on campus during the week of April 19th-22nd. Each day has a carefully chosen topic; a couple are "Is Jesus the only way to God?" and "Where is God when it hurts?".

This outreach is too big for us to rely on our own strength. We desperately desire your prayers! Please be praying for...1)boldness in inviting 2) open hearts for new people 3) students would do a good job of putting it all together.

If you would like to support the events by provided baked goods, or coming to the campus to pray during the outreach, please let me know. You are officially invited and WE WOULD LOVE YOUR SUPPORT.

Funding Update
Your support is what keeps me on campus. Thank you for all of the donations over the last 3 years, I am in deep gratitude.
I am currently about 60% funded, and also have a large donation deficit that I need to cover by the end of the fiscal year (June).
If you have never donated before, would you consider making a donation? If you are already a donor, would you consider making an extra donation? If so, click here.

Fun Facts
- Erin and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary on Easter 4/4.
- Erin is still teaching in Santa Rosa, she is teaching 4th grade.
- I recently finished my 3rd seminary course! (3 down at least 21 to go).

Hypocrites

On Thursday March 18th, I was the speaker at Nexus, our large group meeting. The topic was "Religious Hypocrisy" based on the "seven woes" scripture in Matthew 23. In the passage, Jesus calls out the hypocrisy of the religious leaders. The central point of my sermon was that we are ALL hypocrites, and there are three main ways we are. 1) We say we follow Jesus, but our actions disprove it. 2) We primarily focus on rules/behavior, not the heart. 3) We put on a mask or front in order to hide from people.

Here is a video clip from the talk. It is about 2 minutes long. (I apologize for how dark it is. Lighting wasn't my job that night)


During small group sharing time, many students acknowledged ways that they had been being hypocrites. Here is what a couple had to say...

Kayla (junior) - "I realized that I was being a hypocrite , because I had been not being honest with myself. I was trying to put up a mask by convincing myself that I wasn't struggling with some things, but I really was. Now, I'm starting to deal with those issues."



Spencer (freshman) - "I was pushed to look deeper into myself and see that I am living a life like that of the Pharisees in Matthew 23. My attention was drawn to how much I tend to clean the outside of "the cup and dish" and neglect to clean "the inside". Instead of worrying just about my outward appearance, I need to keep my focus on what glorifies God and keeps my heart pure."

Clothing Drive

In December I met with the group of men I am mentoring, shared a bible passage (Mark 1: 29-38) with them, and asked them, "how can we live out this passage on campus?" Their response was that we should do an on campus clothing drive, so that we can donate those clothes to keep people warm during the winter.

The plan was to meet the following week, for them to each bring a younger student that they were leading, split into pairs, divide up the dorms, and go get clothes. As you can see in the picture, there were eight of us (I took the picture). Two freshmen joined us Elliot (far left) and Erica (the girl in the middle). Elliot and Erica have been very active in the fellowship since starting in college this year.

From a small group of people going around for an hour, we got 10 full bags of donations! I was amazed to see what a little group of people can do. We didn't advertise the drive, make any announcements about it, didn't form a committee to discuss strategies, we just invited people to join us and then did it. It made me wonder what else is possible when we just go and do...

Urbana 2009

From December 26th-January 1st, I was in St. Louis working at InterVarsity's Urbana missions convention, which happens once every three years. Urbana was awesome again this year, and worshiping with over 16,000 college students is truly indescribable. But I shall attempt it...

My most memorable part of the conference was on the last night, when I helped serve communion to the masses. Having the honor of helping that many people worship God through taking communion together was a humbling blessing. As I was walking amongst the crowd, I was filled with a deep sense of hope to see "world changers developed" (which is part of our Mission statement), and I know that this generation of Urbana attendees literally going to change the world.

Some numbers from the convention -

2,232 decided to re-commit, or commit for the first time, to follow Jesus.

2,676 committed to serve on a long-term mission (two years or longer)

4,990 committed to serve short-term (one week to two years)

Nearly $900,000 was donated by attendees, to support various global organizations.

SSU brought 35 students and here is what two of them (pictured, and yes they are dating) had to say...

Matt (Junior) - "Urbana was very formative in my future plans and how I desire to serve God with my life. It really developed a sense of an international community of Christians that I had never seen before."

Amber (Junior) - "I'm really glad I decided to go to Urbana. It was a wake up call I was not expecting. It opened my eyes to a new type of bravery and fearlessness with God."

Please pray that the students will...
- Follow through with their commitments to go on missions, share their faith, give money, etc.
- Will use what they learned and experienced at Urbana to help shape the future of their life.

Kingdom Vision: Are You Blind?

On October 1st, I spoke at Nexus about John 9 "Kingdom Vision: Are You Blind?" The main themes I hit on were faith, doubt, and being open to seeing God work. Being honest, after the talk I did not feel confident about how it went, in fact it was the worst I have ever felt after a talk. But that night and over the next week, many people came up to me and told me how it impacted them. It is a blessing to know that even if I don't feel great about something, that God is still working.

Here is a video of me speaking (it may take a few seconds to buffer...)



Here are a couple responses/stories from the night...

Lindsay (sophmore) - "I thought I was the only one who ever had doubts, when you asked people to stand up if they have ever had doubts or lacked faith, and everyone did, it made feel ok about being honest with my doubts. I felt as though I wasn't alone."

Another girl had a class assignment to go to a campus event that would make her feel uncomfortable. So she decided that she wanted to go to the Nexus meeting, because that would make her the most uncomfortable. At the end of my talk I gave a call to faith, and she didn't respond. But this is what she later said about it, "I really connected to what the speaker was saying and wanted to respond", but did not feel ready. Since that night she has been coming back to Nexus by choice (not just for assignment!).

God is at work in students lives at SSU, and I know that there are many more stories like this every week. Praise God for what he is doing.

What is True Love?

On October 8th we had an evangelistic outreach called What is True Love? During the day we asked students on campus that very question through an interactive station (pictured on the right). This prompted further conversation and we invited curious students to the night event.




At the night event, we turned our normal Thursday night Nexus meeting into an outreach event. We had a guest speaker (former Sonoma IV staff turned local pastor) Kevin Finkbiner come and preach on true love. He spoke about how true love isn't what we see on tv or in society, but it is how God loves us. (Below are two short videos from the event).


The whole day went great and impacted the campus. Here are some numbers at a glance...

• 213 people came to the night event (that's about 50-60 more than an average Nexus)
• 160+ people talked with us about true love in the quad
• 10 people either raised their hand or marked on the response card that they want to start following Jesus

Please Pray for the people who came to faith, and for the new people that attended.

New School Year

New School Year!

Last week the new school year started. We have been doing outreach events every day like crazy. This video is a short clip from an outreach barbque we had. The first two weeks of school are the most important time in meeting knew people, inviting people, and getting people plugged in.

On Thursday, we had our first Nexus (large group) gathering of the year. According to my count we had 179 people in attendance! The first short video clip is the group singing a worship song. The second clip has our emcees welcoming the group. (Notice in the second video clip, a girl bringing in more chairs to accommodate the masses). Three students came to faith that night. Praise God.



Things to Pray for....
- Pray for our leadership team to keep an inviting/welcoming mindset and spirit.
- Pray for the 3 students who came to faith last Thursday night.
- Pray for the 15 bible studies we are having on campus this year. (I am overseeing and leading our bible study leaders)

Upcoming Events
- I start two seminary classes 9/28
- My first Nexus sermon of the semester 10/8
- Trilogy conference 10/30-11/1

Summer, BayUP '09

BayUP '09

This summer, Erin and I led a team of 9 students on a five week mission project to Oakland. We served at Harbor House, which is a non-profit ministry in East Oakland. We lived in intentional community with each other trying to simulate what it would be like to live in poverty. This means that we lived with 12 people with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, each person got $15 a week for food, we shared everything, and lived simply (no computers, TV’s, cell phones, etc.)

This is what some of the students had to say....
Sarah - "Bayup was challenging and a place where my faith was able to deepen and grow. I was able to learn about living in community and living simply. I learned how God's justice is connected with living simply."

James - "Often we Christians think that justice is an added on bonus but I learned that justice is at the center of God's heart and is mandated for all Christians."


Some highlights from the trip....
- Eating oatmeal everyday for breakfast (Top Ramen on special days).
- Leading 100+ kids each day at Harbor House.
- I was able to do a training on the world's water crisis.
- We saved over $100 in extra food money and gave it away to help provide access to clean drinking water. (charitywater.org)

Story from the trip...
When I did this trip in 2005 I worked with a 5th grader named Jerome (pictured to the left). He was by far the worst behaved kid (I secretly referred to him as "my nemesis"). Needless to say, he was more than a handful. When I returned this summer, I came back to a 9th grade Jerome. I was blessed to see how much he had grown up. His behavior was much better, he is becoming a role model for the elementary kids, and he is planning on being a high school intern next summer.
Seeing Jerome, and others like him, grow up over the last four years gave me a lot of joy and it gave evidence to the fact that God is at work in these kids, in Harbor House, in Oakland and the world.