First Week in New Auditorium

There is so much going on it's hard to keep up with. Here's the short ministry highlight reel...

1. A guy in my small group gave his life to Jesus. He told his roommate, "I didn't get much homework done this afternoon. I've been in on my knees weeping and giving my life to Jesus."

2. We had our first ever TSC in the new auditorium... 600 people felt great in there. It was a good dynamic, as there was clearly more room to grow, and yet it didn't feel empty by any means. It would be an understatement to say that we are incredibly blessed to have TSC in there. I look forward to all the God stories that will happen in that room.

3. One of our students, Courtney, shared her God story through a video. It was a moving reminder of God's amazing grace that finds lost people. It was the perfect way to end John 4.

4. One of the guys in my new believers small group had his first evangelistic encounter. He went into dining service and sat next to the only guy he saw by himself. God gave him a slow pitch. After some small talk, the guy immediately opened up, "Craziest thing- I happened to be in the hospital in your hometown and they asked me if I had any religious beliefs. I was drugged at the time so I'm not sure what I told them."

5. God has been drawing students into the light. One student confessed to me a secret he's had for 5 years! He said it was God's love that has given him the courage to step into the light. Another student, overwhelmed by guilt, confessed his moral failure to me. There are many more similar stories I'm hearing about.

6. Meeting with my small group guys showing them how to prepare a sermon, using various tools: Outlining/Diagramming, Translations, Commentaries, Bible Encyclopedia, Greek-English Interlinear Bible, etc.

7. We had a ribbon cutting for the Ames Chamber of Commerce. It wasn't so much a highlight as it was a good opportunity to get a picture of Mike Despard and Jeff Dodge holding a big ribbon (and Troy Nesbitt about to cut it with a huge pair of scissors).

Anthem on iTunes

Over two months after it's release, Discmakers finally got the Anthem "One Life" album up on iTunes. A general search for "Anthem One Life" is the quickest way to find it.

It's been cool to see the songs become the melodies of our church family. In the opening week of the new auditorium, I think we sang three Anthem songs. Our goal has always been to give the next generation a lyric and a melody that will inspire passion for Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Unite Iowa

This summer, Andy Kampman, a friend from Iowa City, approached me, "Hey Mark, what would you think of getting college ministries from around the state of Iowa together for a night of worship and prayer, with a focus on the nations."

If you know Andy, the dude has one string on his guitar- "unreached people." I guess if you could only have one string, that's not a bad one to have.

As we talked, it seemed like it would be worth a try. So last week we gathered in the Ames Middle School for "Unite Iowa."

The highlight of the night was seeing about 800 students from around the state and from all kinds of ministries (i.e. Navs, Cru, the Rock, InterVarsity, 24/7, Basic, etc) come together for worship.

For me, I found great delight in watching our students come out to serve with sound and other behind the scenes jobs. The whole night there wasn't a single person from TSC seen on stage. I think that was an especially important factor in this truly being a unity event.

On another exciting note, yesterday Cornerstone had our first services in the new auditorium. Click here for more on that.

Please pray for us as we have our first Salt Company in the new auditorium this week. We'll have something we haven't had in about 15 years, namely, room to grow. But there's nothing about the state of the art sound, bright lights, and comfortable chairs that will move the heart of a person even a millimeter closer to God.

Thanks for your prayers.

Billy the Preacher

This fall has been hard to keep up with.

Last weekend we experienced the power and presence of God on our fall retreat. For some thoughts on our fall retreat, click here.

One phrase we say all the time: "Ministry is Relationships."

The closer we get to people, the more impact we're likely to make.

Therefore, one of the things I'm most excited about this semester is my two small groups. One is with five student leaders, who are doing a great job of discipling their peers. My other is a group of 4 guys- 3 new believers and one who's not yet a follower of Christ.

In this group, one of my guys, Billy, has been asking to share a message that God has put on his heart. I said, "Why not go ahead and preach it to our group."

So we went to the chapel in the browsing library of the Memorial Union, and Billy preached his message to a crowd of 4.

Do you want to know how it went?

Billy preached on forgiveness and hit a home run! Seriously, it was a message that could've been given on a Thursday night at TSC. I was shocked.

That day one of the guys in our group just happened to bring his roommate, who told him later, "Bill's message blew me away and I couldn't stop thinking about it all day."

Please continue to pray for us as these divine appointments with college students is happening all around us.

Well, off to stadium cleanup. Who do I thank for scheduling the late game tonight? (late game=later cleanup...)

Not the Crowd, but the Few

Last weekend I was with the Anthem band leading worship at a statewide conference in Salina, Kansas. The primary speaker was Max Barnett, who had a vision to plant campus ministries on all the Big 8 campuses. One of his disciples, Jack Owens, came to Iowa State in 1972 and started what is now the Salt Company.

Brett (left) went to Lincoln, Max (middle) stayed in Oklahoma, and Bob (right) went to Kansas State.

I am a boy among giants.

Jenni Sabino and Teresa Dodge decorated my study. I'm changing the name from office to study. More on that in a future post. Here you see Jase, one of our rockstar students, getting intellectual by reading some C.S. Lewis.
I spoke on John 2 last night. I started the message by showing how John's main point is that Jesus isn't a mile marker, but a fork in the road. This picture was used to illustrate that...
I spent some time addressing the issue of alcohol. It's hard not to with Jesus changing the water to wine.

Here is a picture of worship last night. The atmosphere was electric.

In my discipleship group this afternoon in my basement, we had a little visit from Batman.
Batman died.
Our topic of conversation was, "How are you being a disciple and who are you discipling?"

I told the guys the day they stop passing on their faith to other people is the day I ask them to be off leadership. We also talked about the importance of memorizing the scriptures as a part of following Jesus.

I'm going to give them a list of passages that I think every Christian should have memorized.

Keep praying for us, as we seek to raise up the next generation of Christ followers. There is so much God is doing, and yet so much more we are asking him to do.

Finally, pray for our retreat coming up this weekend with guest speaker Ed Noble, the teaching pastor at Journey Community Church in San Diego, CA.