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.

Leadership Retreat

We had our leadership retreat on Monday and Tuesday with over 100 of the 140+ TSC leaders.

Gasp... (at the thought of mentoring that many college students)

Here are some rockstar leaders (Above: Mary, Carley, Lydia. Below: Kent and Aidan)

The retreat was rockin'. Our best to date. Here were some highlights:

1. Our goal: simple and helpful.

That was totally accomplished as we often repeated the theme and focus of our year, "Just Care." We also consolidated everything a leader needs onto one sheet, entitled, "The One Sheet You Actually Need." We have a long history of overwhelming leaders with tons of information.

Was that tradition started under Jeff Dodge? Probably. And Paul Sabino was glad to carry it on.

Someone's got to get us back to the good old days of life under Troy's leadership.

Actually, I hear his leadership style was pretty hardcore- most akin to Hitler.

I hope none of those guys read this blog. I could be in trouble.

2. Confession time

If there's one thing that has marked this ministry over the years, it has been ruthless authenticity. That begins with confession, which requires a safe environment where people, even leaders, are allowed to struggle with sin. It also must be a place where grace abounds.

I felt strongly that we needed an extended time of confession. Monday morning started with a sobering challenge by Pastor Tom (Nesbitt) in our staff meeting. He referred to a story of a long time Christian who was stuck in sin, refusing to come clean. He challenged us not to keep secrets, but to gladly expose our sin by bringing it in the light. It's impossible to be "free in the dark."

We encouraged students to share in private with a trusted brother or sister. One student I talked to told me he almost didn't come on the retreat because he was overwhelmed by guilt about something he had done a week before the leadership retreat. I assured him if only the righteous showed up to the retreat, no one would've come.

3. Michael Jackson dances

We're always looking for competitive, yet non-athletic games to loosen students up while helping them build relationships. This was perfect. We gave 11 groups each 90 second clips of Michael Jackson songs. They had to come up with a group dance and perform in front of everyone.

4. The food

I don't think we had this kind of food at the Y camp or at Hantesa. I guess some good did come out of Paul Sabino's leadership (i.e. moving it to Hidden Acres).

5. Connection group practice

We did a mock connection group sign up to get the leaders in the mentality of going after people at the kickoff. The staff did some role playing. I was the guy who picked one guy to be in my group, while neglecting everyone else I met. My one guy was Andrew...

Here are some non-highlights. There's really only one.

1. The drinking fountain outside the chapel.

lame.

Nobody enjoys hitting the bar and realizing they'll have to put their lips on the spout and start sucking to get hydrated.

When I resort to complaining about the water fountain, that's a good sign I'm due for another trip overseas.

Our leaders rock.

God is good.