Was it worth it?

It all starts with sweat and smiles on a Thursday morning as we move in incoming freshmen. You carry refrigerators, tv's, and boxes that you really don't want to look inside, sometimes up five flights of stairs. You hand out fliers inviting students to your Welcome Week events, some seem interested, some not so much.

As the sun sets and you're dog tired from moving students in all day, you set up an outdoor coffeehouse with the hope of meeting some of these new students and engaging them in small talk conversation. What's your name? Where are you from? What dorm are you living in? What's your major? Why did you choose this university? (student leaves) (new student walks up) What's your name? Where are you from...

The next morning after about 6 hours of sleep, you wake up for another round of moving students in. By the end of the night, you're standing under a tent serving ice cream. Hey, what's your name? Where are you from...

Saturday night you plan the campus' largest game of knockout, which happened impromptu last year, thinking, with advertisement, this will be a big hit in our rec center. It flops, hardly anyone shows up.

How about some BBQ on Sunday afternoon? Joining with all the campus ministries so that students will know we're all in this together. Your standing over a grill cooking hot dogs in 110 degree heat. What's your name? Where you from...

Finally Monday, students start classes. For an incoming freshmen, everyone has a 4.0 GPA and every student organization treats you like the Big Man on Campus. We're handing out freshmen survival kits, 200 of them. Treating freshmen like the Big Man on Campus.

Tuesday. You haven't really had a good nights sleep in almost a week. You've now spent the previous evening calling through students that you helped move in, or came to the coffeehouse, or ate ice cream, or one of those 4 guys that came to the knockout game (where you handed out a 4 foot trophy that cost $60), or picked up a freshmen survival kit. Everyone on your staff team has appointments with these students, which is good, but your staring down the same question you ask every year at this time. Was all this worth it?

Then someone on your staff team calls at the end of the day and tells you two students trusted Christ that day.

Was it worth it? You dad'gum right it was! Praise the Lord this is my job.

Ethiopia Summer Project 2010 [HD]

Almost 18 months ago I spent one week in Ethiopia and I was changed. To this day, I will open my journal to the entries from those days. Something I wrote down multiple times was, God don't let me forget this. One of the ways God keeps Ethiopia on my mind is through a continued hope of sending students from SFA on summer project. Its amazing to me that God would take students and staff from a little small campus in a little small town in East Texas so far from Ethiopia in distance and culture and allow us to be a part of Him changing lives in Africa.
I tell students all the time, you will always be able to find other things to do with your summer, noble and valuable endeavors, but nothing like this.
To quote my friend Dan Boone, "if the cause is worthy, the cost is irrelevant." I think he stole that from someone else, but the hope of the gospel for Ethiopians is definitely worthy, soooo.......
Watch this video and go!
Ethiopia Summer Project 2010 [HD]

Spiritual Multiplication

Today we talked through spiritual multiplication with our students as we prepare for the coming Fall semester (yes I realize we're very late in starting classes at SFA). Most of this is stolen from either Robert Coleman's book Master Plan of Evangelism or from one of my favorite guys to listen to Roger Hershey.

We started with this video of Andy Atkins, the National Director of Agape UK, explaining the significance of spiritual multiplication.

Mark 3:13-14, "13 And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. 14 And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach."

People were Jesus’method. Our method tends to be programs. We say things like, "if we had this kind of music or this speaker we would see more happen on campus". His concern was not with programs for the multitudes, but men that the multitudes would follow. Jesus wanted to make sure that he invested in men that would carry on His work and live like Him after He returned to the Father. He knew there was a limited amount of time and He invested it wisely. One cannot transform the world except as individuals in the world are transformed, and individuals cannot be changed except as they are molded in the hands of the Master. He focused on a few men in order to build a foundation that would have a lasting influence that would stretch throughout generations and reach the masses. (Words in Bold quoted from Master Plan of Evangelism, Robert Coleman)

Jesus invested deeply, He trained, He prayed with, He taught them. The disciples would have seen Him in numerous situations and had opportunities to ask Him question after question. By the time Jesus was crucified, they would have had a good understanding of what it meant to follow Jesus, to honor God with their lives. And he has shown them what it would look like to disciple others and see this transformation in the lives of others.

The first question we sometimes ask is How do I get started?

There's no way around it, we have to take the initiative. In Matthew 10, Luke 9 – Jesus sends out the apostles with basically nothing else than the clothes they have on – they had to step out in faith and trust that God would provide for them and ultimately lead them in the right paths. For us, maybe, that begins by just intentionally hanging out with others in your areas of interest, but at some point we must share our faith and intentionally invest in the lives of individuals

So what characteristics should this person possess?

You only have so much time and you want to invest wisely.

2nd Timothy 2:2, "and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will also be able to teach others."

Faithful Men

To quote Roger Hershey, "we have to work with the right people".

They must be faithful, available, teachable.

Faithful - Are they fully engaged with God, you, and serving others?

Available - Do they make time in their schedule or is there always something else that gets in the way? Is walking with God and growing in their faith a priority to them?

Teachable - As you experience life with them, take them to the scriptures, and train them in ministry skills, are they receptive?

Able to teach others

In order to multiply, they need to be able to teach others, so what are they teaching? What we teach them. What is that?

3 components of quality discipleship

Relationship – investing in a person

A) Learn to ask questions

B) Learn to listen

C) Spend relational time with them, hanging out

D) Learn to be an encourager

E) Demonstrate vulnerability

Time in Scripture – renewing their mind

A) Life transformation

B) Conviction for a lifetime

C) Lies need to be replaced with truth

Example – Having a quiet time with them.

Ministry – training disciples how to walk by faith, communicate faith, multiply faith. Great tools for this can be found at http://crupressgreen.com

Imagine if you chose to invest your life in such a way that when you return to campus in 5 or 10 years that there is someone, maybe several students, walking with God because of your submission to God in Spiritual Multiplication and His faithfulness in return?

May God use us to multiply reproducing disciple makers!