A Work in Progress

Hey guys! This is probably going to be my last blog post from here in Santa Cruz, we leave for a staff trip to Yosemite national park early Tuesday morning and after a few days there we'll be heading straight to the airport to fly home. I'll be back in Apex around midnight on July 6th. Thanks to my brother Mike for being willing to pick me up from the airport, you're the man. Thank you ALL so much for supporting me in so many ways, I appreciate you all very much. Phil 1:3-5 "I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now."

Well, for the second week straight as I reflect on what God has been teaching me, the struggle is narrowing it down from the tons of things I feel like God has been teaching me. As a result, I decided that what he's teaching me is how messed up I am and how much I have left to learn, hence "A Work in Progress." I'm in a process of being made into the man God wants me to be but as long as I've got this flesh on me that process won't be over, I'll always have a lot to learn, and I'll never find the bottom. I've been learning what it means to walk by faith and not by sight, being unafraid to move in a direction I feel the Lord leading me in, even if I can't see the outcome. I've been learning how much of what I do is entirely motivated by seeking validation from others. This is dumb for a lot of reasons but there are two main reasons. First, because I already have all the validation I'll ever need from a God who doesn't just love me but he actually likes me. He delights in me, he's proud of me, he enjoys spending time with me. Second, because when I do things to make other people notice me and think highly of me, then I'm by default not doing things to bring glory to God which is what I was created to do. I've been learning from the very beginning of this project what it means to play the background and serve others. Being here on staff instead of as a student has shown me how much its not about me. My entire purpose in being here has been to facilitate the students to grow and take steps of faith, and if I do so in the process then great. I'm literally only here to work myself out of a job so that after these 5 weeks the students wouldn't have any need of me anymore. Also, as we went through a chapter this week about total depravity I've been reminded that even when my actions look like I've got it together a little bit I'm hopelessly messed up on the heart level and thought level and motivation level. In light of all that, thank God for the cross! Without it, I'd be pretty screwed. I can't wait til the day I get to cast all that sin down and never have to struggle with it again, the day I meet Jesus!

I hiked out with some students to a spot called "the garden of eden" and we set up our hammocks!

This week has been pretty exciting seeing the students starting to take ownership of the project and for us to begin to take a back seat. Yesterday the entire staff team went to a water park in San Jose called Raging Waters to give the students an idea of what a day would be like without us around at all. It was so much fun! We got back just in time to see the students that we picked as Action Group leaders lead for their first time. Victor did a great job with our group. We officially pass the baton to the students on Monday night. There's not a ton to write about to be honest in regard to things that have happened but I do want to give shout outs to some of the men in my Bible study! Steven Andrews and Austin Dix both just got back from overseas summer projects in East Asia and Argentina, welcome home men! I was so excited the other day when I got a call from Steven, since he had no contact at all from East Asia and I can't wait to catch up with him even more when I get back home in a little over a week. I also really want to give a shout out to Alan King who is here in Santa Cruz with me! I'm so proud of him for taking the step of faith to come here. He's met lots of people this summer and been way out of his comfort zone the entire time but I see him growing so much. I'm really excited to see him every morning being the first one outside having a long time with the Lord before work. When we picked servant teams, I thought for sure Alan would be on Admin/Housing or Weekly Meeting team which there would have been nothing wrong with but I was pleasantly surprised to find out he had joined the outreach team with me specifically because he was scared of it and wanted to grow in that area. He's a whole different person than he was when he got here, and unlike me hes not even halfway done here yet. I can't wait to see the man he is when he comes walking up to me on campus in the Fall. Proud of you Alan!

Prayer Requests:

- Pray for me to continue to find rest in my Savior, to know him more and better each day and overflow the fruit of the Spirit.

- Pray for the leaders that God has raised up (answered prayer). Pray they'll find strength in the Lord as they give direction to the project this summer, that they'll be respected by their peers. The best is yet to come for these students after we leave.

- Pray specifically for Victor, Damon, Branson, Sam, and Greg as my coleader J.P. and I take off for the summer. Victor will be leading the action group after we leave, Sam will be leading the prayer team, and Branson will actually be one of the project directors. I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for them.

- Pray for those in Santa Cruz who don't know Christ, pray that God would go before us and prepare their hearts to hear the message of his unfailing love for them, what he did for them on the cross, and his desire to have a relationship with them.

- Pray for continued unity among the staff team, and for that to be contagious to the students that they would really work as one for the summer especially once the staff have left. Pray for safety as we're going to Yosemite soon. Some of us will be hiking half dome, which is a 17 mile hike.

- Please continue to pray for Nichole. Pray for her to see God clearly, for courage to trust him, pray that she'd find lasting joy, satisfaction, and a living hope in Jesus Christ.

A Beautiful Relationship

No, not with a girl. I have a beautiful relationship with the God who created me and saved me and loves me with an unfailing love. Mostly when I blog about what God has been teaching me it's always some attribute of his character that has really stuck out to me, or something specific on my part that I've been learning such as rest, or humility. This week, I couldn't for the life of me think of something specific that has stood out, although I've learned a lot. I was explaining this to my friend Thomas Tran who wisely told me "sometimes its more about enjoying the fact that the relationship exists." It's been 6 years now since I put my faith in Christ, which probably seems like nothing to some of you reading this, but sometimes I forget what it was like before I knew Him. I forget the emptiness I felt, and the dissatisfaction. I'll never forget what it was like when I asked him into my heart though and that all became a thing of the past. Psalm 51:12 says "Restore to me the joy of your salvation" and I think that captures the essence of what God's been teaching me. It's a beautiful thing that I never have to experience condemnation anymore, never have to feel unloved, I always have hope, I always have joy and satisfaction, I'm guided and empowered as I'm going through life and encountering situations such as sharing my faith, picking leadership for project, and making important decisions. I read the Word with a Helper who brings it to life in my heart, I speak with my God and he speaks with me. I can be totally honest with Him, fully known and yet fully loved. I can be refreshed at any time simply by His presence, or one of His promises such as the fact that I have an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade, kept in heaven for me. I have a loving heavenly Father (and a loving earthly one too). Speaking of my dad, this is totally unrelated to what God was teaching me this week but in light of Father's day I want to give him a shout out. I'm disappointed I couldn't be there for it to show him how much I appreciate him but I think I do more this year than ever before. I've been thinking about him a lot lately, and there have been lots of moments seeing cool cars or watching basketball or whatever that I've wished he was here experiencing it with me. I miss you and I love you dad!

Visiting the Golden Gate Bridge!

Teaching Carlee how to shag dance at the Barn Party!

I want to move on now to what actually happened this week. The two biggest things were the Barn Party we had on Saturday night, and then a conversation I had with my friend Nichole after church on Sunday. Also, on Monday we picked the leadership for the whole project that will take over after the staff team leaves so I suppose that was a pretty big deal too. On a more fun note, not related to ministry at all, the staff team took a really fun trip to San Francisco yesterday. The Barn Party was a ton of fun! We had corn on the cob, ribs, brisket, pulled pork, baked beans, watermelon, banana pudding, and dirt pudding. I'd say between 30-40 of our coworkers were in and out throughout the evening including Nichole who was attending her third straight cru barn party! I got to sit in on a conversation where one of our project students, Carlee, got to share her testimony with her coworker Lucas. I also got to go through the gospel with this guy Rafael who was sitting by himself at the end of the party. It was a really interesting conversation but he said things didn't add up for him and I hope to get to talk with him again. I was really excited to see Nichole becoming closer with some of our project girls, since I'm going to be gone in a week and a half (isn't that crazy?) and I'd love for her to stick around and get close to those girls. I wanna give a shout out to Morgan Robinson for really being awesome about trying to get to know her! I also taught like half the project how to shag and that was a lot of fun. :) The next morning Nichole came to church with us, which was exciting because after the barn party I was barely able to drag myself out of bed so I was impressed! The pastor was starting a new sermon series on the book of 1 Peter called Living Hope. Afterwards she and I had a great conversation about it, she opened up and told me that she knew she didn't have that kind of hope and she saw it in us and believed what we were saying was true but she's scared to death of giving up control of her whole life. It's the only thing that scares her more than going to Germany. Please pray for Nichole as she's very torn about all of this, and she desires a relationship with Christ but is scared to take that step of faith. I'm praying for God to continue to show her who he is and that he can be trusted, for courage for her to surrender, and believing God through prayer that she'll begin a relationship with Him this summer. Before she goes to Germany, she'll have that living hope in her life! The trip to San Fran yesterday was both a lot of fun and exciting but the only way to really describe everything we saw is through images so look for an album to get put up on Facebook soon. Last night after we got back, one of the girls on project fell while learning to long board and broke her ankle and had to go to the hospital. Her name is Shelby, will you pray for her to have a speedy recovery and that it wouldn't stop God from changing her life this summer?

Prayer Requests:

- Pray for me to continue to find rest in my Savior, to know him more and better each day and overflow the fruit of the Spirit.

- Pray for the leaders that God has raised up (answered prayer). Pray they'll find strength in the Lord as they give direction to the project this summer, that they'll be respected by their peers. The best is yet to come for these students after we leave.

- Pray specifically for Victor, Damon, Branson, Sam, and Greg as my coleader J.P. and I take off for the summer. Victor will be leading the action group after we leave, Sam will be leading the prayer team, and Branson will actually be one of the project directors. I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for them.

- Pray for those in Santa Cruz who don't know Christ, pray that God would go before us and prepare their hearts to hear the message of his unfailing love for them, what he did for them on the cross, and his desire to have a relationship with them.

- Pray for continued unity among the staff team, and for that to be contagious to the students that they would really work as one for the summer especially once the staff have left. Pray for safety as we're going to Yosemite soon. Some of us will be hiking half dome, which is a 17 mile hike.

- Pray again for Nichole. Pray for her to see God clearly, for courage to trust him, pray that she'd find lasting joy, satisfaction, and a living hope in Jesus Christ.

Shining in Splendor

Hey everyone!

Thanks again for everything you all do. Some support me financially, some pray for me more than I ever deserve, some are the most loyal friends I could ever ask or pray for, most of you are all of the above. Whatever that may be for you, I'm grateful and I wish I could express that in words.

The reason that I chose Shining in Splendor for the title of this is because the thing that has struck me the most about God this week is simply his glory. Or perhaps not so simply, because we throw the terms "glory of God" or "glory to God" or whatever around so loosely that it's almost lost it's meaning. Do we realize that when that word comes out of our mouths we are using a word that means the entire weight of all God's attributes combined into one word. This "glory" isn't just a trendy Christian word, it is indescribable, unfathomable, it's mind-blowing. We're going through a book with the students called Experiencing Christ Within by Dwight Edwards and this week is chapter 2 "First Things First: A Reputation at Stake" and it's talking at length about the glory of God. The main theme of the chapter is that the number one thing that God cares about the most is his own glory. This is summed up when Edwards says "The main point of our spirituality according to the Bible, is the furthering of God's glory, not the fixing of our lives. In other words, God does not exist for us; we exist for him." Before jumping into that he takes the time to go through "so what exactly is God's glory? How does the Bible portray it?" And he writes "For your meditation on those questions, choose some of the following passages and read them with an open mind and heart. Then record your thoughts in the space provided. (You may want to specifically look for how God's glory is manifested in each case.) Exodus 24:15-17; 33:18-23; 40:34-38; Numbers 14:20-24; Deuteronomy 4:34-38; 2 Chronicles 7:1-3; Psalm 29:1-9; Isaiah 40:5; Ezekiel 1:25-28; 39:21-24; 43:1-5; Habakkuk 3:3-6." Anyway, I would encourage you to do this on your own time but I did this yesterday while playing the song by Matt Papa that's below on repeat. It's a really well written and inspirational song about God's glory and includes a clip of a John Piper sermon on God's glory at the end of the song. The Holy Spirit used the combination of all of these things to just make the word of God come alive in my heart and I had the clearest picture of God's glory that I've ever had in my life. I want to share with you what I wrote down as I went through each of these passages one by one.

"The Lord appeared and His glory was consuming, devouring. His goodness, His graciousness, His mercy and compassion ARE His glory. The fullness of them can't be seen by men without killing them. The glory of the Lord is guiding and filling. Those who follow Him in a spirit of faith will be ushered into His glory. His glory is beyond compare. It is displayed with trials, signs, wonders, war, a mighty hand and outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror. Seeing His glory is a privilege! It is characterized by a consuming fire. It invokes worship. He is worthy of glory. We have only seen a shadow, but His glory will be revealed and we will experience it's fullness together when we see him face to face. His glory has no beginning and no end, it is an endless expanse. Our response is to fall on our face."

Third Day describes well my experience yesterday in their song "Show Me Your Glory" as they write "I caught a glimpse of Your splendor, in the corner of my eye. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen. It was like a flash of lightning, reflected off the sky. And I know, I'll never be the same." I did indeed catch a glimpse. Anyway, I want to tell you a little bit of what happened this week in terms of the project now that you have an idea of what's been going on in my heart. The first thing worth noting is that we're finally on a normal, somewhat predictable schedule. I know when the students will be working, what project stuff they'll have when they are off of work, and I know what staff stuff I have going on while the students are working each day of the week. This is nice, because I can plan for times to talk with friends and family, and write blog posts, and just in general know when I'm going to have free time. Speaking of free time, a nice part of being here as staff is there's definitely a little bit more of it than when I was here as a student.

Anyway, we had our second outreach this past weekend on Saturday night and it was interesting to say the least. The Saturday night crowd downtown is definitely different than the Sunday afternoon crowd (when we did our first outreach). We went down there with these big boards that had questions on them such as "Who is God?" or "Who is Jesus?" or "What is sin?" and we had sharpies and just wanted the people of Santa Cruz to write down that they honestly thought than then dialogue with us about it if they felt comfortable doing so. It was really interesting to see the mix of answers we got, we're definitely not in the Bible belt anymore. My group had a pretty frustrating time, I can't remember being more discouraged after an outreach in a long time. We were harassed by drunk homeless people, one of whom we had to have arrested because he wouldn't leave us alone. These certainly distracted from our other conversations we were trying to have, and one girl believed in multiple truths "whatever your truth is is true for you." She asked what I believed and I told her I believed there was one absolute truth and it was found in the Bible and she went on a rant about how could we believe in a book that says to kill all homosexuals and that abusing your wife is okay (the Bible doesn't actually say either of these things). Some groups fared better than we did but as a general rule we all had a very clear picture by the end of the night just how lost and dark this place is. This isn't bad because it developed compassion in our hearts. Matthew 9:36 says that when Jesus saw the crowds "He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." This is pretty much what happened during our outreach. 

The other big thing that happened was our Men's night. This was probably my favorite night of the project so far. We had a volleyball tournament by our rooms, we learned about authentic manhood, and we had a feast. This was probably one of the best meals I've had in my life. As far as the content on manhood we used an acronym R.E.A.L. men Reject Passivity, Expect God's Reward, Accept Responsibility, and Lead Courageously. I remember this being very life changing material for me as a guy on project two summers ago and was definitely excited to share with the guys. I got to speak on rejecting passivity. This was one of three talks I got to give over the course of the past week, by far the most speaking in front of people that I've ever done. On Monday night I gave my testimony in front of the project, and any guests that they had brought from work. On Friday night I gave a 45 minute training on how to lead a small group Bible study, and on Sunday night I spoke on rejecting passivity. I actually really enjoyed those opportunities, especially the manhood talk. Anyway, this week has been a blast and man night was a huge success, we're looking forward to another great week that you'll get to hear about sometime next week. It's crazy how fast the project is blowing by as we're selecting leadership to take our place next week. Pray for those decisions as they are big ones. Thanks again for everything you do! Prayer requests below.

- Pray for me to continue to find rest in my Savior, to know him more and better each day and overflow the fruit of the Spirit.

- Pray for God to raise up leaders among the students to take our place when we're gone. This is an especially important one this week as we make those decisions this coming Monday. Each room will need an action group leader, each servant team will need two leaders, and there will be 4 directors and assistant directors who will lead the project as a whole.

- Pray specifically for Victor, Damon, Branson, Sam, and Greg as these will be the guys in my action group this summer that I'll be focused on pouring my life into. Pray that God rocks their world this summer like he rocked mine when I was a student on this project.

- Pray for those in Santa Cruz who don't know Christ, pray that God would go before us and prepare their hearts to hear the message of his unfailing love for them, what he did for them on the cross, and his desire to have a relationship with them.

- Pray for continued unity among the staff team, and for that to be contagious to the students that they would really work as one for the summer especially once the staff have left.

- Pray again for Nichole. I'm giving her a Bible today and I'm praying it helps her a lot. She's still pretty confused about a lot of things and is leaving for Germany in August to be a nanny for a year, which she's both excited and nervous about.

View out the window from where I ate lunch yesterday!

His Power, My Weakness

2 Corinthians 12:9 "But He said to me 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

This is a verse I seem to just keep coming back to this year as I've wrestled through what it looks like to walk humbly with my God, seeing myself in light of him instead of comparing myself to other people and going through an endless cycle of insecurity and pride. This past week I think this sums up what I've been most struck  by about God in ministry, in my quiet times, and as I've observed his creation! I've been reading through the book of Hebrews extremely in depth for my quiet times to go along with the Summit Church's sermon series on the book of Hebrews called "Christ is Better." I remember in one of the first sermons in this series J.D. suggested we continually read through the book while we go through it as a church and I decided to try that since I've never done it before. I've always finished a book and just gone on to another one, it's never crossed my mind to re-read through a book multiple times to really get deep into it. I'm really enjoying it. The book really paints a very clear picture throughout of Christ's glory. I think sometimes we get so caught up in Jesus' humanity, being able to relate with us and in fact dying for us that we forget he is the God who created the universe, glorious and powerful and that he raised from the dead. We forget to deal with Christ with awe. Hebrews really hits home on Christ's superiority. He's higher than the angels, he's the mediator of a covenant that is infinitely better than the old one, he's sitting at God's right hand and interceding on our behalf, hes perfect and blameless in a way that we never could be. Not only have I seen this in Scripture but I've been seeing it firsthand in my life. I've been so overwhelmed from huge waves to the biggest moon I've ever seen reflecting off the ocean to mountains and valleys and 17 foot wide redwood trees and even just looking at the stars which you can see better here than in Raleigh or Apex. I'm so humbled, I'm less than a dot in the span of God's creation why does he choose to love me? Why did he think I was worth dying for? When he looked at all that he said it was good, so why did he look at me and say very good? Why am I the one made in His image? Why does he pay me any attention at all? If that wasn't enough I've just been thoroughly reminded as I always am in ministry that I am completely dependent on God to see any change happen in anyone's life, and I am also completely dependent on him and his strength to get me through the day.

Okay, now for a quick update on what actually happened this week. So, the students arrived on Monday and that basically changed everything. There are now 80 people here instead of 30, lots of relationships to be built! The schedule this week was pretty intense since the students needed to get orientated (I know that's not a word but I like it better) for the summer. Wednesday and Sunday were the days most worth writing about I think. Wednesday we had from 9am-2pm to get with our roommates, who would also be our Bible study for the summer, and share what's called our "soul to souls." It's essentially an extended testimony that's like 20-25 minutes (or at least its supposed to be) and we go through our history, heritage, heroes, hard times, and high points. It's kind of a crash course in each others lives to build some honesty and trust into the group and so for the rest of the summer we can really see where others are coming from as we live with them and deal with conflict. Me and my co-leader JP shared ours Tuesday night to model it, and then on Wednesday we went to the Redwood forest and heard all the guys share theirs. It was definitely a really sweet time of laying a foundation for relationships that will last a lifetime and just encouraging to hear what God had done in all of our lives to bring us to be sitting in the redwoods together. After that we had fun day which involved lots of games and a scavenger hunt and a really good meal to cap it all off. Sunday afternoon was our first outreach. We went downtown and used a tool called Soularium to engage the community in spiritual conversations. For those of you who haven't used it before, it's got 50 pictures that we laid out on the sidewalk and when people stopped to look we asked told them it was a picture survey about life and spirituality and asked if they wanted to take it. The questions associated with it are which 3 pictures best describe your life, which 3 pictures do you wish described your life, and which picture best represents God to you? If you want to see the images, and how other people responded to the survey check out mysoularium.com. It was cool because it was unimposing on the people downtown, they approached us, and that also was a good first place to start for a lot of really nervous summer project students! They got to have some really cool conversations, listening to folks share their stories and what they believe about God and quite a few of them got to share in response what they believed about God! One such person was my man Sam Turkal, he was with me and really stepped up boldly into something he'd never done before and went through the Gospel with Jazz and Christian, two folks we went through the survey with.

Thanks again guys for all that you do for me! I love you all very dearly and you mean the world to me.

Look below for some prayer requests!


Some things you can be praying for are...

- Pray for me to continue to find rest in my Savior, to know him more and better each day and overflow the fruit of the Spirit.

- Pray for God to raise up leaders among the students to take our place when we're gone.

- Pray specifically for Victor, Damon, Branson, Sam, and Greg as these will be the guys in my action group this summer that I'll be focused on pouring my life into. Pray that God rocks their world this summer like he rocked mine when I was a student on this project.

- Pray for those in Santa Cruz who don't know Christ, pray that God would go before us and prepare their hearts to hear the message of his unfailing love for them, what he did for them on the cross, and his desire to have a relationship with them.

- Pray for continued unity among the staff team, and for that to be contagious to the students that they would really work as one for the summer especially once the staff have left.

- Pray for clarity for my really good friend here named Nichole! She says shes real confused about a lot of things and asked me to pray for her not to be confused anymore!