During that "quiet" period before the onslaught of freshman began we had several sign up tables around the parts of campus that were open to see what upperclassmen might be interested in learning more about Jesus.
At one of these tables we met a young man, who at his first interaction with us appeared very uninterested in discussing the Bible or our group, citing that he didn't believe in a creator of the universe who rules everything, etc. However, as we continued to converse with him he was at least open to coming and visiting our group because we were open to him coming even if he disagreed with us.
And the miracle is that this young man has continued to show up at many of our events and build relationships with all of us. Most notably on one instance he said, unsolicited, to a friend of his outside of the group that all of his friends were in our group. My dear brother and roommate Jason Knox has already blogged more extensively about his interactions with this friend of ours. When asked about what has struck him about what we say about Jesus was that, He will never leave us or abandon us. Oh brothers and sisters that this young man would know Jesus in such a way!
As of today this guy is still not a brother in our Lord, and we've continued to challenge him about why he does not believe. He continues to be very frank about his issues and why he does not believe, continues to show up and continues to be open to our relationships with him. So please be praying for this friend of ours. The Lord's using our relationships with him to get to know him better and know his disagreements, but please be praying that these relationships would also be used for him, a guy who totally thinks that the idea of God or His Son is unbelievable, to know Him, our Lord Christ Jesus!
Friday, August 29, 2008
Outreach Craziness!!
Over the past few weeks we've had sign-up tables all over campus to allow interested students to sign up for listserv emails, get info, etc. and in general allow us to share Christ with them.
Beyond our wildest expectations, 404 students have indicated that they are interested in learning more about Jesus and getting involved in a Bible study. Praise God for what He's doing!
Please also be praying for all of these students, those we already know here on campus, and people we will meet that God will just do amazing things for His name this semester!
Also please be praying that God would send us more laborers in terms of staff and student leaders because we are currently hard pressed to respond to such interest levels. God has been good and is enabling us to reach these students, but we can still use more hands to help us as we labor for Him!
Beyond our wildest expectations, 404 students have indicated that they are interested in learning more about Jesus and getting involved in a Bible study. Praise God for what He's doing!
Please also be praying for all of these students, those we already know here on campus, and people we will meet that God will just do amazing things for His name this semester!
Also please be praying that God would send us more laborers in terms of staff and student leaders because we are currently hard pressed to respond to such interest levels. God has been good and is enabling us to reach these students, but we can still use more hands to help us as we labor for Him!
Monday, August 25, 2008
Back From Blogging Break!
The break's over, I'm back from vacation, and safely moved into my new room with it's ninth floor view.
Please be praying for us as we continue reaching out to the campus over the next few weeks and months, especially in our dorms, at sign-up tables and in classes!
(P.S. Reflections posts will continue this week too!)
Please be praying for us as we continue reaching out to the campus over the next few weeks and months, especially in our dorms, at sign-up tables and in classes!
(P.S. Reflections posts will continue this week too!)
Monday, August 11, 2008
Internship Reflection #2: Bible study and burritos the size of your head
One night my buddy and I invited a student out to Q'doba with us for dinner. (If you have never been to Q'doba please do so soon, it's wonderful because their burritos are the size of your face and their queso sauce is wonderful)
The student up to that point had been coming to Bible study, but had been rather quiet and I was wondering how he was reacting to what we were learning in our John Bible study. As dinner went on the conversation became just excellent. It became clear that this young man has a desire to know the Scriptures and most importantly God through them. How amazing is that?
What's even more encouraging was that what was impacting him in the study was that he was being called to dig deep into the text with the rest of the group and not just scratch the surface. And that excited him to be able to dig deep and know God more through investing in knowing the Word!
Please be praying for this young man that the Lord would be raising up a young leader to follow hard after Him.
The student up to that point had been coming to Bible study, but had been rather quiet and I was wondering how he was reacting to what we were learning in our John Bible study. As dinner went on the conversation became just excellent. It became clear that this young man has a desire to know the Scriptures and most importantly God through them. How amazing is that?
What's even more encouraging was that what was impacting him in the study was that he was being called to dig deep into the text with the rest of the group and not just scratch the surface. And that excited him to be able to dig deep and know God more through investing in knowing the Word!
Please be praying for this young man that the Lord would be raising up a young leader to follow hard after Him.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Internship Reflection #1: Evangelistic Coffee
The first 3 weeks of the internship had the interns serving on campus during Summer Session I. If you've ever been to PSU during Summer Session I, you'll know that this is probably one of the quietest times on campus when class is technically in session. There were only a few hundred students living on campus!
We interns were feeling quite like we were up a creek since with so few students and that it was so hard to find new ones that we began to struggle knowing how else to meet new students.
However one afternoon on one of those early days of the internship I went to a local coffee shop to meet with one of my roommates to take a few moments of downtime and check in to see how each other was doing. I had arrived first and grabbed a mug and took a seat to wait for my roommate to arrive. At one of the tables close to me sat a lady and we began to have some small talk while I was waiting. As the conversation progressed and she realized that I was a Christian she began sharing how she was from China, a visiting scholar and would soon be returning to China in a month. However she said that in the past month she had begun to read and study the Bible with another Christian lady to try to understand Christianity before she returned to China.
At that point my friend arrived and she then asked if we could explain "the whole Bible, even the Old Testament parts." We said that we weren't sure, but that we'd give it a try and then all of a sudden she pulled out a Bible and opened to Matthew and began to ask us questions about passages that she was confused about.
Praise the Lord for humility, because we were able to ask her questions about what she saw in the passage and helped her grasp what was the context and meaning of the different passages. To make things even more amazing her questions were not ones about what is this term or this is wrong why would you believe that, but "Why would Jesus say something like that wouldn't that make him arrogant?"
And brothers and sisters, our God is so good! As we helped her to walk through the different passages it seemed like the Holy Spirit was beginning to teach her in part what was going on in the Bible and more importantly who Jesus was! We were also able to share how we became Christians and the Gospel as well.
She didn't become a Christian there, but she was visibly eating up the Word!
Sadly we were unable to reach her again before she left soon after to return to China, but we have been praying that the Lord continued to use the Bible study that she was already in before she returned to China. Please be praying for this lady who has now returned to China that the Lord will open the eyes of her heart to understand who Jesus is and give her a heart of flesh rather than a heart of stone. Or if she has already become a Christian since I met her that He would be growing her mightily and giving her strength and courage to preach Him boldly in China especially now during the Olympics (a difficult time for Chinese Christians).
We interns were feeling quite like we were up a creek since with so few students and that it was so hard to find new ones that we began to struggle knowing how else to meet new students.
However one afternoon on one of those early days of the internship I went to a local coffee shop to meet with one of my roommates to take a few moments of downtime and check in to see how each other was doing. I had arrived first and grabbed a mug and took a seat to wait for my roommate to arrive. At one of the tables close to me sat a lady and we began to have some small talk while I was waiting. As the conversation progressed and she realized that I was a Christian she began sharing how she was from China, a visiting scholar and would soon be returning to China in a month. However she said that in the past month she had begun to read and study the Bible with another Christian lady to try to understand Christianity before she returned to China.
At that point my friend arrived and she then asked if we could explain "the whole Bible, even the Old Testament parts." We said that we weren't sure, but that we'd give it a try and then all of a sudden she pulled out a Bible and opened to Matthew and began to ask us questions about passages that she was confused about.
Praise the Lord for humility, because we were able to ask her questions about what she saw in the passage and helped her grasp what was the context and meaning of the different passages. To make things even more amazing her questions were not ones about what is this term or this is wrong why would you believe that, but "Why would Jesus say something like that wouldn't that make him arrogant?"
And brothers and sisters, our God is so good! As we helped her to walk through the different passages it seemed like the Holy Spirit was beginning to teach her in part what was going on in the Bible and more importantly who Jesus was! We were also able to share how we became Christians and the Gospel as well.
She didn't become a Christian there, but she was visibly eating up the Word!
Sadly we were unable to reach her again before she left soon after to return to China, but we have been praying that the Lord continued to use the Bible study that she was already in before she returned to China. Please be praying for this lady who has now returned to China that the Lord will open the eyes of her heart to understand who Jesus is and give her a heart of flesh rather than a heart of stone. Or if she has already become a Christian since I met her that He would be growing her mightily and giving her strength and courage to preach Him boldly in China especially now during the Olympics (a difficult time for Chinese Christians).
Friday, August 8, 2008
Final Talk on Hebrews 7 posted
The final talk for DCF Summer 08 on Hebrews 7 by Jason is finally posted here:
http://matthew.wolfgang.googlepages.com/audiofiles
Enjoy!
http://matthew.wolfgang.googlepages.com/audiofiles
Enjoy!
It's the end of the internship as we know it....
Currently there are about 24 hours left of the internship and that's really scary.
Overall the Lord has been so, so good through it all and I feel excited to return to campus, but also kind of melancholy about having to leave.
Over the next week or so I'd like to write a few short posts about some of the biggest parts of the internship. My goal is to have the first one up later today so hold on!
Please also be praying for our final Summer DCF meeting tonight!
Overall the Lord has been so, so good through it all and I feel excited to return to campus, but also kind of melancholy about having to leave.
Over the next week or so I'd like to write a few short posts about some of the biggest parts of the internship. My goal is to have the first one up later today so hold on!
Please also be praying for our final Summer DCF meeting tonight!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Summer Audio Extravaganza!
For those of you who have been waiting in long expectation, here it is, the long awaited prize...
Audio from this summer's DCFs!
Below is a link to my webspace where the temporary location will be for these audio recordings.
The goal is that within a few weeks the PSU DCF website will be totally revamped to awesome-osity (which will include audio), but until then so you can listen to the talks from this summer I'll be hosting the files over on my space. Enjoy!
http://matthew.wolfgang.googlepages.com/audiofiles
(To download, just click on the underlined title of the talk and it should down load. Or right click and select "Save file as..."
Audio from this summer's DCFs!
Below is a link to my webspace where the temporary location will be for these audio recordings.
The goal is that within a few weeks the PSU DCF website will be totally revamped to awesome-osity (which will include audio), but until then so you can listen to the talks from this summer I'll be hosting the files over on my space. Enjoy!
http://matthew.wolfgang.googlepages.com/audiofiles
(To download, just click on the underlined title of the talk and it should down load. Or right click and select "Save file as..."
Kick Off
Well, welcome to my blog.
This is an attempt at a few things.
One I'd like it to be a place to replace my old website with it's functionality as my picture and audio hub to distribute those things to my friends and family.
However in terms of bigger vision I'd like for this in the future to be a place to share what exactly God's been doing in my life. I am eagerly looking forward to living with my buddy Justin this upcoming year starting in a few short weeks on Ninth Floor Tener Hall (Get the blog name now?)
Hopefully the Lord will bless our efforts to reach out to our neighbors and that Ninth Floor Tener will become a community where Christ is known! How cool would that be?
So be praying for us and enjoy the site!
This is an attempt at a few things.
One I'd like it to be a place to replace my old website with it's functionality as my picture and audio hub to distribute those things to my friends and family.
However in terms of bigger vision I'd like for this in the future to be a place to share what exactly God's been doing in my life. I am eagerly looking forward to living with my buddy Justin this upcoming year starting in a few short weeks on Ninth Floor Tener Hall (Get the blog name now?)
Hopefully the Lord will bless our efforts to reach out to our neighbors and that Ninth Floor Tener will become a community where Christ is known! How cool would that be?
So be praying for us and enjoy the site!
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