Focusing my time and efforts

I've re-prioritised this half of the year. This semester I'm focusing on building into other people (discipling) as well as evangelising. Evangelising is simply preaching the good news of Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and leaving the results to God.

I'm being stepped up a bit in leadership and I'm going to be leading a team at the cafe at Eastside Apostolic Church's Sunday night service (7pm).

I plan to lead an action group this semester (with Student Life on campus) - a small group of guys who I'm building into with the ultimate goal of glorifying God by being a servant and sharing his good news. This is the concept of spiritual multiplication - these guys in turn will hopefully build into many others throughout their lives. I guess I'm focusing more on relationships with others this semester.

Jeremy Sargent and I are planning to hold an evangelism workshop at Eastside in late September. I've really bought into the vision of "Here I am Send me" and so will probably be posting and maintaining the website for that instead of my personal blog. I might also be updating the manual to be more concise, interactive, and coherent. At the moment the manual is somewhat difficult to follow and understand without someone teaching the content to you. We'd like to put it up on the website eventually to help get it out there faster, and for those who can't make it to the workshop. I'm excited about the program and what God is going to do through us as we partner together to take the course to a new level. I can see a huge future for it - training local churches to evangelise and building into them and their leadership enough that they'll be able to keep it going with just the website as a resource. It would be amazing to travel around and do that once the program is finished. For more info see http://www.hereiamsendme.org/.

And that's it really, as well as obviously spending quiet time with God! :)

A little more in the future - I'm applying for Student Life as a full-time intern for 2008 (and will need to raise support if I'm accepted - relying completely on God for an income!).

Only to be with you

I'm listening to U2 - Only to be with you right now. If you have it, go play it before you read on. So I'm just thinking about God, as always. And I've had some thoughts.

The lyrics remind me of how much Jesus has done for us.
"I have climbed highest mountains; I have run through the fields; only to be with you."

Since our very existance, God has been reaching out to us simply saying "I only want to be with you". For every person who believes in Him, God has already gone out of his way just to be with them. God has gone to extremes. Jesus came to earth and suffered tremendously for us. He died for all of us as an innocent man. He just loves us that much. If a sinners death is the price God has to pay just to be with us, then he will do it; and he did.

That's all I wanted to share. Thank you God for your unfailing love.

conference and my 21st birthday

I just came back from Student Life's Tune-In conference. It was from the 1 to 6 of July, and was amazing! I was excrutiatingly tired for most of it (we got an average of 5.5 hours sleep each night), but I still learned a lot. John Lamb from the states taught that we need to show grace before truth as Jesus did. God also spoke to me through John and revealed a little more about how much grace and love he has for the world. He challenged us with the question "are we simply allowing God to love us?". There was a cartoon character dress up night, and a formal banquet on the last night which were both totally awesome. Finally, I made a commitment to apply for a full-time internship at Student Life next year!

So I had a good sleep after conference, then got water baptised. I was so happy. My whole family came to the church service which was packed and full of life. We had a guest speaker from aussie - James Macphearson, who was amazing. He was so funny. And he did a really long alter call at the end. None of my friends or family went up though. My mum was crying her eyes out afterwards. I don't think she'd ever experienced anything like it. Praise God! After the service was my baptism. I had some really encouraging words spoken to me afterwards. Lots of people said I was a huge inspiration in their lives. I was overwhelmed.

Then we had lunch at gengy's. I had about 30 people come which was totally awesome. We had a ball! Everyone met people and celebrated while eating and drinking too much (my parents paid for it all !!!!!!!). My parents were totally thrilled for me and I think we changed their perception of Christianity, as well as my 3 not-yet christian mates who were there. My dad shared a whole lot of embarassing things I did when I was a kid. He had a whole folder of naked photos - soo embarassing, but everyone split their sides in laughter at hearing my dad describe me now as having a laptop in one hand, a bible in the other, standing in pink gumboots (he had a similar photo). Luckily he also shared some highlights about my life like awards I'd won and my passions.

Then something awesome happened. After my dad gave his speech, everyone made me stand up. I had no idea what to say, so I started by making some comments about what my dad said - admitted they were all true. Then God put it in my heart to share my testimony because there were 6 non-believers in the room. But I spoke to everyone (encouraging christians too).

I shared my story - how I came to know Jesus, and I shared it in a way that related to what my father said! It was such a God thing. I told everyone the truth that out of all the highlights in my life - the awards won, and decisions I've made -the decision to know Jesus personally was the best decision by far that I've ever made. I said "I think it's a good way to go in life - I believe it's the only way". I was so satisfied with the boldness Jesus gave me at that time! It was so perfect!

My parents had said when I became a Christian I seemed happier - but it took me a while to tell them about my decision. At the end of my speech I commented and said there was a difference between happiness and joy. What I have in Jesus is joy - in the good times and the bad. I told how I have hope in Jesus in those down times. How I used to get depressed because I couldn't see the hope. And finally thanked everyone with all my heart for coming. It meant more than anything to me that my close friends and family could be there on that day. (I remember in the morning as my friends arrived I was in tears praying for God to reveal himself to them)

So yeah, it was a good day :-) We had cake, did some singstar (altho I sucked it was funny), then Went to church at night too, and served in the cafe - one of my favourite places to serve God by serving others. What a long day! But it was the best birthday of my life because JESUS CAME TO MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOHOOOOO!

I'm going to inspire conference at Eastside Apostolic next week, so will hopefully write something about that soon. Thanks for reading! I'm still yet to publish my journal from Fiji in easter this year. Too busy living in the here and now sharing about the good news of Jesus on campus! God bless, Ryan.