The power of a true community

Things just keep happening at LT! This week has been a great week, especially in the context of our project group (JDC!).

Most people that attend Colorado LT would say that the best part of the summer is their project group. After one and a half summers, I'd have to agree with that statement 100%.

This week, our group kind of took a break from long project days filled with spiritual discussions and instead just focused on building the camaraderie of the group with fun activities. I can say for sure that this was a great and much needed day off.

What? These are our normal clothes....

Our project clicked in certain ways pretty early on, but I feel like Monday's relaxing/fun project day kind of broke down the walls for a lot of the quieter members in our group and helped everyone just get to know everyone else's personality a lot better. (obviously. see the photos!)

JDC has been a huge blessing to me personally this summer and has been a great place and community for people to come with struggles, spiritual questions or anything else. It's great to see how openness and honesty is so prevalent in our group (especially life groups) after only four project days this year.

The true sign of a healthy community of God's people is how open the members of the group are. It takes a lot of great and committed people to be open and make a small group like this work, but that is exactly what we have this summer! Praise the Lord.

So basically what I am getting at is that we are making a more connected community of Christ-followers, which we know is extremely valuable. But, why is it valuable?

Britanny, Sam and Bennie looking good!

First of all, in this day and age, the most effective way to get people interested in Christianity and regularly attending church is the provide a group of friends that make them feel loved and accepted. In doing this, the power of God's love is shown and people are able to appreciate that love in a more real and physical way.

That was why I got hooked on my church at Missouri. That's how you get people interested in a relationship with God. That's why I want to do this as a career for the near future. Nothing gets me more excited than someone experiencing the love of God in a way they never thought was possible.

With the power of the community of our project group, I've seen people experience that love for the first time. I can't wait to grow closer together as a group and keep showing that love to those around us.

Another reason it is valuable is pushing growing Christians to a better and more committed relationship with the Lord. When you are constantly surrounded by a group of Christians that all have that same goal, motivation is easy to come by and accountability is everywhere. I like to say that you have no where to run from growth at LT (kind of true, even though it sounds scary) because of the insane amount of accountability that is built into the program.

Overall, the community of God is just a beautiful thing that everyone needs to experience!

Rejoicing in the Lord's majesty

So one of my goals for the summer was to experience God more fully and realize how awesome he is and how worthy of my praise he really is. The first thing I can say about that is that God really satisfies our desires. Wow.

God has really been revealing a lot of his great love and power recently to me. If I said this to myself before the summer, I wouldn't have been surprised seeing as how I am LT and awesome life change happens out here on a yearly basis. But God has really shown his great power to me in so many awesome and different ways.

The big change is that those words (love and power) used to be just that to me, words. Now I can say I am truly experiencing God's love on a consistent basis throughout the day and it has been powering my faith more awesomely than I could have imagined. I can think of three recent things that I've realized/experienced that really illustrate this point pretty well!

Firstly, through the book we are reading through at LT, Walking as Jesus Walked, I have been able to come to the realization that Jesus was actually fully human.

That statement is something I'd heard a lot before the last couple of weeks, but I had never really grasped the meaning of it. I always picture Jesus as a human with God's powers inside of him, even though the Scripture makes it clear that he was only empowered by praying to God and having faith that his Father would provide for him.

Think about that. Jesus was exactly like any other normal human. The way he became the perfect sacrificial lamb for the sins of every other human was his incredible faith in God and the amount of time he spent in prayer. So the next logical question for me is why can't I be like that from now to the end of my life? I'm a sinful human, but Jesus was also a human and he was able to do it.

Through the talk from John Werst on Tuesday, I realized that when we suffer, we get immensely closer to Christ because he suffered in the exact way we suffer on a daily basis. He REALLY knows what we go through.

I want to walk like Jesus did.

Another way God showed me his awesome power is through a incredible miracle I saw last night. Our friend, Logan, got a pretty bad thigh bruise while playing basketball earlier in the afternoon and was having a pretty hard time walking around for the rest of the night.

Around 10 p.m., his project leader Dustin asked if he could lay hands on him and pray for healing for him. After they got done praying, what do you know? Logan could walk around with no limp and no real pain. God #doeswork if you really believe he will! It's amazing that stuff like that can still happen!

Finally, God has also been super faithful in answering prayers for me and a lot of the LT participants in recent weeks. I feel like everything I have been praying for has been answered rapidly by God and things are being made very clear to me by the Lord. I'm somehow getting more in touch with his Spirit (possibly through reading and studying his Word more consistently) and I feel really confident in what and where he wants me to be next year.

God is really doing work on me more than I thought was possible in my second go-round at LT and I can't wait for the next 7 1/2 weeks to see what else he can do!

This year's struggle

Over two weeks in and I feel like this summer has been the exact opposite of last year's summer in many ways thus far. 

Social Life

First Rockies game of the year! "We" won 13-3

As an intern this year, my schedule is so flexible that I've had all the time in the world to hang out with whoever I want whenever they are available. I can adjust my work around when other people are available. I also no longer have to sit in the Rustic Cafe and watch my friends play card games and have a great time while I'm stuck at work. That's awesome for me because that was the hardest part of my summer last year. Now there is no excuse for me not to make deep relationships with everyone that God puts in my life.

The bad thing with not working at the Y, though, is that I'm having a hard time meeting non-LTers, especially since the Y put basically all of LT into one dorm by ourselves. Having a community with non-believers is one thing we really need to be able to reach out to people at the Y. It is hard for me specifically because I don't work or live with any of them. Pray that I am still able to find and seek out non-believers and share my faith with them

Time

Another huge difference for me this year has been how I spend my time. Last year, I had just become aware of my desperate need for personal growth and an understanding of God's love. While I'm still desperate for that (as every Christian should be), my job with GCM has made me turn my main focus outward to the students involved with LT. 

This desire isn't an inherently bad thing. Focusing on helping others improve their walks with God is a much needed thing and it's the thing that excites me most in life. I can't tell you how many times I've caught myself just smiling uncontrollably while listening to people talk about how much they have grown at LT so far. I desire to see that in everyone who has a budding relationship with Christ and that's what makes me think I want to do this full-time!

I'm still learning how to find the appropriate balance between spending time with others and building into them and spending time with God and allowing him to build into me.

Relationship with God

Sweet moonrise over Twin Sisters

Over the first week of LT, I basically neglected my relationship with God because of the hectic nature of the start of the program and because I think deep down I was starting to believe that I didn't need to focus on myself or my walk with God. Obviously that was dumb.

Through that trial, I've learned that the best way to be a good leader in a church setting is to set a great example of a fully-loving relationship with God for the people I am leading.

 

Like I've said before, my goal for the summer is to more fully understand Jesus' life and realize with my heart why God is worthy of my eternal praise.

 

Since that first week, I have been reading through various passages in the New Testament, but I'm mainly focusing on the Gospels, starting with Matthew. In reading and studying these chapters (with my new ESV Study Bible! Woo!) I am coming to a fuller understanding of who Jesus was and how his story and life connect so beautifully with what was prophecized in the Old Testament.

 

As far as the second goal, I have been in a constant state of joy and wonder so far this summer, rejoicing in what God is doing in my project group and in my life in general, which has certainly given me more reason to praise Him and realize his overwhelming power. Obviously, there is a long way to go in this goal and I'm sure I'll never be done learning!

Thanks for all your prayers and support!

Learning to lead

Awesome sunset on Monday evening

LT has really gotten into full swing since I last posted, so this will probably be a pretty long post (but it's all really exciting!). We've had our first LT service, our day-long retreat and my project group had its first project day all in the last six days! I don't think we could have asked for a better or more fruitful start to #LT2012 than we have had in the last week.

Weather

Snow on CCYF

We all knew that Colorado would be fairly  cold, especially at the beginning of the summer, but no one expected this kind of weather! It has snowed twice since we have been here and I've had to wear a jacket during the day almost every single day. Hopefully it starts warming up soon so we can start playing baseball and tennis whenever we want!

LT Talks/Retreat

Andrew Schulz leading worship on Kickoff Night

Man, I can't tell you how awesome the talks have been so far this year. John Drage from Mizzou, Chris Ridgeway from Illinois and Brian Wiles from Bowling Green all hit great and thought-provoking points in the first 5 talks this summer and they have really challenged me and others to chase God fully this summer.

The kick-off talk by John Drage last Thursday really struck me because he talked about asking God what you want from Him in faith. A parable in Mark 10:46-52 says that if you do that, God will give you the desires of your heart. I've read that before but I can't say I've ever fully believed it. Since then, God has been super faithful in answering my prayers because I have truly decided to believe that God can answer prayers.

Talks at LT really strip away all the garbage and get to the point quickly, which is what I love. The theme of our Tuesday night talks is Jesus and the theme of our Thursday night talks is God's Leaders. I'm sure that through these talks and the stories from the Bible that are used in them, faith will be challenged and a deeper love of Christ will be formed. I would be willing to say that some people will become saved through the things they hear in these talks! Prayer for that will be fully appreciated!

Project Day - JDC!

Everyone telling our Project Group why they came to LT

My biggest job as an intern is leading a project group, a group of 20 people (in my case) that get together on a common day off to spend the day together searching for the Lord in a variety of ways. That includes worship, testimonies, small accountability groups and large group discussions, among other things. This group becomes a tight-knit community and is usually every LT participants favorite part of the summer.

My project day falls on a Monday this year, so we got lucky and got to be the first ones to have a project day!

Our day started with breakfast and a couple of "get-to-know-you" games. We wanted to form a good sense of community from the get-go, so we spent the entire morning asking silly questions to each other, playing Catch Phrase, etc. When we were making the plan for the day, I felt kind of silly and lame planning this much time for icebreakers, but in the end I'm glad we did it.

After lunch, God worked pretty quickly in our group to break down the walls and we seemed to be able to open up fairly easily when it came time to share testimonies and figure out what we wanted our vision for the group to be. All of our group is excited to be in Colorado and is solely focused on chasing the Lord, which isn't a given, even at Colorado LT, so that is very exciting for me. The atmosphere for growth is very high at LT, so I'm confident our group will help facilitate a lot of growth.

Establishing our vision was my favorite part of the day. This has been a big focus for the staff this year and I'm really happy our group has decided to run with it. We all discussed our values and what we all want to get from the summer, and through that, we decided that we wanted to accomplish three things in the next 10 weeks: establish a loving community, practice great encouragement within the group and be expert evangelizers.

Now that we have a vision, we will be able to keep each other accountable with it. Hopefully we can accomplish our goal!

We spent the rest of the day just hanging out, playing kickball and getting ice cream in downtown Estes Park. I can't wait for our second project day now!

Oh, and we came up with a pretty awesome name, but we are trying to keep it within the group for a while. All you need to know is JD! CCCCCCCCCCC!
 

Mizzou People

Steven and our new friend, Mabel, from Kent State!

I've been super excited to see how my friends from Mizzou are already growing closer to the Lord and giving up their whole summer to Him. It's nice to see everyone in the group do that, but when you watch people you have known for the last year or two dedicated themselves like that, you get a different and more satisfying feeling. Either way, it's awesome to watch God work and he is certainly already doing that in the first week of LT.

It has also been awesome to start to get to know the 4 staffers from Mizzou that are up here for LT: Kirstin and Andrew Schulz and Chris and Aimee Swift. They are awesome to work with and I've enjoyed just hanging out with them and leading together. If I do end up going back to Mizzou as a staff member, I know I'll have some friends and good leaders to work with!

Prayer Requests

- More personal growth in the Lord that can help translate into better leadership. I want to be a good leader, but I need to be reminded that the only way I can do that is by allowing God to have full control of my life and allowing him to do the work inside of me that he wants and needs to do.

- Pray that this program is used for awesome outreach. We've got a great opportunity to share the gospel with our co-workers and international students, but we've just got to do it! Pray for me specifically, as I need motivation and direction to do this because I only work at the YMCA 8 hours per week.

- Pray that our project group can continue to click well and that we are a great example of the love of God to everyone at the YMCA. Also pray for vulnerability within the group that leads to a better understanding of God's love, grace and faithfulness.

Thanks for reading this long post. More updates to come in the near future!

A completely different experience

YMCA kids in front of my favorite mountains in the Park

I've made it back to Estes Park and I'm already getting settled in to my new role here as a GCM intern. Working with the five other interns has been a great blessing so far, especially since I knew four of them fairly well because of interactions at last year's LT. Going through this process together with them will only make this experience that much better.

At the beginning of last year's LT, I had no idea why I was here and what God wanted to do with me during the summer, but this year is the complete opposite. God showed me that I should come back to Estes Park as an intern to find out if full-time college ministry is the career path that I should be focused on when August comes around.

I'd have to say after being here less than a week that God is making it pretty clear that I would thoroughly enjoy being on a church's staff, I have the passion to do a great job at it and I also have some skills that could be used to further His kingdom. Hopefully it will stay that clear the rest of the summer, but whatever God decides to do is fine with me!

Staff Training

Team-building exercises on the first day of staff training

The first two full days that I spent in Estes were mostly filled doing really useful staff training with the rest of the interns and GCM pastors/staff from the 7 campuses that are participating in LT this year. 

A good friend (Robbie) of John Drage (my pastor at Mizzou and the director of LT) came and did some team-building exercises with us that were really relevant to our team. We'll be working together a lot this summer, so it was good to get to know each other a little more and do some activities that helped us find out more about the strengths and weaknesses of each member of the team. Robbie also helped relate all of our struggles and triumphs to how we will be trying to affect people for the Lord that aren't involved in the LT program. It was inspiring, to say the least!

We also did a bunch of other administrative training like how to work as a project leader/coach, but it was just generally good to meet all the people that will be making this program run and actually get to work on what we have been looking forward to for the last 9 months.

Everyone arrives!

LTers have been trickling in for the better part of the last week, but yesterday was the big day where the majority of LTers showed up and got settled in. LT officially started for me when I saw my friends Steven, Elena and Allie show up ready and excited to get the summer going. I can't tell you how excited I am for all my friends from Mizzou to have the same awesome experience I had at my first LT last year!

Last night we got to meet our co-project leaders and the life group leaders and I have to say that pumped me up even more! I'm stoked that Kirstin Schulz, a staffer from Mizzou, will be coaching my project group. If I want to go on staff at Mizzou, it will be valuable to have a good working relationship with some of the current staffers there. It was also good to finally put a face to the names of the students who I'll be leading our small group with. They all seem awesome and I'm sure they all love the Lord a lot, so I'm sure we'll be #doingwork all summer long! We are going to meet the rest of the group at 5 p.m. today, so be praying for us in that!

Overall, God has been doing some awesome work in the first couple of days that the staff has been here. I feel way more prepared to lead a project group now and the excitement keeps building for the program to get started. I've also read an entire book and hiked a mountain already too, so it hasn't all been hard work for me yet! I plan on working as hard as I can this summer, but rest is definitely needed, especially in a beautiful place like this.

I'll probably write another update after our first project day, which will be on Monday, May 28. A LOT of prayers are appreciated for that day because project groups are where the biggest growth in LTers (and even staff) occurs. Thanks for your support and prayers! They are all appreciated more than you'll ever know.

Goals for #LT2012

I’m sitting in Kansas (boo!) getting ready to make the last leg of my 2-day trip back to Colorado for the summer and I was thinking that I should make another goals list like I did last summer and at the beginning of the school year. It’s fun looking back at those posts and seeing how God worked through me in the summer and in my Canvas Group this year, so I want to be able to do that after my internship at Colorado LT 2012 is over in August.

Here's my five goals:

1. The main goal that I have for the summer (and every Christian should have at all times!) is to improve my personal relationship with God. I want to concentrate this relationship during the summer on gaining a better understanding of His word. I just finished reading the Bible in a year, but I want to dive back into it even more to study the meaning and the connectedness of the Old and New Testament. With constant study of the Bible, it will be on the top of my mind more often and I will be able to use specific references when evangelizing to friends and strangers.
2. Another big goal I have for the summer that can’t really be properly measured (oh well) is to effectively lead my project group. As an intern, one of my duties is to co-lead a group of 15 LT participants in activities for one full off-day together. It’s our biggest opportunity for a tight community and me and my co-leader will be responsible for creating that good sense of community. I have to be diligent and persistent, especially at the beginning of the summer in creating the community and I’ve never done anything like this before so it will be a big challenge, but I’m sure God will show me the way!
3. As an intern, I’ll be working 40 hours a week for GCM instead of for the YMCA, so I will have a lot more opportunity to direct parts of the church program instead of being distracted with food service stuff (PTL). So another goal that I have is to be willing and able to do anything the staff needs me to do to make the program run better. That goes into my next goal, which is…
4. I want to figure out if going on staff with a college church is what God wants from me after the summer. This idea was presented to me during the course of LT last year and I have been motivated all year long to work in order to find out if I am a good fit for a college staff. My passion for this possible job hasn’t waned over the past year, but has gotten even more intense. So I’ve got to sell out 100% to my internship to see if I could do it full time. A lot of prayer is appreciated here.
5. And finally, a goal I won’t have any problem reaching: have fun! The mountains in Colorado are great and the community of believers is awesome. Nothing better than a summer with people chasing God and being awesome! I can’t wait to get there later today!

 If you want to get more updates on my summer, keep checking this blog because I'm gonna make a good effort to update it weekly! I can't wait to see what God does with my summer and everyone I come in contact with out in Colorado.

Interning and the Future

Well, it seems as if I have neglected this blog for reasons not restricted to busy-ness, forgetfullness and no-reason-to-postness. The final reason for neglection has dropped off the list with my decision to go back to Colorado this summer and intern with my church at Mizzou and the group of churches it is involved with (GCM), so here I am blogging again! Exciting, I know.

My decision to go back was made over a long period of praying about it and examining my other options, but I felt like God was not giving me any reason to go anywhere else, so back to Coloardo I go!

If you don't know what happened with me at last summer's LT program, the general gist of it is that just before leaving for the program in May, I was feeling down on finding a career in journalism (wasn't for me, didn't feel good enough to be in the field, felt it would be a huge time suck), so I asked God to make His path for my life extremely apparent.

Through discipling, being in community and just being surrounded by God's beauty in Colorado, I felt led to take more of a leadership role in my church, which led me to desire to come back to Colorado in 2012 to see if full-time college ministry is where I should be after I graduate college in May.

So what does interning mean to me and for my future?

Well, first of all, I will get a lot of good experience in raising my own support through financial gifts from friends, family and possibly strangers. That is a big part of getting to be a part of full-time ministry, so experiencing a little preview of that will be good for me!

The internship will also show me if there is a place for me in college ministry, whether it be in administration, leading, disciple-making, mentoring or whatever other role I can fill. I believe God is pushing me in this direction for some big reason, but I'll just have to trust Him and see what comes out of it.

I plan to blog about the trials and triumphs of my support-raising time as well as what I actually am doing when I am back in Estes Park #doingwork for GCM and for the Lord! I hope you guys are as excited as I am.