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Monday, June 15, 2009

You are the God of this City!

So today was our first day on Campus.  We started out at what we call "the space"...Brandon and Ansley (our track directors) broke us up into ministry teams and gave us our campus assignments.  Each team is assigned a "home campus"that we will be visiting twice a week and two other campuses that we go to the other two days.  My ministry team was assigned Kingsborough Community College as our home campus.  Kingsborough is in Brooklyn.  Our other two campuses are City Tech which is also in Brooklyn and Hunter College which is in Manhattan.  Now today was kind of an off day in the sense that our track was in charge of leading the worship meeting for the entire project tonight so we had to be there early and stuff so this left us less time at our campuses.  Sooooo instead of going all the way out to Brooklyn we went to Hunter...which was so great.
We spent a long time prayer walking and just asking the Lord to go before us and move in the hearts of those we would be encountering.  We also took time getting to know the campus and asked students questions about campus life and if there were any Christian ministries offered.  We call this "decoding"...this process is especially important at Hunter College because it is one of the places where Crusade hopes to plant a ministry.  We had the opportunity to get a few contacts and meet a couple of students who are believers...so they could be great resources for us in the future.  
While we were surveying students about their campus I met a student who was from Brooklyn and was commuting every day to school.  We asked him if he knew of any Christian clubs on campus and if he had ever attended one.  He said that he knew of a Chinese Christian ministry and he had been to it a couple of times...however after that he told us that he was an atheist. Unfortunately our conversation did not turn into a spiritual one but it really got me thinking.  We prayed for this student afterwards, but this incident just gripped a hold of my heart.  Honestly it broke my heart!  I mean I know I am here to do outreach, evangelize, and try to reach students for Christ, but when something like that actually comes out of someones mouth it really hits home...its like I just wanted to scream dude don't you know that Jesus loves you and he died for you and he wants a relationship with you! but I understand that no matter how much I want it to work that way, thats just not how it is. AND THEN we went up to a bridge that connects two of the buildings and I was looking out at the street below and in one glance I looked and prolly saw at least 100 people...in once glance...and then I was just reminded of how many people are in this city...followed by the thought of how many people are lost in this city!  Needless to say God really broke my heart for this city today!
Tonight was so great, fun, and much needed time to worship the Lord.  Every week we will have MnM (monday night meeting).  This is a time where our entire project will come together for a worship service.  Each week a different track is in charge of organizing and planing the meeting and this week it was our turn.  We had a lot of fun planning and leading worship.  Brandon, Nate, Alex, and Sam led music, Tom led us in a wonderful spiritual nugget, we some folks read scripture in different languages(that was so neat), Aaron shared a little bit of what our vision is as a campus track and our project as a whole, and I got to emcee...it was a lot of fun.  Our main focus was on worship...what worship is and what it is not.  That it is more than just songs and verses but a lifestyle.  We talked a lot about what it might look like to let this overflow into our ministry and heart for the city. we had some personal time to reflect and spend time with the Lord towards the end of the meeting and I opened my Bible and the first thing I saw was Psalm 115...

"Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness. Why do the nations say,"Where is their God?"Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. House of Israel, trust in the LORD—he is their help and shield. House of Aaron, trust in the LORD— he is their help and shield. You who fear him, trust in the LORD— he is their help and shield. The LORD remembers us and will bless us: He will bless the house of Israel, he will bless the house of Aaron, he will bless those who fear the LORD—small and great alike. May the LORD cause you to increase, both you and your children. May you be blessed by the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to humankind.It is not the dead who praise the LORD, those who go down to the place of silence; it is we who extol the LORD, both now and forevermore. Praise the LORD."

  Reading this verse was so awesome because we had just finished singing God of the City...and not to mention the Lord had really used the day to break me for this city.  The nations are right outside my window and they are not free.  They can not see, taste, feel, or hear the way that God created them to...of course we will praise the Lord forever more but our worship does not end when we leave a service...it should continue wherever we go, through the things we say, do, and we should worship with our lives so that others can see...so that they too can worship THE God who created them to be his.  Worship God by living for him.

Tomorrow we are going into Brooklyn to decode Kingsborough CC.  This is exciting because this is the campus my ministry team will be spending the most time at.  Please pray that the Lord will use us on this campus tomorrow, that we will be able to get into meaningful/spiritual conversations with students and that he will give us boldness.  Please pray for our team as our late nights/early mornings/the city have just taken its toll on our bodies.  We find ourselves really tired and we don't want that to be a foothold for the enemy...pray that the Lord will give us energy and the ability to love on the people we meet and to make it from block to block without our legs giving out from under us. God is good and greater things have yet to come!  

1 comment:

  1. I love hunter! It was my home campus... Amazing school!!!! Lots of cool people there. Really open to talk and discuss things.

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