An Overdue Update

Wow. So much has happened in these past few weeks, and I have had no time to sit down and write an update. But it has all been good. I apologize, though, so I will try my best to keep you up to date on what has happened.

So I talked briefly about Killing the Giants week in my last post, and that week has come and gone. We all set number goals for how many people we wanted to trust God with that we would have conversations for the week. This number was one of the "giants" that we were trying to kill. A giant basically being something that is hard to overcome, but that we wanted trust God's ability to overcome it. In trying not to be obsessed with numbers though, I set another giant of going out sharing every day of the week. It was so incredibly stretching, but I was able to kill that giant! But praise God because it was so tiring and would have been nearly impossible to do out of my own effort. As a group, we initiated over 5100 conversations during the week and had over 90 people indicate that they wanted to put their faith in Christ. Pretty awesome stuff.

We went from being very outward focused during Killing the Giants week to being very inward focused for this past week: All For One week. This was basically a week in challenging our view of what it means to live in Biblical community and stretch us to desire true Biblical fellowship. We faced many challenges throughout the week that we had to come together as a team to overcome. For example, one morning we were only allowed to have one person use an alarm clock to wake up. This person would then have to wake up the next person that needed to wake up, who would then wake up the next person, and so on and so forth. This was on a weekday, which meant most people really needed to wake up for work, and living in a house with 35 guys did not leave us with the easiest task. But we really trusted each other, did some planning the night before, and in the end we were successful in getting everyone up on time. Another amazing time during the week was Men's Conference, which was on Wednesday night. I can't go into too many details about it, but it was physically exhausting, relationally challenging, and spiritually stretching. The guys really came together to pull through the evening as one, and it was a powerful display of our community.

The week culminated in a student vs. staff softball game yesterday, which was a blast. The students lost (and apparently they have lost like 14 years in a row), but it was a lot of fun after a week of growing as a community. There are 105 students (or something like that), so everyone batted once and got to play the field once or twice. But the game was so much bigger than winning or losing, so I was totally satisfied after the game, despite losing.

As probably all of you know, I have also been working at McDonald's these past few weeks as a cashier. Overall, it has been a good experience. I had a hard time finally settling with working at the golden arches, but after choosing it, I felt really at peace in my decision. Working there has been fun at times and stressful at times. There are a good number of other Cru people that work there, so that has been really cool. However, one thing that I've really struggled with is ministry in the workplace. Pretty much everyday we are really busy, and there is not much time to talk to anyone about anything, nonetheless spiritual things. This has been hard on me because my biggest fear in taking the job at McDonald's was that ministry would be more difficult.

Also, I mentioned in my last update that I was going to be leading worship. I actually have had the opportunity to do it twice already, and I absolutely love it. I have really seen my passion for singing grow this past year, and it is so cool to be able to use the gift that God has given me to worship Him. It is definitely a time commitment, but it is totally worth it.

Please pray:
- That everyone here would continue to strive for more Biblical community, and that we wouldn't settle for just pretty good
- For opportunities to talk about spiritual things at work, and specifically opportunities to share the gospel
- For this coming week: World Vision Week. That God would continue to grow my heart for the world and for people who don't know Him
- That God would continue to shape my heart, reveal my sin to me, and sanctify me. That I would continually be pointed to the cross.

Enjoy some pictures from my week!

I had a cool chance to go to a Philadelphia Phillies game with my "adopted" dad! It was...a bit awkward...but I had a good time!

A couple of friends and I after the Student vs. Staff Softball game!

If you have any questions about how I am doing or specific questions about what we are doing, I would love to answer them! Post a comment, email me, or Facebook me.