Wednesday, April 23, 2008

How to Follow Christ?



As I move into my second year as ICS in New Zealand, I discover more or more how much I really don’t know about following Christ and yet God has called me to lead a staff team overseas! This year, I’ve seen a deep desire emerge in my heart and in the hearts of my teammates to truly live a missional lifestyle – where ministry is not our life, but our lives are ministry. Personally, I feel like I struggle far less with the conceptual side of following Christ than I do with the action side. And I’m not talking about the daily “Ministry to Do” checklist, but really living out my faith day by day so that Christ would be seen and known through my life.
As we’ve felt this tension in our hearts, we have hoped that students within our movement would begin to grapple with it as well while their own journeys to becoming disciples of Christ. To help facilitate this, we’ve formed a once-a-month gathering point (instead of a weekly meeting) to bring students together from all our campuses in Wellington to deeply explore their faith in the context of community. This evening (which the students call Fuse) entails a dinner together, a faith discussion, communion, and fellowship. Recently, we have been dialoguing about the “isms” of New Zealand culture (e.g. consumerism, syncretism, designer paganism, etc.) and how they influence, for better or worse, our faith in God. So often, the ideologies of our cultures seep into our faith and affect it without us really being aware. Hopefully as we uncover these “isms”, it will serve as a catalyst for life change and produce creative ideas for how to engage our campus and community.
Ultimately, as our student movement comes together at Fuse and other connecting times, our goal is that we are considering “how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” [Hebrews 10:24] We want Jesus to be known and the Gospel to be within arm’s reach of every student… everywhere.
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Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Fuse :: The Student Life Monthly Get Together



At this stage, with the newness of our movement, we currently have a once-a-month get together that the students have called “Fuse” - meaning to unite or blend into a whole, as if by melting together. This is the concept of our event, as we bring together the campuses in Wellington for an evening of sharing a meal, fellowship, encouragement from God’s Word, and challenge to influence the campus for Christ. Around 30 attended our first Fuse!
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Student Spring Breakers Visit us from the States

For two weeks straight (March 10—March 22), we hosted students from Midwest universities that came all the way to New Zealand for a week of meeting students on campus and sharing the Gospel. It was great for us to have more hands on deck to follow up with people from “Tune In”. It was also extremely visionary for the Spring Breakers to come and experience helping pioneer a new campus movement. We greatly enjoy their encouragement and excitement for ministry (as well as all the goodies they brings from America)!


[Jeff and Suzi Daratoni, Patnership Directors for the Great Leakes Region,
led a team of students from Indiana schools.]


[Isaac hanging with the team.]


[Illinois students share a meal at the Felix’s house.]


[Chris Burton (left) was part of our staff team in New Zealand last year.
He led the group of Illinois students. It was so nice to see him again!]
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Results from “Will You Tune In?”



“Amidst the background static of life and the confusion of our culture there is one major broadcast that most people have not discovered…” “Will you Tune In?”


Our first term “Tune In” outreach went very well. For some unforeseen reason (we see it as the Lord’s favor), we had three of the best locations for our tables at our campuses in Wellington. We found ourselves positioned right in major throughways for students passing between lectures. This certainly provided many opportunities for us to interact with them. Several students involved in our movement showed up to lend a hand too. It is always rewarding to see students reaching out to students! We were able to survey a total of 893, with 159 saying that they were spiritually interested, and seeing 40 first year (freshman) students get plugged into Student Life. At this stage, we have only seen 2 students indicate decisions for Christ as a result of Tune In. But we have surfaced a number of students who are interested in attending Explore Groups in order to examine the Bible with us in order to make a decision about Christ. Please pray for their eyes to be opened and hearts to be receptive.
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Photos From "Tune In"




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Family Photo


[Here is a recent family photo at our house in New Zealand]
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