Question: What does the love of God look like?

I know it has been a while, and I totally have not hit my goal of blogging every day. Here is the sweet thing about goals, you can change them, at least when you set them for yourself. I am proud of my self for blogging as much as I do. However I do want to kick it up a notch as Emeril would say.

I heard a great interview while I was driving. I was listening to the Relevant Magazine podcast, and they interviewed Brian McLaren. I could probably write a whole blog about what I think about those two (Relevant, and McLaren) but I will just say that all things should be taken with a grain of salt. The bottom line is this McLaren said some pretty insightful things that challenged me and made me think.

He explained that in most cases the church has made the gospel about getting as many people in to heaven as possible. He used the term exit strategy a few times to describe this. In addition, he alluded to the fact that the church should be more concerned with the injustices that are going on all around us. I am not sure if he meant the latter is more important than the former, however I say you can't have one without the other.

John 13:35
By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another

There are some really obvious injustices occurring all over the world, like AIDS, Human Trafficing, and Famine, just to name a few. These are all important and we need to be part of the solution in some way. However, my question for you, and for God is this: What does God's love look like? or in other words what injustices, or needs occur around us, and more specifically on our college campuses? How do we show the love of God to our peers on the campus? What needs are there? How can we show compassion? or as Jesus himself put it, What makes us different?

The New Year, The New Blog, and The Best of 2007

So here it goes, this is going to sound crazy to some of you. My new years resolution is to blog every day in 2008! I know that some youth, and college age pastors have said that through the ages, but I really mean it. It may not be ground breaking, or profound, but it will be everyday.

The best of 2007...
AG Frat House
XA Leaders Retreat
XA Small Group Studies (You guys rock)
My Lovely Girlfriend
Reach the U in Springfield, MO
"The Master Plan for Evangelism" By Robert Coleman (Great read, you brainiacs that love to read could knock it out in an evening)
The Well Ping Pong
The first two weeks of RMU fall semester (jam packed with crazy events and fun)
Seeing the high school students grow, and leaders emerge
The Tarahumara, Mexico, and Ernie Peacock
Freshman
Loving Jesus more every day
And there was so much more...

The Midwest: Home of the Bass Pro Shop, and Sonic Burgers

This past weekend, five college/career agers, myself included, embarked on a monumental journey into the region of America know as "The Midwest" The mission: travel to Springfield, MO attend Reach the U at Central Bible College, while consuming as many sonic burgers, and cherry limeades as possible.

Lets just say sonic burger didn't stand a chance against us. As for the Reach the U conference, it rocked our worlds. Quite frankly, I didn't know what to expect. The teachings in the group growth track were simple, yet profound, and ruined my whole way of looking at the campus of Robert Morris University.

Our only complaint was this: not enough teaching sessions, too much free time (insert sarcastic tone). It was flippin jam packed, in a completely good way. If the schedule had not been so full, students and campus pastors would have been overwhelmed with choices of what to do first in Springfield. Upon our arrival I asked a cafeteria attendant if there was anything to do in Springfield. Three words: Bass Pro Shop. Unfortunately I never made it to the BPS in our 120 seconds we had between sessions due to the fact there was a Starbucks across the street from it, and my minivan always found its way into the Sstarbucks parking lot...