24 Hour Prayer Tent: October 1, 2010

Our tent was on the Glen Terrell Mall and open from midnight to midnight. Over 35 students and staff attended the tent. InterVarsity partnered with campus chapters of International Justice Mission and World Vision ACT:s as well as other campus ministries. Because of this amazing partnership, we had two people pray almost every hour for 24 hours!

Highlights of Comments in Prayer Tent Guest book

• So excited to see God's people present and not afraid to pray. Let's pray big prayers, for God to do big things, with strong belief in their fulfillment.
• God is powerful and good. It is good to be in fellowship with other believers.
• Lord, I pray to heal the sick and the suffering. Make use of your servants to solve the injustices and do your word. You are the Almighty and I cry out to you to end what troubles my heart.
• Thank you for doing this. God knowns the world could always use a little more prayer and divine assistance.
• It is awesome that you guys are raising awareness of these things and that you give people an opportunity to pray on campus for something that is so important.
• Favorite scripture passage, "Jesus wept." We know the problems of injustice firsthand. His compassion and love can guide any movement for justice.
• To really experience life to the fullest we must STOP the thing that are wrong in our lives. Take a good look around, ask God to BREAK our hearts and begin to change the wrongs in the world.
• I feel compelled to follow and be where God wants me to be. Helping those who have experienced so much pain and suffering.
• Prayer tent is the best tent on campus.
• We had a guy come to talk with us. He said he felt lead to come here tonight. It was interested because we had just finished praying that someone would come in. We prayed with him and it was a great interaction.
• We talked to a professor for almost an hour. One of the things we talked about was community and quiet and how technology limits our ability to have both. He was very interesting to talk to-- he said he had come to be at the university because he liked discussion and questioning of the academic world. He said he was disappointed at the lack of discussion here.
• We need to serve God on His terms, not ours. If he tells us to go, we should go. He will always take care of us so we shouldn't be afraid to follow God. And, prayer tents are awesome!

christian consumerism

JESUS IS LORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if you know this is true press like. :) on ♥

This is a link that I saw on Facebook yesterday. Many of my friends posted it and thus it ended up on my profile a few times.

I find myself hesitant to "like" it.

It may be my rebellious nature, but I am hesitant to "like" Christian statements...even ones that I agree with like the one above. I think that I feel pressured, which I don't like very much. I also feel like this mouse click becomes the determiner of whether or not I am Christian or love Jesus. Isn't the Christian life supposed to be about a lot more than facebook statuses or liking or disliking statements? Isn't a worldview that has been dangerous enough to get people killed consistently for 2000 years something that cannot be captured in a single line?

I was curious enough about this particular status to click the the heart button though.

What I found was a page that ranking the number of "likes" various statements had achieved. "Jesus is Lord" was along side statements about being "badass" or various "this person is hotter than this person" ideas. And what else was on that page...ads. Ads equal revenue on the web.

So what I realized was that liking "Jesus is Lord" really meant giving money to some organization that Facebook has reported is phishing and installing malware on people's computers.

I have no beef with saying "Jesus is Lord". Saying so in the 1st century was actively affirming Jesus over Ceaser. This is a statement that is dripping in revolution and power. It just makes me sad that this statement is now used to target Christians for computer hacking and financial gain. I think Christians (myself included!) are so ready to affirm what we believe in words, that we can feel like we are not faithful or bold if we are hesitant to agree with every Christian statement or email that comes our way.

I believe that we affirm or deny Jesus' Lordship in how we live. Having more "likes" than someone else, or find 1,000,000 Christians doesn't really further Jesus' Kingdom. How we love others does. How we serve others does. Introducing people to Jesus they haven't met with scripture study does.

I will gladly be used by somebody, if that will show the sacrificial love of Jesus, but not so that some company can make a few bucks.

I Believe

i believe...

I believe in God. He is good, fair and just. I believe that he is the embodiment of love. I believe that the world was created out of the abundance of that love.

I believe that Jesus is God's son and is God himself. I believe that Jesus lived in most dynamic, perfect and revolutionary life that can be lived. I believe he was executed for being too dynamic, perfect and revolutionary. I believe that he rose from the dead and that when he died he got what we had coming. I believe that him coming back from the dead is what we now have coming.

I believe in God's Spirit. I believe that God exists in the world now. Is doing stuff now. Is healing hearts and bodies now.

I believe in damage. I believe that the world that was created out of love has been damaged. I believe that people want more than they need or are entitled to. They want more stuff, power and escape than they can handle. I believe that damage is fueled by a spiritual enemy who is just as spiteful and greedy as God is loving.

I believe that nothing has to stay dead.

I believe that everything can be restored.

I believe that I am never allowed be violent towards someone else. I am not to wield my power against them.

I believe that God has a Kingdom. It looks like Jesus, stretched out over/under everything.

I believe that God's Kingdom is my home and my nationality.

I believe that fear and guilt are evidence of the damage, not of the Kingdom.

I believe that God doesn't make people love or live with him. But invites everyone to.

I believe that I am inadequate.

I believe that I am infinitely valuable.

I believe that the Kingdom is a welfare state.

I believe that good and beautiful things belong to God.

I believe that God is a creator and he loves when we create.

I believe that God is not intimidated questions. I believe that his enemy is terrified by them.

I believe that God weeps.

I believe that God laughs.

I believe that God angers.

I believe that God relents.

I believe that God is curious.

I believe that God is fascinated.

I believe that God is not satisfied.

I believe that God loves me more than my wife does.

I believe that people are supposed to be together, with God.

I believe that people are not supposed to hate other people. That offends God.

I believe that people should not be the ones who make seeing God harder.

I believe that Jesus came so that people could see God.

I believe that Jesus started church so that people could still see God.

I believe that church can help people see God still.

I believe that Jesus lived simply. I believe that matters.

I believe that Jesus lived with people.

I believe that Jesus spent time with good people.

I believe that Jesus spent time with bad people.

I believe that Jesus forgave people.

I believe that Jesus gave purpose to people.

I believe that Jesus offended people that he loved.

I believe that Jesus was honest.

I believe that Jesus only yelled at religious people.

I believe that Jesus didn't squelch curiosity.

I believe that Jesus wasn't racist or sexist.

I believe that Jesus was too beautiful to ignore.

I believe that Jesus was too beautiful to live.

I believe that Jesus is still alive.

I believe the church is supposed to look like Jesus.

I believe the church can look like Jesus.

Day 4

Missed yesterday. In my defense though, I left my house at 8AM and got home at 10PM.

75 "perfect" push ups and planks
2 Samuel 15 and 16.

David's son started a rebellion against him and drove David out of the kingdom. People who are loyal to Saul's family have taken the chance to mock David for being an illegitimate king.

I wonder how I would feel if my son had betrayed me and I was driven away? How would the voices of my legitimacy land in my heart? Would I believe that God had grown tired of me?

Out.

Day 2

Read: 2 Samuel 10-14

Work our: push ups and sit ups

So today's scripture was ripe with sexual sin. David's affair with Bathsheba was the most famous passage that I read today. David got caught being a peeping tom while another man's wife was sun bathing. Being king, he was able to ask her over and sleep with her. She became pregnant and David arranged for the murder of her husband. It is a pretty ugly episode for the "man after God's heart" who has been given the Holy Spirit.

The second story of sexual sin is much less famous, but in my opinion is far more interesting. David's son Amnon falls in love (or is it obsession) with his sister Tamar. He fakes sick in order to rape her. After he rapes her he instantly begins to hate her.

I found this shift from infatuation to hatred fascinating. This seems to be so true when it comes to sexual sin. You want something, you are fixated on something, you long for something, all you can think about is those things and then you have it...and hate replaces the fixation. Self-hate, hate for God, hate for the person and hate for the situation all fill the place where fixation was before.

I think that it is like that with every lust. You want that car. You read all the reviews. You dream about that car. Then you get it and it is awesome. Until it starts to pull to the right while you drive. Then the car is crap and you begin to hate it. I do this with cell phones. I have seen people do this with living rooms. And this passage reminds us that people do this people.

Out.

discipline day 1

So today is technically day one of my discipline time (since I am off of vacation).

Read: 2 Samuel 7-10
Ran: 2.25 mile run

Today's reading was pretty interesting. David took Saul's grandson in and God made a covenant with David to "build him a house".

Run was tiring. I don't run with the sun up too often. I am not sure if I am out of shape or just not a morning runner.

One thought: discipline is not magic. I had hoped that reading and running would make transitioning into a day of fundraising easier. Not so much. I still stalled after breakfast and avoided the stress of the day by overclocking to the processor on my cell phone. I am hoping that discipline will seep into the rest of my life. It is my prayer that God would help me be more prov-active and less reactive during this season. I hoping that discipline will make space for this transformation.

Out.

discipline

This will be a quick post, due to the fact that I am on vacation in Canada (supposedly camping, but Sean and I ended up in the Canadian version of Bend).

I need discipline to survive. I felt remarkably un-stressed at Summit, but as soon as returning to Moscow to "rest" my stress returned. I think that stress pushes me away from discipline and discipline. As Fat Bastard would say, "it's a vicious cycle".

So plan of action; between now and the beginning of the school year I will:

• Read two chapters of scripture per day
• Work out 6 days a week
• Blog that I did it and a quick thought

This will begin for real on Monday, but today I continued in 1 Samuel 16-17. David was anointed king, Goliath was killed and the Spirit of God left Saul to live with David. I think that it was a big deal that David killed Goliath because the Spirit was in him and not just because he was a stud. I am curious how much the Spirit of God leaving Saul leads him down the road towards hunting David down. I think that when we teach David about Saul and David, we need to talk more about the Spirit. Seems like a big deal.

Sean and I went on a six-mile hike.

And I blogged!

Jeremiah Out.

the correction of missions

Hello. Long time, no blog.

It is amazing to me how much of your view of the world can be based on who you choose to compare yourself to. One of the core values of Summit (recent two week urban plunge) was simplicity. The question is; simplicity in comparison to whom? It is easy to find people that I live more simply than and it is easy to ignore people who have really chosen to live a simple life. I can spend most of my year reveling in my own relative simplicity. I can scoff at others who are more wasteful and materialistic than myself.

This is of course why I need mission trips.

I need to see that others do not get to choose their level of simplicity, it is a choice that has been made for them. I need to spend some time really living by needs and become struck by how little I miss my toys. I need to what drives people to work long hours for $60 a month (and room and board). I need to see that is actually possible to live differently.

Consumerism is something that we breathe in all the time. We are advertised to constantly. The video we see, the print we read and the sounds we hear all tell us what we need and currently don't have. I am aware of the ads that I reject, but what about the other hundred ads that I barely notice until they have found a home in my desire? Is it possible to long for God and toys at the same time?

At Summit, we eat on $6 per day, per person. You can barely go to McDonald's on that. But we do it. We labor together on dinner. Eat together and clean up together. We work for our housing. We live in a space that is enough. We eat food that is enough. We cut our extraneous noise so that we can hear God. We serve others after getting enough sleep.

For four weeks this summer I was able to experience what it is like to live by enough. Now I am back in the world that tries to convince me that I need excess and that right now I do not really have enough.

Without the call of mission I am not sure that I would have the discipline to reorient. And how long can one last between reorientation? Weeks? Months? Years? What does 20 years of no reorientation look like? Where do you end up at the end of that journey? I suspect that you end up consumed by what you don't have. I suspect that you end worried about having enough all the time.

Mother Teresa said that we invented poverty because we don't share. I don't think that we fail to share because we are greedy, but because we are scared. I think that fear blinds us to what we have and what we need.

Mission creates freedom because mission creates in us the difference between God and world's definition of enough.

Prayer Letter June 2010

Summit is a two week urban project designed to explore core InterVarsity values. We spend six hours a day volunteering with local service agencies. We spend two hours each afternoon in prayer, praying for transformation in the neighborhood as well as in our own lives. We live simply, cooking our own meals with healthy and filling ingredients. We limit our cell phone usage so that we can spend more time with each other. We study scripture together to learn more about the character of God and His heart for the world. We watch videos about individuals who have lived out these values in their lives like Mother Teresa. For two weeks, we soak students in the values of simplicity, prayer, community and service. They leave in a process of transformation. A few highlights from students:

• “I learned a lot about prayer and I think that as I spend much more time in prayer, that God will change my life.”
• “Summit has changed my perspective on how to approach intimacy with God. As I leave, the greatest change will be in my daily walk with God. I know now my need to daily surrender my power to God as an act of dependence and invite him in to speak and work.”

Year in Review…

- In August, Jeremiah and Donan hosted “Sexy Pizza,” a Q and A on sex and the bible. 75 students at WSU attended.

- In October, WSU and UI students attended annual Fall Conference and encountered God in new ways.

- 6 students from University of Idaho attended Urbana, a national missions conferences.

- 2 Greek women from WSU attended InterVarsity’s national Greek conference in Charlotte.

- WSU InterVarsity grows from 5 at the beginning of the year to 10!

- 4 WSU students and 3 UI students attended Summit.

Thank you for your partnership in seeing lives changed, campuses transformed and world changers developed!!

core values

Summit number 1 of the summer is in the books. I am now two days out from the experience and I am still trying to transition into the "real world". For those of you who don't know what Summit is; Summit is a radical two week experiment that gathers InterVarsity students into a house and steeps them in Prayer, Community, Service and Simplicty. These core values are lived out in community service, simple living, daily spiritual disciplines and outreach to the Hilltop community of Tacoma.

My job at Summit this year was to be the keeper of the Summit ethos. I defended, taught and harped on our values in group discussions. For two weeks I attempted to live our values, so that I could help impart our values. I prayed that Jesus would make those values mine so that it would be the most natural thing in the world to re-enforce them.

Now I am back. I am typing on a laptop, drinking a cup of coffee, staring at an InterVarsity budget and wondering if these are the values that define my own life.

I had a dream last night that Donan and I bought a house in the inner city and charged a group of people $400 per month for rent and food costs (essentially the cost of Summit spread over a month) and made Summit values our life values.

I am not sure that dream is realistic or is consistent with the other calls that Jesus has put on my life (namely doing college ministry!) but it does challenge and rupture a part of my heart. How much privacy do I need? How much financial freedom?

I have participated in six Summits and will do one more this summer and two next summer. I am asking myself how much these values have sunk in. Do I really believe that service is a joy? That prayer is essential and makes a difference? That we hear God better without the noise affluence?

Perhaps the central question really is...can I allow Jesus to be the keeper of the Summit ethos in my own life?