Recovery Ministry

Emotional health and spiritual health are often linked and dependent upon one another. Sometimes we have a tendency to pretend otherwise. This can happen especially when we find signs of compulsive behavior, lasting depression, unnatural fears or other emotional instability. It can be easy to think that whoever is experiencing these things really needs to improve their relationship with the Lord. And that is probably an accurate assumption. However, it can become dangerous and people can really begin thinking that something is fundamentally wrong with them if they believe that emotional problems have solely a spiritual cause.

I've begun the first class in a Recovery Ministry series with a couple other male staff from The Rock entitled Making Peace with Your Past. We are being lead by a leader in a local church who has lead and trained others to lead this course about a dozen times already. Here is a description of the course:

"This is a Life recovery study that offers practical, biblically based teaching to lead adults to identify, understand, and come to terms with the feelings and problems of growing up in a dysfunctional family. This course will help adults who grew up in a home in which one of the family members had emotional needs so strong that they disrupted the development of healthy relationships. Participants will understand problems from the past and identify and remove emotional, psychological, and spiritual barriers to fellowship with God."

I'm hoping that not only will it help me to take an honest look at my own past but that it will be a great tool of insight to help get started with a recovery ministry within The Rock. Many of our staff women (including Aimee) took this class last school year and they have been greatly blessed by it.

Again, emotional and spiritual health are closely linked I believe. Having unresolved emotional pain can be a hindrance to connecting with the Lord with freedom. I'm already learning a lot and am grateful to be taking this course.

Please be praying

- That I will make the time to thoroughly go through our daily homework

- That those of us in the class will be open to what God has to show us.

- That in the future this can be used as a tool to help other men in our church to make peace with their past.

Men's Study

This summer the men in our church are going through a study by Erwin McManus called "Chasing Daylight". Fellow missionary/ staffer Chad Clooten is leading the 10-week study with roughly 12-15 other men who are around Columbia this summer. The focus of the study seems to be on embracing each moment as we follow the life of Jonathan. It should be a great tool to help us embrace where we are and ruthlessly follow God's plan for us.

We had a really good first night as we adjusted to this new type of ministry for The Rock. To my knowledge, we've never had a men's study that includes a DVD teaching and workbook, so it's kind of an experiment for us as well. As I looked around the room I realized that I knew all of the men there but I wasn't so sure that they knew each other very well. I'm looking forward to seeing relationships begin and deepen as we open up our dreams that God has put on our hearts to one another.

Please be praying for our times on Monday nights. I have a deep passion for the men of the church to rise up and take their role as spiritual leaders. Pray that we would begin our stride in following more intimately with the Lord and this will happen naturally.

Andrew & Kirstin Schulz

Two of Aimee and my dear friends, Andrew and Kirstin Schulz, have begun the support-raising trail. They came back from Staff Training in Orlando just a couple of days ago and are raising up a ministry team for GCM of their own. The Schulzs' are very good friends of ours and it

is exciting to see them take off on their own journey. It will be a challenging year for them but we believe God will be faithful and that he will bring in the funds necessary.

Andrew has been in charge of the Music Team for some time and also has been very involved in doing the finances of The Rock. He recently graduated with a Masters in Accountancy from MU. He has a heart to continue his work in the music and finance aspects of our church and is a true instrument of encouragement to me and the men in our church.

Kirstin just graduated from nursing school at MU and was an equipper for our Canvas Group this year. It's been awesome to see her pour into discipling women at The Rock as well as just serving the church in multiple areas. She and Aimee are good friends and are great at encouraging one another.

Please be praying for them! They will spend the first part of their journey here in Columbia, where Kirstin is from. After some time they plan on moving to the St Louis area to connect with people in Andrew's circle. Pray that God does some great work in them and through them during this time.

Summer Discussion Group

This is my latest reading material: Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem. I've been thinking a lot for the past couple of months about how important it is for us to have a solid foundation in our beliefs as Christians. I've also been thinking a lot about how much baggage the term "theology" can have with people who don't normally delve into it. This summer, I want to challenge the notion that studying theology should be left up to the pastors to teach us. I want to challenge the notion that the congregation comes only to be fed what they should believe.

In the context of a university atmosphere, especially, this seems very fitting. Students come here to learn about a given field and then go and make an impact in that field as a career. How much more important is it, then, to study our very outlook on life? How much more important is it to see what Scripture clearly says about the nature of Christ, the purpose of atonement and the Trinity?

So, this summer, along with two grad students from The Rock, I will be leading a weekly discussion group covering basic biblical doctrine. Our topics will include:

Authority of Scripture, God the Father, Man, Sin, Jesus as Fully Man and Fully God, Salvation, Holy Spirit, Justification, Sanctification and the role of the Church.

Our purpose is to spend some time teaching on these topics and then to address relevant questions that can allow us to let the Holy Spirit change us.

Why is this important for us to understand?

How does this affect our world view?

What challenges does our culture present us in this area?

How does this affect our relationship with God?

How does this affect our witness?

We don't want to build up knowledge. Knowledge, after all, puffs up. Love builds up. We don't want to create scholars necessarily but we want to empower these students to own their faith. We want them to dig through the Scriptures for answers to questions they have. We want them to question and to wrestle with their faith. We want them to be beacons of light where God has placed them.

And this, I pray, is simply an opportunity for us to let a right understand of God and his works absolutely change our lives, our campus, our community and our world. Please join me in praying that this discussion group can be a humble tool for God to continue transforming the lives of these students for his glory.

Reaching the LOST

Pun intended.

The Canvas Group I inherited back in October is a great group of students who are striving to grow in their relationship with the Lord but did not have a very strong dorm presence. At the beginning of each year, we pass out spiritual interest surveys and follow up with people who shared that they would like to find a church home. We got a little bit of fruit from those, but for the most part, we knew very few people who lived in the area that we have been trying to reach.

After being about a month in as a campus missionary, Aimee and I discovered that several people within our Canvas Group really, and I mean really, enjoy the show LOST. I also knew that the final season of LOST would begin this semester. I also knew that the Plaza dorm area has a commons area on the third floor with a big screen TV.

A solution to our lack of dorm presence was laid right before me: LOST watch parties in the dorms.

I pitched the idea to our equippers at the beginning of this semester and they were all for it. Soon after, we had a season premiere watch party. The first week we had only people from Canvas Group show up. The second week we had three people we didn't know come by and watch with us. Since beginning this Tuesday night trend, we are now outnumbered regularly by "others". Our party now hovers around 15-20 people each week.

It's been a great way to get our group to be more intentional with where and with whom they spend their time. Something as simple as watching a TV show can be an outreach tool if we let the Lord use it. Where our group once had little interest in meeting the people in the dorms, we now are used to spending time there and we are learning to pursue those people.

Please be praying for us:

• That we would continue to use the dorms as a place for evangelism.
• That we would build relationships with the students who are coming and that we would get to a point where we can share the gospel with them.
• That God would reveal to us other ways in which we can be intentional with our time.