I am so excited to share with you all that the Release The APE ebook is out!
Jon Hietbrink, Eric Rafferty, and I have been working hard for months to compile top posts from this blog and turn it into a resource that you can share with your teams and friends to help them understand the APE callings more clearly and easily.
A few weeks ago I wrote a post “Planting is Like Learning to Swim” and I detailed some of our struggles with Greek Ministry at USC. Well just last week we had a breakthrough. Here is a write up of a fabulous conversion story from one of the interns who works with me, Jon Wong.
“Yeah, I’m actually trying to reconnect with God. But I got to go right now.”
We met Adam while passing out flyers for Greek InterVarsity – he was one of those guys who grabbed a flyer and then disappeared, just another Greek amongst the crowd flowing by our table. He gave his phone number and biked off.
This is a guest post from Carolyn Chow. She is a recent grad from San Diego State InterVarsity and now officially a professional working woman in the marketing industry. She is a great friend of mine and I have had the privilege of watching her develop the last four years in college. I asked her to share her remarkable story of the first month on the job in LA. She is truly becoming a world changer!
Just last week I had the opportunity to lead someone to faith at work. That is right, in my first month on the job, in a completely new city, God used me right out of college to lead a sister to Christ. I couldn’t be more excited for her and the mission God has me on in the working world.
Hate to say it but we wont have a post up until wednesday. I am heading out to Catalina Island for our InterVarsity Regional Conference and will have absolutely no wifi until Tuesday night. My other friends on the blog are busy doing stuff all around the world so I don’t have any posts to load at this point either.
So I guess we can see this as little resting and reflecting point.
In the mean time answer these questions for me in the comments. If you would rather privately tell me, then email me please. Your feedback is important for this blog to serve us all best.
What kinds of things (topics, styles, etc) have you enjoyed on the blog?
What kinds of things do you wish we had more of?
Also here are the five most popular posts, in order, the last quarter incase you have missed them and want to get caught up!
Have a great few days and thanks so much for reading this blog and contributing by commenting and sharing!
[This is part of the College Writers series. We are looking for students who want to post great stories like below.]
This is a great story of conversion told by Christine. She is a college student at UCSD, majoring in Literatures in English. She is a Vision Team Leader for InterVarsity’s international chapter (International Christian Fellowship).
Grace and I first met through UCSD’s language exchange program in Fall of 2012. Our first conversation was light and simple, but things changed when she asked me about what I did for fun. I told her that I like to sing at my church on Sunday mornings, and surprisingly, she asked if she could join me. Her intrigue about church surprised me, and I responded with excitement! She then asked me what else she could do in San Diego to have fun while improving her English. I recommended that she come to International Christian Fellowship (ICF) so that she could meet both American and international students who would become good potential friends for her. Immediately, her eyes widened, and she told me that two other people had told her about ICF that week! This seemed like perfect orchestration. From that moment on, I asked God to show Himself to be real to Grace.
Nick (R) & Jon (L) are two of the guys leading Greek InterVarsity with me in LA.
By Beau Crosetto
I am a happy man today and that is because Nick Kwok, the Greek InterVarsity Staff at UCLA, is doing a phenomenal job planting the ministry and seeing it grow. But not just growing by accumulating believers. He is growing the ministry with God through conversion.
Earlier this year Nick was able to lead a student to faith in a fraternity and that was obviously exciting. But the news just gets better. Last night Nick led another guy to faith in that same fraternity. It is a great sign of growing by conversion and an answer to our prayers. At the beginning of the year, this was a fraternity without a believer in it, and now God led one guy to faith in Jesus and that guy opened the door for his fraternity brother to experience the same. That is the kind of ministry that excites me and that is growth through conversion!
One of our goals this year in the plant was to see 7 students come to faith in the ministry. So far we have 6 as of last night. Nick has been radically committed as he plants this ministry to not just accumulate believers in Christ but to articulate a vision that makes tons of space for people who are skeptics and seekers of Jesus. He makes space by doing four specific things.
Pictures of the UCLA Greek Plant from fall 2012
By Beau Crosetto
Just this week we saw a student come to faith in the Greek System at UCLA. You can read his story here.
The reason we moved to start work in the 17 Greek Systems in Los Angeles was so that we could see students connect to Jesus for the first time! Students who are intertwined in sin, confused in purpose and lost in shallow relationships.
I love starting things for God in difficult places. That is my calling in life and the Greek Systems in LA are one of those places over time I will be called to partner with God to see communities of faith start.
I write this post as a simple reminder to myself and to you about two things:
That was a fun competition everyone! I really enjoyed reading all of your comments, tweets and facebook posts! Thanks for participating and we will definitely do it again! This month to be exact!
Alan Hirsch has kindly shipped me five HARD BACK copies of “The Permanent Revolution” that he and Tim Catchim have written. We will be doing another competition and giving those away as well later this month! I Can’t wait!! make sure to subscribe here and stay connected with us!
Brian Chung – “Awesome Book!” (shared on his facebook timeline)
Michael Stalcup – “I’m working toward building up a missional community at Claremont McKenna College, especially trying to plant a group in the heart of CMC’s party culture. Already seeing God do some amazing things and I want more! And I want this book. :)”
Chris Land – He is our twitter winner and simply tweeted out the contest 🙂
Jorge Bermudez – “Missional is a way of living your faith wherever you are, intentionally and with passion.”
Kyle – “Missional means having a purpose-mindset to reach others near or far for the sakeof the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Good job guys! You will love the book! And sorry there aren’t any lady winners! I promise this was completely random 🙂 email me and I will ship them off to you!
Who doesn’t like a free book???
Well I am happy to announce that I have 5 copies of “Creating a Missional Culture” by JR Woodward to give away to you this week!
Big Thanks to InterVarsity Press for giving me these books for you! They are helping us get the word out about JR (one of our writers!!) and our blog!!
This is a great book that really helps you lean into and get familiar with the Five-Fold Ministry laid out for us in Ephesians 4.
JR calls them “Equippers” and he urges us to assemble our churches around the five equippers and shows us how to do this inside the book!
It is a great read!
Here is how to enter yourself for the drawing…
Geoff (left) and his fraternity brothers
[Hint: it’s not with Folgers in your cup!! make sure to read the testimony at the bottom!]
Jesus says in John 4,
34“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
There is no greater joy for any believer in my opinion than seeing someone accept Christ. Jesus talks about the food of the harvest and that is what sustains Him.
As an evangelist, this is the kind of thing I live on too. It is what motivates me and gets me up and out of bed every day.
This week was a hard week for me. I just felt a bit more lonely and down than usual and even doubtful about my call at times.