24 Hour Prayer

Hey friends!

Well every week we have a group of students who meet at 7am to pray for SFA on Thursday mornings. Yes, college students, at 7 am! I know, crazy! Well that awesome group organized a 24 hour prayer event this week.

Students met at 7pm Wednesday night, and kicked it off by praying together, and then prayer walking around the campus. They also were given suggestions of things to be praying for SFA during the next 24 hours. Then at 7am they met again to pray together for SFA. Finally, they group met all again at 7pm at our CRU weekly meeting, and closed the time by writing out prayers to the Lord and thanking Him for what He has been doing in their life. Then during our praise time, the students taped their prayer on a large poster. It was really cool to read some of the things the student voiced in the cards they posted.

One cool story that I got a chance to hear: One of our students who trusted Christ this semester came to the 24Hour Prayer Meetings. She had never been to anything like it before. She was in a small group with her Bible study leader, and as they walked around praying, she was quiet and just listened to the prayers. At the last location on the prayer walk, her Bible study leader gently asked her to pray, and explained that praying out loud was not any different than praying silently, just other people get to join in with your prayer to the Lord. The girl agreed, and for the first time prayed out loud in a group. Later, she went to her Bible study leader and thanked her for encouraging her to take the step and pray out loud. She said it was something that she had been wanting to do, but she was too scared and nervous to do it. But she was really excited and thankful for taking the step in her faith!

Thank you for your prayers for our students, we know that God is at work and changing their lives!

Coffee outreach outcome....

Half way through each college semester at SFA the teachers give out Mid-terms which basically give students get a taste of what the dreaded finals week has in store for them. We decided to take advantage of the increased amount of studiers at the library, so we set up outside of it to give out free coffee in an attempt meet new students that we could then share the Gospel with.

On the Tuesday night of this event we met a guy named Andrew, who did not have a relationship with the Lord. Andrew connected really well with one of our leadership students named John, and John set up a time to meet with Andrew later on the next week. They ended up meeting a few times and talking about the Gospel, and what the Bible says about God. A few weeks later Andrew called up John and insisted they meet immediately to talk about some problems he was having. During the meeting John again shared the Gospel with Andrew, and at the Starbucks on campus Andrew prayed to receive Jesus Christ into his life and began a relationship with the Lord!

Now Andrew can’t get enough of the Bible, and he is constantly asking questions. He is convinced that others should experience God in the same way as he does. In fact, he spent one Friday afternoon on campus meeting new people, and ended up sharing the Gospel with 7 people! We are so excited for what God is doing in and through Andrew.

First Greek Women’s Bible Study Tonight!

Around here, we are pretty excited because tonight at 9 we kick off our vey first all women’s Greek Bible study!

Photographer: Franz Pfluegl | Agency: Dreamstime.com

About two months ago Nicole (on staff with me) and I began to pray for opening to build relationships with girls in the Greek system. A month ago, we went to all the Panhellenic sorority meeting to invite them to an event where the could learn how to leave a legacy as a sister in their sorority, and how they could leave a spiritual legacy as well. The Greek system here is  pretty crazy. Picture college movies, and you can picture what its like. To our surprise, we had 13 girls who were from 3 different sororities who are really interested in following Christ, and helping their sisters to know about God who came to the meeting! During the meeting, we also told them we would love to start an all Greek girls Bible study,  and left a sign up for anyone who was interested. To our shock, all 13 girls signed up! We are excited that for the first time in years we are meeting girls from the Greek world, and praying that God can use us!

So tonight, we are really pumped, and praying that the girls will come, and bring a sister so that they can hear about Christ!

If you are reading this before 9 tonight, please be praying that Nicole and I will be led by the Spirit, and share with the girls who come about the Lord, and the relationship He desires to have with each of them!

Thanks!

Friday Outreach

Every Friday we have what we call "Friday Outreach"...i know...creative name. But, we take this opportunity with some of our students to go out on campus and try to get into spiritual conversations with students hanging out during the afternoon. This has gone very well this year so far, have had the gospel shared a number of times, and have seen our students step out in faith to share what Christ has done for them.
Today I had a great conversation with three students I met sitting next to the Stephen F Austin statue. The goal was to get to know these students and to use some of the tools that we have to help us talk through life and spiritual things with them. 2 of the 3 students claimed to be believers, though they couldn't put a Biblical thought to it, so most of the conversation with them was a little difficult. But the 3rd guy was really open and honest about what he believes and about his life. It was really refreshing. He said he was agnostic and stuck to it. As we talked deeper about who Jesus said He was and about what Jesus was doing on the cross, this guy became more and more intrigued. It was the first time he had ever been told that Jesus was God, the Jesus was perfect, and that Jesus chose to die of the cross, and that He didn't have to. It was his first time to hear that he could know God in a personal way.
It was a great conversation, and I am getting together with him next week again to get to know him a little better, and to sort through what the Bible says. Please pray for him and for our appt next week, that Jesus would use that time to call him into a relationship. That the student would believe what the Bible says is true, and that he's place his faith in Christ.
thank!

Cru Coffee House

Can serving free coffee help lead students to Christ? Well, we'lll see. Last week was mid-terms for many students on campus at SFA, so that means the library will be crazy busy. We realized that this may be a good opportunity to meet some new students to share the Gospel with.
So, us and our leadership students pulled together a small outreach where we would hand out free coffee in front of the library late last Tuesday and Wednesday night. Each student who gets a coffee also fills out a short survey for us where they can indicate a desire to learn more about a relationship with God. We had never done this before, so my expectations were optimistic, but kinda low.
It went so well! We had around 150 people stop by to get some coffee and almost 100 of those indicated they wanted to get together to hear about a relationship with God. We are so excited! Please pray for me, Autumn, our other staff and students as we call through these new contacts and attempt to set up some appointments so that we can share our faith, and love on the students at SFA.

Life change

Life change. We all want to have it, but sometimes it is slow and hard to see. Other days, it unfolds right before our very eyes.  Last week, on Tuesday, I had a really cool day and got to see first hand God changing lives! I get to a chance to co-lead a women’s discipleship group for  our leadership girls. That Tuesday, one of my girls was late to our meeting, which was kind of frustrating. Once she got to our house, she explained it was because she had just gotten through sharing the gospel with a new friend, and the girl actually placed her faith in Christ this afternoon! Here’s the longer story. She had gotten a phone call from a girl she met early on this fall, and the girl had a friend who really needed to talk with someone! My sweet student dropped what she was doing, and hurried to meet and comfort this girl she had never met before! This takes courage, and is to cool to see how the Spirit was at work! Turns out, the girl was having a really hard semester, was questioning life, and really just was freaked out, and to top it all off,  it was her birthday, and things just were not going well. But talk about a day turning from bad to good! Her literal birthday became her spiritual birthday as she heard the gospel and placed her faith in Christ! Also, kinda cool, my girl did not have her materials with her, but because she had memorized the gospel for her mission trip this past summer, she was ready to share with the girl! Back to the girls discipleship, we could not even begin to be frustrated! What a great reason to be late! Our frustration turned to joy as we celebrated our new sister in Christ!

And then later that night  I got to share the gospel with a girl who had no idea who Jesus was, and she was incredibly open and curious about the Gospel! Please pray that God continues to bring to mind the things she heard, and that she would place her faith in Christ! Just getting to see God's hand at work on a daily basis is fantastic!

Exciting Cru coming up!

Cru this Thursday night is something I’m really looking forward to. Every Cru more or less looks similar. There are announcements, maybe a funny video or skit, the worship, and a short talk about the Bible. Nothing about that is changing, however it’s the talk I’m excited for.
One of the guys that I have been discipling, named Eric, expressed about a month ago interest in doing a talk at Cru. He had scripture that the Lord had been teaching him from and wanted to share that with the students at Cru.
This isn’t something that usually happens; the talks are typically staff, and experienced believers that we bring in to talk. But, Eric is a guy who has been walking with God for a few years and who demonstrates a mature relationship with the Lord where he makes great decisions based on God’s will for his life, so we are letting him go for it!
Eric has an atheistic background and is talking about the part of Matthews story when Jesus is answering questions from Pontius Pilate about who He is. Eric has a great heart for the Lord and I know he’s gonna do a great job on his talk Thursday night. I wanted to inform you first because I just think it’s cool, and second so you can be praying for him because he doesn’t naturally feel comfortable being upfront. Please pray that the Lord would speak through him, that Eric would prepare well, and that he would be calm and able to be himself.