On Being Fair...

I was praying today and, through my tears, was telling God what I thought wasn't fair about certian situations in my life. He gently reminded me that He is fair and He is just. The only time He isn't fair in His dealings with me is when He shows me far more grace and favor than I could ever deserve.

He's fair. But when He's not, it's only to give me something I didn't earn [this is Grace]. That was a bit of a revelation to me.

Sometimes we (or maybe it's just me who does this) get so focused on our rights and what we think we should have. This is because we've lost sight of how infinite God is and how much He's already given us.

"For God is not unjust. He will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other believers, as you still do. Our great desire is that you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts, in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true. Then you will not become spiritually dull and indifferent. Instead, you will follow the example of those who are going to inherit God’s promises because of their faith and endurance." Hebrews 6:10-12

Thoughts on Mission

There was something really unique about the mission team that was here a couple weeks ago. Not so much the team themselves (although they were all wonderful individuals), but more so the opportunities we had for outreach while they were here. Before moving here two years ago, both Sarah and the Zickafooses were involved in fulltime campus ministry in the States. For the past ten years Sarah and Joe have been bringing mission teams to Scotland, first to Inverness and then in 2001 they started coming to Aberdeen. The team that came this year was the first to be able to do outreach and have such a presence on campus - no doubt the fruit of years and years where others who came were able to do nothing more than prayer walk. Thanks to our Amazing God.

I'm reading a fantastic book right now called Off Road Disciplines by Earl Creps. In a chapter on mission and evangelism he refers to unsaved people as the "sought". We often refer to non-Christians as seekers, but in reality they aren't the ones seeking, God is. When Adam and Eve chose to disobey, it was God who searched the garden, crying out "Where are you?..." He is the Seeker. They are lost and Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost - making them the sought. Creps has many other interesting thoughts such as....

"The Church's job is not to save people but to shape the space in which God calls them to Himself. So I propose that, in addition to other perspectives, we start thinking of evangelism three-dimensionally, as a volume of missional space..."

Heart: "Embracing culture and loving the ministry are not enough. Mission begins in feeling the Seeker's love for the sought poured out 'into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given to us.'" In the heart dimension, the sought become more than simply the goal of our program, but the one He died for. We need to see them as a person who needs love and ask ourselves if they are feeling loved.

Venue: "Love needs an address. Without a specific location, it remains an abstract idea or a sentimental impulse, the kind of love on which pop music lyrics obsess." Practically, this means we need to ask ourselves if our venue is a place the sought want to come and will come. Is it the right missional space for the sought to ask questions, make friends, and find help?

Spirit: "The Spirit dimension involves the infusion of God's presence and power into the venues (personal, electronics, institutional) in which the Church interacts with the sought. Sensitivity to this dimension comes from realizing that, no matter the depth of our relationship with the sought, only in a relationship with the Seeker will they be 'called out of darkness and into the wonderful light.'" It is not enough for the sought to make a relational connection with us. Although this is vital, without also connecting them with God we've missed the point. There needs to be some kind of movement in terms of their receptivity. In other words, the sought needs to move closer to the Gospel. Whether by program, atmosphere, relationships, or all of those, the sought needs to be impacted and moved closer to realizing that the Gospel is an option for them

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One thing that really sticks out about Jesus is that He kept getting invited to parties. That really speaks something about His genuineness in His relationships with others. He must have been a really good friend. It was so rewarding to see how many unsaved students showed up to our Ceilidh on Friday night. Most of them had never been to a Radiate event before. One of the girls in my small group brought several unsaved friends with her. One of them said as they were leaving, "For church people, they sure do throw a good party." Another one told her it was the first Ceilidh she'd ever been to where she wasn't drunk. And she had a great time. That says a lot! It's a big deal because students like that will wonder why we can have so much fun without getting wrecked on alcohol. Maybe that girl will start to wonder if she needs to be drunk to really enjoy herself. Maybe she'll even start to ask herself why she uses alcohol to cover up who she really is. Having that much fun with "church people", in a church, will make them think differently about God. After a bit (or a lot) more time investing in relationship with them and consistantly showing them a kind of Love they can't get anywhere else, they start to realize that God not only loves them, but He likes them as well. And maybe, just maybe, He can take the broken bits of their lives and make them whole. I have seen this happen with my own eyes. It's a beautiful thing.

We are still learning a lot about how to reach the sought in Scotland. If you looked over the schedule of events from when the mission team was here, you probably noticed that the majority of them were social events. There is a reason for this. We've tried a number of different things and used to do what seemed like the most non-threatening of all outreaches: We met in a pub for a year and a half. During these meetings we'd eat and fellowship, our band would cover secular songs, Sarah would talk for maybe 15 minutes about a relevant topic, always sharing truth from God's Word but sometimes not even mentioning the name of Jesus. And for quite a while, this worked. Radiate more than quadrupled in size during that time, but it got to a point last sememster where our students were saying their unsaved friends didn't want to come because "they knew what we were up to." BUT, they loved coming to our social events which, most of the time, met at the church.

So this semester we've taken one step backward and are doing more social events for our outreaches, in addition to our Bible studies and services that meet on a regular basis. The goal is to create moments where we can interact with university students and show them God's love and truth thru our relationships with them. Cause honestly, that's the only way they're going to see it. So with the Cafes (one of our outreach events, which happens biweekly) we use the platform of our students creative arts to talk about God. It's not about us being as clever as we can in our presentation, but about us being authentically honest about who we are and who God is.

We don't pray to a dead god, we pray to the only God. Please continue to pray that we will have divine appointments with university students, and that we will have the opportunity to introduce them to God.

For the Love of Peeps

Alright, so we're a little challenged marshmallowy here in Scotland. There are marshmallows, and they actually taste quite nice, but they can't be roasted and they don't have as wide a range of sizes and shapes as we do in the States. Knowning this, my lovely mother figured we probably didn't have Peeps over here so she sent me a couple boxes to share with my small group girls.

They had never seen a Peep before! Can you believe it?! It's just weird. I, personally, can't imagine my life without Peeps (even though I never actually eat them) just because once Easter hits, a small army of Peeps make their decent upon the "Seasonal" asile of every grocery store in the Nation.

So here we are, enjoying our Peep adventure....

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Two Peeps facing an imminent death by explosion in the microwave. We were all laughing, but a couple girls did think I was kinda mean for doing this. "It's nearly a chicken!" Martha said. But I was like, "No it's not! It's made out of marshmallow, you silly." Then Rachel argued, "But it has a face!" Hahaha... so special...
Pure awe and amazment as they watch the Peeps expand to the brink of bursting.
All the girls in my small group say, "Thanks, Mum!" for sending the Peeps :o)

I love this hymn

[What was going thru my head]

while we sang this hymn on Sunday morning

or I guess you could say...

This is what my mouth sings [This is what my heart sings]

In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light [Guide], my strength, my song [You are the anthem of my life]
This cornerstone, this solid ground,[I grip You when nothing else is stable]
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.[You are my Constant]
What heights of love, what depths of peace [Only and completely in Your presence]
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease [What would it be like to not strive anymore? I want to be done striving, it’s getting really old]
My comforter, my all in all [Jesus: all I need, all I have]
Here in the love of Christ I stand [Your love is all I need, so desparately I have sought Your face]

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness, [Something I don't deserve and could never earn]
Scorned by the ones He came to save. [And You're still being scroned; I see it everyday]

Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied [The perfectly wise and complete plan of God]
For every sin on Him was laid—[My sin, all the crap I've ever done and will do]
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain. [My sin - my darkness]
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave He rose again! [And this is the redemption You offer to us]
And as He stands in victory,
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me [Yes, I am FREE!]
For I am His and He is mine— [Enough said]
Bought with the precious blood of Christ. [You paid the highest price for me, because to You I am of great worth]

No guilt in life, no fear in death—[I want others to know this feeling]
This is the power of Christ in me. [..and this one, too]
From life's first cry to final breath [My whole life, You see every moment]
Jesus commands my destiny. [You have a good plan]
No power of hell, no scheme of man [I am safe]
Can ever pluck me from His hand. [Hide me in the shadow of Your wings]
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand.

Red Nose Ceilidh

We finished out this week with a Red Nose Ceilidh on Friday. Amazing!!! I feel sorry for all my fellow Americans who are missing out on Ceilidh dancing cause it's one of the best things EVER. For those of you who don't know, Ceilidh(pronounced "kay-lee") is traditional Scottish dancing. It's a cross between swing dancing and square dancing and most always leaves you tired and sore. The Scottish have a saying, "It's not a good Ceilidh until someone gets hurt." So much fun! We had a great turn out, a fantastic band, tons of food, and heaps of new students show up to get sweaty dancing the night away. Many students left saying it was the best Ceilidh they'd ever been to. Seriously! We'll definitely be doing this again. I thank God for the favor He's given us and the wonderful atmosphere that was there last night. I think we'll be seeing a lot of those unsaved students back at Radiate events in the future.

Three of the guys from the American team rented kilts for the Ceilidh. Such troopers, they are. The one in the darker kilt is Michael, one of our students.

Spinning and spinning

Twirling is the best part.

They rocked the party.

I know it doesn't look like it, but there really is order to this chaos :o)

Ready, set, go!!

Yeah, I look so cool when I dance.

Grab your partner, spin them 'round, then fling them acorss the dance floor. It goes something like that.

Starbucks & Chocolate

Wooooooo-Hooooo!!!! The Starbucks outreach was a huge success. At one point we counted 50-some-odd people there, and a bunch more came even after that! The christian/non-christian ratio was about 60/40 and everyone seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves. I got to meet so many new students who have never been to a Radiate event before. And honestly, it was really just so much fun.

The band played acoustically all night. It was really cool to see our students who are musically gifted get up there and play with the guys from the mission team.

We had a couple pub quizzes, which were faciltated by two of our students (Jo and Michael). In the pic above, Jo is displaying the pub quiz prizes that Starbucks donated.

See, I told you we were having a good time.

We also showed some Red Nose comedy clips from years passed. SO funny.

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On Tuesday afternoon we set up a chocolate fountian in the lobby of one of the main buildings on campus. This wasn't just any chocolate fountian, it was a Belgium chocolate fountian. That's right, heaven on earth. As students walked thru, they were lured to our corner of the lobby by a chocolatey smell they just couldn't ignore. We got to bless a lot of students with this sweet afternoon snack and also invite all of them to our Red Nose Ceilidh on Friday. One group of guys on their way to play rugby tried to blow me off and act uninterested when I offered the chocolate fountian, but as soon as rugby was over, they were all back to partake. Hahaha... I'm pretty confident we'll be seeing a lot of the students we got to meet on Tuesday at the Ceilidh on Friday. Yay!!

In awe of the chocolate fountian.

Chocolate: It brings the world together.

Red Nose Day

All this week and especially this Friday people all over Britian are celebrating Red Nose Day by raising money for a charity organization called Comic Relief. Comic Relief was founded in the United Kingdom in 1985 in response to famine in Ethiopia. It now raises money for Africa and disadvantaged people in the UK. Red Nose Day is held in the spring every other year and is the main way in which Comic Relief raises money. It is often treated as a semi-holiday and culminates in a live television event on BBC1 starting in the evening and going through into the early hours of the morning. However, many other money-raising events take place. As the name suggests, the day involves the wearing of plastic/foam red noses which are available to purchase in many shops.
As you know, this week we have a mission team over from the States. After we started planning events (including the Ceilidh on Friday) we realized that March 16th is Red Nose Day. We're always looking for ways to serve our community show them that we aren't Christians who say one thing and do another, but we really are concerned about the needs of our community and our world. The fact that our Ceilidh falls exactly on Red Nose Day presents us with an awesome opportunity to do just that by using it to raise money for the Comic Relief charity. All our events this week serve two purposes:

1. To create moments where we can interact with university students in Aberdeen, giving us the opportunity to build relationships with them and introduce them to God.

2. To raise mu-lah for the Comic Relief charity. Wahoooo!!!

It's been a load of fun so far. We spent a couple hours this morning on the Aberdeen University campus passing out invites to our event at Starbucks tonight. And yes, we did wear our foam red noses the whole time. We are so cool. So exceptionally cool, in fact, that a guy from the university newspaper asked us to pose for a picture. "Ah, that's brilliant!" he said. I just knew my big break was coming soon!

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So inconspicuous.

The Life Saving Station

On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur there was once a crude little life-saving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves, they went out day or night tirelessly searching for the lost.

Many lives were saved by this wonderful little station, so that it became famous. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding areas, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews were trained. The little life-saving station grew.

Some of the new members of the life-saving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and so poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. So they replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in an enlarged building. Now the life-saving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they re-decorated it beautifully and furnished it as a sort of club. Less of the members were now interested in going to sea on life-saving missions, so they hired life boat crews to do this work.

The mission of life-saving was still given lip-service but most were too busy or lacked the necessary commitment to take part in the life-saving activities personally.
About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boat loads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick, and some of them had black skin, and some spoke a strange language, and the beautiful new club was considerably messed up. So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's life-saving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal life pattern of the club. But some members insisted that life-saving was their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a life-saving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the life of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own life-saving station down the coast. They did.

As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. They evolved into a club and yet another life-saving station was founded.
If you visit the seacoast today you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore.

Shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters,

only now most of the people drown.

Favor @ Starbucks

Just wanted to give you all a little update on how things are going so far this week with all the activities we have planned. The team from GSU arrived safely on Saturday afternoon (yay!) and we've already put them to work several times (double yay!). They've had lots of time to fellowship and bond with our students which has been really great.

We have our first big event tonight at Starbucks. The band will play 12-15 songs, we'll have a few pub quizzes (trivia games), hang out and make new friends, and drink lots of coffee of course :o) It's been really awesome seeing God's favor unfold the past couple weeks as we've been planning and preparing for each of these events. The manager at Starbucks is really keen on us coming in tonight. Sarah met with her last week to discuss the details of this event and explained to her what Radiate is. "Huh, that's really intersting...." she said, then went on to tell Sarah that Starbucks has been talking about doing an event like this called “After Hours” for quite some time and if this goes well, they'll book us again and continue doing this (we're their guinea pig of sorts). THEN she asked if they could take pictures of us tonight and use it in their promo material! What?! If all that isn't cool enough, she asked Sarah if we had prizes to give away for our pub quizzes tonight. When Sarah said no she donated a bunch of discontinued Starbucks mugs to use as prizes! Yeah, so cool.

Thanks for your prayers and please continue to send them our way!

big:bad:georgia:mission

From March 10-17 we'll be hosting a mission team from the Georgia Southern University Chi Alpha. We've got a very full week planned with all kinds of different outreach activities and events, culminating with a Ceilidh on Friday, 16 March. I just wanted to post the schedule so that you could all be praying for us throughout the week.

WE REALLY NEED YOUR PRAYERS

Seriously. The week will be starting off with a stint at Starbucks on Monday night. The band will play, we'll have some pub-quiz type games, hang out, make new friends, and drink a lot of coffee. But more than that, this event is kind of like a commercial for all the other events we'll be doing throughout the week, including an outreach Tuesday night (a music-themed Cafe) and the Ceilidh on Friday. We'd love to see lots of people come out, but sometimes it seems like the hardest part is just getting them to show up. Once they come, they have a good time, we build relationship, God is there - it's all sweet. But I know that God is also there when we're passing out invites, or hanging up posters on campus, or chatting with students after classes. So please pray that in everything we do this week that God would multiply our efforts, that He would go before us and be with us. We will work our hardest, but that isn't enough without His touch. We really are desperate for Him.

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Sat, 10th

Team arrives, we feed them, they sleep.

7pm: Radiate Social (popcorn and movie night with students)

Sun, 11th
11am: Brad (Chi Alpha pastor @ GSU) preaches in AM church
1pm: Lunch and Orientation at Zickafoose's with Sarah and Anna
6pm: Radiate has PM service (Sarah preaches & a couple students share testimonies)

Mon, 12th
10am: Pass out invites to Starbucks & Ceilidh around campus and town

12:30pm: Lunch at Church
1:30pm: Prep for carnival at church
4:30pm: Head into town for dinner
6pm: Meet at church to prepare for Starbucks
8-10:30pm: Starbucks outreach

Tues, 13th
11am: Chocolate fountain & Ceilidh promo on campus

Afternoon: Georgia team spends QT with Radiate Students
5:30pm: Arrive @ church to set up for Café outreach (Music).
7pm: Music Cafe

Wed, 14th
9:30am: Meet at church for set-up and lunch
More student bonding for lunch and dinner
1-4pm: Carnival on campus (Cause it's fun. And to promote Ceilidh)
5pm: Dinner in town
7-9pm: Home Group Bible Studies

Thurs, 15th
9:30am: Leave for Edinburgh sight-seeing.
Meet up with Joe and the other mission team for dinner.
Arrive home midnight.

Fri, 16th
Morning: Sleep in cause we'll be so tired.

Early afternoon: Hand out tickets for Ceilidh around campus and town, prayer walk.

4:30pm: Arrive at church to set up for Ceilidh

7pm: Ceilidh our faces off

Sat, 17th

Team goes home :o(

Psalm 145

[my thoughts] on Psalm 145

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Your kingdom [You are King, full of authority and power] is an everlasting kingdom [eternal, non-created] and Your dominion endures through all generations [You are faithful and unchanging]. The Lord is faithful [to me -always - even when I don't deserve it] to all His promises [He makes promises and He keeps them; therefore, He is worthy of my trust] and loving [love that is unconditional, with no strings attached] toward all He has made [You are Creator, intensely creative]. The Lord upholds [You are strong, powerful, sovereign, and in control of my entire life] all those who fall [I mess things up, You make them new] and lifts up [restore, redeem, renew] all who are bowed down [You respond to humility]. The eyes of all look to You [all we want: Jesus] and You give them their food [Provider, You give us what we need, and then some] at the proper time [Your timing is perfect, never late, never early, always right on time. You know exactly what I need and when I need it]. You open Your hand [You are generous] and satisfy the desires [beyond meeting our needs, you even satisfy our wants] of every living thing. The Lord is righteous [pure, holy, right] in all His ways [all of them - You are consistant] and loving toward all He has made. The Lord is near [not far away, not unreachable, but intimate and personal] to all who call on Him [You hear me], to all who call on Him in truth.