Prayer Request

Aaron - finals week is beginning next week; worried and stressed out. Be diligent where God has called him. Kathy - lots of things coming up: work, pcat, pharmacy school apps; body image David - didn't pray. Shame on you. Struggling with quiet times with God. Skipping devotionals have created a disconnect from God. Praise God for job interview!! Be sensitive to where God is leading him. Melissa - feeling inadequate in her position. Never been a leader, she has always been a cooperator. Doesn't know if she's being faithful to His calling. Shes more concerned with the ministry rather than being connected with God. Jaclyn - good retreat; final presentation next week Arthur - being a light at work. Prayer during meal time - not being in such a rush all the time. Working on Bible reading.

Prayer Requests

Jaclyn- continue to be committed to doing Bible study with Rachel every night. It's good to be a lonely woman :) rainbow retreat this weekend.

Kathy- passion for God is there but the discipline is not. Pray for discipline and passion to come together.

Arthur- pray that he'll start reading the Bible and let his coworkers know he's a Christian.

Melissa- no time for Jesus since she has been back. Pray for friends and to be bold to share the gospel. Seek after God first.

David- work has been hard. Looking for another job. Direct disobedience towards God.

Aaron- very very burnt out. Too many roles and not getting fed enough. Pray for solid devotional life.

When Satan knocks at your door, simply say, "Jesus, can you get that?"

HalleYOOLAH!

 At that time Jesus prayed this prayer: "O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing them to the childlike. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way!" -Matthew 11:25-26

Don't you miss being a kid? When life was about playing Polly Pockets, talking to your stuffed animals, not feeling bad about eating cookies, and singing Disney songs while dancing around the house in your onesie? Now we gotta worry about how we'll pay our tuition, rent, and find a career. We gain more life-experience so we don't need our parents to take care of us anymore and be what Ne-Yo wants us to be - Miss Indepennnnndent, that's why I love herrr...

But the more experience we gain, the more responsibilities we take on for ourselves and eventually for our own family and sooner than later it's a big ol' burden on our shoulders. What a relief that our Savior says: "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light." -Matthew 11:28-30

What is your burden right now? What's heavy on your heart? What are you having doubts about? 

Are you trying to lighten the load by figuring things out on your own? Doing more? Trying harder?

Right now my heavy burden comes from tryna make everyone happy. Don't offend people. Don't make this person mad at you. Be everyone's friend. Saying "no" will make them mad at you. It's my responsibility to do and be what everyone else wants. In my ministry, this looks like taking on more tasks, reading more books, gaining more experience so I'll stop being inadequate and know all there is to know about youth ministry. There's nothing wrong with gaining experience and life skills, but it becomes a problem when we become TOO independent and stop depending on our Lord, our Father. 

We are still his children, but at this stage in our lives we are pressured to grow-up FAST. Then we think we "got it" when we don't. We act like we don't need Him, but we do. And this is what I love about kids and young people: They know they still need someone to care for them. Yeah, teenagers act like they know it all but in reality they know they are useless and can't really live without their parents still. 

At my old job, I used to work with this little boy I'll call EP (his initials). EP used to hate showering and getting ready for bed. But I worked with him long enough to the point where he trusted me as someone who cared for him. Then it would start getting easier to get him to shower and get ready for bed by having him do random things. To him, it was random, but to me, I had a plan. I would use his Yoda to talk to him in a "Yoda voice" and say things like "Shower, You must." And he would shower! And then I'd sing him a song about brushing his teeth using a T-rex puppet, and he would brush his teeth while singing the song! But he knew he needed help and had someone who cared for him enough that he trusted me enough to do the random things I told him to. 

So remember that you don't have to have it all together, all the answers, everything under control, and all the life experience. As long as you remember you'll never be too grown to be independent from God the Father, you're right where you need to be. Trust him not only with the big life decisions, but EVERYTHING. As soon as something troubles you, who do you turn to? Yourself, your boyfriend, girlfriend, bestie, google, yo mama, or your ABBA FATHER? No wonder why Jesus said his yoke is easy and his burden is light. We are never alone - we know God our Father loves as his children, Jesus walks with us understanding every aspect of our human life, and the Holy Spirit is our counselor. 

So enjoy the videos below and understand why God reveals His truth to the childlike and says the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like children! HalleYOOOLAH!

You have to hear this girl in the beginning and her prayer at the end. Okay I cried a little.

Love costs ERRTHANG

"And all nations will hate you because you are my followers. But everyone who endures to the end will be saved...

Don't be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it." -Matthew 10:22, 38-39

Watching that video above made me feel so small about my faith. It makes me feel embarrassed to share my prayer requests around my work, my school, and my wedding. Not that we shouldn't trust God with these things in our lives, but it just shows our real main concerns going on right now. For the God who lived an extreme life for me on earth, it doesn't make sense for me to live a mediocre life to God. 


This all came from reading Matthew 10. I was just ALL confused after reading this passage. I questioned:


1.) Why did Jesus give the disciples authority to cast out evil spirits and heal every kind of disease and illness RIGHT after he called them? What happened to their training?
2.) Why is this not normal for us who call ourselves Christians aka Christ-followers to do these kinds of things today? Is this even possible for us or are we just lacking faith?
4.) Was this warning about persecution only for them or for us too? Because I aint worried about being whipped for my faith anytime soon...

It just seemed like one of those Bible passages that only applied back in the day...but not for us today. And I had no answers, but God did prompt me to confess some things: missing opportunities to acknowledge Jesus before some people so I wouldn't look like a "Jesus freak", allowing myself to dwell on impure thoughts for my own enjoyment, refusing to forgive because I feel like i deserve an apology, seeking for myself to be noticed and acknowledged in front of others, etc...the list goes on and on...but the common denominator to all that is ME wanting to live MY life and do thangs MY way. 


YOLO is the motto right? I mean, we're only young once. We aint getting younger so don't we have the right to live a little? These thoughts still go through my mind sometimes, missing the good ol' days before I got saved and started feeling convicted about sin. But when I got saved, "making the most out of college" took on a whole different meaning. Life went to endless freedom from parents/restrictions to living for Christ ONLY. 


To this day, I still struggle with DEVOTION to him. I see how far these persecuted Christians across the world go to the point of being killed for expressing their faith in our Lord. How far are we willing to go for Him? Once someone called me "a little extreme" when I was expressing my faith in Jesus. That alone made me feel like a loser. 


I guess what I'm tryna say is we gotta stop every once in a while and assess who we really living for. It's like the seesaw effect - we can only have one higher than the other. If we let ourselves take the higher place, then we are less devoted to Christ, and if Christ is at the highest place which he should be at, then we're at the bottom - giving up "life's privileges" (which have no comparison with the "divine privileges" (phil 2:7) Christ gave up.)


Let's express our devotion to him today by re-focusing on our mission here wherever we're at, whatever time it is. Right before Jesus sent out his disciples he looked out at all those people and had compassion on them and knowing he was only one person, he said: "The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields."


We are the workers now! And we do have the power to do what the disciples did, as long as we trust and believe that Jesus HIMSELF is working and speaking through us. Let's go hard for Him and not have a lukewarm, wimpy faith. We can do more powerful and glorious works for His Kingdom depending on how powerful and glorious we view our King!!!

Let's not give up...the fullness of our reward is coming....everything is for JESUS, no matter the cost! Are we ready to change our prayers from:

"God, help me get good grades and do well in my job. Thank you for this food. Make these kids listen to me. Help me plan a fancy wedding." 

-to-

"God, do whatever it takes in my life to bring you the most glory, give me strength to face the upcoming hardships of being your true follower. My cross - BRING IT ON! Jesus ONLY Jesus EVER!"

 

BALLIN'

My Evangelism Story

My best friend, Melissa, our freshman year.

Basketball has been a huge part of my life since I was in 4th grade. It became more significant in middle school when Melissa (who didn't even like me at first) invited me to play for her church league. Well, what she forgot to mention was that in order to play in the league, I had to go to church. So I sat through Sunday after Sunday for two years, doodling and sketching on my sermon notes and skipping Sunday school to go to Carl's Junior :) Melissa never shared the "gospel" to me in words, but her family lived it out in the way that they treated me - like I was their own daughter. Her dad spent his Saturdays and Sundays driving us to basketball practice and games for 3 years. Her mom did the same, and even invited me to their family gatherings. They were the family that lived out Christ's love and I honestly believe that was the best exposure to the gospel someone can ever have.

I guess sitting through Sunday sermons for 3 years finally worked. I remember Pastor Cory from Evergreen SGV gave a message on the heart of the Father. That morning, he made an alter call (as he did every Sunday), and something was different. I felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to raise my hand because deep down inside, I really wanted to be loved by God. So I accepted Christ that day, without really understanding what that meant for my life. I thought being a Christian meant that I had to accept Jesus into my heart and then go to church every Sunday. I had this misconception for a few years until I went to college and recommitted my life (forreal this time!) to Jesus based on a similar message at Intervarsity.

I met with Jojo on Monday night and I asked her what her favorite part about SG was. She said that she really liked our groups "Culture Shock", where I give the group the background/ context of the passage. She said that when she's trying to tell her friends about Jesus, the first thing she wants to be able to share with them is WHY the Bible is true and all the facts about it. My weakness was that I didn't know the fundamental truths about God when I first accepted Christ. I love that SVCA is so focused on Bible truths - because God's Word is infallible and it breathes life into us. SVCA youth know that God is the ultimate Creator of the universe, the Author of Salvation and He is this HUGE God! But this is just ONE out of many aspects of who He is. He is also the Heavenly Daddy, the Father who cares for us so deeply that He knows EVERY SINGLE HAIR ON OUR HEADS. Psalms 139 tells us that He thought of us, not just when we were born, but from the very beginning of time. He had already imagined EVERYTHING about us!

So thanks Melissa, and the Gotos for showing me Christ's love through the way they loved me! :D

Evan-ge-Love

To be perfectly honest, I was kind of dreading writing this post when I saw David send out the email asking us to share our evangelism experiences.  I feel like a major hypocrite telling the youth to be bold and share their faith with their friends when I do it so rarely myself.

I must admit I haven't been very faithful in carrying out the Great Commission since high school.  Most of the time, when Jesus comes up in a conversation with my friends I just try to make Christianity not "seem so bad," or I try not to offend anyone.  But I've been realizing lately that this is such a loser mentality.  Am I really going to let my friends that I care so much about face eternal judgement and damnation just because I'm afraid of offending them or they'll think I'm weird?  I know this is a common fear that many people struggle with, but one I really hope we can overcome together as a fellowship.

I was definitely a lot better about sharing the gospel when I was younger.  My first time was with Felix in 5th grade on the field of John Muir Elementary during lunch.  The second time was with my good friend Johnson* (name changed), during freshmen year of high school.  I was studying with him in the library at Lynbrook after school when I brought up this cool post about the Professor & the Student (http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/professor.html) that I had recently read.  Knowing that Johnson was a thinker, I attempted to demonstrate how God really did exist and tried sharing with him from my own meager personal experiences.  Johnson was intrigued, and promised to come with me to church.  He did, for the next several weeks, and about a month later at a youth outreach he gave his life to Christ.

Here's where I failed.  Johnson came to our church for almost a full year while we still met at De Anza college.  Then  he stopped coming.  It started off as just one Sunday, and then a few more, until every time I asked him about it at school he always had some excuse not to come.  Rather than following up or praying for him, I let him be.  I had other things, bigger things, more important things on my mind, things that right now I don't even remember. Johnson told me at the end of sophomore year that he just didn't believe anymore, that he hadn't experienced God for himself and science had too many good answers.  He said he need "time to explore" and to find answers to his questions.  He asked me to respect his decision, and I did.  I never invited him to church again.

Johnson and I grew apart after we both went to college.  He attended UCLA, where he joined a frat, pierced his ears, joined a dance team, and started wearing designer jeans.  Today, he works in LA and plans on applying to Harvard or UPenn business school, and has the GPA and GRE score to back it up.  Unfortunately, I don't think he's stepped foot since the last time he was at ours in high school.

Upon reflecting, I realized that my greatest failure through this whole experience was that I lacked compassion and love.  There were so many times that I could have prayed with Johnson, encouraged him, read the Bible with him, or directed him towards those with more experience.  Instead, I left him to swim on his own thinking that he'd figure it out when he was ready, and in the end, his faith couldn't withstand the waves of doubt that overcame his fledgling Christian life.  I understand that this isn't all my fault, and that perhaps no matter how hard I tried Johnson was going to become an atheist anyway.  But the point is, I didn't try, mostly because I didn't care enough to try.

This week we've challenged the youth to each think of one friend that is unsaved and to start praying for them everyday.  I've already missed 3 days, and it's gotten me thinking: "how much do you love your friends?"  Do I really love them enough to want to see them in eternity?  Or do I just kind of care, sometimes, when I can remember?  I think the takeaway from all this that evangelism must be born out of love, otherwise it's just going to be a task we do, a check mark on our list, a scoresheet we bring to heaven and say, "Look God, I did it this many times!"  And that's really what Jesus tells us to do.  Love your neighbor.  Love your friends, and those people He put in your life.  Love 'em enough to share the gospel.

Sorry I know this is super long, if you made it this far, I really do love you.

These past few days I've been trying to stay away from watching tv during the day. I thought about reading The Hunger Games since all of my friends are into that right now. My friends gave me PDF files to all 3 books and David lend me the first book a few weeks ago. But for some reason I felt I should read something more useful. I picked up a copy of One Thing You Can't Do In Heaven this past Sunday and started reading it.

I've only read the first half of the book, so I should probably read the whole thing before judging it. So far the book is just stories after stories of the author's experiences with evangelism. I don't think he gave me any pointers or tips or anything advice on how to approach people yet.

After reading over a dozen stories on evangelism, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that evangelism is something you just gotta do. If you love your friends, you can't be afraid of rejection because ultimately if you love your friends, you gotta save them from hell. The worst thing that can happen is you lose a friend for 20~30 years. But the reward is so much greater: they get to spend eternity with God.

The author never starts off a conversation telling people they need Jesus or else they will burn in hell. He always starts off with questions such as "How certain are you that you will wake up tomorrow?" or "If you were to die tonight are you 100% sure you'll make it to heaven?" or "What do you think happens when we pass away?" The author never mentions this but it is more important to build a relationship with someone than to shove something in their face. He draws out the curiosity of people and engages in conversation with anyone he sees because he knows everybody needs Jesus.

I know we can all learn to step out of our comfort zones and reach out to pretty much everyone we run into. I wish I can say this is how my past experiences with evangelism have been but its far from it. I've never really had the passion for evangelism until after this one retreat. It was a week long retreat and we studied the bible for 8 hours a day. All we did was eat, sleep, and manuscript the bible. During that week I learned so much about Jesus and the bible. I was so glad I went and couldn't wait to share what I had discovered. 

For the next two weeks I scheduled to meet up with a different person everyday. I wanted my friends to know about all the interesting things in the bible that I just figured out. I started off the conversations just catching up with my friends. It was easy to bring up the retreat since it was during spring break and I was pretty much the only one that stayed in socal for the retreat. 

In the end the majority of my friends all said "that's cool and all but its not for me." One guy wanted to know about everything I learned during the retreat but once school started he didn't have time for Jesus. 

This is not what any of you want to read but since then I've pretty much stopped evangelizing to my friends. These friends are the ones I've known for years and have invited them to church or bible study over a dozen times. The weeks following the retreat was when I was SUPER passionate about Jesus and the bible and if  none of my friends wanted to have anything to do with it, why should I keep trying? Evangelism is not for me. Someone else can put up with it.

Earlier this post I wrote about how if I truly care about my friends, I can't give up on them. Even though my friends think they don't need Jesus, I really care about them so I have to be willing to face that rejection. I'll probably be rejected or laughed at but I can't give up on them. I guess evangelism is something I still gotta do.

My Experience Sharing the Gospel

 First and second year of college I lived a suite with these three non-christians who will not be named. They knew I was a christian, even though I didn't always act like one. As a we grew to be closer friends I had a bigger and bigger burden to share the gospel to them. So, one time I decided to invite them to a gospel night that our small group was having. I had such high hopes, thinking that if we were able to answer all of their questions, they would be saved. I thought to myself that if only they could understand what the gospel was really about then of course they would want Jesus.

So that night they came to the bible study and we debated and discussed every christian topic you could think. All of the hard questions came up and I had to dig deep, using all of my bible knowledge and logic to try to answer any question that they had. At the end of the night my friends left more resistant to Jesus than when they came in. Their conclusion of the night was that our faith was narrow-minded and uncompromising. I continued to try to invite them to different church gatherings and received more rejections than I can remember. Although they liked me as a friend and respected my faith, I couldn't find a way in.

In my second year, we continued to live together and our friendships continued to grow. Thankfully they continued to ask questions about my faith especially when it came to controversial political or scientific issues such as abortion or creationism. Then one night we were all hanging out randomly in one of the guy's rooms. We were casually talking and the topic of my faith came up. Our discussion got deeper and deeper as the night went on. I was determined to do it right this time. So I shared everything I knew about the gospel starting from the old testament to the new, about sin, God's promise, and salvation. I shared my own personal testimony without leaving out a single detail. Time flew by and before we knew it, it was already 4:00 am.

As much as I tried to explain and share, I came to a realization that night. Faith in Jesus cannot be convinced in someone through logic. I tried to tell them why salvation makes sense but it all came down to whether or not God is real. The only way to know whether or not God is real is to encounter him. But the only way to have a personal encounter is if its PERSONAL. I think for me that's the difficulty with evangelism, because after hours and hours of talking and explaining, it still comes down to a personal choice.

I still invite those friends to any church events that come up, but they're tired of saying no and just no longer respond. I still hope that someday the holy spirit will bring them to the place where they want more out of this life.

-Joseph

Just Do It

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations..." Matthew 28:19

To be honest, evangelism isn't a big part of my life. It's barely even a little part of my life. When it comes to teaching and building up young believers, that's not a huge problem for me. But when it comes to people who don't know Jesus and I feel like I need to preach the Gospel to them, I'm utterly lost. I've grown up knowing the importance of spreading the Gospel but I've always thought that it didn't have anything to do with me. Surely there are other people God called in order to spread His kingdom!

Most of my friends know that I'm a Christian, mostly from what I do on Friday nights and Sundays. And how I close my eyes to give grace before a meal. But I've never actually shared anything with them, and whenever I'm asked how church was it's always, "Good". From what I can see in myself, self consciousness is a huge reason why I've never been active in sharing my faith. When I was younger I would always have an issue of confidence and being self conscious of every single action that I did, always feeling like I wasn't good enough for anything. I tried my hardest to "fit in" with my friends, only to see that I never really did. I never denounced my faith but I didn't speak up when others were ridiculing it either. I dreaded to think how others would view me if they knew that I loved Jesus, most afraid of being labeled one of those "Christian losers".

One of the only times I've actually actively spread the Gospel I did for my own selfish reasons. When I was in middle school I really liked this girl who was one of my best friends, but I knew it was wrong to date non-Christians. So whenever she felt down or something bad was happening in her life I would always bug her to go to church and give Jesus a chance. Only many years later did I realize the negative impact that I had in actually spreading the Gospel to her; I was merely doing it for my own gain.

So this past Sunday there were three newcomers who just came to America to study English. When everybody went to go clean I felt kind of bad that they would be by themselves so I stuck around to try to talk to them a little bit. We ended up talking about Christianity and religion and I found myself explaining how Christianity isn't about a religion but more of a relationship. That's what makes Christianity different from all the other religions, we don't do things in order to gain our salvation. While I was sharing it felt like a really different experience, one that I hadn't felt in a long time and in my head I could only think, "Wow I'm actually doing this".

But then today I grabbed lunch with a friend that I haven't really hung out much because we have different schedules this quarter. I know that God has put him on my heart to invite him to our church but I've always come up with different kinds of excuses. He's from China and it's hard for him to get along with his roommates here. He also finds America really boring because he doesn't do anything except stay in his room all day, the only thing he can do. I know that I should invite him to Rainbow but I've always said to myself that I wouldn't be able to be with him so that wouldn't be good. And other excuses of the sort. And even today, I couldn't even bring myself to talk about God or religion. The only thing that he shared was, "I dropped a class because the English was difficult for me; it had to do with God which is so boring." Then I pretty much didn't even want to mention God in front of him so it wouldn't have a negative impact on him.

So all in all, I don't really know what I'm trying to say. These are just some of the experiences I've went through of sharing the gospel. This is definitely something I need to work on and recently through our discussions of getting the youth to invite their friends, I am starting to realize the lack on my part of evangelism and reaching out to non-Christians. But no matter how we feel I think Jesus' command sums it up quite nicely. He says, "Go!" There should be no hesitation, no excuses. This is one of those things that we need to Just Do It.