Wonderful Wednesdays!

In this post, I want to talk about what our Wednesday and Friday meetings usually look like. I'll take a look back at our meetings from last week because I think everyone in our group has agreed they have been some of the best ever. I pray that as we move forward that God will continue to give us His grace and shed more light upon his divine strategy to reach this campus. We have no real strategy or plans as of now, we are just learning to listen to the Holy Spirit and go as He leads.

On our Wednesday meetings, we gather our core group to eat together, worship, go through the word, and pray. This last Wednesday our group got together and two of the guys in our group prepared us a hearty meal of grilled cheese and tomato soup. It was quite creative and budget friendly. We have had some pretty cool meals over the course of the semester. It is amazing to see what us college kids can do when put to the stove. Anyhoo, we gathered around the table and each week we catch up with one another and see how everyone is doing. After that, we go over to couch area and do some worship. We usually are led by Zach who sings and plays guitar, but this week he wasn't really feeling up to it.

So as usual, we improvise and go what the Spirit leads. This past week was pretty monumental because the elections had been decided just the day before. God had really been putting on my heart to talk about the elections. Actually, going into this Wednesday meeting, I had no idea what we were going to do. Usually, we go through a Bible study together as a group with some set material. But as I read through the material this week, I felt like it was really forced and not what our group needed. If I wasn't feeling transformed through the book, I couldn't expect the group to be either. So I just surrendered the night to God. I still didn't know what we were going to do, but as I walked to the Cru House where we were going to have to the meeting, I decided to just pray about and ask God what He would lead us to do.

Before I got the Cru house, I walked around the park and just spent some time with God asking for direction. It was great to just return to the simple devotion of loving God and just being with Him. In that time, I knew that God would lead us in the right direction. As I started walking back, I had a peace that God would be with us. Like I said, we ended up not having worship either because Zach wasn't feeling up to it, but things ended up working for the best.

As we sat on the couches, like I said earlier, God had really put the elections on my heart. I know that our group had different views on the presidency and stuff so I wanted to engage that discussion and see what everyone else thought. Wednesday was an important day in shaping our opinions and thoughts about the new direction of our nation, and I didn't want to ignore the significance of that day. So we talked about the elections, and I talked about some of the things God was showing me after going to TheCall in San Diego. If you're interested you can read about my thoughts in my personal blog. But anyway, it was great to hear where everyone was coming from and their opinions about the election.

I didn't just want to stop there though. I really wanted to pray for the nation and the things that we talked about. Many of the members at Epic talked about how the church needs to take a more active role in social justice and have more compassion for people around us. It was awesome to see how our group is responding to the need to do something about social injustices. We also talked about how we cannot just point figures at the church because in the end, we as a group are the church. We must be the ones who do something about that.

As we talked about these things, we transitioned by talking about what it would look like if revival were to come to ASU. What would that look like? We took turns talking about how the campus would change. People wouldn't have to lock their doors; students would share with students and teachers; no one would eat or sit alone; people would look each other in the eyes; there would be true love and compassion for all races and nationalities; etc. It was an awesome exercise, and it was cool to hear everyone's thoughts and hopes. We then read through 2 Chronicles 7:14 which states, "If my people who are called by my name, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sins, and heal their land." God gives us the prescription for revival here in this passage. When we humble ourselves, pray, seek God's face, and turn for our wicked ways, God says He will hear us, forgive us, and heal our land. He will bring revival.

So we spent a pretty good amount of time just praying through these things. At this point, Zach pulled out his guitar and played some music as we prayed. He said he even learned some new chords as he played. It was an amazing experience. But after this, we didn't stop praying, we then got into groups and prayed for one another. I think overall we prayed from about 8ish til about 10pm. It was pretty awesome to be a part of this band of brothers and sisters who were committed to praying for one another. I think everyone enjoyed and encouraged the last part most of all when we prayed for one another. The church exists to glorify Christ and to encourage one another. I think by the end of the meeting everyone was encouraged and Jesus was glorified. Sounds like a successful meeting to me! We didn't have a set plan or a set Bible study, but we invited Jesus. That's the most important part.

The challenge for me is to learn how to better prepare and engage with the Word in a way that I can present to others and teach them how to then present it. But above all, I think that it is important for us all to learn how to be led by the Holy Spirit and to be okay with chaos. Neil Cole uses the word chaordic to describe this idea. Chaordic is a combination of chaotic and order. When things are led by the Holy Spirit, they may appear to be chaotic and spontaneous, but as He leads there is always order and structure. All I can say is that transformation is happening. I pray that God will continue to give us a passion to seek Him and a discipline to do our parts in preparing our hearts and soul through intimacy with Him. If there is a major difference between what I did this year and last year, it is the time I spend with God in intimacy. Without intimacy with God, nothing else would matter. I have a lot to learn, but I am so glad to have a group of individuals in Epic who are willing to learn and experiment with me.

Well so far, I only talked about the this past weeks Wednesday meeting. I guess I'll talk about the Friday meeting next post for the sake length. But just as kind of a summarizing note, we do try to follow somewhat of a structure in the midst of the spontaneity. We like to think of them as the 5 W's. Welcome (food), Worship, Waiting, Word, Works (prayer and social justice). We are definitely still learning how to do all these things, but it is awesome how God is teaching us and transforming us in the midst of our inadequacies and weakness. Hooray for Jesus! He saves the day!