I'm a pretty skeptical guy nowadays but I didn't always used to be that way. Growing up, I was intrigued by ghosts, UFOs, bigfoot, etc. I loved the paranormal, the unknown, the mythical.
Over the years though, that changed. It's not that those things aren't interesting to me. I'll admit, I've been known to sneak a listen into Coast to Coast AM a few times. It's at least good for a laugh. And don't worry, I wore my tinfoil hat just in case while listening.
All joking aside though, throughout my life, I've become more and more skeptical. Now, you should grow smarter and wiser as you age and I think that's part of it. I also credit a big part of my skepticism shows like Ghost Hunters. When the show first started out, their goal was to disprove hauntings. This was a totally new concept to me. Disprove instead of trying to prove. Something clicked. After years of buying into whatever I read, saw or was taught, I started thinking critically.
Sadly, it took me getting away from college to finalize full movement into critical thinking. Colleges pretend to teach students to think critically but really they just want regurgitation. Profs want you to believe what they believe. If you think outside of that, they flunk you or give you bad grades. Thankfully, I escaped with a degree and finally the freedom to think for myself. That's not to say I didn't learn anything worthwhile...or that all of my profs were terrible. Some of mine were pretty great.
One actually made a documentary on bigfoot. It was interesting. It was funny. They at one point thought they were being chased by a bigfoot. Looking back, that in itself is pretty funny. I remember the colorful language about how they needed to drop the apples or bigfoot would get them. Just wow.
When it comes to bigfoot, I'm agnostic. I'm very skeptical. I used to believe 100%. Now, not so much. Cheesy bigfoot shows make me want to believe even less. I think it's possible something big and undiscovered is out there but I think for the most part, it's hoaxes and misidentifications that drive the myth. Those television shows on bigfoot only reinforce my suspicions. I've been all over the wilderness here. Heck, I live in the wilderness. I've seen plenty of bears, elk, moose, and even the extremely scarce wolverine...but I've never seen bigfoot. I've never even seen a shred of evidence for one. I've seen and heard weird things but nothing that would lead me to believe it was bigfoot. Sure, there is plenty of supposed bigfoot footage but it can be so easily faked and most are crappy fakes at that.
So what would make me believe without a doubt? Only a body would do that. You bring me a body and that would settle all doubts. Still, after years and years of searching, there's never been a body found and studied. I think for most, if you produce a real body, people will believe. Discussion over.
For those of you thinking this article would end there, bad news. It continues! This article isn't actually about bigfoot. It's about Jesus! Surprise! Before you write me emails, I'm not saying Jesus is just a myth. Quite the contrary. To prove Jesus and the Bible wrong, all you would have to do is produce a body. Certainly, there have been many who have tried and searched but after 2000 years, nobody has done that yet. No one has ever found a body.
Sure, that's a pretty tough task in today's day and age. But think back 2000 years ago. Think back just after Jesus died and news started spreading that He had resurrected. The claim was that the tomb was empty and Jesus was walking amongst the living again. People were seeing Him. There were sightings. And people were converting like never before.
The pharisees, the guys who hated Jesus so much that they had Him killed to stop His movement...how did they feel to see thousands still converting? The same anger that killed Jesus still burned in their hearts. They were furious so they had more and more people who had been spreading the news of Jesus killed.
But why go that route? Why keep killing when there was such an easier way to end it all, to put a stop to the movement? Produce a body. That's all they had to do. "Look, your leader is still dead. Here is the proof." Just go down to the tomb and pull the body out. Easy as that. It's not like they didn't know where the tomb was. It was accessible.
Christianity hinges on the resurrection and if there is no resurrection, Christianity is dead. If Jesus is still in the tomb, Christianity is dead. The only reason the pharisees didn't offer His body as proof is because they like everyone else knew that the tomb was indeed empty. There was no body in there to produce. Some would say that the body was stolen but a whole lot of Roman guards guarding the tomb. How do you sneak past, at the time, the best trained soldiers in the world? How do you roll a huge stone away from a tomb and steal a body without anyone hearing? Who would even steal it? The disciples? The disciples didn't really even understand that Jesus was coming back until He actually came back. And it doesn't make sense to risk stealing it for some hoax. People don't really risk death to keep a known lie alive.
The pharisees couldn't explain it at all either. That's why their first thought was to keep killing. Dead people don't ask questions. Dead people can't talk to spread movements. Eventually though, there was a little voice of reason amongst the pharisees for a moment.
"34 But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. 35 And he said to them, “Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. 36 For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming
to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He
was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to
nothing. 37 After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. 38 So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; 39 but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” So they took his advice, 40 and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41 Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. 42 And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus." Acts 5: 34-42 ESV
That day, all the had to do was produce a body. It would have stopped the movement cold in it's tracks. Clearly, there were some doubts by this point even amongst the pharisees. You don't go along with the guy claiming God just might be with those preaching Jesus if there wasn't some doubt. There was a creeping suspicion that there might be something to this Jesus thing. But these are the guys who had just had Jesus crucified. Most of them were so sure then. They knew they had killed Him but something was fishy, pun intended. What evidence or lack thereof had caused the group to start doubting? Maybe it started with them not having a body to cling to. They could not prove the apostles wrong. In the end, they lacked a body of evidence to move forward and kill off Christianity in its infancy.
Sorry pharisees...and bigfoot enthusiasts. No body, no proof.
Thursday, May 7, 2015
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Christian Challenge March 2015 Update!
It's that time again! Time for another Christian Challenge update! I hope you're doing well!
It's been an interesting time since our last update. We feel like we've been a roller coaster. We can't go into it too much but we got to see God do a true healing miracle for someone close to us from a very serious diagnosis. We praise God for that! Nothing like hearing a doctor saying, "I'm shocked..." when God does a miracle. We weren't shocked. Our God is big! What was a very low point quickly became a very high point.
Another high point we've had was the last retreat we did. We brought in Mike Story, a collegiate minister at Oklahoma State and also Josh's dad. We focused on discipleship and the importance of it. We also looked at what spiritual gifts each student has and how they could use it for ministry. We've done a lot of retreats over the years but this was the first time we've been able to go pretty deep spiritually. I can't tell you how exciting it is to have students we can do this with. It's a big answered prayer.
After the retreat, one of the athletes I disciple, in response to the retreat, said he realized that discipleship didn't have to be as hard as he made it out to be in his mind. He's now extremely excited to reach out to his team and start a breakfast and Bible study for the Sundays they can't be at church due to races or training.
Challenge on Tuesday nights has been going great as well. We've moved on to issues like the difference between Christianity and other religions, and the many different denominations within Christianity. This past week, our Japanese students were able to do a presentation on Japanese culture (and updates on tsunami relief) and we finished the night off by having a former missionary to Japan, Dr. Mark Edlund, share about his experiences as a missionary there.
That brings us up to the present. Spring break is this week. While I'll be in Durango getting our taxes together and having a couple of doctor visits, we've got two teams heading out on mission trips. Jen is taking students to Denver to work with those less fortunate. Rachel, Randi, and Josh will be in Juarez, Mexico with students at a school run by missionaries there. They will minister to the kids at the school and also put a new roof on the school. It's exciting to see them go where others will not. Help from America has really dried up since the cartel violence down there started making headlines.
Moving forward, we've got a lot to pack in before school is out. There is always a stress of getting in as much discipleship as possible before students head home. We've got lots of events like our Easter Eve Snowshoe Church Service we put on for the students. Graduation will be here before we know it.
From there, it's our state director meetings in Colorado Springs. Then, Rachel and I are off to, Lord willing, Louisiana and North Carolina to get our support up to where it is supposed to be. After that, we'll be back in Durango for a month to train for our Peru mission trip in the Andes. We've already have some students committed to the trip which is exciting. We'll have more info on that trip and the students that are going in updates to come.
On that note, with our support being down right now, we are trying to come up with creative ways to fund the mission trip to Peru. I thought of maybe doing a silent auction, auctioning off blown-up pictures from past mission trips, or maybe coffee and mangoes (both of which are the best we've ever had) that can only be purchased in the Philippines. Just have to learn how to put together a silent auction. So that's an option with some research and planning. Rachel had a t-shirt design also put together. We'll be selling those for $20 a shirt. I'll put a picture of the shirt below. Let us know if you'd be interested in getting one. We need 13 people to commit to make it happen.
We've also bounced around the idea of renting out our cabin as a vacation rental while we're support raising for a month. So lots of ideas and not a lot of time to make it happen. We know God will provide one way or another.
Thank you for all the support and encouragement you give! We are super thankful for that! Keep FLC in your prayers!
Cheers and God Bless,
Mike and Rachel
Housing-
Huge praise! For the time being, we have water in our well! It's murky and not drinkable without a good filter but we at least can wash dishes and shower...and not have to resort to our outhouse. Pray that we continue to have well water even without the spring snow-melt to recharge the well. Prayer for lots of precipitation for our area would help that out as well.
Our snowblower is still down but thankfully we only had one more big storm of about 3 feet which we had to hand-shovel. Snow season is coming to an end, though, so it's something we can fix over the summer hopefully.
Another huge praise! The issues we were having with our septic system have been remedied. Our house no longer smells like septic after we take a shower. I added an extra vent outside which didn't fix the problem. We thought we might have a leak somewhere in our walls which would have been really difficult and expensive to fix. Thankfully, the shower drainage pipe just needed to be cleaned. I suspected it might be clogged with dog hair from the previous owner's dog and it was. A little septic-safe liquid pipe cleaner and the bad smell is now gone. We're very thankful for that!
Students-
Pray that God would keep our teams safe on their mission trips. Also pray that the U.S. border agents don't hassle our Japanese students like last year when they come back across the border.
Pray that the Holy Spirit would continue to grow our students in their faith and that they'd stay strong in it throughout the semester.
Pray that God would continue to reveal Himself to the students who have not yet put their trust in Him.
Rachel and Mike-
Pray that we would get positive answers concerning our medical concerns. Feels like we're at least finally making some progress.
Pray that we would make time to rest and not get burnt out by the busy nature of ministry.
Pray that our marriage would stay strong, keeping God always at the center of it.
If the Lord is leading you to give, follow this link to our giving options:
http://thewallscall.blogspot.com/p/other-giving-options.html
It's been an interesting time since our last update. We feel like we've been a roller coaster. We can't go into it too much but we got to see God do a true healing miracle for someone close to us from a very serious diagnosis. We praise God for that! Nothing like hearing a doctor saying, "I'm shocked..." when God does a miracle. We weren't shocked. Our God is big! What was a very low point quickly became a very high point.
Another high point we've had was the last retreat we did. We brought in Mike Story, a collegiate minister at Oklahoma State and also Josh's dad. We focused on discipleship and the importance of it. We also looked at what spiritual gifts each student has and how they could use it for ministry. We've done a lot of retreats over the years but this was the first time we've been able to go pretty deep spiritually. I can't tell you how exciting it is to have students we can do this with. It's a big answered prayer.
After the retreat, one of the athletes I disciple, in response to the retreat, said he realized that discipleship didn't have to be as hard as he made it out to be in his mind. He's now extremely excited to reach out to his team and start a breakfast and Bible study for the Sundays they can't be at church due to races or training.
Challenge on Tuesday nights has been going great as well. We've moved on to issues like the difference between Christianity and other religions, and the many different denominations within Christianity. This past week, our Japanese students were able to do a presentation on Japanese culture (and updates on tsunami relief) and we finished the night off by having a former missionary to Japan, Dr. Mark Edlund, share about his experiences as a missionary there.
That brings us up to the present. Spring break is this week. While I'll be in Durango getting our taxes together and having a couple of doctor visits, we've got two teams heading out on mission trips. Jen is taking students to Denver to work with those less fortunate. Rachel, Randi, and Josh will be in Juarez, Mexico with students at a school run by missionaries there. They will minister to the kids at the school and also put a new roof on the school. It's exciting to see them go where others will not. Help from America has really dried up since the cartel violence down there started making headlines.
Moving forward, we've got a lot to pack in before school is out. There is always a stress of getting in as much discipleship as possible before students head home. We've got lots of events like our Easter Eve Snowshoe Church Service we put on for the students. Graduation will be here before we know it.
From there, it's our state director meetings in Colorado Springs. Then, Rachel and I are off to, Lord willing, Louisiana and North Carolina to get our support up to where it is supposed to be. After that, we'll be back in Durango for a month to train for our Peru mission trip in the Andes. We've already have some students committed to the trip which is exciting. We'll have more info on that trip and the students that are going in updates to come.
On that note, with our support being down right now, we are trying to come up with creative ways to fund the mission trip to Peru. I thought of maybe doing a silent auction, auctioning off blown-up pictures from past mission trips, or maybe coffee and mangoes (both of which are the best we've ever had) that can only be purchased in the Philippines. Just have to learn how to put together a silent auction. So that's an option with some research and planning. Rachel had a t-shirt design also put together. We'll be selling those for $20 a shirt. I'll put a picture of the shirt below. Let us know if you'd be interested in getting one. We need 13 people to commit to make it happen.
We've also bounced around the idea of renting out our cabin as a vacation rental while we're support raising for a month. So lots of ideas and not a lot of time to make it happen. We know God will provide one way or another.
Thank you for all the support and encouragement you give! We are super thankful for that! Keep FLC in your prayers!
Cheers and God Bless,
Mike and Rachel
Prayer Requests:
Housing-
Huge praise! For the time being, we have water in our well! It's murky and not drinkable without a good filter but we at least can wash dishes and shower...and not have to resort to our outhouse. Pray that we continue to have well water even without the spring snow-melt to recharge the well. Prayer for lots of precipitation for our area would help that out as well.
Our snowblower is still down but thankfully we only had one more big storm of about 3 feet which we had to hand-shovel. Snow season is coming to an end, though, so it's something we can fix over the summer hopefully.
Another huge praise! The issues we were having with our septic system have been remedied. Our house no longer smells like septic after we take a shower. I added an extra vent outside which didn't fix the problem. We thought we might have a leak somewhere in our walls which would have been really difficult and expensive to fix. Thankfully, the shower drainage pipe just needed to be cleaned. I suspected it might be clogged with dog hair from the previous owner's dog and it was. A little septic-safe liquid pipe cleaner and the bad smell is now gone. We're very thankful for that!
Students-
Pray that God would keep our teams safe on their mission trips. Also pray that the U.S. border agents don't hassle our Japanese students like last year when they come back across the border.
Pray that the Holy Spirit would continue to grow our students in their faith and that they'd stay strong in it throughout the semester.
Pray that God would continue to reveal Himself to the students who have not yet put their trust in Him.
Rachel and Mike-
Pray that we would get positive answers concerning our medical concerns. Feels like we're at least finally making some progress.
Pray that we would make time to rest and not get burnt out by the busy nature of ministry.
Pray that our marriage would stay strong, keeping God always at the center of it.
If the Lord is leading you to give, follow this link to our giving options:
http://thewallscall.blogspot.com/p/other-giving-options.html
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Christian Challenge January 2015 Update!
It's that time again! Hope you had an awesome Christmas! Ours was
good, filled with hanging out with our students, family time, travel,
and doctor visits.
We started out our Christmas break with three of our students graduating...Kelsey, Will and Vernon. Kelsey is going to be working on the Front Range as a teacher. Will is continuing his studies to be a physician assistant. Vernon is moving to Vegas to be closer to his dad and take more classes. Keep all of them in your prayers as they move forward in their lives.
After graduation, it was family time. We had family come in from all over. And of course, almost everyone got sick at some point. I guess that just happens when you put people from all over the country together in confined spaces. Thankfully, Rachel and I escaped most of the sickness at that point.
For Christmas Eve, we spent time with our Japanese students. First, it was our church's Christmas Eve service, and then for dinner, they came over to my mom's place with us. Christmas day, we had one of them back over to celebrate the day with us. It was a great time getting to share the Christmas experience with our students.
After Christmas, we took a bunch of students up to Colorado Springs for Life Impact. It's a great conference where our student this year got to hear speakers like Dr. Robert Coleman, author of The Master Plan of Evangelism. Though this is where Rachel and I eventually got sick, it was an awesome time for our students. It was great getting to see them grow throughout the week. I think it was also very encouraging for them getting to be around almost 350 other students looking to grow in their faith.
After Life Impact, Rachel and I stayed on the Front Range for a couple of more days. I had some doctor appointments up in Denver I needed to take care of. Over the past few years, I've been getting dizzy more and more. My doctor in Durango thought it was because of all the concussions I've had throughout my life. The visit to the doctor in Denver was supposed to test for all of that. In the end, they didn't test for what we went up there for and the specialist didn't seem to really care. It was disappointing to say the least.
When we returned to Durango, the new semester was upon us. Though it's still early in the semester, things are going well. We've been tackling a lot of taboo topics within the church, things like pornography and homosexuality. We've had some great discussions with our students about such topics. Having students from all walks of life (including the head of the LGBT club on campus) and belief systems attending, it makes for really interesting discussions. Being that these are topics that a lot of our students haven't studied out in scripture, I think it was eye opening for many of them and really made them think.
With those that we are discipling, it's going well. It's always tough at the beginning of the semester to catch a rhythm, trying to make schedules match up and such but it's starting to come together. It seems like God is really giving our students a thirst to grow right now. It's really awesome to see.
With our events, those have gone well also. Our biggest was a skiing/sledding/ice skating day up in Silverton. We had around 20 students throughout the day. That's pretty good for this early in the winter/spring semester. During the trip, I was able to reconnect with one of our students we haven't seen much of this past year due to his work schedule. It was really good. Looking to the near future, we have a lot of great events planned that we're looking forward to.
Looking into the more distant future, our summer plans are starting to come together. After all of our end of the year staff meetings, Rachel and I will probably hit the road to do some more support raising. We're still not where we're supposed to be for support and with the recent loss of a couple of supporters, we'll need to at least make that up. We're looking at possibly going to Louisiana so if anyone might be able to open some doors for us there, that would be awesome. Now is the time where we need to be setting all of that up.
Our next big summer event will be, Lord willing, taking students on another mission trip back to Peru to follow up with those we met last time and to reach new areas. Our last trip was such a huge success that I can't wait to take students back there.
Thanks for all the support and encouragement you give! We are super thankful for that! Keep FLC in your prayers!
Cheers and God Bless,
Mike and Rachel
If the Lord is leading you to give, follow this link to some different options:
http://thewallscall.blogspot.com/p/other-giving-options.html
Housing-
Turns out our well is completely dry. Looks like we'll be hauling in our water for the time being. Pray that God would give us wisdom on how to proceed with that.
We did end up getting a great deal on a snow blower. It was a great deal because it didn't run. We fixed it though, and it worked great for our first storm...but it is now broken again. Just need to replace a belt but we're thankful we at least have the blower. Hopefully, we can keep it running this time.
We're having a retreat at the house in February. We're excited to use the house! Just pray that the house holds up to having everyone here...and that our septic which is already having issues survives.
Students-
Pray that the Holy Spirit would continue to grow them in their faith and that they'd stay strong in it throughout the semester.
Pray that God would continue to reveal Himself to the students who have not yet put their trust in Him.
Rachel and Mike-
Pray that we would get positive answers concerning our medical concerns.
Pray that we would make time to rest and not get burnt out by the busy nature of ministry.
Pray that our marriage would stay strong, keeping God always at the center of it.
We started out our Christmas break with three of our students graduating...Kelsey, Will and Vernon. Kelsey is going to be working on the Front Range as a teacher. Will is continuing his studies to be a physician assistant. Vernon is moving to Vegas to be closer to his dad and take more classes. Keep all of them in your prayers as they move forward in their lives.
After graduation, it was family time. We had family come in from all over. And of course, almost everyone got sick at some point. I guess that just happens when you put people from all over the country together in confined spaces. Thankfully, Rachel and I escaped most of the sickness at that point.
For Christmas Eve, we spent time with our Japanese students. First, it was our church's Christmas Eve service, and then for dinner, they came over to my mom's place with us. Christmas day, we had one of them back over to celebrate the day with us. It was a great time getting to share the Christmas experience with our students.
After Christmas, we took a bunch of students up to Colorado Springs for Life Impact. It's a great conference where our student this year got to hear speakers like Dr. Robert Coleman, author of The Master Plan of Evangelism. Though this is where Rachel and I eventually got sick, it was an awesome time for our students. It was great getting to see them grow throughout the week. I think it was also very encouraging for them getting to be around almost 350 other students looking to grow in their faith.
After Life Impact, Rachel and I stayed on the Front Range for a couple of more days. I had some doctor appointments up in Denver I needed to take care of. Over the past few years, I've been getting dizzy more and more. My doctor in Durango thought it was because of all the concussions I've had throughout my life. The visit to the doctor in Denver was supposed to test for all of that. In the end, they didn't test for what we went up there for and the specialist didn't seem to really care. It was disappointing to say the least.
When we returned to Durango, the new semester was upon us. Though it's still early in the semester, things are going well. We've been tackling a lot of taboo topics within the church, things like pornography and homosexuality. We've had some great discussions with our students about such topics. Having students from all walks of life (including the head of the LGBT club on campus) and belief systems attending, it makes for really interesting discussions. Being that these are topics that a lot of our students haven't studied out in scripture, I think it was eye opening for many of them and really made them think.
With those that we are discipling, it's going well. It's always tough at the beginning of the semester to catch a rhythm, trying to make schedules match up and such but it's starting to come together. It seems like God is really giving our students a thirst to grow right now. It's really awesome to see.
With our events, those have gone well also. Our biggest was a skiing/sledding/ice skating day up in Silverton. We had around 20 students throughout the day. That's pretty good for this early in the winter/spring semester. During the trip, I was able to reconnect with one of our students we haven't seen much of this past year due to his work schedule. It was really good. Looking to the near future, we have a lot of great events planned that we're looking forward to.
Looking into the more distant future, our summer plans are starting to come together. After all of our end of the year staff meetings, Rachel and I will probably hit the road to do some more support raising. We're still not where we're supposed to be for support and with the recent loss of a couple of supporters, we'll need to at least make that up. We're looking at possibly going to Louisiana so if anyone might be able to open some doors for us there, that would be awesome. Now is the time where we need to be setting all of that up.
Our next big summer event will be, Lord willing, taking students on another mission trip back to Peru to follow up with those we met last time and to reach new areas. Our last trip was such a huge success that I can't wait to take students back there.
Thanks for all the support and encouragement you give! We are super thankful for that! Keep FLC in your prayers!
Cheers and God Bless,
Mike and Rachel
If the Lord is leading you to give, follow this link to some different options:
http://thewallscall.blogspot.com/p/other-giving-options.html
Prayer Requests:
Housing-
Turns out our well is completely dry. Looks like we'll be hauling in our water for the time being. Pray that God would give us wisdom on how to proceed with that.
We did end up getting a great deal on a snow blower. It was a great deal because it didn't run. We fixed it though, and it worked great for our first storm...but it is now broken again. Just need to replace a belt but we're thankful we at least have the blower. Hopefully, we can keep it running this time.
We're having a retreat at the house in February. We're excited to use the house! Just pray that the house holds up to having everyone here...and that our septic which is already having issues survives.
Students-
Pray that the Holy Spirit would continue to grow them in their faith and that they'd stay strong in it throughout the semester.
Pray that God would continue to reveal Himself to the students who have not yet put their trust in Him.
Rachel and Mike-
Pray that we would get positive answers concerning our medical concerns.
Pray that we would make time to rest and not get burnt out by the busy nature of ministry.
Pray that our marriage would stay strong, keeping God always at the center of it.
Does disagreement mean hate?
In this nation, we have gotten to the point where we call out the other side for hate when they disagree with our position. Unfortunately, when we do that, we only breed more hate. We actually create hate where it never was, nurture it to grow and thrive.
A lot of this is used for political gain. People pushing an agenda, gaining votes, stirring the pot to make money.
Nobody wants to be called a hatemonger so we throw the hate word out there in order to keep the other side quiet. We bully them into being scared to open their mouth. Usually, it's pretty effective but sometimes it just backs a person into a corner where the next words to come out of their mouth are fighting words. Hate begets hate.
Unfortunately, those who are normally the loudest for calling others out for hatred usually have the most hatred in their own heart. It's a sad and destructive place for our nation to be in. Maybe that is just human nature, though.
God has called us to be so much more than that, so much better than that. Granted, so much of our nation has turned its back on God. But for those who have not, how about we try and love our enemies as God commanded? That means loving those who disagree with us. Even if they bring hatred, we must bring love.
That certainly doesn't mean we can't disagree, though. We must remember that disagreement does not have to mean there is an absence of love. Where there is disagreement, love must abound that much more. Disagreement brings a canyon that love must fill in order for us to continue to connect. The bigger the gap, the more love that is needed to fill it. Whether you believe in Christ or not, we must all make a great effort to live this concept. If not, our friendships, our relationships, and even our nation will eventually crumble.
A lot of this is used for political gain. People pushing an agenda, gaining votes, stirring the pot to make money.
Nobody wants to be called a hatemonger so we throw the hate word out there in order to keep the other side quiet. We bully them into being scared to open their mouth. Usually, it's pretty effective but sometimes it just backs a person into a corner where the next words to come out of their mouth are fighting words. Hate begets hate.
Unfortunately, those who are normally the loudest for calling others out for hatred usually have the most hatred in their own heart. It's a sad and destructive place for our nation to be in. Maybe that is just human nature, though.
God has called us to be so much more than that, so much better than that. Granted, so much of our nation has turned its back on God. But for those who have not, how about we try and love our enemies as God commanded? That means loving those who disagree with us. Even if they bring hatred, we must bring love.
That certainly doesn't mean we can't disagree, though. We must remember that disagreement does not have to mean there is an absence of love. Where there is disagreement, love must abound that much more. Disagreement brings a canyon that love must fill in order for us to continue to connect. The bigger the gap, the more love that is needed to fill it. Whether you believe in Christ or not, we must all make a great effort to live this concept. If not, our friendships, our relationships, and even our nation will eventually crumble.
Friday, November 28, 2014
Christian Challenge November 2014 Update!
Happy Thanksgiving! This month we want to give thanks for what God is doing through the ministry! We also want to give thanks to God for all of our friends and family who are behind us and the ministry!
With the ministry things are going awesome! Challenge is going well. We’ve been studying “why we should help the needy?” We ran two events with this in mind to help put faith into action. The first was an event called Homeless and Hungry. We first ran this event many years ago and it was very successful. We camped out on campus for 24 hours and raised money/canned foods for the soup kitchen. We thought, “Hey, why not do it again?” Unfortunately, the campus police never gave us the okay to camp this time around but we were still able to set up a table. And again, it was really successful. We even met a lot of new students. Many students ended up giving money and food towards the cause. (Most of it organic, of course, being in Durango.) It was awesome to see.
We followed that event with filling up boxes for Operation Christmas Child. In the past, we’ve done this for Dinosaur, CO, a very poor community in Northwest Colorado but unfortunately, our connection up there moved out of the area. So this year, we went with the official OCC. Next year, we hope to focus more locally, maybe at the women’s shelter in town. Like last year, we ended up filling up a lot of shoeboxes with our students. It’s always great to see how excited our students get for the event every year.
FCA went great as well. We had it out at the new house. We’re so excited to be able to use it for ministry! About half of our regulars weren’t there due to their teams traveling but we ended up having just as many as normal with all the new students who came. We studied a topic that really hit home for the students. There was a lot of “That spoke to exactly where I’m at!” and “Wow, mind blown!” from the students. It was an awesome time with all of them. Rachel and I always feel so blessed coming away from those nights.
So I’ve been wanting to give you a look at the kinds of students coming this year but I’ve kept putting it off due to not wanting to make these updates too long. But I think that’s always going to be an issue so now’s as good of a time as ever. As always, we certainly have a wide spectrum of students.
One of our students that comes is a strong atheist who is really searching for truth. When he first started coming, we’d ask what he thought about Christianity and he’d say basically that he thought it was a “load of crap.” Then he’d follow it up with “But I’ll see you tonight.” He definitely doesn’t pull any punches with what he thinks. The awesome thing is that he has a ton of great questions that we get to work through with him. Keep him in your prayers because the Holy Spirit is working on him.
There is another guy who is a Mormon I’ve been meeting with for three years. We’ve always been able to talk about spiritual things but finally, after all that time (and a lot of prayer), he has opened up to going through scripture with me. We are currently working our way through Romans verse by verse. It’s been really great! It’s really a picture of why we’re here: to do our best to keep anyone from falling through the cracks. We’re not going to move on or stop walking with them because God works in His own timing. We want to make sure we’re there for when He opens that door.
Another student we have comes from the Midwest. He wants to be a church planter or missionary someday. It seems like there was a lot of pressure for him to go to Bible college but he ended up at Fort Lewis. Kind of different ends of the spectrum to say the least. Recently, he said something to the effect that he thinks he’s grown more with Challenge at the Fort in the short time he’s been here than if he’d gone to Bible college for a full year. At FLC with Challenge, he’s able to be on the front lines in the trenches applying what he learns spiritually immediately. It’s awesome to see his heart for the Lord and how much he’s grown in such a short time.
I could really talk forever about all of our students but I’ll leave you with this last student. He’s one of our international students. He’s not a Christian but really has a heart to serve the needy. He’s actually already done work with that overseas. He’s seems to be intrigued by what we talk about and how we live as Christians. He’s tried to come to just about everything that we do. He’s even been going to church. Now, he doesn’t understand everything due to the language barrier but he’s very interested and God’s definitely working.
I really want to share about all of our students but I’ll stop for now. Just know that we have a great group of them this year.
Lastly, I just want to remind our friends and family who do end of the year giving, that the time is coming soon if you’re wanting to get it in for 2014 tax purposes. Know that we definitely appreciate that support! Here's a quick link to our giving options: http://thewallscall.blogspot.com/p/other-giving-options.html
Thanks for all the support and encouragement already given! We are super thankful for that! Again, hope you have a great Thanksgiving!
Cheers and God Bless,
Mike and Rachel
Prayer Requests:
Housing Praises-
We praise God for providing us this house. We also praise Him for the supporters who really helped us get into a house so that we could do more ministry, not just outside of our home but inside it as well.
We finally found our septic tank and had that pumped after three days of digging so we’re thankful for that. We can actually have students over and not scare them away with a sewage smell.
We’re also very thankful that we finally have phone service after not having it for a month. There are too many other things to list but we certainly praise God for each step He takes in preparing this place better for us and the ministry.
Housing Needs-
There are some things we definitely are praying God provides. It’s looking like we may need a new well. Those aren’t cheap at all but it’s hard to do ministry here if we don’t have water. So we’re praying for a new deeper well where we know there is plenty of water or that God would miraculously bring water back to our existing one.
We are also praying for a heavy duty snow blower or 4-wheeler we can put a snow plow on. We will need a way of clearing our long driveway so we can get out and students can get in when we get big snows. In looking at used ones online, everything is still pretty pricey so we pray we can find a good deal somewhere soon. Thankfully, God has held off the big snows so far. (Goodness, I never thought I’d ever say that.)
Lastly, we are hoping to install a wood stove in. Clearly, this is not a dire need as we do have propane heat. But we do have all these downed trees on the property. That’s free heating when you have a wood stove…and free is much cheaper than expensive propane which the house currently runs on. If we installed a wood stove, we’d still run on propane sometimes at least to keep the pipes from freezing but we’d save a lot because a small place like ours can pretty much be fully heated by only a small wood stove.
Students-
Keep them in your prayers as they go into their finals. Also pray for their safe travels as roads in our area can get pretty sketchy during their drives home.
Rachel and Mike-
Pray that our marriage would stay strong keeping God always at the center of it. Also pray that we get some much needed rest over this Thanksgiving break.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Christian Challenge October Update 2014!
Hello team! Yes, we are still alive. It’s been a busy time for us. Sorry we haven’t gotten a newsletter out since early September, I think. It feels like it’s been forever and there is so much to catch up on. So this might be a little longer than normal.
First off, my computer is finally working again, hence, being able to finally write a newsletter. I ended up upgrading my operating system which then caused more problems but those were eventually worked out. I now have a working computer! The only problem was that then, we didn’t have working internet.
That leads into the next thing. We've moved! Our old landlords finally sold our place and the new landlords were going to significantly increase rent. So with that, we decided it was time to move on. We found a place for under what our new landlords were wanting to charge and cheaper than anything else we could find.
It’s a great place but it’s smaller and a bit farther away from campus. It’s definitely more rustic and we’ll be roughing it a bit more. Its water well doesn’t always produce and has a distinct smell at times. Hopefully, that’s something that can be remedied. There’s pest problems which can be taken care of eventually, too. Oh, and the snow. We’ll get much more of that (maybe even over 200 inches this year if El Nino actually develops) come winter with sketchier roads. We definitely feel like God provided this place for us but it’s not going to be easy.
With the move, it’s been really stressful. Having to pull it off during our busiest time of the year has been trying. I’ll spare you guys of most of the details. But I guess I should tell you why we didn’t have internet. We’ll, after moving in and switching over all of our new mail to the new address, we found out our new address doesn’t actually exist according to the postal service. After talking with them, we finally got that straightened out but not before a lot of our mail went into limbo…including our internet router which was being sent to an address that didn’t exist.
Our cell phone service at the house is also in limbo as we had to order a signal booster but it couldn’t be delivered to an address that didn’t exist. So that on top of everything else has made things fairly difficult. Thankfully, the Lord is working things out step by step so we won’t have to learn how to use smoke signals and carrier pigeons. Still, be praying that things would go smoothly with the housing transition.
Ministry-wise, things are great. Our numbers for our Tuesday night discussions on campus have slimmed down a bit but our small group family dinners in town continue to be consistent and if you combined them, bigger than they were last year.
With FCA, we have cut that back to meeting once a month. Rachel and I have the student-athletes over for dinner and Bible study. With their crazy schedules, this seems to be much more successful with a good mix of old and new students coming. They are more committed to making it this year now that it’s only once a month.
Exchange, our ministry to international students has gone really well too. The group this year has been very open to what we’re doing. They’ve come on our retreats, camping trips, and other adventures where we’ve not only been able to help them with their conversational English, but we’ve also had great discussions with them about Jesus. They end up having a lot of good questions that we get to work through with them. They are a very adventurous group this year and not afraid to step out of their comfort zones in life and spiritually too.
Speaking of adventure, we’ve had probably one of our busiest starts of the semester with events ever. We’ve pretty much had an event every weekend since the start of the semester. I think my favorite so far has been the camping trip we did. We camped and had some rain move in overnight. The storms dropped about 4-5 inches of rain on us. Most had a couple of inches of water in their tents by morning. Thankfully, we had a roaring campfire and hot chocolate to warm us up.
With the storm, our hiking plans ended up getting snowed out in the high elevations so we ended up making snowmen and having a snowball fight instead. The best part was watching two of our freshmen lead devotionals for the group. It was awesome seeing them passionate about their faith, willing to step up and share about Christ with their peers. It’s something we’ve really been praying for.
With discipleship, we’re seeing a lot of growth in the students we’re meeting one-on-one with. It’s been very cool to see. It’s encouraging for us to be able to be a part of what God’s doing in their lives.
It's been such an awesome semester with the ministry so far. We love that at Fort Lewis, we can reach Jerusalem (Durango), Judea (Colorado), Samaria (the rest of America from Alaska to Florida) and the ends of the earth (Japan) all in one place...and we're thankful that you guys can be part of that too!
Prayer Requests:
-That the Holy Spirit would be working on the hearts of our students.
-We praise God that He has answered our prayers and brought us some solid student leaders.
-That our housing transition would go smoothly.
-That God would help us not neglect our marriage.
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Meditating on John 1:1 and John 1:14...and more!
Just after I finished my run yesterday, I was meditating on some scripture while going through my cool-down regiment. The cool-down is always my favorite part of my workout. Most of the time, it gives me some peaceful moments to process the podcast sermons I've just listened to on my Ipod while I run.
Yesterday though, my mind drifted. I began thinking about John 1:1 and John 1:14 for some reason.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1
Here, we see that God and the Word are synonymous.
"And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1:14
Here, when we look at the context of the verse, we see that the Word and Jesus are synonymous.
So as I was thinking about these verses, four things came to mind:
1. If you don't respect God's Word, you don't respect Jesus.
2. If you don't give God's Word authority in your life, then you don't give Jesus authority in your life.
3. You can't know Jesus if you don't know the Word.
4. You can't follow Jesus if you don't follow the Word.
When I look at America, I see a nation heading downhill very quickly. I see a nation that has left Christ for the most part. The nation has left biblical principles for selfish desires. We have redefined right and wrong as if we know better than the God who has been here for all of eternity. Do we actually think we are going to change His mind? Maybe we're saying He made a mistake. When we call ourselves Christians and then redefine the laws of right and wrong He put in place, it certainly sounds like we are telling Him He was wrong on this matter or that matter.
Is it rebellion or just plain ignorance? Probably a lot of both and neither are okay...especially when we have the Word right at our fingertips.
This nation doesn't know biblical principles anymore because God's Word isn't present in most people's daily lives. A lot of churches barely preach it and most Christians don't read the Bible even once a week outside of church. That makes for a lot of people who claim they are following Jesus but don't even know what He taught. How does that even work? How do you follow a teacher if you never go to class or read the assigned reading? The answer is...you don't. You fail the class. The simple application here is that you shouldn't call yourself a follower of Christ if you don't even try and learn what He taught. In being a follower, application of teachings is important as well and it's hard to apply things that you refuse to learn.
It all reminds me of Matthew 7:21-23...
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’
Those are some scary verses when I look around at what I see in this nation. I don't want anyone to fall into that...but how many that call themselves Christians in this nation will? They call themselves followers but there is no evidence of it. My heart breaks for that.
In Revelation 3:1-6, it talks about the church in Sardis:
To me, that sounds a lot like the American Church and America as a nation. These verses should be a wake up call. We have God's Word so easily obtainable. Ignorance is no excuse in this nation. It's time to wake up and dedicate ourselves to learning what the Word actually says and applying it. Not only is there a great danger to this nation if we don't but more importantly, there is greater danger on the personal level with eternal consequences. Nations will come and go but what we do personally with God affects our whole eternity. There is nothing that will ever be more important.
Lastly, if you are going to follow Christ (and I pray that you will), truly follow Him. Seek Him and actually be a follower. Sure, you may make mistakes along the way. I know I'm certainly not perfect and have made plenty. Just don't be deceived into thinking simply calling yourself a Christian is really being a Christ follower. There is so much more you miss out on when being deceived like that. God has such a better plan for your life when you truly follow Him.
Yesterday though, my mind drifted. I began thinking about John 1:1 and John 1:14 for some reason.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1
Here, we see that God and the Word are synonymous.
"And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1:14
Here, when we look at the context of the verse, we see that the Word and Jesus are synonymous.
So as I was thinking about these verses, four things came to mind:
1. If you don't respect God's Word, you don't respect Jesus.
2. If you don't give God's Word authority in your life, then you don't give Jesus authority in your life.
3. You can't know Jesus if you don't know the Word.
4. You can't follow Jesus if you don't follow the Word.
When I look at America, I see a nation heading downhill very quickly. I see a nation that has left Christ for the most part. The nation has left biblical principles for selfish desires. We have redefined right and wrong as if we know better than the God who has been here for all of eternity. Do we actually think we are going to change His mind? Maybe we're saying He made a mistake. When we call ourselves Christians and then redefine the laws of right and wrong He put in place, it certainly sounds like we are telling Him He was wrong on this matter or that matter.
Is it rebellion or just plain ignorance? Probably a lot of both and neither are okay...especially when we have the Word right at our fingertips.
This nation doesn't know biblical principles anymore because God's Word isn't present in most people's daily lives. A lot of churches barely preach it and most Christians don't read the Bible even once a week outside of church. That makes for a lot of people who claim they are following Jesus but don't even know what He taught. How does that even work? How do you follow a teacher if you never go to class or read the assigned reading? The answer is...you don't. You fail the class. The simple application here is that you shouldn't call yourself a follower of Christ if you don't even try and learn what He taught. In being a follower, application of teachings is important as well and it's hard to apply things that you refuse to learn.
It all reminds me of Matthew 7:21-23...
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’
Those are some scary verses when I look around at what I see in this nation. I don't want anyone to fall into that...but how many that call themselves Christians in this nation will? They call themselves followers but there is no evidence of it. My heart breaks for that.
In Revelation 3:1-6, it talks about the church in Sardis:
1 “To the angel of the church in Sardis write:
He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, says this: ‘I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake
up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die; for
I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God. 3 So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent. Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you. 4 But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments; and they will walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. 5 He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. 6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’To me, that sounds a lot like the American Church and America as a nation. These verses should be a wake up call. We have God's Word so easily obtainable. Ignorance is no excuse in this nation. It's time to wake up and dedicate ourselves to learning what the Word actually says and applying it. Not only is there a great danger to this nation if we don't but more importantly, there is greater danger on the personal level with eternal consequences. Nations will come and go but what we do personally with God affects our whole eternity. There is nothing that will ever be more important.
Lastly, if you are going to follow Christ (and I pray that you will), truly follow Him. Seek Him and actually be a follower. Sure, you may make mistakes along the way. I know I'm certainly not perfect and have made plenty. Just don't be deceived into thinking simply calling yourself a Christian is really being a Christ follower. There is so much more you miss out on when being deceived like that. God has such a better plan for your life when you truly follow Him.
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