Family and Friends

Last night after the Leadership Rocks Conference I had the opportunity to spend time with some dear friends. Dr. Almon used to be the youth pastor at the church I am currently attending and is now a full time professor at Boyce. Dr. Almon is one of the most passionate men of God I know am so grateful for his influence in my life. While at Bullitt Lick BC his family and I got to be pretty close. His wife Linette and five daughters are awesome! They took me out to dinner with some other friends of ours Chris and Sandra Bumbalough, with their son Isai, crazy cute kid. After dinner we went back to their house and just got to hang out and later on played some DDR. The girls loved it!

Mind Overload

Brent Crowe

Dr. Jay Strack

"1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:1-3

This verse continually resonated in my mind today as I attended the Leadership Rocks Conference here at Boyce. Many of you know I interned with Dr. Jay at Student Leadership University a few summers ago which was revolutionary for me and truly gave me a passion for leadership. Many of these thoughts and passions were rekindled today as I attended Leadership Rocks. My mind was spinning with thoughts of the future and after graduation, as well as my experience this past summer with Freedom Church and where it all fits in. Obviously no life decisions were made but there were some really great take aways; some principles that I was reminded I need to live by, as well as some personal applications.


Some take aways:

• "Leadership begins at the feet of Jesus." This is a two-fold take away. Brent Crowe made the former statement and then later at a break-out session Troy Temple taught on the necessity of preparing our own hearts in His word if we desire for God to use us. If we desire to influence others for the sake of the Gospel, it MUST begin with ourselves. This is what MUST drive us; a genuine passion for HIM, for everything else flows from this. I am a person that can get burned out quickly if I am not careful, but if I my passion and drive comes from a longing for Him, then I will never get burned out.
  

• I MUST be intentional about everything. There are so many things that I could do on any given day, all of them good things, but what are the things that are going to directly benefit His Kingdom and my future as a part of that on a day to day basis. If I don't think it will, I shouldn't spend time on it. I am not talking about relaxing or down time, or relationships because those can be just as essential and directly connected with it. My point is that if I truly desire for God to use me in unexplainable ways, I cannot waist time. Which leads to another take-away.
  

• "A survivor is busy; a conquerer is focused." - Brent Crowe (teaching from Daniel 1:8)- I must "simplify and focus." -Johnny Hunt- Another quote... "Business will distract us from intimacy with God." -also Brent Crowe. I have been busy and I don't like it. I want to be focused. There is a goal to be attained and to reach it, I must be focus and do away with all other distractions. That is were Hebrews 12:1-2 kept running through my mind.
  

Life is too short to waste time on the non-essential. I want to be used by God in such as way that the results can only be explained by the hand of God. The question is: am I willing to do what it takes; to get out of the way and let God lead and use me to do things that only He can do? Its going to be one wild ride! I can't wait! This is my desire. His will be done.

Evangelism

The Lord has really been dealing with me lately about my personal evangelism. It is so easy when you live on a seminary campus to just become absorbed in the "bubble" and slowly become apathetic and forget that there is a lost world that is dying and going to hell without Christ. This is where I was and am striving to climb out of.

As I began to contemplate why, it seemed, that I had such a lack of zeal and urgency to share the gospel it was as if God showed me that if I, in my everyday life, don't realize how desperately I need Him, why would I feel the need to tell others why they need Him. This led to an understanding of a lot of issues in my own heart. When I am not daily being confronted with my sin and my inability to live a life pleasing to Him apart from Him, I won't desire and feel the urgency to share Christ with others. I must constantly walk in an understanding of my depravity and complete dependence on Christ, then and only when I truly understand this, will I understand and feel the urgency to share Christ with others.

To say it simply, God has really been dealing with me about these issues and I am grateful that He is gentle and kind in His dealings with me. He helps me along step by step. I had the privilege of sharing Christ with a guy here on campus named Donald this morning and it
really was a blessing. I didn't share out of compulsion or guilt, but because I desired to, it was a blessing to say the least! I pray, however, that this would truly develop into a lifestyle and not just a once in a while thing; that I would live a lifestyle of evangelism; that I would be so consumed with Christ that I couldn't help but talk about Him. God help me!

Who I Am

The Last few days God has really been dealing with me about truly being comfortable with who I am; being comfortable with who God has made me to be and not trying to be someone else. I constantly struggle with comparing myself with other people and their abilities and not just resting in who God has made me and who I am in Christ.

I was encouraged tonight by JR's post about Authenticity in which he said that authenticity is:

"...about being comfortable with who you are. Being comfortable with who God has created you to be. Our identity is not found in what others may think or say about us….our identity is determined by what Christ has already declared us to be. There is a lot of freedom in that. Continuously living in that reality is the hard part."

God help me to live in this freedom!

Fallballapallooza!!

Yesterday, Boyce had a killer event they called Fallballapallooza. The event took most of the afternoon and consisted of all the halls on campus competing between Volleyball, Tigerball(a mix between ultimate frisbee/soccer), basketball and ended with an amazing dodge ball tournament. It was fun, but exhausting! My hall finished 3rd of seven, so we didn't do bad! Go Apostolos!

5k

I just ran my first official 5k today. If your not a runner that's 3.1 miles. Its definitely not that far, however, I normally run about 2 miles so it was pushing it a little. My time was 28.36 minutes. Not that great but hey, I wasn't in it to win. It was fun to be with so many runners and also some close friends. There is a 5 mile coming up in the end of October in a place called Bernheim Forest, a beautiful park in Bullitt County. It is intriguing, I must say. We'll see!

Perspective

A good friend of mine, Greg Poole, once said:"The keys to life are balance and perspective." I could not agree more. God has has really been showing me some awesome stuff in my times with Him in the morning. I've been going through the gospel of John and this morning I was reading chapter eleven, the story of Lazarus. One huge lesson to be learned in this chapter is that of having the right perspective. The story begins introducing a man Lazarus who was sick. His sisters, Mary and Martha sent to Jesus to come to them and heal him. Verse 4 says:

v4 "But when Jesus heard this, He said, 'this sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the son of God may be glorified by it."

v5 "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus."

v6 "So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was."

Jesus knew that waiting to respond to the request of Mary and Martha, although to them it seems too late, would ultimately result in the glory of God. He even told them it would, but they did not trust Him and later thought hope was lost. We have the promises of God right before us in His word that He is good and that "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purposes." Rom 8:28

Yet we, I, doubt and don't listen. God, help me to see from Your perspective and trust in Your promises.

Days Gone By

It has been one busy weekend/beginning of the week. Sadly, my birthday was spent studying in Java where I am currently. I got a lot done so that made it ok. I was sad that I couldn't watch the Michigan Game, however, I did keep my eye on the game through espn.com! This made me happy, although it doesn't give too many bragging rights, its still a win, and a good one! Georgia also had a win. It was a good day in College football, despite Kentucky's win over UofL.

My sister was awesome and got me an itunes gift card for my B-day with which I bought the new Shane and Shane Cd, great Cd. Also, I have held out for a long time on getting an ipod, not wanting to spend the money, however, this birthday that is what i'll purchase, especially now that my sister works for Apple. The new ipod touch is pretty amazing, I played with it in the store the other day, however, I think I will go with the new 160 GB classic. I haven't decided yet, but that would give me the most space for other things beside music, like Pictures of which I have thousands. We will see...

I'm getting pumped for fall break and getting to to go Georgia for Catalyst, and to get to see Freedoms progress and the staff, miss those guys! This are progressing pretty fast and a lot has changed since I left so I can't wait to catch up on things!

The Boyce Office

This video is a little dated but I love it. This is the Boyce version of the Office, introducing the 07/08 Student Counsel. They made a second episode that I will post later. They did a great job with this!

Not Studying Hard

So today I just wasn't feeling the whole "sit inside and study all day" thing, I admit. I had a lot of fun though! It was quite possibly the nicest day ever outside and I just could not bring myself to sit inside and study all day, although I should have. The day ended with spending time with some of my favorite people @ DQ and the soccer game!

Great Class Today!

Today in Intro to Evangelism and Church Growth class, after discussing the relationship between theology and evangelism we watched a video of a Larry King Live Episode entitled "Should Christians Stop Trying to Convert Jews?" The show was quite heated and very eye opening!

Can I just say that I am so grateful to God for raising up men like Dr. Mohler. A lot of accusations were thrown at Christians and specifically Southern Baptists'. Dr. Mohler responded strongly in truth, never wavering , and unapologetically about what the Scripture teaches. He has such a good understanding of the word enabling him to respond with clarity to the accusations. This really convicted me and encouraged me to study the word more intensely and to have a more thorough understanding of what I believe. If you have some time you can read the manuscript here.

Great Class today!

Long Day

It has been a long day, I have to be honest, I'm glad its over. I can't wait to go to bed, in just moments.

I don't know what the heck is going on with Michigan this year? Two terrible loses in a row, this is never a good way to start the season. I will be optimistic though, they will turn it around!

Georgia suffered a loss as well, but at least they weren't annihilated! They will bring it back this weekend against Western Carolina however!

Late Nights

If you've ever been curious about what goes on during some of the late nights at Boyce, check out this video, it's hilarious!

Joe's/Ultimate/Gospel/Diarrhea

So what do all these have in common? One awesome Apostolos Hall Event! Last night all the guys on my hall got together for to get a bite to eat downtown and then play Ultimate Frisbee at waterfront. It was a pretty amazing evening! We ate at Joe's Crab Shack on the river, great place. Afterwards we headed over to waterfront to get a game of Ultimate Frisbee going and ended up playing with several other guys who were there wanting to pick up a game. Later some of my guys had the opportunity to share the gospel with some of them. After about two and a half hours of Ultimate we were pretty wiped and headed back to campus. After wiping up some killer milkshakes thanks to Tim letting us use his ice cream we sat around and got into some of our favorite missionary diarrhea experiences. The guys on my hall are amazing! We capped is all off around 2 so that I could make it up by 8 for some exciting CPR training! All in all, great night!

Finally!

I have been ranting on my friend Emil to start blogging again for a while and he's finally taken my advice. Emil is one of my closest friends here at Boyce and we see eye to eye on a lot of issues. I am thankful for friends who are willing to walk the long haul with you and Emil is one of those guys. We often bounce ideas off of each other and he has always encouraged and challenged my thinking. He is one that is always out to make others better. Not only do I want to surround myself with people like this, but I want to be this type of person as well. I want be the type of person who always strives to make those around me better, not always critiquing and trashing them under my breath. He's also been in the church planting world longer than I have and was happy to hear of my increased passion for church planting. Check him out!

Boyce Soccer

In a terrible upset, the Boyce Bulldogs soccer team lost tonight, 2-3. They played great the first half but couldn't hold in in the second. It was a fun game though.

Ok, so there not technically an official team but play in a rec league. Its still a heck of a lot of fun! We had a good crowd tonight too. I love looking at the other people in the stands during the game. Being a rec league most are just playing for fun and don't have a lot of people in the stands. We, on the other hand, have many, and scream and yell. They kinda look at us as if to ask "who the heck are you people?" Its great! Go Bulldogs! I was able to get some ok pics...

Motivation

I am not gonna lie, I'm having some trouble motivating myself in school this semester. I think I am ready to be done. I am loving the opportunities in leadership I have this semester but just struggling when it comes to the school work. The constant loads of reading, papers, and projects are weighing on me, especially when I have so many books and personal projects that 'I' want to read and do. Can't wait for May!!!