Archives for February 2005

“I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.” [1 Samuel 1:27]

Kay and I have a granddaughter. Abigail Grace entered this world at 1:06 AM (CST), Sunday, Feb. 20. She weighed 7 pounds and 10 ounces and is 20 inches long. She has dark hair (for now anyway!). She is alert and doing well. Her mom and dad (Daniel and Michelle) are doing well. They are so excited, that they aren’t sleeping much.

Daniel, Michelle and Abigail live in Arlington, Texas (between Dallas and Ft Worth).

God was so gracious to let us be here to participate in the great wait and the joyous welcome of this precious little girl. We are having lots of fun holding her. We are very blessed.

Yes, of course there are photos! We’re grandparents, aren’t we??? Kay and I are glad you asked to see them! In case you missed it, click here for photos. Or you can click here. Or here. (We didn’t want you to miss the photos!)

Don’t know if this U.S. News & World Report article or not. It has some interesting quotes that might be useful to ministries that work with college students and professors. [Disclaimer: I served in ministry for 10 years to Christian Leadership Ministries, Campus Crusade for Christ’s ministry to university professors. I am biased!]

Some quotes. [Color emphasis is mine.]

Large majorities of undergraduates, for instance, say they seek meaning and purpose in their lives, yet just 8 percent report hearing professors discuss spiritual or religious issues in or out of the classroom, according to a major study of campus religious life by University of California-Los Angeles researchers. “There is a poor fit today between students’ interest in spiritual matters and the universities’ general lack of interest in those concerns,” says Alexander Astin, founder of UCLA’ s Higher Education Research Institute.

Riley found that these schools are providing intellectual heft to a generation of spiritual seekers that is already influencing American society, business, and government.

True, total enrollment in colleges with some kind of sectarian affiliation hasn’t grown as a percentage of total college enrollment during the past 20 years. But at schools with an intensively religious focus, she notes, student numbers have surged.

In doing so, they exemplify a form of profound intellectual diversity that is, paradoxically, often threatening to the self-described champions of that ideal on the majority of the nation’s campuses. “There is still pressure,” Marsden says, “to uphold the view that diversity trumps everything else, including the view that there may be absolutes.” Yet it’s precisely that devotion to absolutes that seems to account for the appeal of God on the Quad ‘s quietly thriving colleges.

It seems that college students are looking for respected influencers, like their professors, to be talk with them about spiritual things. They are looking for absolutes. The do see the shallowness of current tolerance and diversity. They will go to where they find intense discussions about spiritual matters.

This seriousness about serious issues is what led to the construction of a number of internet websites in the mid and late 1990’s. Leadership University, Español Leadership University, Origins, Stonewall Revisited, Academic Initiative, William Lane Craig Philosopher, Doug Yeo Bass Trombonist, Probe Ministries, and Loving Monday.

We believed (and still do) in the purpose statement, Telling the truth at the speed of life.

Don’t know if you saw this in Tony Whittaker’s Web Evangelism Bulletin, but I think this is a very good way to build interest in your site and build credibility of providing cutting-edge information on current issues. This would be a good way for content-rich sites to promote their content by connecting it to a survey of what people think are important, and releasing it over time to build readership. What “expert group” would your website users respect? Survey the experts and organize your content around current issues that are important to experts your users would respect. Or survey your users and do the same process using your users’ opinions of what is important.

The news item is reproduced below, and is available online.

Top 10 Issues Facing Today’s Church
We conducted a widespread online study in November/December to garner input from ministry leaders regarding the top issues they regularly encounter. We received 3,750 issues from 1,300+ ministry leaders ranging from England and Australia to all across North America. A weekly focus on each issue begins with Issue #10 on Monday, 7 February. Click here.

After the weekly countdown of all the issues, you will be able to sign up for a PDF report which summarizes them all.

You don’t subscribe to Tony’s excellent publication? You should subscribe today!

“Where are you on your spiritual journey? Are you moving toward God? Away from God? Staying about the same?”

Last week I in California for some meetings. Returning to Orlando last Friday night, my God-assigned seat was next to Amy (names have been changed). She was friendly and open to conversation.

As I asked Amy questions, she began describing her spiritual quest to know God. To her, God was some kind of new age being “who is out there somewhere.” Then she said, “God is OK, but I’m not very sure about the Jesus thing.”

Jesus is divisive. I remember hearing our director in the Middle East speaking about the U.S. interest in exploring similarities between Islam and Christianity following 9-11. He said that similarity discussions seemed to go along quite OK until the topic of Jesus Christ came up.

Jesus is divisive. He himself said, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34).

Paul said, “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Cor. 2:1-2)

It turns out that Amy’s daughter is a college student at a nearby college. She is on the rowing team. I have a Campus Crusade friend who volunteers as the sailing coach at the college. Amy phoned her daughter Tammy (before we took off!) and she knows Coach Stephens also. God had established a point of contact between Amy and me.

It turns out that Tammy had a terrible car accident a year or two ago and had come to Christ as a result of that traumatic experience. Amy (the mom) had watched Tammy’s life take on purpose and meaning. While Amy was intrigued by the changes in Tammy’s life, she still wasn’t “very sure about the Jesus thing”.

We talked a while. I gave her a copy of the Four Spiritual Laws. She was interested in a church, but she also is somewhat of a free spirit. She told me where she lived and I recommended a very contemporary church called H2O Church.

Amy did not make a commitment to Christ. But she did take my business card and promise to email me after she reads the Four Laws booklet and visits H2O. I hope she does.

Asking questions is a great way to discover where a person is spiritually. If a person is open to talking about spiritual things, we can have an opportunity to talk about Jesus. To help me in my evangelism, I’ve found great ideas from Campus Crusade’s Cojourners project.

Every day we can look for opportunities to ask people “Where are you on your spiritual journey?”

Are you helping people learn more about “the Jesus thing” as they journey toward God?

I read an interesting article about the power of communities, as demonstrated in the recent election. The important part is quoted is below. My highlights are in red.

These numbers from Meetup.com ought to be Exhibit A in countering those who still pooh-pooh the Internet’s ability to bring about meaningful social change in a rapid manner:

About 750,000 individuals registered for various political Meetup Groups, with some 450,000 attending at least one of 25,000 meetings held nationwide.

Kerry supporters alone numbered almost 132,000 strong in 653 cities worldwide, and they conducted 8,700 events between them.

President Bush’s supporters numbered fewer than 5% of the Kerry total and Bush events fewer than 10% . . . but these folks held much cheerier post-election bashes.

Myles Weissleder, Meetup’s vice president of communications, sums it up thusly: “Twenty-five thousand meetings where no meetings existed before. Community connections where there were once none. Meetup Groups helped spur millions of dollars raised, tens of thousands of signatures signed, record voter turnouts and best of all – a newly empowered electorate.”

Some will carp that all those newly minted activists holding all those living-room meetings didn’t do Kerry any good where it counted. They are shortsighted.

This is how political campaigns are going to be run from now on.