[Be Wilder. continued]

 

 

 

Naturally Supernatural

 

“Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’” – Luke 10:9

 

{Ryan:}   The Kingdom of God growing like mustard seeds on earth’s soil is quite natural.  Jesus was many things to many people: listener, teacher, handyman, rabbi… and no part of Jesus’ life was any less spiritual than another.  Jesus ate food, rode donkeys, had a sense of humor, and sweat over a hard day’s work.  He often seemed to prefer reclining at the dinner table with “sinners” than standing in a pulpit.  Jesus saw past religious façade and flaky spirituality, and was perpetually drawn to those who were knowingly sick and sinful. 

 

{Lindsay:}   University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV).  We were at a conference at UNLV when Ryan and I needed to make some copies and were in very goofy moods (as usual). We were having difficulty getting my Mac to sync with those impossible old PC’s at Kinko’s. We began to laugh and joke with Glen, the employee running the desk. He was a student at UNLV, so we hit it off right away.  We found out that Glen is an amazing bowler, and since we were going to be in town for a few days we exchanged numbers to meet up for a night of bowling. 

 

We hung out with Glen at Kinko’s again the next night when we went to pick up a package. (It was quite fun.  Since he had his back to us, we sneaked up on him and hid behind the counter and started calling his name. He thought he was going crazy!)  We went bowling at a casino a few nights later and were quite nervous when Glen showed up with a duffle bag custom-fit for his three (yes, three) bowling balls. Glen creamed us all the first game.  He was promptly humbled, however, after being shockingly defeated the next two games by a tiny young woman named Melissa, then by Ryan (who is not by any means a tiny young woman).  It was good fun with lots of laughs all around.

 

Before leaving, I asked if we could pray for Glen in any way. He claimed he was agnostic. So Ryan and I took turns sharing how Jesus had proved to us that He is real and deeply desires a relationship with us. We shared stories from Scripture where Jesus comes to change religion into relationship. We testified to God’s goodness to us and laid out the Gospel for him.

 

Glen gave his heart to Jesus that night! We prayed with him right there in the bowling alley at Southpoint Casino. We gave him a Bible that was easy to read and the phone number of a local church planter we knew. It was so incredible to see the joy in his eyes… What beautiful things can happen when we reach out in friendship to people.

 

Our adventure with Glen was definitely a learning experience for us. We weren’t expecting anything to happen when we walked into Kinko’s that day, but God had plans to bring joy and salvation. It’s SO EASY to share Jesus with people.  Go bowling in a casino… run errands at Kinko’s… laugh, work, play, pray… The Kingdom is so accessible to us as children of God.

 

You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world… We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. 

– Nelson Mandela

 

{Ryan:}   Notice when Jesus called the fisherman on the bank of Lake Galilee he said, “Follow me and I will make you a fisher of men.”  It was no coincidence that Jesus wanted Peter to remain a fisherman.  It’s what Peter loved to do, part of who he was.  Jesus never seeks to divorce your personality from the way you minister Jesus to others. You don’t have to fit into anyone’s mold of evangelist or intercessor, but you define these terms as you follow Jesus into the lives of the lost, letting His heart for broken humanity bleed through the filter of your own unique personality.

 

{Lindsay:}   University of California Los Angeles (UCLA): It’s the middle of campus, and a little group of Jesus-loving Asian students have gathered to do an impromptu skit about God’s love.  Picture a Korean Napoleon Dynamite named Enoch, complete with sweet glasses and an afro standing in the middle of a sidewalk swarming with students.  Picture him wailing, “I’m so lonely!  Nobody loves me! I’m sooo lonely.  What’s the point of my life? I’m so lonely!”  Now picture students who had planted themselves around the crowd yelling things back like, “God loves you, man!” and “He’s got a purpose for you, bro!”  And then the grand finale, “We need a group hug, right now!”  Students rush from the various places they’ve been standing to the middle, collapse Enoch in a huge hug, and proceed to share 30-second testimonies to the crowd around them. (In the middle of the drama, someone apparently thought Enoch was actually suicidal and called the paramedics. He was obviously pretty convincing.)

 

Perhaps this perky party of performers was a little peculiar and unpolished, but they caught the attention of a football player named David who had been observing the whole absurd scene.  Minutes later a follower of Jesus began encouraging David with the love of God, asking how he could pray for him.  It turned out that not only was his knee jacked up from football practice, but just the night before he’d been telling a friend that he wanted to get his life straight with God but didn’t know how.  Students promptly prayed for his knee, and David was immediately healed, right there in the middle of the crowded Bruin Walk.  “Who are you guys?” he asked after the whole experience. Twenty minutes later over lunch in the campus food court David committed his life to Jesus.

 

{Ryan:}   So, who are you, and how are you going to minister Jesus to the world around you?  What makes you come alive?  What moves your heart?  What do you love to do?  There is only one you, and you have the ability to communicate the love and life of Jesus in a way that only you can.  

 

Keep it simple.  Keep it real.  Be yourself.   

 

When Jesus sent out those 72 others, his instructions were few.  He didn’t want to over-complicate the adventure at hand.  Listen to the language Jesus uses:

 

And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide… Whenever you 

enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you.  Heal the sick in it and say to them, 

‘The Kingdom of God has come near to you.’– Luke 10: 7-9

 

Did you catch that?  Simply by entering a home, eating and drinking with their hosts, hanging around town and praying for sick people, the Kingdom of God is geographically brought near!  This seemingly natural way of relating with people seems to be the warp-zone tunnel for God’s will “as it is in Heaven” to invade the lives of earth’s inhabitants.

 

Let’s make room for the miraculous in the mundane. 

 

Fishing in a Multi-National Pond

 

For all the nations are Your inheritance. – Asaph, Psalmist

 

The university campus in America may well be the greatest mission-field on earth today. Young people gather from nearly every nation onto campuses to be educated and then thrust back to their homelands as the next generation leaders of every sphere of society. This is the densely populated World Village we call the college campus: a multi-national pond in which the fisherman Jesus invites us to cast out our lines. 

 

In a matter of weeks I have had the opportunity to spend time with future leaders of Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, China, India, Micronesia, Kenya, France, Switzerland, and many more.  You don’t have to wait until next summer to go on that mission trip to reach the world for Jesus.  Your time as a student is a golden moment for you to rock the nations with the love of Christ. 

 

University of Arizona.   Erik and I walked upstairs to the dining hall to hang out with some students. After some good laughs, encouraging stories, and spilling ketchup on my jeans, we walked outside and gathered with students whose appetites weren’t yet satisfied – they were hungry for a move of God on campus.  We split into groups of two and set out to bring the Kingdom near to whoever the Spirit would lead us.  Annette and Scott tell a story from their outing:  

 

“We were taken aback when a Taiwanese student we approached abruptly asked, ‘How do you forgive when you can’t change the past?!’ You should know that all we said was, ‘Hello, can we talk to you?’  Surprised and excited we sat with this sweet Taiwanese student and explained how true forgiveness is found and offered through Jesus alone. We invited him to be a part of our community, to enjoy friendship and dialogue and he eagerly gave us his number. We prayed for him and it was evident that he encountered Jesus. I can only imagine what’s to come.”

 

Making space in your life to befriend international students will go a long way.  What a privilege we have to learn from so many beautiful ethnicities.  Welcome them.  Hang out with them.  Get to know their culture.  Pray for them personally.  Ask God how you can be a blessing to them.  

 

Individual missionaries toil to raise thousands of dollars every year to pay for plane tickets, visas, language classes, and a number of other expenses to finally get to their destination (I know, I’m one of them.)  I’m not suggesting we don’t go to the nations ourselves.  But recognize the opportunity at-hand.  Many a missionary would give anything for the chance to impact the future leaders of politics, business, religion, education, science, entertainment, and media that you pass by daily in the halls of your school.  

 

I’m both alarmed and excited that many international students in our nation have never heard the Gospel.  I’ve met several this year who have never heard of Jesus!  It is certainly alarming that a student could spend even a few days in America and not be encountered by the presence of Jesus through one of His followers.  Yet we have an exciting opportunity, for never have Christ-following students been more accessible to the un-reached than today!

 

Santa Barbara City College (SBCC), CA.   I woke up to a brilliant West Coast sunrise after having experienced the massive mayhem of Del Playa Street at UC Santa Barbara the night before.   Picking up drunks to care for them, befriending the broken, and caring for the confused was the regular business of students living at the Tree House, a redeemed frat house sitting smack in the middle of one of the craziest party blocks in the nation. So Lindsay and I were a little weary from a less than ordinary night as we strolled SBCC in search of what the Spirit would want to unleash that day.

 

I spotted Brandon on his skateboard, a friend we’d met the night before at the Tree House.  With him was Jonas,  an exchange student who had just moved from Switzerland.  Brandon had to scoot on to class but I invited Jonas to join Lindsay and me for lunch, which he gladly accepted.  Over lunch we talked about travel, relationships, goals in life, and became friends.  He walked with us to our car as we were about to leave. We shared with him a bit more in depth of how Jesus has pursued us, and continues to, and the beauty of having relationship with God. I gave him a Bible - he’d never read one.  He left us eager to read the stories of Jesus.

 

Your college years are some of the most impacting, opportune moments you’ll ever have as a follower of Jesus.  You don’t have to just be a student getting an education, but a missionary sent strategically by God, to bring light and flavor to every dark and tasteless place on your campus.

 

The first words we hear Jesus speak to his potential disciples are, “Follow Me, and I will show you how to fish for people.”  I think Jesus is saying, “As my disciple, the first thing we’re gonna work on is being able to catch others.”  Where are the fishers of men in the body of Christ in the Western world today? 

– Erik Fish, Campus Church Planter

 

Robert Wilder penned the first declaration for those initial Student Volunteers reading, “We, the undersigned, declare ourselves willing and desirous, God permitting, to go to the un-evangelized portions of the world.”

 

Today, the un-evangelized world is on your doorstep.  How are you going to respond?

 

Eyes Wide Open

 

The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ… If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time.  God became Man for no other purpose.  It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose. – C. S. Lewis

 

{Lindsay:}  How do I ever find myself in the middle of astonishing encounters?  Most often its when I pray for God to open my eyes and let me see what He sees, when I intend to be alert and aware of the world around me, when I am willing to risk a few moments of awkwardness with a stranger, and when I am willing to let go of whatever schedule I may be hanging onto.  

 

Robert Morris University (RMU), PA.  My friend and I were on campus, and we’d stopped to pray over an older woman.  Usually when I’m praying for strangers, I pray with my eyes open (I figure it’d be weird if I talked to you with my eyes closed, and if I’m telling people that God is really here and listening to us, it might be weird if I talk to Him with my eyes closed too.)  I was watching students passing by as my friend Jessica was praying, and I felt the Holy Spirit whisper, “If someone walks by with a Christian T-shirt you should talk to them.”  Not even a minute later a dude walks by with a neon green shirt that said JESUS in huge letters.  He was walking super fast, so we had to run a bit to catch up with him (yes, it was awkward).  After we explained what we were up to though, he invited us to a prayer meeting on campus that night.  It was an incredible evening of praying with students for RMU to know Jesus.  Some leaders of the meeting were deeply encouraged and felt more connected with this broader movement of prayer as I shared stories with them of what God is up to across the nation.  I marveled all night at the way the Lord had completely set me up for His purpose here, just because I had my eyes open to see what He wanted to show me.

 

University of Missouri Kansas City.  It was a gorgeous day, and I was looking about as I climbed the stairs into the Student Union, on my way to a little prayer meeting in the cafeteria.  A beautiful young woman was studying outside near the steps.  She stood out to me, so I said hello but continued on my way.  As I joined the little prayer session inside, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.  I began asking the Lord if He wanted to say something to her.  Out of the blue, He gave me a picture of a jewelry box I had when I was a kid.  It had flowers all over it, and when you opened the lid, a little ballerina popped up and spun to the music.  I hadn’t thought about that little box in years, but I felt like I was supposed to tell the young woman outside about it.  So I left the prayer meeting, ran outside, and plopped down beside her.  

 

“This might sound crazy,” I started in, “but I just wanted you to know that God sees you and loves you and has an incredible destiny for your life.”  When I began describing the jewelry box to her, she freaked out. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh! I know exactly what you’re talking about! I had that exact music box when I was a kid! Oh my gosh - are you a psychic?”  I laughed.  “No, I’m not a psychic.  I’m just in a conversation with God, and He showed me that picture because He wanted to convince you that He’s real and that He sees you.”  I asked her about her childhood, if she’d had any experiences with God when she was a kid, which led into a whole conversation about Jesus and the Gospel.  I wasn’t planning to talk to that young woman when I walked into the Student Union, but because I had my eyes open and my heart ready, the Lord graced me with a brilliant opportunity to share His love.

 

University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV).  Ryan and I were trying to get into the dorm where we were staying for the weekend, but we were having a hard time getting our borrowed key cards to work.  A guy entering the dorm came to our rescue.  I saw he had a book my parents had read, so I struck up a conversation with him.  His name was Scott, and he was a freshman from Chicago who had recently gotten his life re-set with Jesus.  We invited him to come to a worship gathering with us that night, and he gladly joined us.  Our friendship with Scott developed over the course of the weekend, and Sunday night we had the privilege of baptizing him in the middle of campus along with four other students.  He received all kinds of prayer and Holy Spirit action that night.  I’m always asking God to let me see what He sees, and with my eyes wide open, God pointed out Scott because He wanted to move mightily amongst us that weekend.

 

Keep your eyes open, my friends.  The Holy Spirit has all kinds of trippy stories up His sleeve, just waiting to be told through your life.

 

The Reward is Jesus 

 

Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject you, but rejoice that 

your names are written in heaven. – Luke 10:17-20

 

{Lindsay:}  After watching Jesus encounter person after person during our week at UNLV, we found ourselves leaving town with much rejoicing.  With the worship music rolling, we began thanking God with exuberance for the salvation that one of our new-found friends had received in a casino the night before.  The excitement in the air was thick.  We were still a bit stunned at the way the power of Jesus in us had broken into this student’s life so effortlessly.  

 

As the joy swelled in our hearts, the Holy Spirit began to settle into the car, bringing with Him a deep revelation: our names are written in heaven.  Within minutes our prayers of gratitude had shifted.  Tears were sliding down our faces as we drove, keenly aware of the immensity of our own salvation.  We know Jesus, and this is eternal, abundant life that we don’t have to wait for until we die.  Jesus is our reward at the end of the race and for every step we run along the way.  At the end of a week of laboring at UNLV, the love of Jesus toward us was still a sweeter reward than any other miraculous story we’d lived out.

 

University of Nevada Las Vegas.  I’ll never forget how enthralled I felt with the person of Jesus after a conversation with a Taiwanese girl over Slurpees.  Her only experience with Jesus was associated to a strict religious school she was forced to go to as a child.  I sat at a picnic table on campus with her for over an hour just recounting stories of Jesus... how He played with kids when other adults dismissed them... boldly and unabashedly offended the religious leaders on a consistent basis... lovingly touched and healed all the diseased... always hung out with the wrong crowd at parties... joked with the disciples when they were being stupid... and never left anyone in the mess He found them in.  She listened intently to the stories, flinching as I described in detail Jesus’ death for us.  She let me pray that God would encounter her, and when I finished she assured me, “When I meet Him, I’ll tell Him that you told me all about Him.”   

 

I walked away from that conversation so in love with Jesus.  Not because the girl had let me pray for her and not because I felt I’d successfully performed my evangelistic duty.  No, I felt in love with Jesus in that moment because somewhere in the middle of my story telling I remembered how much I genuinely like who Jesus is… bold, steady, adventurous, kind, willing to risk, funny, and patient – Jesus is seriously so cool.  I walked away from that conversation grinning to myself, utterly convinced of His righteousness and eager for the rest of my life to be filled with moments with this guy who is God.  The Reward is Jesus!

 

Pack Light

 

Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals... – Luke 10:4

 

{Lindsay:}   The call to go is simple.  

 

Pack light.  Go with the flow.  Have fun.  

 

Really and truly, here’s the reality: when adventuring with Jesus, you’ve got to be prepared for just about anything.  The call to hit the road with the Gospel will probably not involve fancy resort hopping.  Jesus spent His years of ministry with “no place to lay his head.”  You might sleep in the guest room of a posh home on Coronado Island.  Or you might sleep on a smelly futon in a crowded beach house or in a sleeping bag on a dorm room floor.  Maybe you’ll even sleep in your car a few times.  Some days you might eat leftovers from Panera Bread (still tasty after five days).  Other days retired doctors might treat you to dinner at the Mongolian Buffet.  Sometimes students scraping by on a dime   might insist on buying you fancy frozen yogurt. 

 

You don’t need an RV or a U-Haul truck.  You can wear the same pair of jeans for at least a week before they start to get crusty.  You don’t need fancy gadgets or gismos.  (But if you get your hands on a GPS, by all means take it.) 

 

After our first week on the road, we realized that at the rate we were spending money to eat out we would never have enough to last the whole trip.  So we simply prayed that God would begin to provide cheaper food for us.  As soon as we got to the next town, free meals began to pop up everywhere – either we’d get invited to home-cooked dinners or someone would regularly insist on buying our meals.  Our expenses were drastically reduced the rest of the trip because of the Lord’s provision, and we always had more than enough.

 

When Jesus sent out some of His crew, He sent them with very little instructions.  

 

Acquire no gold nor silver nor copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, 

nor two tunics nor sandals nor a staff... – Matthew 10:9-10

 

A good buddy of ours who travels to campuses to pray and lives mostly in his van comments on Jesus’ words above:

 

We kind of do that. Well, we cheat a lot actually: we have a car, and the Lord told me I could take 

three pairs of pants and a few shirts. I brought my rope sandals, a couple pairs of house slippers, a library 

big enough to educate a seminary, and about 1/100th of a mustard seed worth of faith. With all my cheating, I feel somewhat justified in the fact that I took 0 tunics– partly because I don’t know what a tunic is, 

partly because there wasn’t room in my bag. – Curt, Kentucky 

 

I can’t tell you how I will pay my bills two months from now.  What I can tell you is that I have no reason on earth to doubt that God will provide when I walk in obedience to Him.  I’m 22 years old, and I could fill an entire book with stories of His miraculous provision from just the past six or seven years of my life.

 

A friend of mine with a full-ride music scholarship dropped out of school last year to live on the road and follow Jesus to campuses across the nation.  Another friend, a recent graduate with a brilliant job offer, turned down money and success in order to see a prayer movement launched on every campus in the state of Maryland.  Young people everywhere are leaving families, surrendering dreams, giving away belongings, selling their cars, and jumping into an irregular life of a full-on preoccupation with Jesus.  They’ve probably left a few well-meaning family members and church attendees scratching their heads, but it seems that most of the Bible characters we tend to call “heroes” are nodding theirs. 

 

I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.  In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. – Paul, a fellow traveler (Philippians 4:11-13)

 

Be Church, Do Church

 

 

Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. – Hebrews 10:25

 

{Lindsay:}  It’s a Saturday evening, and I’m scarfing down delicious homemade Korean food with some Asian students in an apartment near Beverly Hills. After eating, we pray and prophesy over each other, worship with a guitar, and tell stories of how God is moving in our lives.

 

It’s a Tuesday afternoon, and I’m taking communion in the parking lot of Cal State University at Long Beach. Four of us huddle together, pass around a half-full bottle of Welch’s grape juice and a few little shortbread cookies, giving thanks and offering each other encouragement.

 

It’s a late Wednesday night, and I’m overlooking the glowing lights of Las Vegas from the foothills outside the city. One of my friends has a guitar, and we’re praying for the light of Jesus to fall on this dark place.

 

It’s early on a Friday morning, and I sit at a sticky dining room table with half-eaten waffles next to my Bible. Kids play a few feet away. Tears are in my eyes as conviction falls on all of us around the table at the words of Jesus that we’re reading in John.

 

It’s a Sunday night, and I go to a church service by the invitation of some friends. It’s in a cool church building, but I know that my church Saturday evening in an apartment, Tuesday afternoon in a parking lot, Wednesday night in the desert, and Friday morning in a dining room were all just as real - perhaps even more real, if I’m honest.  

 

The church of Jesus Christ was never meant to exist on one day a week in one place, after all.  

 

{Ryan:}    We are the Church on wheels.  The Family of God on a road trip.  We embody the traits of this Family as we go.  It is vital to your life as a team and as individuals that you stay intentionally connected with God and one another while on the road.  Plan a time to pray and worship with no agenda other than adoring the Lord.  Take communion together.  Pray at every occasion.  Be quick to bless and honor one another.  Read the Word together.  

 

And plan your times to do this.  Commit to it.  Protect this time dearly.  It is your life source.  It’s easy to just get caught up in the unpredictability of road-life; though fun and adventurous, it can get frustrating and arduous.  You need time together to be wholly transparent before God and each other.  You will find these times to be a vital strength to you and your team.    

 

I must offer a word of warning to believers.  Often the work of the Lord itself may tempt us away from communion with Him.  A full schedule of preaching, counseling, and travel can erode the strength of the mightiest servant of the Lord.  Public prayer will never make up for closet communion. 

– George Mueller 

 

Just Do It

 

…Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season… – 2 Timothy 4:2

 

{Ryan:}   University of Massachusetts Amherst.  Some friends and I were hanging out on campus and were about to get into the car when I noticed an Asian guy and an African guy walking through the parking lot.  I wondered for a second, “God, do you want me to talk to these guys?”  I didn’t sense any strong feelings except for a sharp pain of gas in my stomach.  A friend and I went to talk to them anyway.  They were shocked that we would offer to pray for them but gladly accepted our gesture.  We created opportunity for these young men to encounter the Living God by simply saying “Why not?”

 

Park University, MO.   I was recently at a university in Missouri with a few friends, praying and looking for opportunities to encourage people.  I was walking with my friend Court, and after a couple hours of making friends with strangers, we were headed back to the car.  We passed three Mongolian students in front of a dorm, smoking, cussing, and blasting some Jay-Z.  As we passed by I turned and asked Court, “Do you feel like God is giving you anything for those guys?”  His response has stuck with me.  “Not really… but we can pretend like He did!”

 

That might sound sketchy, but the truth is that you always have a message.  Jesus’ message on the cross screams through the generations.  It’s the timeless message of the One who is “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness.” 

 

This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men 

to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. – 1 Timothy 2:3-4

 

You don’t have to wait for lightning to strike or pigs to fly to share the Good News with someone.  

 

The most frequent commandment in the Bible is not to repent, preach, or even love our neighbors. The most frequent commandment in the Bible is to not fear. “Be strong! Be courageous!” God says again and again. John Wimber once said, “God spells faith R.I.S.K!” The greatest enemy of God’s call upon our lives is not sin or satanic opposition. The enemy of our destiny is mere fear. 

 

Just as you don’t learn to pray except by praying, so in the same way you don’t learn to share your faith except by just doing it.

 

I’m not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation 

to everyone who believes... - Romans 1:16

 

Be Wilder

 

wild•er

[wahyl-der] –adjective

living in a natural state; not tamed or domesticated

 

Never has there been time for tame or domesticated religion, and that time is certainly not today.

 

We believe it’s time to be wilder.

 

It’s God’s time to shine, and there’s no apologizing for it.  He, along with all of Heaven and Earth, are longing for the true identity of prodigal sons and daughters to be revealed.  A generation is arising, a revolutionary army of volunteers whose hearts beat love, whose eyes cry mercy, and whose pores sweat justice.  

 

There are pages here left unwritten, signifying the stories you are going to write with your life. 

 

Whether you’re male or female, young or old, student, missionary, or lay person; whether you begin praying for guys in your fraternity or girls in your sorority, start a Bible study in your dorm, travel to campuses in your state, or travel to the gas station to tell the cashier about Jesus, may you pray and may you go – 

 

Be Wilder.  

 

Afterword

{Lindsay:}  Six months after my initial visit to Robert Morris University, I found myself back there.  I never dreamed when I first stepped onto that obscure little campus in Western Pennsylvania that I would ever return, much less ever see the fruit of my prayers.  But through a wild string of events, the Holy Spirit led me back, and within the first half hour of my return I came face-to-face with a teary-eyed young woman.  She was a sophomore who had met Jesus just the semester before, literally the very week after my first random day of praying on her campus.  I will never forget the sheer gratitude on her face as she told me, “The week you were here praying?  That was the week God was getting me!  I gave my life to Him the next week, but when you were here praying, that was when I was experiencing Him!  Thank you!  Thank you for coming and praying.”  Her life was not only radically transformed that semester, but she had since led several of her friends to faith in Jesus, too.  That night it was my very greatest privilege to watch as she and two of her friends were baptized in a dorm shower with their unsaved peers gathered around.  

 

Sometimes I think I am losing my mind or that this idea of following the Holy Spirit to campuses is a bit too crazy.  But then I have encounters like this one, and I am simply floored by the fact that the Father longs for our partnership in His mission, and that He never, ever misses a beat! 

 

 

Acknowledgments

 

The writing and compiling of this booklet would not have been possible without the help of some dear friends and key contributors.  Thanks to Erik Fish, Pete Greig, David Blackwell, and the Campus America team for their hefty contributions.  A special thanks to Peg Konkol for her keen editing skills.  Also, thanks to Jessica Kroh for her time and creativity in designing a cover and layout.

 

As all inspirational writings concerning God’s Kingdom consist of merely ordinary and natural humans responding to a very extraordinary and supernatural God, so this booklet would not exist were it not for the many students, missionaries, teachers, doctors, authors, moms, dads, and all in between who have responded to Jesus’ call to follow him as “slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.”  Your yes to God produces the Good Stuff worth writing about.  

travel, wilder, campus, adventure, kingdom, pack, reward, supernatural

Last updated 144 days ago by Lindsay Ellyson