So we keep doing what we do and then…sickness invades the family.  All of a sudden its a week later than when you were last coherent.  Wow! Where did that week go?

The Colorado Crud that has been coursing through companions finally conquered our comfort.  When one is sick it is not so bad.  When 5 or 6 out of 8 are in various stages of Crud, its bad.

But the sun does rise again and spring follows winter.  Life slowly returns and mourning turns into dancing.  A shout of joy comes.

And so does catching up on a week’s worth of work left waiting!

Trevin Wax has a well known blog, Kingdom People.  He has a recent post that explains well how we think of discipleship and why our homes are mission critical to what we do.

Apprenticeship is serious business. Never downplay the importance of sermons, theological education, and deep Bible study. Just make sure you match all of these with doing life together, modeling a new way of being human, inviting people to come alongside of us and learn what it means to follow Jesus – not merely by what we tell them but also by how we live.

You can read it all here.

(no one was injured in the taking of this photograph)                                                                                                   ((click on for complete picture))

Friday night we held our annual Valentine’s banquet.  For Challenge men, this is an opportunity to honor the ladies by paying for, preparing, and serving a meal to them.  Its a chance for all to dress up a little more formally than normal.  Its an event to which we can invite new people and friends.  And its an occasion to promote and celebrate genuine love within a community.

³⁴ So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. ³⁵ Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”  John 13:34-35

And its a lot of fun.  This year included a mario kart love song, a skit by our freshmen (the best ever), a skit by the staff men that will remain a secret (unless dancing to Justin Bieber is ok for old men), and a presentation of wooden swords to the men by the women.

It is a little part of changing the world through God-honoring relationships (and we did have students from Japan and China there as well) and one of the ways to live out John 13.

I took a group of 5 students the weekend before last to the eastern Colorado town of Flagler (pop. 500).  We had a great time watching the basketball games (with the whole town) and spending time with some of the youth from one of the churches.  It was a great chance to form new relationships. The students loved it and enjoyed getting to know George Garner and his wife, Barb, and Pastor Bob Strauss.

And we will be taking a much larger group back for Spring Break.  We will be working on cleaning, organizing, and painting some buildings that are part of a lodge and conference center, as well as hosting events for high school students.  Our crew is really looking forward to it.

So what does what we do look like?  Well.  It looks fun and exciting and messy.  It looks like having our home open to welcome students whenever they want to drop by.  It looks like being prepared for an extra someone around for supper, or lunch (never breakfast really).  It looks like listening to them and getting to know their lives.

It looks like meeting with students on campus to look at Scripture together, talk to other people about Jesus together, work through life’s issues together, eat together, …

It looks like having our leaders in our home each Sunday night, freshmen (a lot lately) in our home on Monday night, weekly meeting on campus Wednesday night, Friday Night Thing on Friday night (imagine that), weekend retreats, movie nights, lots and lots of texting, …

It looks like listening to students talk about issues with parents and school and friends and money and anger and fear.  And then allowing the Spirit to help us walk through these things with them in a God’s way of wisdom that can bring clarity and healing and freedom and comfort.

It looks like spending Friday (like today) cooking for a Valentine’s banquet and getting our contributions finished before pulling 4 big lasagnas (that were dropped off the night before by our staff intern) out of the garage (extra refrigerator space in the winter) to bake in our oven.

It looks like loaning our big green van (a.k.a. the Swagger Wagon) to the youth group so they can transport kids to a downtown conference.

It looks like planning with Julee for the next session of pre-marriage counseling with a couple from our ministry.  And where it will fit in with all the other things.

It looks like spending time helping the high school wrestling team with leadership training (Habitudes) and  learning more wrestling moves.

It looks like giving our lives away for the sake of gospel ministry in others.

Blessed to be a blessing!

Laboring to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) is the overarching goal of our ministry and lives.  So we try to evaluate everything we do in light of making disciples of all nations.

In our philosophy of ministry, evangelism and discipleship are inseparable.  To make disciples (knowing and learning from Jesus to live life like Him and so His life can be lived out through us) we have to first see people understand the Gospel and accept it.

One of the ways we are doing this is through gospel appointments - one on one meetings over lunch or coffee with friends or acquaintances in which we listen to their story, share ours, and explain the gospel.  So far this semester we have had 8 gospel appointments ( that I am aware of).

We also meet with students who know Jesus to help them know how to continue in relationship with Him, understand the Bible and how to apply it to life, how to practically pursue God-honoring relationships, grow in skills in helping someone else know Jesus, etc.  So helping students grow in knowledge (wisdom), skills, character, vision, and emotional health summarizes this area.

Next, What It Looks Like.