Epic Bay Area Project 2006 - Part 6

July 9 - Our Week on Campus

After spending our first week practicing the discipline of prayer and NOT engaging in extended conversations, we divided up into 3 ministry teams, each focusing our campus ministry times on these locations: San Jose State University, Evergreen Valley College, and DeAnza College in Cupertino, CA. Here's the challenge: How do we move from not knowing anybody to launching G3s in 4 weeks? Honestly, I don't really know. But this is what we tried this first week:

1) Graffiti Boards: Get a big wooden board. Pose a provocative question, like, "What does Freedom mean to you?" or "Who do you think Jesus REALLY was?" and let students write their opinions to that question on the board. As opinions are written, the idea is that people will stop and actually read what has been written. The assumption is that Christians have gained a reputation for doing a lot of talking, but not much listening. There are opportunities to naturally dialogue with people as they read the boards.

2)Prayer Boards: A different board...this time, we give people a chance to write any prayer requests they may have. Off to the side, we set up a prayer table where we offer to pray for anyone's need on the spot. The assumption is that students are actually pretty open to spirituality, just not Christianity (for a variety of reasons). This is one attempt at fostering a real conversation through a spiritual, but not neccessarily "Christian", avenue.

3) Quest Surveys: surveys that attempt to gauge a person's thoughts on spirituality and spiritual experiences.

4) Intentional Acts of Love Campaign: SF Metro has started an interesting campaign called Intentional Acts of Love. The idea is to do an act of love for somebody and encourage them to pay it forward. There are pins and small cards that we can pass out to tell people about the new campaign. Wear the pin, tell others about it. The card directs people to the Intentional Acts of Love website, where there is a gospel message and a place to read and post stories of what you did or what someone did for you.

5) Free Giveaways: We also gave out pretty much all of the components to the Freshmen Survival Kits. Also, we passed out free DaVinci Code companion books, written by Josh McDowell.

Overall, I am so proud of our group...especially our eight students. They showed teachability, submission to authority, boldness, courage, and FAITH in excess this week. We had several who applied but wound up not coming (for various reasons). These eight made the choice to come and excercised whatever amount of faith they had to do so. In the days we've been together, we've all heard each others' testimonies. I am amazed at what these kids have had to overcome to be here. It truly is an unlikely team. When God said, "Who will go for us to the San Francisco Bay Area?", they stood up to be counted and said, "Here am I, send me."

I pray, Lord, that You would bless their decision and honor their faith step...that You would multiply the fruit of their faith and that they will never regret having said "yes" to You this summer.