Two random things combined in one post

My predecessor's predecessors.

This is my hostfamily's third year taking on Instituters, and the other night the two girls that stayed here that first year came over to visit. One of the girls I had already known from the Baptist Student Union at school, and she's now a teacher in Southeastern Asia, so it was really cool to see her and catch up on what she's doing a little bit. The other girl is now married (to a guy she met doing the Institute) and is due to have her first baby in the next two weeks. It was really cute to see my hostsiblings get all excited to see them and everything. My hostparents tease that all the Institute girls they've had have either become missionaries or gotten married right after, so those are Carrie and my two choices after this summer. Which should I choose, do you think?

It's also just kind of encouraging to look at the people that did the Institute and see where they are now. I know three or four that are overseas right now doing missions and a couple that are starting families, and it's just really neat to see how God is using them. For many of them, where they are now came directly out of what they did the summer they did the Institute. All of them describe the Institute as life-changing. Which, being in the middle of it, is understandable. It's a lot to take it, and it really pushes you out of your comfort zone (very deliberately), and so far that's been an amazing experience. I already know that I would encourage so many people to do this; I can't even describe what it's done for my faith and my daily living, and I haven't even been through half of it yet. So it's just cool to look at where I am now, and think of all the kids that were exactly where I am and now are doing really cool things for God. I want God to use me in amazing ways too . . . hopefully someday.

Street-evangelizing

I grew up in church, a pretty moderate church, as churches go, and the main method for witnessing that was stressed and encouraged was relational. So when our college pastor told us we were going to go street-evangelizing on UNC's campus the other day (something that was somewhat looked down upon in the church I grew up in), I was a little bit nervous. Though nothing had ever outright been said about it, I grew up getting the feeling that people that would just strike up conversations about God with strangers on the street were kind of weird and outdated, that that was not the preferred way to evangelize, that there were better ways. So I was a little bit wary, but I'd decided before this summer that I wasn't going to let myself get nervous or scared when I was pushed out of my comfort zone (like I knew I would be), but that I was going to throw myself into whatever they asked me to do (within reason, of course).

So our college pastor split us into three groups of two (one guy and one girl in each), gave us a small cooler of water bottles, and told us to go hand them out and talk to people about God. He gave us some tips and advice and sent us out. I was teamed up with a guy named Dan, who isn't technically a part of the Institute, but who's been doing some of our classes and such with us as he prepares to go overseas for a few years. It took Dan and me a little bit to find someone we could really talk to, since we didn't want to interrupt anyone that looked like they were busy or on their way to something, and we tried to go talk to people at the pool, but since neither of us are in summer classes (he's graduated), they wouldn't let us into the UNC pool area. So we had to walk around some to finally find some people to talk to.

The first person we talked to was this girl at the bus stop. We walked over and offered her a bottle of water and just started up a conversation, asking typical small talk kinds of questions: her name, if she's in class at Carolina, her year, her major, etc, just trying to sort of start up a relationship. We transitioned by asking her whether she went to church while she was at school, and at that point she started to look a little wary (as is often the case whenever you ask someone that) but said no. We were trying to get her to talk to us a little about what she believes, so she told us that she used to go to church with her parents, but that she didn't really hold with much of what they believed. She herself believed in a relationship more than a religion - but she didn't like to talk about it, she said. Shut down. We tried to keep a conversation going but she obviously didn't want to talk to us, and we didn't want to push it, so we just let it go and moved on.

We saw a guy in the main quad sort of half reading and half staring off into space, so we went over to him and struck up a conversation along the same line. We ended up talking to him for like a half-hour. It was really cool. He opened up to us a lot more than I expected him to. He told us about how he used to be hardcore Christian, but then he feel away from it, and since then he's been struggling with depression, was seeking help for that, and had just begun to try reading his Bible and praying some again. We talked about why he had stopped going to church and what was keeping him from going back. We talked about what he believed about God and some of the questions he had. We talked about what we believed and about what he believed and how and why that had changed and how he felt about that. We talked about faith and relationships. It was really cool, because it was really obvious, at least to us, that God had starting working in his heart before we ever came up to him, and I really hope and pray that the conversation we had with him encouraged him to continue to seek God more as the solution to his problems and to get back involved with the church, who would also encourage him and help him with that. You could tell that he was starting to seek, even if he wasn't really aware of it himself, and that was really cool.

The whole experience was kind of mind-opening to me, for several reasons, one being that I don't think I personally would ever open up to some random people that came up to me and started asking me about what I believe. I'm confident in my beliefs, and if someone asks me, I'll certainly tell them, but I don't know that I would open up and start telling them about the things I'd been struggling with recently and why. So it's crazy to me that this kid would open up the way he did and talk to us for like thirty minutes. Recently I've talked to or heard speak people that were either saved through such measures or who have used them in the past and had a lot of cool experiences where they were able to help someone meet with God and begin as a disciple of His. I don't think street-evangelism should be someone's main mode of witnessing, because I think that there are other ways that can be much more effective, but I think there's definitely a place for it and that if you pray it through and listen to God, He'll lead you to situations in which people are willing and even eager to talk and will really listen to and consider what you have to say. It's such a reminder of how sovereign He is, that He can take situations which may seem totally random or coincidental to us and use them in ways that prove that He was watching over things and taking care of them the whole time.

My conclusion: I think we underestimate the power of the Gospel and back down from a lot of situations in which a little more boldness could literally be the difference between life and death for people. While I don't think it is the most effective form of evangelism, I think going out every so often, asking God to lead me to someone that is seeking Him could be an amazing ministry.

In Bible study last night, we were talking about how much our viewpoint affects the way we say something and also the way it is received. So often when we witness, we start with sin, saying, "You are a sinner and you need to stop being corrupt and turn your life over to God" when instead we should be saying, "You are a beloved person, created by God to be an heir to His eternal kingdom; nothing else can compare with that! God is calling you to be in a relationship with Him, a relationship that will bring endless joy and purpose to your life. Why would you want anything else?" We focus on the fact that we need to be saved, forgetting that not only is there something to be saved from, but there's also something to be saved to: restoration to live as a loved and favored child of the most Holy Almighty God.

Something that my pastor quotes a lot (and forgive me, I can't remember who first said it, but I'll let you know when I find out): "You are more wicked and despicable to God than you ever thought you could be, AND you are more loved and accepted by God than you ever hoped you could be." At the same time. Yes, it's true that we are corrupt sinners that can do no good apart from God - but that's not the end of the story. God loves us each with an unconditional love that wants desperately for us to return to Him as beloved children and heirs, to share in the eternal inheritance with Him. He comes to us even when we are at our lowest and tells us that He knows we can't do anything to be any better - but we don't have to, because He already did it all. Since He knew we could never reach up to Him, He reached down to us, though He had no obligation to, since we had already rejected Him. Yet despite our rejection of Him, He continues to reach out to us and woo us back to Himself. How could we reject such love? Why would we want to?