Hello friends below you should find our update letter for January 2011.
Archive for the ‘Spirituality’ Category
January 2011 Update
Posted 05 Jan 2011 — by nick
Category Creation, Family, Friends, Fun, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, Photos, Spirituality, Winter
Category Creation, Family, Friends, Fun, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, Photos, Spirituality, Winter
For unto us a Savior is born
Posted 25 Dec 2010 — by nick
Category Jesus, Scripture, Spirituality, Videos
Category Jesus, Scripture, Spirituality, Videos
Happy Christmas to all!
One of our traditions is to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas often during the advent season. It reminds me of being a kid, but also reminds us of the reason to be celebrating. The birth of our Savior.
I love hearing Linus tell the story, you can hear it here:
December 2010 Update
Posted 16 Dec 2010 — by nick
Category Family, Friends, Fun, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, Spirituality, Winter
Category Family, Friends, Fun, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, Spirituality, Winter
Hello friends below you should find our update letter for December 2010.
Thinking about Grace
Posted 24 Nov 2010 — by nick
Category Jesus, Ministry, Scripture, Spirituality
Category Jesus, Ministry, Scripture, Spirituality
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9
Lately the topic of grace has been on my mind, in a different sense than usual though. In the past weeks I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking of God’s grace solely as undeserved forgiveness. It’s always been easy to see where I’m far from God – the times I lose sight of the Kingdom of God and embrace the kingdom of Nick. Grace is ever-present when I acknowledge my faults and turn back. I get that sort of grace.
The difference lately comes not in the distance from God in a classic “sinning” sense, but in a more crafty “sinning” sense. Somewhere in the past few weeks I’ve fallen into a mindset that God’s favor is won when I live a certain way, when I do certain ministry tasks, when I’m a good missionary. To which God says “Nope, it’s about Grace.”
I can find myself in this trap of thinking, I’m doing pretty good, God must be happy with me because of that. To which I hear “Nope, it’s about Grace.” He’s always happy with me, because when He sees me He sees a dearly loved son – not my past, present or future. Just a son washed clean.
So the grace goes both ways. Not just forgiveness of my sins, but forgiveness of my thinking that I earned any of my standing with God. Which you wise folks might point out is sin as well.
November 2010 Update
Posted 07 Nov 2010 — by nick
Category Family, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, Spirituality
Category Family, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, Spirituality
Hello friends below you should find our update letter for November 2010.
Celebrating Baptism
Posted 02 Nov 2010 — by nick
Category Creation, Friends, Fun, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, News, Spirituality, Technology
Category Creation, Friends, Fun, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, News, Spirituality, Technology
I spent last week in Orlando, FL near the headquarters of GCM, as a stop along the support raising trail back to campus. My good friend Chris hosted me at his place for the week as I worked at finding times to meet with folks and share about the work I do and – during the off hours – spent much time working on upgrading the GCM network firewall with our IT department.
Shortly after arriving in Orlando I found myself standing on the beach facing the Atlantic Ocean. Chris’ church was holding their Baptism service – which is much more of a celebration than most churches I’ve attended. I loved the atmosphere and excitement as we celebrated brothers and sisters making a public display of the inward commitment they had made to follow Jesus.
Together in community we shared a meal, cheered as 113 folks were baptized in the waves of the Atlantic (including some more notable figures), worshiped together in music and voice and shared our lives. This church thinks about baptism much the way that Illini Life does – it’s an event we want to celebrate as a church community. It’s worthy of celebrating as we watch others make a public declaration to the church body that they belong to Jesus.
Traveling life of a missionary
Posted 25 Oct 2010 — by nick
Category Fun, GCM, Jesus, Ministry, Spirituality, Television
Category Fun, GCM, Jesus, Ministry, Spirituality, Television
Airtran flight 561 seat 26C from BMI (Bloomington, IL) to MCO (Orlando, FL). At just over a half hour into the flight drinks and pretzels have been served, passengers hide their faces in books, laptops, crossword puzzles – the normal routine.
Like most on this flight, Orlando is my final destination. I hear rumbles of Mickey Mouse, Harry Potter and the Beach. Sounds like fun! Likely for me this week won’t hold any of those staples, at least not in the vacationing sense. I’m on the support raising road back to campus – Orlando is a stop along the way. This week I’m hoping to meet with new and old friends of Amy and I to share about the great things God is doing at University of Illinois and how they can be a part of it.
While I’m there I’ll also be working with the IT guys in the GCM office to install a new network firewall; lending my expertise and experience from my past life as a network engineer. I’m excited to be able to serve GCM in this way. Consulting time of network engineers tends to be pricey so I’m happy to save us those costs.
Isn’t that how we do church? You might have a knack for hospitality so you host welcome events and greet people at the door on Sunday. Or you might be a gifted singer so you lead us in worship. Maybe you do both. Me, I’m a nerd that gets networking and computers, but I also love sharing about Jesus with others. As a missionary I get to do both. Admittedly, the networking and computers hardly ever, making it exciting when I do get the chance.
October 2010 Update
Posted 05 Oct 2010 — by nick
Category Family, Friends, Fun, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, Running, Scripture, Spirituality
Category Family, Friends, Fun, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, Running, Scripture, Spirituality
Hello friends below you should find our update letter for October 2010.
A Knowledge Barrier?
Posted 28 Sep 2010 — by nick
Category GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, News, Spirituality
Category GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, News, Spirituality
The Pew Forum on religion & public life posted the findings of a recent survey of religious knowledge. It has made quite the headlines today. You can read the executive summary and stats here.
Several headlines I’ve read point out that atheists and agnostics “know more about the Bible than Christians.” Which isn’t quite accurate reporting. The study showed that Mormons and Evangelicals know the most about Christianity, but overall atheists and agnostics know more about world religions than any other group surveyed.
The more I read through the study the less surprised I was. Evangelicals tended to know most about Christianity but little about other religions. Those with more education tended to score higher on the survey. Those that answered more of the general knowledge questions correctly tended to answer more of the religious questions correctly – showing a correlation of more education or knowledge emphasis in general.
All this has me thinking about if we have any responsibility as Christians to know more about other religions and informing or encouraging our students to know more. Or does knowing the truth leave us content?
Things I’m thinking about… I welcome your thoughts
“Questions, I’ve got some questions”
Posted 21 Sep 2010 — by nick
Category Fun, Jesus, Spirituality, Videos
Category Fun, Jesus, Spirituality, Videos
Awhile back I was introduced to this video and it still makes me laugh from time to time.
“Why didn’t baby Jesus zap him?”
“What would Jesus do if He was attacked by a polar bear?”
We laugh but I often wonder how many of my prayers and questions of God are right along these lines. So often my perspective is so small I can’t see past the polar bear question to see Jesus for who He is and what he’s done.
The past couple weeks have been polar bear weeks, this week my perspective is wider – hopefully for a little while at least.
