Man it has been a great semester at UTA. God has really opened a lot of doors and done some cool stuff.
The 10 second version:
-We had evangelism going on twice a week pretty much every week this Spring. Literally hundreds were talked to.
-We had 60 hours of continuous prayer in the middle of campus and many ministries were connected.
-I'm going to Thailand to do mission work this summer and have actually started a new blog entirely, which is where I will be updating now. You can link to it by clicking here.
-Nate
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Friday, September 19, 2008
Can These Bones Live?
I wanted to start with something I have been thinking about more and more lately. Every time I share the gospel with someone I feel more and more like Ezekiel standing in the valley of dried bones. In short, what I mean by that is that every time I share the gospel, I know to a greater degree that there is no way for people to be saved apart from God resurrecting those dead bones. God raises the question in the passage- "can these dead (and dry-absolutely no life, no marrow-nothing) bones live"? I know that unless He shows up, nothing is going to happen. There is complete and utter dependence on Him, and that's the only way anything will ever happen.
Here is the passage:
1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones. 2 He caused me to pass among them round about, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley; and lo, they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord GOD, You know.” 4 Again He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.’ 5 “Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones, ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life. 6 ‘I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin and put breath in you that you may come alive; and you will know that I am the LORD.’”7 So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 And I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9 Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they come to life.”’” 10 So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.
Another quick thought: Lost people don't experience relationship with God. They don't get to know His Love. They miss out on the greatest thing in the Universe, and the reason they were created. God hit me pretty hard with that after talking with a Hindu guy from India tonight.
Our task and our call is so important, too important to be neglected.
Here is the passage:
1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones. 2 He caused me to pass among them round about, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley; and lo, they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord GOD, You know.” 4 Again He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.’ 5 “Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones, ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life. 6 ‘I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin and put breath in you that you may come alive; and you will know that I am the LORD.’”7 So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 And I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9 Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they come to life.”’” 10 So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.
Another quick thought: Lost people don't experience relationship with God. They don't get to know His Love. They miss out on the greatest thing in the Universe, and the reason they were created. God hit me pretty hard with that after talking with a Hindu guy from India tonight.
Our task and our call is so important, too important to be neglected.
Friday, September 12, 2008
So a month later...
Life is much busier than I thought it would be. Here's what's up:
I am back at home, living at home and going to University of Texas at Arlington on scholarship. I am pursuing a Civil Engineering degree and a minor in Business that I plan to use to help people in Africa get clean water. Should take about 4 years. In the meantime, I'll be busying myself in varied things and organizations and activities around here, such as getting more involved at church and school and going evangelizing. I also intend on using the summers to do very outreaches. I'm looking at doing a series of seminars about farming/sustainable agriculture, water technologies, and aquaculture, followed by an outreach to a foreign country to apply what we learned. As well as work to some degree with Missions during the summer. But that is in the future, and we'll see. I will keep all of you posted.
I'm sure many of you would like to hear about many of the things that happened over the last year, and I would love to share them. I'll talk about a different location every other Friday with a story and a picture-if i have a picture (and hopefully throw some other stuff in occasionally during the week). I'll start officially next week with the first location-Nashville, then Chicago, etc.
For now, just maybe a short snippet of travel:
So here is what my view was most of the time on the road. This or the back of heads. As well as a lot of the country. (It's really green up north esp.) You bond really well with people you sit next to over a bunch of hours. This may not be the most exciting picture, but then again, it illustrates the fact that 8-28 hours in a car at one time is not always the most exciting thing ever.
We started out with good 13 hour drive and got to Nashville. Everywhere we went we drove in a mini van, a 12 passenger, and a suburban which the band rode in. We covered a couple thousand miles in all up and down the east coast area, and were on outreach from June till August. This came after the lecture phase, which was spent entirely in Orlando learning, getting training and "practicing" (in a sense) for outreach.
I am back at home, living at home and going to University of Texas at Arlington on scholarship. I am pursuing a Civil Engineering degree and a minor in Business that I plan to use to help people in Africa get clean water. Should take about 4 years. In the meantime, I'll be busying myself in varied things and organizations and activities around here, such as getting more involved at church and school and going evangelizing. I also intend on using the summers to do very outreaches. I'm looking at doing a series of seminars about farming/sustainable agriculture, water technologies, and aquaculture, followed by an outreach to a foreign country to apply what we learned. As well as work to some degree with Missions during the summer. But that is in the future, and we'll see. I will keep all of you posted.
I'm sure many of you would like to hear about many of the things that happened over the last year, and I would love to share them. I'll talk about a different location every other Friday with a story and a picture-if i have a picture (and hopefully throw some other stuff in occasionally during the week). I'll start officially next week with the first location-Nashville, then Chicago, etc.
For now, just maybe a short snippet of travel:
So here is what my view was most of the time on the road. This or the back of heads. As well as a lot of the country. (It's really green up north esp.) You bond really well with people you sit next to over a bunch of hours. This may not be the most exciting picture, but then again, it illustrates the fact that 8-28 hours in a car at one time is not always the most exciting thing ever.
We started out with good 13 hour drive and got to Nashville. Everywhere we went we drove in a mini van, a 12 passenger, and a suburban which the band rode in. We covered a couple thousand miles in all up and down the east coast area, and were on outreach from June till August. This came after the lecture phase, which was spent entirely in Orlando learning, getting training and "practicing" (in a sense) for outreach.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
There's no place like home.
Wow, back in Texas. Being home is a little strange, but really good. I will be filling in more of everything that is going on here soon, and will be putting more info on here as I have more time now! Please keep checking back.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Prayers por favor
Hey all,
I am in Tampa now, and quite busy(will update longer soon), but did want to ask all of you for some prayers. A few others and myself will be doing a series of teachings on evangelism to some youth and I am starting to get sick. But Praise God!
So please be praying for those times and for the times we take the team out into the city to evangelize.
-Nate
I am in Tampa now, and quite busy(will update longer soon), but did want to ask all of you for some prayers. A few others and myself will be doing a series of teachings on evangelism to some youth and I am starting to get sick. But Praise God!
So please be praying for those times and for the times we take the team out into the city to evangelize.
-Nate
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Update from D.C.
Hello all,
It's been awhile I know, and I apologize.
We've been to many places and spoken to many, many people.
So far we've been to Nashville, Chicago, a small town in Michigan, Boston, New York City, towns in Connecticut and New Jersey, Washington D.C. and a town in Maryland.
We still have Atlanta, Tampa, and Orlando to go!
To give you an idea of some of what we've been doing:
We've done manual labor and helped out with larger projects for churches. We've run services at churches, done tons of evangelism (particularly in the downtown areas of the different larger cities), ran prayer stations in subways, and done lots of praying for different people and for the cities as a whole.
It's been nuts how fast it seems to be going by. I suppose that happens when you're busy and having fun.
A few highlights thus far:
In Boston (the city I was leading-with two others as well), we focused predominantly on Evangelism. I was able to talk with this homeless guy for a long while. I bought him some stuff to eat and afterwards got to hear his story. I was able to help bring some clarity to some of what the gospel says. He was open to Christ and wanted Him. It was awesome how up front both of us were with one another, at and the end I told him what I tell everyone I go through the gospel with-"Get alone with God and cry out to Him, and don't stop until He saves you." But I did pray for the guy, and also to his shock and surprise, gave him a huge hug. When he went to shake my hand I just told him "Man, come give me a hug." to which he responded "You sure you wanna hug me?" Pointing to his dirty shirt, I simply responded "Man, I don't care about your shirt, come here". I gave him a huge hug and boy did it filled him up. His visage had changed noticeably from "Today sucks man" to a smiling "Thanks for everything." I felt like we were old friends when we left, and to be honest, I hope and pray to see him again.
In New York, we went to the busy Subway station and set up little prayer stations (which I wasn't crazy about at first) but when we got there and started it was awesome. I loved it, and it is one of my favorite things we've done. I got to pray for a bunch of people, and got into an awesome conversation with these two people. They reminded me of two awesome people back home-Laura and Will. You know when you just meet people and you think "wow, I wish these people and I were good friends". You just click and it's awesome you know? Thats what it was like. The girl-Vanessa- especially had this interest and hunger to know more about some things in Christianity, and was just about to leave to teach English in South Korea for a year. The guy had just got back from India and was writing a book on it. They both were kind of under the impression that Christianity was just another way to get to the same God. But in reality, there is one major thing that completely and totally separates it from all others-That it is not on our own merit that we are put back into right relationship with God. It was an awesome conversation, but at the end of it my heart hurt. Badly. Here I was meeting these awesome people, but at the end of the conversation they were still lost. I know God desires each person to come to repentance, and that it takes far more than any of my words to save a person. It's just that when I meet people that I know, really know and get to see a part of their original design from God, and yet aren't really walking in the life that will ultimately matter in the end. It hurts. It's interesting how much and often my heart has hurt-been torn for people. It's rough at times, but I have hope for them. I pray and trust God.
I hope all are doing well.
May God bless you and the remainder of your summer. Hopefully another update will happen in Atlanta.
-Nate
It's been awhile I know, and I apologize.
We've been to many places and spoken to many, many people.
So far we've been to Nashville, Chicago, a small town in Michigan, Boston, New York City, towns in Connecticut and New Jersey, Washington D.C. and a town in Maryland.
We still have Atlanta, Tampa, and Orlando to go!
To give you an idea of some of what we've been doing:
We've done manual labor and helped out with larger projects for churches. We've run services at churches, done tons of evangelism (particularly in the downtown areas of the different larger cities), ran prayer stations in subways, and done lots of praying for different people and for the cities as a whole.
It's been nuts how fast it seems to be going by. I suppose that happens when you're busy and having fun.
A few highlights thus far:
In Boston (the city I was leading-with two others as well), we focused predominantly on Evangelism. I was able to talk with this homeless guy for a long while. I bought him some stuff to eat and afterwards got to hear his story. I was able to help bring some clarity to some of what the gospel says. He was open to Christ and wanted Him. It was awesome how up front both of us were with one another, at and the end I told him what I tell everyone I go through the gospel with-"Get alone with God and cry out to Him, and don't stop until He saves you." But I did pray for the guy, and also to his shock and surprise, gave him a huge hug. When he went to shake my hand I just told him "Man, come give me a hug." to which he responded "You sure you wanna hug me?" Pointing to his dirty shirt, I simply responded "Man, I don't care about your shirt, come here". I gave him a huge hug and boy did it filled him up. His visage had changed noticeably from "Today sucks man" to a smiling "Thanks for everything." I felt like we were old friends when we left, and to be honest, I hope and pray to see him again.
In New York, we went to the busy Subway station and set up little prayer stations (which I wasn't crazy about at first) but when we got there and started it was awesome. I loved it, and it is one of my favorite things we've done. I got to pray for a bunch of people, and got into an awesome conversation with these two people. They reminded me of two awesome people back home-Laura and Will. You know when you just meet people and you think "wow, I wish these people and I were good friends". You just click and it's awesome you know? Thats what it was like. The girl-Vanessa- especially had this interest and hunger to know more about some things in Christianity, and was just about to leave to teach English in South Korea for a year. The guy had just got back from India and was writing a book on it. They both were kind of under the impression that Christianity was just another way to get to the same God. But in reality, there is one major thing that completely and totally separates it from all others-That it is not on our own merit that we are put back into right relationship with God. It was an awesome conversation, but at the end of it my heart hurt. Badly. Here I was meeting these awesome people, but at the end of the conversation they were still lost. I know God desires each person to come to repentance, and that it takes far more than any of my words to save a person. It's just that when I meet people that I know, really know and get to see a part of their original design from God, and yet aren't really walking in the life that will ultimately matter in the end. It hurts. It's interesting how much and often my heart has hurt-been torn for people. It's rough at times, but I have hope for them. I pray and trust God.
I hope all are doing well.
May God bless you and the remainder of your summer. Hopefully another update will happen in Atlanta.
-Nate
Friday, July 11, 2008
Chicago and Boston
Hey all,
I was finally able to hop onto the internet long enough to post something! I hope everybody reading this is doing well.
So first of all, the team is now on outreach. We've been to Nashville, Chicago, a town in Michigan, and are just about to leave Boston. We are heading to New York City, Maryland/D.C area, and Atlanta.
We stay in each location for about 8 days or so, and do a variety of things, but the two main things are practical work and a lot of evangelism. It's absolutely nuts to see how much I am learning about evangelism, about people, about myself, and more recently, about leadership.
In Chicago, we did a lot of prayer-walks. Which to be totally honest, I used to think were lame. But it blows me away how much of a heart you can get for a place being in it while interceding for it. In the last year, my mind has definitely been changed about those. But the highlight was going to the gay pride parade. There were 500,000 homosexuals (men and women) in a couple of square blocks. I will never forget what I saw there and how it broke my heart. The majority down there were drunk or high, and many were semi-nude and all over each other. I've never been in a place that got as gross that area-and predominantly everything the homosexuality is what made it that way (alcohol, drugs, sex). After looking past the preliminary stuff, I almost cried because I looked around and saw a depth to a brokenness, I saw all of these people who all have a horrible story of something that happened to them, some reason they are where they are, and to see how far they have fallen from who they were created to be was hard to watch. I won't go into the depths of what God did in me in Chicago, but it was huge. We went down and 20 of us passed out 2200 water bottles for free and told people we were Christians and wanted to bless them, and that although we agree or support what they are doing there, we love them. I was able to have some really good, long conversations there as well. The next day we helped clean up the streets where the parade had gone.
I will tag on this one last thing about the gay pride parade. The thing that upset me the most the whole day it took place was the other Christians there. There were two groups. The first all were yelling and telling them they were going to hell and they needed to repent-and while it is true they need to repent, and apart from true salvation through Christ, eternal separation from God is their punishment; they were not lovingly conveying that message at all, and in doing so were just a resounding gong (biblically speaking). However, shortly after all the repent signs and yelling Christians passed by, a really raunchy float passed by followed by 50 Churches in the Chicago area alone who were part of the parade and supported the Gay movement and were known as "Gay Churches". 50 CHURCHES. In the Chicago area alone. I mean I know that the church has well established a history of hating Gays, and that needs to be dealt with. But I had no idea that any church would honestly preach that God created some people Gay and God wants Gays to stay Gay. That is in direct opposition with the bible, and against the entire message of what the gospel says one must do with anything the bible calls sin.
Needless to say, Chicago exposed a lot of things to me that I had no idea were legitimate problems.
In Michigan we worked with a Church there for two days, did a good deal of manual labor and ran a church service until a storm knocked out the power.
I was on the team that led the Boston portion of the outreach, and it was a great time in this city. We did have a lot of opposition getting here-starting with a journey that turned from a 15 hour drive with food stops to a 24 hour straight drive with food on the road. But once here, we did a lot of evangelism, and I will hopefully will be able to throw a few stories up here soon. I am continuing to be broken by God and remade into what I know I have to become for God to get the glory He deserves out of my life. I've still got tons to learn, but God's being faithful to finish what He has started in me.
Thanks for the prayers, We-And especially me, need them.
We are heading to New York, and that's been a piece of work too, so please continue praying.
Love,
-Nate
I was finally able to hop onto the internet long enough to post something! I hope everybody reading this is doing well.
So first of all, the team is now on outreach. We've been to Nashville, Chicago, a town in Michigan, and are just about to leave Boston. We are heading to New York City, Maryland/D.C area, and Atlanta.
We stay in each location for about 8 days or so, and do a variety of things, but the two main things are practical work and a lot of evangelism. It's absolutely nuts to see how much I am learning about evangelism, about people, about myself, and more recently, about leadership.
In Chicago, we did a lot of prayer-walks. Which to be totally honest, I used to think were lame. But it blows me away how much of a heart you can get for a place being in it while interceding for it. In the last year, my mind has definitely been changed about those. But the highlight was going to the gay pride parade. There were 500,000 homosexuals (men and women) in a couple of square blocks. I will never forget what I saw there and how it broke my heart. The majority down there were drunk or high, and many were semi-nude and all over each other. I've never been in a place that got as gross that area-and predominantly everything the homosexuality is what made it that way (alcohol, drugs, sex). After looking past the preliminary stuff, I almost cried because I looked around and saw a depth to a brokenness, I saw all of these people who all have a horrible story of something that happened to them, some reason they are where they are, and to see how far they have fallen from who they were created to be was hard to watch. I won't go into the depths of what God did in me in Chicago, but it was huge. We went down and 20 of us passed out 2200 water bottles for free and told people we were Christians and wanted to bless them, and that although we agree or support what they are doing there, we love them. I was able to have some really good, long conversations there as well. The next day we helped clean up the streets where the parade had gone.
I will tag on this one last thing about the gay pride parade. The thing that upset me the most the whole day it took place was the other Christians there. There were two groups. The first all were yelling and telling them they were going to hell and they needed to repent-and while it is true they need to repent, and apart from true salvation through Christ, eternal separation from God is their punishment; they were not lovingly conveying that message at all, and in doing so were just a resounding gong (biblically speaking). However, shortly after all the repent signs and yelling Christians passed by, a really raunchy float passed by followed by 50 Churches in the Chicago area alone who were part of the parade and supported the Gay movement and were known as "Gay Churches". 50 CHURCHES. In the Chicago area alone. I mean I know that the church has well established a history of hating Gays, and that needs to be dealt with. But I had no idea that any church would honestly preach that God created some people Gay and God wants Gays to stay Gay. That is in direct opposition with the bible, and against the entire message of what the gospel says one must do with anything the bible calls sin.
Needless to say, Chicago exposed a lot of things to me that I had no idea were legitimate problems.
In Michigan we worked with a Church there for two days, did a good deal of manual labor and ran a church service until a storm knocked out the power.
I was on the team that led the Boston portion of the outreach, and it was a great time in this city. We did have a lot of opposition getting here-starting with a journey that turned from a 15 hour drive with food stops to a 24 hour straight drive with food on the road. But once here, we did a lot of evangelism, and I will hopefully will be able to throw a few stories up here soon. I am continuing to be broken by God and remade into what I know I have to become for God to get the glory He deserves out of my life. I've still got tons to learn, but God's being faithful to finish what He has started in me.
Thanks for the prayers, We-And especially me, need them.
We are heading to New York, and that's been a piece of work too, so please continue praying.
Love,
-Nate
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