Week 8 – God’s Love & Kindness/Theology

This week our speaker was Matt Pardey, and awesome speaker and pastor from the GCM church at Bowling Green State University. On Monday night, he talked about the story of David and Mephibasheth in 2 Samuel. In that time, it was custom for the new king to kill the old king’s family, but David chose to instead show God’s kindness toward Mephibasheth. You can just picture him falling on his knees before David knowing that he could die, but David picks him up saying “I want to love you”. God treats us the same way! What do we deserve from God? Nothing but his wrath. But instead he wants to lavish his love and kindness on us (Eph. 1:7-8). In the richness of His grace He has made us alive in Christ (Eph. 2:1-3). He gives us so much more love than we even need. How do you think the people around you think God feels about them? Share it! People need to know about God’s love for them (Titus 3:4-7).

On Tuesday night, Matt talked about praising God and being thankful, referencing Psalm 148 and 150. He was saying that Christians are often so serious and forget to remember their joy! We have such a battle with negativity that can destroy us and drive else away. Psalm 147:1 says that it is fitting to praise his name… but it is not fitting for us to not trust Him or to hate what He is doing in our lives. He disciplines His children to give them thankful hearts. Matt then told us the moving story about the journey in adopting his daughter. It had me and my entire row crying so hard, but certainly said so much about trusting God. Matt challenged us to remember: 1) Praising God gives us an accurate perspective (to not lose sight of the good). Our minds tend to drift toward negativity so automatically, but Philippians 4:8-9 reminds us to think about the good and the truth and the praiseworthy. 2) Praising God changes our heart. Usually when we’re judging others, we’re condemned about something with our own self. 3) Praising God and celebrating gives permission to others to do the same. When we start unloading about all the bad in our lives, people tend to follow and tell us about theirs. What if we just started sharing more good in our lives than the bad. Let’s live a life of praise (Psalm 146:1-2).

On Project Day we went to Seton Girls Home and did outdoor painting and landscaping for them. For the second part of the day we had a big Theology session with several different people talking about different aspects. First, we had Neil Kring from Ball State University talk about the argument of predestination vs. free will. He presented the extremes of both sides, but then gave us the honest answer that it is a mixture of the two, and that balance is so delicate that there is no way that anyone but God would be able to understand it. Second, we had Carl Frost (also from Ball State) speak about the formation of the New Testament canon. He talked about Biblical authority, historical context, criteria for canon, and the apocrypha. All of it was very interesting! Lastly, we had our two LT interns Adriana (from Virginia Tech) and Freddie (from Ball State) talk about angels, demons, and the activity of Satan, which was so interesting and I really enjoyed learning about. It really made me think about how I don’t think about spiritual warfare and the true activity of Satan enough, but it is a real thing that is happening every day.

This week in Lifegroup we had to major themes of conversation. The first was talking about the idea of God having a plan for each of our lives. Basically, we discussed how we have to make our own choices and God will work everything out for our good and His glory. No matter what, He will find a way for us to fulfill His purpose. We should certainly look to God for guidance, but we can’t expect for Him to sit down with us one day and tell us everything that we’re supposed to do for the rest of our life. There are seasons where He is calling us to do different things. The second thing we were talking about was the topic of spiritual warfare again, and saying when we feel like we have no faith life, it’s probably because of an ignorance towards spiritual warfare. There is a roaring lion coming after you, and if you don’t realize it you could very well be devoured.

“the Lord will fulfill His purpose for me…” - Psalm 138:8

Week 7 – Missions/Living in Community

This week we had a man named Joe Lieway come speak for both our Monday and Tuesday night main sessions. He is a contact that The Revolution (the GCM church at Ball State University) has from Liberia. He talked a lot about the subject of missions and told us stories of their time working in Liberia. He reminded us that our God is a global God and he is looking for a shepard, like David was, to take care of his people. Also, that God uses the few to reach the many. But, we are called to be like Abraham: to possibly leave our family or our people, and go out into the world. God may call you out of where you are in order to make you into something else. God can still use us despite our weaknesses and in our darkest night, but it usually requires sacrifice.

There were two stories of his from Liberia that stuck out to me. First, there was a story of this young man from a village and his grandfather was being falsely accused of witchcraft, which is still punishable by death there. But, to save his grandfather’s life, the young man went all the way to the government council by foot to have the charge removed – a trip that was miles and miles long. He got a paper signed from them to release his grandfather and ran all the way back to his village. But, as he was only about 8 more miles away, he saw some berries on the side of the road and decided to stop to eat them because he was very, very hungry. Soon, he realized how long he had been eating and resting, and started running as fast as he could towards his village again. As he reached it, he heard a gunshot. He walked up to the crowd of people gathered around and handed the letter to the executioner. The executioner informed him that he was too late to save his grandfathers life.

We hold the letter of life – eternal life – in our hands … are we going to choose to save the life? Or are we going to wait until it’s too late?

The second story was about a type of bird that lives in Liberia. As people have seen, this type of bird nests in trees. When the mother bird sees that it is time to teach the baby bird to fly, she pushes the baby out of the nest. Meanwhile, the baby bird is holding on to the nest with all its might. It simply does not understand why its mom is doing this to him – she is taking away all of his comforts. As the bird starts to fall, it starts to flap its wings and try to fly, but is still struggling and freaking out the whole time. But as the people watching can see, the mother is there the whole time flying underneath the baby bird, so just as he is about to hit the ground, the mother swoops under and catches him.

What a real life metaphor for God our father! He starts to take away everything that we know, all of our comforts, and we simply cannot understand why He would be doing this to us. But as we freak out and begin to stumble, we can’t see it and don’t even recognize it, but God is right there. And just as we are about to fall, He catches us.

On Project Day, we spent the day with our houses. We began the day with a morning devotional with the people in our houses. Then, we were given time to choose whatever service or evangelism project we would like to do during the time. Our house chose to serve the landlord of our condo complex who is extremely sweet, Suzanne. We wanted to make lunch for her and spend time with her, but she had other plans. So, we baked her cupcakes and assembled a wonderful and fun gift basket full of fun goodies for her (things like a dog toy for her precious dog that she loves), nail polish & pedicure kit, fresh fruit, candles, and more). We were able to catch her just before she left her house and take everything over to her. She was so surprised and loved it so much that tears came to her eyes. She gave all 7 of us a hug and a thank you :)

Then, for the last part of our Project Day, we had a talk from Neil Kring from Ball State University about conflict resolution. Basically, Neil spoke to us about how we have to learn to operate as though conflict is normal and healthy, not terrible and awful. We are creatures that were created by God to be in relationship with one another, and in relationships we also learn a lot about ourselves. In the case of resolution, Neil spoke about Matthew 7:3 and how it places priority on reconciliation, not the worship, first. We need to learn how to step up and deal with it right then, not sitting on it. But, remember that if you are confronted about something it is out of love and it took courage for that person to confront you. In Proverbs 27:1, confrontation is regarded as a form of love from someone. They care about you enough to want you to grow in that area. Also, Ephesians 4:15, which talks about speaking the truth in love. Confrontation is the responsibility of all believers.

After this talk, every house had a group meeting together accompanied by a staff member, so that anyone had a chance to bring up anything that was bothering them or hadn’t been resolved. For our house, we had some things to talk about, but overall I think it went really well and that it was needed.

So, the week was a mixture of themes but was still very good!

week 6 – spiritual disciplines

This week our speaker was Pastor Jim Pace from [nlcf]. On both Monday and Tuesday night he spoke about spiritual disciplines and especially on Monday night, how spiritual disciplines relate to the Beatitudes. As Jim was saying, we have this idea of how we think God should work, just as the Jews did (Matthew 20). But we simply do not get God! We want Him to work in fast, direct, fair and predictable ways but He doesn’t always do that. We do not see this world correctly!

In the Beatitudes, its saying “good for you” if you are sad, broken, frustrated (poor in spirit), if you are mourning (you’ll be able to be comforted by God), if you aren’t out for yourself (meek), if you finally learn what it’s like to hunger and thirst for God, if you are persecuted for Jesus, and more. All of these things pull us away from the situation we are in right now and remind us that this world is just a moment, a piece, of what is to come. But, how often do we ever ask for these things… this “bad” stuff? Hardly ever. We regard it as negative and unwanted. But it is how we are reminded of our need for God!

One of the ways to ask for these things, these reminders of our need, is through spiritual disciplines. Some of the disciplines that Jim spoke about were:

- the discipline of shared life – having someone that knows everything, not just certain people that know certain things

- the discipline of solitude with God

- the discipline of living missionally – living just like Jesus would in the situation (do you have pockets of your life that are just for you?)

- the discipline of fasting – it requires you to change the way you go through your day.. to slow everything down. That’s the point!

- the discipline of generosity/tithing

Jesus doesn’t force himself on us. He’s not going to speak and move through you until you seek after Him! You don’t fast just so that every decision or question can be answered, you do it because Jesus said it’s the right thing to do. You don’t read just to solve confusion because confusion is necessary for faith to work. We do all of these things to remind ourselves that we NEED God daily! Also, when it seems like disciplines have become dry, it’s not necessarily what you’re doing wrong but what you’re not doing in another area. Are you doing something in your life that is requiring your faith? A lot of the time God tests privately before He blesses publicly. That’s why the disciplines matter… because God cares about your soul, your character when no one’s looking.

In Lifegroup on Wednesday, we talked a lot about disciplines as well, but mostly about prayer, solitude, and fasting to get prepared for Project Day the next day. Sarah Swann challenged me to concentrate/reflect on things from the recent past/present instead of the future (because I concentrate on the future too much and don’t deal with what had already happened; I just keep moving forward to the next thing without reflecting on what did happen).

Our Project Day this week was something we all were excited/nervous/waiting for. We spent 8 hours in the wilderness alone with God while fasting. You were only allowed to take your Bible, notebook, and pen. No books, devotionals, iPods, etc. so that it really was just you and God. No distractions. I was very apprehensive about the day because I had never spent that much time in solitude or fasted that long and I had no idea how it was going to go. But I must say it was an incredible day. I found this absolutely perfect spot in the huge park that we were in. It was a thirty minute walk there, and it was a long dock that stretch out over the water of a lake and had a small pier at the end just big enough for me to stretch my towel out on and sit. The water was gorgeous, and the breeze was blowing. I saw so many turtles and even two swans floating across the water. :)

I sat down there that morning and the first thing I did was sing as the song “Hungry I come to You” came to mind and I began to cry. I felt like I had just been ignoring God for at least a week and a half prior because I felt like He just wasn’t doing anything and I didn’t know what to do. Obviously, this wasn’t the right response, but on this day I just felt like as I was finally coming to Him, He was right there waiting with wide open arms ready to catch me and welcome me. I spent a lot of time reflecting on the past school year I had, and there were so many things that I felt like God was saying that I needed to work on in my daily life. Then I spent time reading all of 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, and Philippians, and especially in the last two books I found verses that were saying exactly what I felt like God had just pointed out to me maybe an hour before. It was incredible. I felt like the whole day went by faster than I would’ve ever imagined, and to my astonishment I barely even though about being hungry.

We ended the day by meeting together to share what had happened in our times, then having an acoustic worship session in a field of the park and having communion together.



“Hungry, I come to You for I know You satisfy
I am empty, but I know Your love does not run dry
So I wait for You, I wait for You
I’m falling on my knees, offering all of me
Jesus, You’re all this heart is living for”

week 5 - who God created us to be

What an awesome week this was here at LT! (I apologize for how long I know this post will be!) First of all, the staff could see how hard all of us had been working at our jobs and decided to give us Monday night off from session. On Tuesday night we had Mike Swann speak on “Discovering God’s Will for Your Life”. He talked about the simple truth that discovering God’s will for our lives is actually a lot easier than we make it out to be… we get so caught up in finding our own specific plan from God that we completely ignore the fact that God has already laid out a plan in His word for every one of us to follow. Secondly, he spoke about guidelines for understanding God’s specific will for our lives as well. First, consider the things that you love, maybe things you love to do or to learn about, and the things that make you angry, like injustices in the world. Secondly, from those things, consider what you are really good at. Then, get counsel about it and ask the people who are around you that know you best. Most of all, listen and adhere to the advice. Also, consider wisdom in the choice you are making. Even if it doesn’t directly conflict with a scriptural principle or mandate, is it wise to do it? Even if you have the freedom to do so in Christ, should you? In addition, consider the circumstances: for example, location. Where does God have you placed right now? Is He leading you somewhere else? Consider the people around you: who does God have you with? Maybe those are the people He wants you to minister to. Lastly, if you feel you have a specific calling from God, check it with scripture and counsel, maybe even fasting with prayer. All in all, when trying to make decisions in our lives, we should try to follow these guidelines. Mike also gave this advice: If we are the kind of person that usually sits paralyzed waiting for a billboard from God, we should go out and do something good… not just sit there waiting. If we are the kind of person that usually tends to be so busy that there is no time to stop and think, we should “Wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27). Also, remember that there are seasons of life! You can’t do it all at one time. There will be time to explore other things. In summary, we should consider whether we are spending too much time on the general will or the specific will in our lives. Also, Mike asked us to consider the option, “if money were not an issue, I would…” …. I definitely knew my answer to that question. :)


Also this week, we were given the book Strength Finder 2.0 and took the assessment with it. Basically this test pinpoints your five biggest strengths and focuses on making them stronger, instead of concentrating on making up for our weak points. Let me just say that this showed me so much about myself and was very accurate! If you ask me about it, I could tell you so much of how cool it is. My top five strengths were communication, woo, belief, connectedness, and developer. In short, these mean:

- Communication – it’s easy for me to put things into words and I’m a good conversationalist. I usually tell elaborate stories when sharing information or getting a point across that often entertain people. Also, I naturally surround myself with people I love finding out as much as I can about them.

- Woo – I enjoy meeting new people and connecting with them; I’m comfortable striking up conversations with strangers, I’m quite open & transparent with people, I enjoy socializing. I am very fond of and devoted to people in my life & I thrive when feelings of warmth and affection are returned.

- Belief – I have certain core values that are unchanging, which also influence my decisions and how I spend my time, and I have a defined purpose to my life. I feel like everything I do in life must have meaning & purpose behind it. I am highly motivated to leave the world a better place than I found it.

- Connectedness - I have faith in the links between all things; I believe that there are no coincidences and that every event happens for a reason. I can accept what cannot be fully explained through logic. I am confident that things are linked for a purpose that may or may not be revealed to me.

- Developer – I recognize and cultivate the potential in others.

With each of these strengths, the assessment also provided 10 ideas for action in using them. On Project Day, we spent some time going through these and we were asked to pick one or two from each of our strengths to work on in the upcoming year. Some that I’m really excited about or feel would be good for me to work on are: getting wiser about the words I say and spending each more wisely instead of talking excessively without thinking & finding an avenue, like public speaking, for my voice and message (communication), deliberately building a network of people who know me and check in with each once a month (woo), making sure that I’m balancing my personal and work life (belief), considering roles where I listen and counsel & acting in a global perspective (connectedness), and finding a mentor to invest in me, so that I can also invest in other people (developer). It also suggested that I consider a career in teaching, ministry, or media…. :)

I know that I’m talking a lot about this assessment, but I feel like I learned so much about myself through it. For example, it was so awesome for me to be able to identity communication as my biggest strength when in the past I’ve been afraid that it’s the one thing about me that annoys people most. But, this displays it in a positive light where I can use it in an effective way! My woo strength definitely helps explain why I feel like my strongest friendships are the ones where I know a lot about them and we openly share a lot.

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” – Psalm 139:4

[Also on this week’s Project Day, we did service projects at two different local churches and then spent 4 hours of alone time with God, which was wonderful. ]