Surprises, Lessons & Blessings

Not too long ago, Impact’s president, Bill Westfall, asked me to write up a little reflection on the last year.  What were some of the things that I learned after I looked back over my time in 2011-2012?  I thought I would share some of those reflections with you.

·      There are a lot more students out there that care about Jesus than I anticipated.

·      God is doing something with the world and the world of campus ministry; yet, God is also doing something unique on each and every campus.  Two campuses in the exact same region, less then 7 miles apart – completely different.

·      Partnerships with the local church are WAY more valuable than I anticipated.

·      The more personal and intimate you can be with student interaction, the more depth and meaning there will be in your ministry; inversely, the more organizational and “flashy” you are, the more shallow and disrespected your ministry will be.

·      Fundraising is not the greatest part of my job – but it’s also not nearly as bad as I thought it would be; God uses it as a blessing in so many ways.

·      Impact Campus Ministries has the greatest vision statement.

o   “To pursue, model, and teach intimacy with God within Christian community on the university campus.”

·      Impact Campus Ministries is at our best when we pursue that vision statement.

·      I still have a lot in learn in the realm of teamwork and relational investment.

·      God has done some incredible things in my life over the last decade – praise Him.

·      When I function as God designed me to function, I am fulfilled, others around me are blessed, and God bears fruit in ministry.

·      I can be easily distracted AWAY FROM my reckless pursuit of intimacy with God with the BUSYNESS of pursuing God through my ministry.

·      Students bring me great joy – not just college students, but those students that allow me to invest in their lives.  They are my fuel.

Year-at-a-Glance

If you received our latest newsletter, than this blog post will be a tad redundant, but it just felt like I needed to post a summary of our first year on campus on our blog.  I will be posting the second half of our newsletter next week.
-----------

It’s over.  Our first school year on the University of Idaho and Washington State went by like a blur and we’re still trying to catch our breath.  While we do so, we wanted to capture the experience in a nutshell and look ahead to the fall…

As you’ve read in our earlier publications and blog posts, God has truly blessed the ministry of Impact here on the Palouse.  From the partnership with the local church to the steady involvement of college students, things have gone really, really well.

Probably the toughest thing about this last year has been our family’s’ living situation.  After we could not sell our house, we were forced to live apart for this school year.  Becky and the kids lived in Montana with her family while Marty lived with a WSU student in Pullman.  At the time, we just didn’t feel like God was leading us to put the home up for rent.   Well, the house still hasn’t sold, but our time living apart is over.  We will be together throughout the summer in Twin Falls and we have signed a lease on a duplex for next school year.  We pray for our home to sell or rent in the next couple months in order to keep us out the danger of foreclosure.  We rejoice in a God that gave us everything we needed to do what we needed to do to follow His call and remain close as a family.

 

We have approved two interns who are spending their summer fundraising for their full-time salaries next year with Impact.  Megan Palmer and Nathan Lanting are two WSU graduates that love the Lord deeply and we are excited to work with them.  God also opened doors to sign a lease on another unit in the same complex as our family’s duplex.  We already have four students who will be living in the new “BEMA House” and pursuing intentional discipleship.  All of these open doors will require some additional funding – but we’re excited to watch God provide for what He’s doing in our ministry!

My Top 12

I read a blog post this morning from my friend, mentor, and organization president, Bill Westfall.  Three days ago he posted this:

As a part of my doctoral studies, I recently read 12 Books that Changed the World, by Melvyn Bragg. He argues that the wisdom of others, through writings, is a powerful formative tool in our lives. He then proceeds to detail, from his perspective, the 12 most influential (formative) writings that have served to shape the modern world.

As I considered Bragg's ideas, I gave thought to my own list of 12 books. Actually, since some of Bragg's 12 were not actual books, I figure my list can be a bit broader as well. So...here it goes...

You can read Bill's Top 12 here.  

I was inspired to think about my own list and figured I would write about it here.  So, with no further delay, I bring you -- Marty's 12 "Books" that Changed My Life.

1.  The Text.  Otherwise known as the Bible.  I know that it sounds cliche, but I have found that particularly over the last decade, I have experienced more personal inspiration, transformation, and insight from this one source alone.

2.  The teachings of Ray VanderLaan.  I owe my #1 stated above to the teachings I have experienced while being covered in the dust of this incredible historian.  His insistence that so much of our worldview comes from a deep awareness of the Text convicted me to become immersed the consumption of the Word.

3.  Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell.  God brought this book into my life at just the perfect time in the midst of a personal crisis of faith.  I can vividly remember reading the book over and over again as I thought, "This is what I've been trying to articulate the entire time!"

4.  Jesus for President, by Shane Claiborne.  Shane's prophetic approach to articulating the tension between "Empire" and the Kingdom of God helped me gain the courage to say and "believe out loud" some of the hunches I had about changing the world.

5.  Bill Westfall.  I will forever be indebted to the guy that say through my smoke screen and challenged me to walk passionately with my God.  I will always bless God for Bill's insistence on spiritual practices and his incarnation of peace and goodness.  I am a better follower of my Rabbi because of him.

6.  Stephen Edwards.  Head of the Intermountain Church Planting Association, Steve mentored me in ways that I will never forget.  His perseverance in love -- loving God, loving other people, loving your enemies, loving your friends -- allowed me to see God when He showed up as love.  I realized that God only shows up as love.  Steve is also on a very short list of people who have always believed in me; no matter what happened or what anybody ever said, he thought I could be everything that God created me to be.  That kind of faith in people will always be life-changing.

7.  The Source, by James A. Michener.  This book opened up an incredible world that let me see the bible in human history.  The images that I use to preach, teach, and understand the Text are largely in part from this writing.

8.  The teachings of Rob Bell.  After reading Velvet Elvis, I listened to over 7 years of Rob's sermons without missing one.  His teaching shaped my own.  I am able to articulate my worldview, because of his willingness to risk and say things differently, to preach differently, to ask big questions.

9.  A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, by Donald Miller.  I long to tell a good story.  This book really flew into my face and sucker-punched me into introspection, asking big questions about whether I was choosing to live a great story -- an adventure for God.  My take away: "Go for it.  You're not going to get another chance."

10.  The music of Andrew Peterson.  It's hard to articulate in words what one experiences in music.  I have always appreciated the emotional response evoked in music and it's ability to capture doubts and questions and longings and inspirations.  Peterson's music has seemed to weave a thread through the story that God has been telling in my life.

11.  The teachings of Rabbi David Fohrman.  Fohrman's ability to deal with the text and ask incredibly provocative questions that bring me to an awareness of God's story has been an incredible asset to my study and teaching.

12.  My parents.  I'm discovering that this book continues to get better and better the more I pick it up and read it.  The life they lived taught me things that penetrated to the very core of my existence.  They instilled values in me that have gone with me every step of the way.  I am the person that I am today because of the parents that God gave to me as I matured.


I bless God for all of the voices that have influenced my life!

To quote Bill, what would your list be?

Lots of Things to Pray For!

OK, I'll just have to apologize.
After a lot of prayer and contemplation, I have shelved the blog project that I have been working on for quite some time.  I wanted to do a blog series on college students and sexuality and I just don't think God is behind the project at this point.  I'm passionate about the content, but I think that it's just not the right time yet.

Too much work to be done before the concepts would be communicated well.

If you're curious, ask me about it the next time you see me in person; for now, the ideas are going on the shelf.


In the meantime, however, we've had a lot of great stuff happening over the last few weeks that I would ask you to join our team in praying over.  I will update the "Prayer Needs" portion of this site as well.  God has been putting some pieces together and opening some doors that I didn't anticipate being opened for quite some time.

First of all, as the school year comes to a close, things are continuing to flourish within the ministry environments.  While some of the numbers have waned with the school year getting busier and busier.  The core groups of all our ministries are as strong as ever.  Many students talk with enthusiasm about coming back in the fall and reuniting.  Other groups are piecing together time for summer Skype calls and chances to reconnect before classes.  In short, the conversations that are being had are encouraging and stories that are being told are communicating life change.

Secondly, two of the graduating seniors in my Pullman BEMA Group have applied for internships with Impact this next school year.  This is a huge blessing and great challenge for our team!  The ministry that could be accomplished by doubling our manpower could be astounding.  We encourage you to join us in praying for God's guidance, His provision as they attempt to raise funds this summer, and our ability to lead them in pursuing God well.

And finally, my family has signed on a lease for a duplex rental this fall.  We will be living as a family in August on the Palouse!  This is a huge blessing that we are hoping will be complemented by the sale of our home in Twin Falls or (if it hasn't sold by June) renters to help us cover our mortgage payments.  As we looked into the unit in this particular complex, we also ran into another unit that was available and the perfect fit for college students.

This opportunity was one of my long-term goals of crafting a community-based approach to campus ministry and intensive discipleship.  We wanted to be able to offer a place for students to live and be mentored more directly and discipled more intentionally.  Also, with the possible addition of interns, our current office space would need some adjusting.  Renting this kind of unit would answer those kinds of questions.

This, of course, will demand some fundraising this summer to help cover those costs and happens a little earlier than we anticipated.  We certainly have never wanted to rush our dreams or force our plans where they shouldn't belong, but this opportunity seems to have come to us and we don't want to miss out on what God could potentially be doing.

Would you join us in prayer for all of the above items?  It is incredible and a little overwhelming to be in the middle of what God appears to be doing in our ministries.  It is our desire to stay in tune with His Spirit and follow in His steps as we turn each new page of our ministry here on the Palouse.

In the works...

Hey all, just wanted to let all of you who follow my blog know that I have a blog project in the works and it's taking me a little while.  That's why you are seeing some blog silence.  I will hopefully be getting something out there soon!

Thanks!

Awesome.

Here is a great video I stumbled across yesterday.  I love to find stuff that I believe gets "the story" right!

"That's what it means to be on a team..."

Four weeks ago, I had one of the hardest weeks of my life.

It's taken me this long to simply recover from that week and gain enough perspective to reflect on what I experienced and what the 'take away' was from the whole thing.  I won't be boring you with all the details of what went wrong since -- in hindsight -- all of the details were pathetically trivial for me to deem it "one of the hardest weeks of my life".  It just wont have the same effect.

I'm hoping that you [the reader] can resonate with what I'm trying to express.  Have you ever had one of those days/weeks where every single little situation seems to implode and everything you touch both literally and figuratively seems to be destroyed?  I had one of those weeks.  I was wondering when my stretch of bad luck would stop and it just kept going.  Whether it was my family's vehicles or my schedule or alarm clock or... or... or...

I will share one of those details with you, however, as it leads to the reason I'm writing this post.  It may have been the capping 'mess' of the whole week -- the pinnacle of crappy days.

I left the espresso machine on.

No, not just on.  I left it on on a Friday and it stayed on over the weekend until Monday.  And I'm no espresso machine expert, but I can tell you this from recent experience.  If you leave the espresso machine on, it will eventually pop the pressure release valve.  I can also tell you that when that valve pops, water will begin running nonstop.  This water will eventually flood the office building.  I can also tell you that if you happen to have an office on the top floor, this flooding will affect all offices that happen to be located below you who, of course, also decide to take the weekend off.

It was a bad, bad week.

I came in that Monday to the sound of running water.  I walked down a wet hallway and peered into what I affectionately have come to refer to as Kitchen Lake (I'm almost able to laugh at it now -- almost).  I got the water turned off and called the pastors to inform them of the tragedy.  At this point, I had not yet realized that I was the culprit of such an offense.  I mean, I had had my lapses in memory; I had this horrible habit of leaving the espresso filter in the machine.  But that was the extent of my stupidity.

The pastors said they would be there quickly and as I waited for them to arrive I thought about who could have possibly been so absent-minded as to leave the espresso machine on and cause this huge mess.  I thought about how much trouble that person would be in.

The pastors arrived and started to assess the situation.  They were pretty calm considering the situation.  We were all trying to figure out who the last person or group could have been to use the machine.  Somebody's head was gonna roll.

That's when I saw it.
The espresso filter was still sitting in the machine.

As all the pieces fell into place in my head, I felt as if all the life in me was falling to pieces.  I was the culprit.  I was responsible.  I was the one.  It was me.

I felt horrible.  I couldn't sleep for a couple nights.  I remember the next day at the office, I was trying to communicate my twenty-seventh rehearsed apology in hopes that if I just said I was sorry enough, it would make the problem go away.  I had been assured that mistakes happen and that we would deal with it.  And yet, the pain and the frustration seemed to be getting worse the deeper it seeped into my soul.  During that apology, Aaron Couch, the lead pastor at the church, said with the slightest chuckle:

   "Marty, it's OK.  That's what it means to be on a team."

The statement hit me like a thunderbolt.  I played it cool and then went into my office and cried.  I've heard a lot about teams; and I've heard a lot about what it means to look out for everybody else on the team.  I worked hard at trying to make sure I'm always bringing something worthwhile to the table -- for the team.  I had never considered that I would encounter a day where I would experience what it would mean to let the team do something for me.

I've thrown a lot of stones at the Church over the last decade.  There's lot of stuff to be upset about and a lot of things to critique and deconstruct.  But every now and then, the Church has these brilliant moments where we actually look a little like the Christ we're supposed to incarnate.  Sometimes those moments will come in the form of caring for the oppressed.  Sometimes they will come in a broken espresso machine.  But in all of those moments -- we will learn about grace.

Needless to say, I'm the brunt of a lot of jokes around here these days.  And the espresso machine is still broken.

I'm kind of glad that it is.  I've come to know that machine really well and she serves as a reminder to me every time I walk into the kitchen of a lesson that I'm still learning -- every day.

I've given her a name:  Grace.