Back in the Saddle.

Hey guys and gals out there – sorry for the two week sabbatical from blogging!!  Two weeks ago I headed to Moscow with Mike Beckham (OU’s Crusades Director) and this week was devoted to all things catch up – which did not include blogging.

I wanted to share briefly about my trip. It was flat out AWESOME! I had so much fun hanging with Mike, visioning with Mike, dreaming with Mike, and just talking about ministry with Mike along with having the opportunity to find out, see, and be involved with what God is doing in Moscow through the team who is faithfully serving there. I am so PUMPED about the partnership in years to come – I truly believe that Wildwoods College Ministry can play a BIG part in reaching the students in Moscow.

A couple of takeaways from the trip:

• It was cold. At first it bothered me but then I got used to it and to be honest – as long as it snows when it’s cold I’m good to go – it’s the cold without snow that bothers me…think Oklahoma or Texas winter.
• Moscow is super urban – reminds me a lot of New York City. Has a large transit system which makes doing ministry, in my opinion, easier because it gives you access to all parts of the city instead of having to have a vehicle to get to and from places.
• The Crusade staff in Moscow have designated 90 key college campus’s that they are trying to focus in on. They are hoping to have student movements started on 9 of those campus’s by the end of this year! I love that they can vision and go after it!
• I truly believe that Moscow could potentially be the next Asia. I have a friend who was serving in Asia probably 10 years back when nothing was happening – he talked about how hard it was to plant the roots and to raise up people to go. Now, thanks to some strategic partnerships with churches and crusade – Asia is EXPLODING! In fact, they are starting to hand the ministry over to nationals and nationals are sending people – how stinking exciting is that? I think Moscow has this potential. Right now there are TONS of students to reach in Moscow- just not enough people to share the gospel with them. Laborers are needed and hopefully Wildwood and OU Crusade can play a part in raising up students and plowing and planting the soil in Moscow, Russia. Front in ground work stuff gets my blood flowing!
• Most importantly, Crusades long term team in Russia want to be there and they have hearts that breathe to reach students in Moscow. While at first you would think that that should be normal but the truth is, I’ve been several places where the long term staff are there because somehow they just got planted there – not because their heart was there. The difference between the two really is HUGE. If you have people who want to be there then they will go the distance with you and dream big with you – I like that! Let’s shoot the moon!!!

That pretty much sums it up – if you haven’t figured it out – I am pretty stoked about this opportunity!

If you are interested in some of the pics I took – you can find them HERE

Filed under: OU, Personal

Retreating…

I promise I’m not slacking on posting the rest of this week and early next week, I’m just retreating with Mike Beckham from OU’s Campus Crusade.

We are hitting a conference put on by Campus Crusade on how to partner the local church with crusade to reach and impact more students on our universities.

I’m really excited to see how we can do this and I’m excited about just getting to know Mike a little better through our 7 hour car ride each way.

Filed under: OU, Personal

Column in Yesterdays Oklahoma Daily

Yesterday while I was chillin out on the lawn by the Union with the student paper taking in the life of the OU Campus I came across an article that I thought was interesting.

What’s the most interesting part is the column is titled, “Fundamentalist doctrine does not belong in schools.” As soon as I read the title I had a hunch of what was ahead but that’s not what I am writing about. What I am writing about is not whether the doctrine should be included or not (because that’s not really what the article was about either – more just a rant on why evolution makes sense) but more so the concerns raised by the author.

The author really used the column to essentially smash creationism and intelligent design thinkers with his apparently much more logical “evolution” methods.

The author writes:

Intelligent design doesn’t belong in schools for two reasons.

Firstly, it’s not science. Secondly, it’s not true.

Intelligent design proponents usually promote their cause by attempting to pick holes in the theory of evolution and then suggesting their own idea as the default alternative. And I do say “idea” advisedly because intelligent design is not even a theory.

A theory is a framework of propositions formulated to explain a phenomenon. A theory must be predictive, and it must be testable. It must be capable of being disproven.

Intelligent design makes no predictions, and is so amorphously defined that it is effectively unable to be proven false.

It is not even truly explanatory, as it creates the problem of the origin of the designer, an agent necessarily more complex than that which it has created.

Scientifically, intelligent design is worthless.

Intelligent design proponents frequently refer to the elaborateness and complexity of organic structures as evidence for design.

Breathtaking elaborateness, yes — but nothing that isn’t predicted by evolutionary theory. Evolution accounts for the numerous design flaws we see in organic structures such as the human body, which intelligent design cannot do without a bit of contortion.

Take, for example, the fact that the urethra runs directly through the prostate.

Surely an entity capable of aligning the 100 billion cells of the human brain would know better than to make such an oversight. And a major oversight at that — just ask any man over sixty.

Observations in genetics, zoology, botany, microbiology, epidemiology, paleontology and ecology all affirm evolution’s validity with mountains of evidence, while not a single paper confirming intelligent design has ever been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Intelligent design — according to the overwhelming preponderance of evidence — is nonsense.

Whoa there cowboy! That’s a lot of hating and very little about why teaching the theory of creationism in schools is a bad idea and for those of you, especially the students who got your hands on this paper, who might be a bit perplexed or confused about the issues – fear not, God is NOT dead. I promise!!

There are two GREAT articles that I recently read that confront an unbelieving, skeptical culture from a past issue of Christianity Today.

The first one is called, “A New Day for Apologetics”

I think Christianity and the Christians proclaiming it went through a phase were we tended to think that gatling gun apologetics were the answers for everything. Then there was a reaction to that where it became popular to say, “Apologetics don’t work at all. God is mysterious and and Christianity is weird but I like it” (think how some people used “Blue Like Jazz.”) The above article discusses what is good and appropriate about the role of apologetics.

The second article is written by one of the smartest guys out there, William Lane Craig on how to deal with “the new atheism.” It is called “God is not dead yet.” It’s a good one and well worth the read.

Again, the intention behind this post is not to incite a heated argument but more-so present information that is counter to the above columns assertions and that shows there are indeed SMART reasons for the belief in God.

If you wish to read the full article from the OU paper, just click HERE. And when you do, be sure and read the comment posted to the article at 9:04pm, I thought it was right on…

Filed under: OU, Religous

FRESHMEN MOVE IN!!!! WHOOHOO!!!

Well today it finally started, Norman is becoming a full blown college town and I couldn’t be more stinking excited! It’s funny, Michelle and I waited for four months from the moment we knew we would be joining the family at Wildwood Community Church and then once we got here I had to wait another month before the students returned and started gearing up for classes. That’s a lot of waiting! Talk about one SLOW transition! So I’m glad they are here!!!

Today I got the first tastes of what SOW (Sooner Orientation Week) was all about with the big freshmen move in day. I got to hang out with Tyson Miller and some BYX fellas and help some freshmen get into their rooms in half the time which is always a blessing. Looking forward to all the other activities going on – like tonight’s “movie on the green” – this is great!

Filed under: OU, Personal