A Little Drive to Atlanta

Todd, Drew and I had the opportunity to spend the last couple of days hanging out with several other campus pastors, Louie and the Passion Staff in Alpharetta. What a blessing it was to be reminded of the great task that we are called to and to be encouraged by those for whom we have such great respect. The thing about hanging out with Louie and his staff is that you never leave without having been reminded of how huge God truly is and without being propelled to shout his fame even louder still!

We heard incredible stories of what God is doing on campuses across our nation but were also drawn to prayer by the realization that 76% of all incoming freshmen state that they are not born again Christians!

We also hung out a bit at Phillip’s Arena where Passion 07 will be held and prayed for the thousands of students that will be there! Can’t wait to see all that God does ~ some pretty incredible things are being planned! Count on this; all eyes will be on Jesus! Hope you make the journey with us!

I love ya’ll! James

Who wants to paint a pumpkin?

Who wants to have some fun? Now do you really want to have some fun or are you just saying that? Okay, then here is what you do. Get about 70 people together with some little pumpkins, some paint, and any variety of other accessories that happen to be in the general area. Well, I don't know about you, but that's what we did yesterday from 10:15am to around 2pm in the Cave on ETSU's campus. We used this time as an outreach to make contact with students and spread the word about the one and only Barn Dance we are having this Saturday night. We weren't exactly sure how everything would work out, how many pumpkins to buy, how many students would actually show up to paint pumpkins. Well, votes are in and apparently college students enjoy painting pumpkins. Take a look at a few of these pics and just look at the pure joy on their faces. We had 80 pumpkins, and I think we brought 10 back with us to the office so I would say that we had a successful turnout with lots of laughs, conversations and new friends. And of course some astounding art. So we brought all of the pumpkins to The Well last night, set them out on a table and let students vote on their favorite, which will be announced Saturday night at the Barn Dance to much applause I am sure.


On to the Barn Dance we go, with much fun to be had by all. We'll have much more to share after Saturday. Thanks for prayer, encouragement and helping enable us to paint pumpkins with students.

for His glory,
Seth

More Than We Can See

Another Wednesday night and another amazing time in the presence of the Lord. Last night as we gathered to worship corporately, we continued in a series James began last week called Cropped. Basically the series has been dealing with the imagery of cropping a photograph and only getting a small part of the image. When we crop a picture we lose all of the context of the picture as we focus in on a smaller part of the bigger picture. Just as we often do this with our own photographs, especially now through the ease of digital pictures and photo editing software, we can see the application of this concept to our lives.

James has been focusing on the moments in our lives when we may not be able to understand our situation, thinking about them liked a cropped photo. Last week we looked at the life of Joseph, with all of hte trials that he underwent, each particular situation a snapshot of a larger picture that the Lord revealed to him through the saving of his family from starvation. Last night as we worshipped together, James shared yet another moment in scripture that illustrates the same characteristic of a life given over to God. We learned about Paul and Silas in the 16th chapter of Acts and how a situation that seemed to be getting increasingly perilous ended up bringing glory to God and freedom for both Paul and Silas. It is encouraging to see men like Paul and Silas who suffered and entered situations filled with the unknown and yet be filled with confidence that the Lord is at work in some way that is beyond all of our comprehension.

As we continue in this series, I pray that students who come worship with us are challenged to go deeper in their pursuit of God, particularly in those places in their lives where they are just not sure what may happen. I pray that they don't get stuck in the small cropped images that they may see, but that they trust that the Lord is painting a much larger picture that is filled with His glory.

Thanks again for your support and for your prayers. It is hard to believe that we just finished Fall Break and are entering the second half of this fall semester. The Lord continues to do great things, and we feel blessed to be able to be a part of it as long as He desires.

for His glory,
Seth

How to Forgive

I hope you have all had a great week. It has been fun to feel fall rolling in this week as the temperatures have gone down significantly, leaves are changing colors and falling, and the air just has that smell about it. What a great time of year to just take in what God has placed before us.

Last week, we finished our first message series of the semester called No Mo Zeros, dealing with all the things in our lives that we give ourselves over to instead of God. Playing off of our Fall ad campaign, based on the character of the mannequin Johnny Zero, we referred to all of these different things as zeros in our lives because ultimately they all leave us empty and longing for something more.

This week was a little change of pace as James handed over the teaching reigns to his good friend Sam Dyer, who has been investing in the ministry of The Well this year in a number of ways, primarily by teaching on Sunday nights at The Link. This was Sam's first opportunity teaching at a Wednesday night Well gathering, and he did a great job. He taught on the theme of forgiveness, using the parable of the ungrateful servant from Matthew 18 as his text. While Sam hoped to communicate a number of things through his message, his primary goal was to communicate that as believers who are forgiven a debt far beyond anything we could ever repay, we are called to forgive others unconditionally, without limit. We were all challenged in a significant way as to the revolutionary way Christ calls us to forgive. As believers who claim to pursue Christ passionately, are our lives marked by the quality of forgiveness? Do we forgive without limit or do we place conditions on the forgiveness we are willing to hand out? What do the scriptures say?

As we as a staff met together Thursday morning, we were all very mindful of the timeliness of this message. In the wake of a number of recent school shootings, particularly the most recent in Paradise, Pennsylvania, we had some discussion about the role of forgiveness in light of such occurrences. In a one room Amish school house, an atrocity occurred, which has now taken the lives of at least five girls. One might wonder as we did in our time together how you could forgive such an awful act. And yet, that has been the overwhelming response of the Amish community. In article after article and in numerous interviews, members of the Amish community have continued to befuddle the media with their desire to offer forgiveness for the horror brought into their lives. As we sat and discussed this particular incident and its aftermath, it struck us how little the world really understands of forgiveness and how little even we as followers of Christ even understand. One of the first things the Amish community wanted to do was to take food to the family of the deceased killer. How do you wrap your mind around that.

Is forgiveness easy? Rarely. But just as Sam taught Wednesday night, it's what we're called to. It is the only response we really have if we can even remotely grasp the extent of the debt which Christ paid for us, the depth of his forgiveness which has given us access to abundant life.

I hope you all have a great weekend. May the Lord continue to reveal His character in us all.

for His glory,
Seth