The Well

Facebook!

2011-08-04T16:42:00.002-04:00

As you can probably tell, we don't get around to updating our blog much! However, if you want to stay up to date on what is going on with The Well and the lives of this generation of college students, you can start checking our Facebook page here. On our Facebook page, we post all of our events, news, photos, and other updates so that everything is all in one place, and easily accessible to students and our partners! This is the best way to keep in touch, so become a fan, and help us spread the word!

There are also links to sign up for our texting updates (for emergency campus/church/weather alerts) and our weekly email list so that you can stay as up to date as possible!

Thanks for following us!

Fall is here!

2009-10-02T16:35:00.002-04:00

It looks as though everyone is excited Fall is finally here, and we are too! We have a ton of great things to look forward too. We are meeting on Milligan's campus October 14th, and we have our annual Barn Dance at Wiseman's farms October 24th! We hope everyone can make it to both! Check out the events calendar on our website for all the info you NEED to know!

It's that time again!

2009-07-23T16:02:00.004-04:00

The annual Tree Streets' Yard Sale is coming...
Saturday, August 15

After a great response last year,
The Well is participating again this year in all of the fun.
But, in order set up a yard sale on The Well House lawn, we need your help.
We need donated items to sell...your unwanted stuff!

All items (see below for example) can be dropped off at The Well House on ETSU's campus at 910 W. Maple Street.
For easy drop-off, please look for the furniture trailers in the parking lot behind The Well House during the following times:

Fri., Aug. 7th 2pm - 8pm
Sat., Aug. 8th 9am - 3pm
Mon., Aug. 10th – Thurs., Aug. 13th 2pm - 8pm

Yard Sale Items That Sell Well:

Furniture & Home Decor
Kitchen Items
Books, CDs & DVDs
Jewelry
Baby Clothing & Items
Children's Clothing, Toys & Games
Linens, Stationary & Office Supplies
Women's Shoes
Electronics

Yard Sale Items That Don't Sell Well:
(Please do not bring these items.)

Men's & Women's Clothing

Questions? E-mail Leslie at leslie.raby@gmail.com or call The Well House at 423.232.9355.
*Proceeds from the yard sell will be applied to The Well's operational budget.

www.thewellsite.org

Help The Well at the Tree Streets Yard Sale!

2008-07-25T14:17:00.002-04:00

This year, The Well is participating in the annual Tree Streets Yard Sale on August 16th.
Donate your unwanted items (no clothes please!) for us to sell, donate your time to help work the yard sale or come be a customer at the yard sale on Saturday. All proceeds from the yard sale will be applied directly to The Well’s operational budget.

To donate items:
The Well will be accepting donated items at The Well House located on ETSU's campus at 910 W. Maple Street. Such items can include furniture, books, lamps, linens, DVDs, kitchen gadgets, children's toys, baby items, children's clothing, etc. (We ask that no clothing except for baby and children's clothing be donated.) Please make sure all donated items are clean (and priced, if possible).
Items can be dropped off at the following times:
Saturday (August 9) from 10 am to 3pm
Monday(August 11)-Friday (August 15) from 9 am to 8 pm
*If other drop-off times are needed, please call 232-9355.

To volunteer your time:
Friday, August 15th - Beginning at 10am, we will be sorting, pricing & displaying the yard sale items around the property of The Well House. If you are willing and able to help with this process, contact Leslie at 232-9355 or by e-mail at leslie.raby@gmail.com.

Saturday, August 16th - Beginning at 6am, we will be involved with last-minute preparations for the yard sale. At the start of the sale, we will need volunteers to talk with shoppers, to serve as cashiers, to straighten tables and to assist customers to their cars with their purchases. If you are willing and able to help on Saturday, contact Leslie at 232-9355 or by e-mail at leslie.raby@gmail.com.

To shop at the yard sale:
Bring folks with you to rummage through the yard sale treasures. Beginning at 7am on Saturday, August 16th, lots of items at a great bargain will be available to you. If you aren't an early bird, come later in the day; we'll save some good treasures for you.

Share Your Story!

2008-02-13T18:35:00.002-05:00

Has the ministry of The Well impacted your life? If so we want to hear about it! Share your story by posting a comment below.

GO ‘07

2007-11-14T12:44:00.000-05:00

Do you ever worry about something ridiculous? Well, as GO ’07 approached, I found myself worrying like crazy. Oh, how ridiculous I can be! Let me explain…

Each fall, The Well hosts a missions fair to which we invite representatives from local, national and global organizations to join us on a Wednesday night following the gathering of The Well. The sole purpose of the fair is to better expose college students & young adults to the possibilities in missions open to them…beginning now. Some of the opportunities include spending a few weeks overseas plugging in with a well-established ministry, spending the summer as a camp counselor, spending an hour or so a week mentoring a local youth, spending the summer teaching English to children & adults who are so eager to learn, spending 11 months ‘racing’ from one adventure to the next while encountering different cultures and different opportunities to serve the Lord. The opportunities available to college students and young adults are as numerous as are the needs of the world. The problem is that most folks don’t know where to begin in matching up their desires & abilities with the needs & organizations seeking to address those needs.

You may be asking…so what does this have to do with you worrying? Well, I was worried that students wouldn’t show up to take advantage of GO ’07. You see, a local college was hosting a fairly large event on the same date…and the same time…as GO ’07. I was afraid that no one would come…and that the representatives would feel like their time was wasted…and that the representatives wouldn’t agree to come back next year. Isn’t that ridiculous?

GO ’07, from all accounts that I’ve heard, turned out to be the most successful missions fair yet. Successful because many students learned about the needs of the world and realized how easy it would be for them to spend a bit of their time to address the need. In the years past, many students expressed interested in serving in Africa…Asia…locally. But, this year, students committed themselves to serve for God’s glory.
Success…wouldn’t you agree?

All of us have been given the charge to GO. The question is not IF but WHERE does God want each of us to go. Please join with us in praying for the students who are making commitments and those who are still trying to discern what the Father is speaking to them about “going.”

--Leslie

Fall 2007 Ministry Team Reatreat

2007-09-17T09:09:00.000-04:00

Tattoo (v.) - To mark a person or part of the body with a design that cannot be removed or forgotten.

All of us are “tattooed”…by life; by sin; by experiences; by hurts; by choices. But, as a child of God, these “tattoos” do not define us. Instead, our defining “tattoo” is established by the marks of Jesus Christ, literally. Because of the nail marks on His hands and feet, we are forever marked as a child of God…we are “tattooed” by Him…and we can never be removed from His grace.

This Truth was the focus of this year’s ministry team retreat. Over the Labor Day weekend, the students serving on ministry teams and our staff team grabbed our sleeping bags and headed to Doe River Gorge. For 48 hours, 50 of us spent time at DRG discussing the various “tattoos” of our life. And, the greatest “Tattoo” of all…Christ’s mark on each of our lives.

The weekend was full of laughter, teaching, games, worship, pranks, and intimate times with the Lord. Our prayer was that students would walk away from the weekend with a greater knowledge of each other and with a deeper understanding of who they are because of Christ. The Father definitely answered that prayer!

New semester, new opportunity!

2007-09-14T17:32:00.000-04:00

As we continue to pray, God is continually fulfilling His purpose on ETSU’s campus, blessing us with more and more opportunities for outreach!
Through these first three weeks of school, there has definitely been no shortage of outreach opportunities. Through handing out ice cream sandwiches and hosting a Field Day on the first day of class, a free Firehouse BBQ night at The Well, and weekly Monday night Class ’11 freshman events, we have had the opportunity to meet many of the new students here on ETSU’s campus. Each of these opportunities have allowed students to meet, catch up, chat and connect. And, they also create very valuable opportunities for conversation about Jesus Christ!
At the field day, we had the opportunity to meet over 60 new faces, to have some fun, and then to have some good conversation at the cookout that followed. Even more students came to the cookout later that evening, and it was really spectacular to begin to see the upperclassmen begin to interact with the new students. The same was true when Tom Seaton and the Firehouse Restaurant provided us with free BBQ and desserts before our second gathering of The Well. This offered a draw to many students, both freshmen and upperclassmen. Everyone gets excited about free food! Oh, and I shouldn’t forget to mention Mr. Williamson, our faithful barn dance caller. Great food…great entertainment…great time!
All of these events have played a very important role in getting students to a place (physically) where they can hear the Word of God, and thus have been vital to the 4 souls saved thus far and the more than 75 others who have told us of their desire and commitment to relinquish idols and follow hard after God. What a work God is doing…and we are only in week 3!
The amazing relationships that God is bringing about through these outreach events continue to move us all to awe. We have had so many requests from students for accountability partners, small groups, and someone to walk alongside them as they dive deeper into their relationship with Christ that we are scrambling to keep up with them all! Continue to pray with us that we will lean ever harder on God’s provision and blessings as we strive to bring college students from this area to a more intimate, saving knowledge of His love!

And we're off!!

2007-09-11T09:57:00.000-04:00

After months of planning and anticipating, the Fall 2007 semester has begun. And, what a great beginning is has been!

The week leading to the first day of classes is always one that is jam-packed for us. This year was no exception. After days of preparing mail outs, stuffing mailboxes, counting flyers, hanging posters and tying t-shirts, we were all set to help the freshmen move-in. For several hours the Thursday before school began, about 30 of us from The Well teamed up with folks from other campus organizations to take boxes, bedding, clothes, TVs, refrigerators, and all kinds of odds and ends up flights of stairs. And, while the freshmen were getting established in their home-away-from-home, we were establishing relationships…one box and suitcase at a time.

The next day, we were invited to join with Preview, the ETSU program designed to help freshman adjust to college life in a fun and interactive way, to expose students to the opportunities available to them. Over the course of an hour and a half, several of us were bombarded with the new faces of freshmen…and several familiar faces from Move-in Day. When the last student had passed by our table, we were exhausted, hoarse, and extremely excited about the year ahead.

A couple of days later, ETSU’s Fall 2007 semester officially began. And, we were on campus celebrating with 2,000 ice cream sandwiches…thanks to our friends at Food City. For several hours on the first day of class, we handed out t-shirts, ice cream sandwiches and personal invitations to join us at The Well each week. As each of our staff and many of our students talked with student after student, I was reminded that perhaps the greatest part of the start of a new semester is the promise of great possibilities. Each face we encountered was a face that is loved and pursued by Christ. Some already knew of that Truth…some have since learned that Truth…and others have yet to learn.

Please pray with us as we seek to serve, love, and share Truth with the college students in the Tri-Cities area. The possibilities that God desires to make into reality are endless!

Winter Cruise

2007-02-08T14:53:00.000-05:00

Imagine hanging out with students all day making ice cream sundaes and playing Guitar Hero on Playstations. And that is your job. Well, that is what yesterday looked like for several staff and student volunteers as we participated in an annual ETSU event called Winter Cruise. This is basically a spring welcome back time for students as different campus groups and organizations have the opportunity to set up tables in the Culp Center for promotion and student contact.

As I alluded to, we had several gallons of ice cream (I believe we began with 8 and had to purchase more) as well as all of the toppings you could ever want. We also had a couple of televisions with Platstation 2 game systems so that students could play Guitar Hero. Lasting from 10am until around 3pm, The Well's table was quite popular with students pretty much all day. We also used this time to let students know about our upcoming event, the Skate-a-Rama, next Tuesday evening.

So, all in all it was a great day with lots of students and lots of opportunities to share about The Well and about upcoming events. Check out the website for more events, opportunities, etc.

by His grace,
The Well staff

Women at the Well

2007-01-21T00:54:00.000-05:00

Okay, so the semester just began, and if you’ve had a crazy, hectic first week like me, you are already craving some rest and relaxation. Last night…at the conclusion of a very full week…I went to the semester’s first gathering of the Women at The Well.

So for those of you who don’t know about the Women at The Well, all girls are invited to join with us once a month for a time of worship, teaching, and small group discussion. This semester Lindsay Fooshee is teaching on the book of Ruth…taking one chapter during each of our four meetings.

As we began reading through chapter 1 of Ruth last night, Lindsay stopped on Naomi’s desire for her two widowed daughter-in-laws. In verse 9, Naomi says to Orpah and Ruth, “May the Lord grant that you may find rest…” REST.

I left last night knowing the challenge issued was to find rest in the Lord throughout this semester…and the semesters to come. God Himself in Exodus says…”I will give you rest.” Regardless of crazy schedules, stressful classes, rocky relationships, sleepless nights…God offers us perfect rest. If only we will order our life around Him, we can live in His rest.

In the next days and weeks ahead, I pray we will find ourselves living our busy, full lives while relaxing and resting in Him.

Leslie

Dismantle!

2007-01-18T15:54:00.000-05:00

Last night The Well got back into full swing! Things are crazy busy right now but we are excited about the opportunities that God is continuing to place before us.

Over the course of the next few weeks we are going through a series of messages entitled, Dismantle, at our Wednesday night gathering. At the heart of this series we are asking God to show us the lies that culture daily sends our way about life, and faith, and God. Continually there seems to be a new spiritual buzz going on all around us that the Enemy seeks to use to dismantle real truth; the truth of God’s Word. Last night we took an in-depth look at several philosophical tenants that are rampant in our culture today and asked the Lord to shine His truth on them.

In addition, we are beginning a 12 week small group study called The Truth Project to coincide with our Wednesday night gathering. The desire in both of these series is to see students begin to build a Biblical worldview that will not be shaken by each new “enlightened” idea that arises in our postmodern culture.

Please join us in prayer! We are excited about the number of students God is sending our way but are a bit overwhelmed with all of their questions in response to what they are hearing ~ HOW AWESOME IS THAT!!!!

James

What were you doing last night at midnight?

2007-01-15T10:03:00.000-05:00

So, that is the question. What were you doing Sunday night at midnight? I suppose many or most of you would respond that you were sound asleep and maybe had been for some time. And I would have to agree that that would be the answer I would expect. In fact, there is a part of me that wishes I could respond in kind. But I learned a long time ago that being involved in ministry with college students completely squashes any hopes of ever getting in bed before midnight. It just won't happen.

So what were we doing last night at midnight here at The Well? We were gathering together with a small group of students to spend some time in prayer over our campuses and over what God is going to be doing this semester. We gathered together in the amphitheatre on the campus of ETSU and spent about an hour in prayer and worship together.

Let me share with you the things about which we prayed, and maybe you might join us during this semester as we continue to lift up these areas. We prayed in general for our campuses and for this semester. We prayed for professors, staff and students who do not have a saving relationship with Christ. We prayed for all of the other campus ministries who are attempting to reach students on all of the different campuses of our region. We prayed for the first series we are doing here at The Well dealing with issues of truth and the lies that Satan tries to sell us. We prayed for the call on students' lives to go out in to the world whether it is with us to China in May or anywhere else where the Lord may be calling them to faithfully go out.

Please join us as we continue to lift these things up to the Lord and ask for His sovereign hand to reign over them all. What an exciting way to begin the semester. On a beautiful, peaceful night, gathered in prayer, talking with the Lord.

by His grace,
The Well staff

Christmas Lights

2006-12-08T11:02:00.000-05:00

Are you familiar with the term bittersweet? Yeah, it's when something feels good and bad at the same time. That is always how our semesters end here for our staff. We hate to see a semester come to an end with so many amazing opportunities for relationships with students. Wednesday night worship gatherings can be incredible times of experiencing God. Sunday night discipleship times at The Link are so valuable for pouring into the lives of our small group of student ministry volunteers.

But I will have to be honest with you. It is nice to have a little break. Nobody on our staff is really all that good at keeping a healthy work schedule so at the end of each semester, we are all usually pretty spent. It is a good tired, but tired nonetheless and in desperate need of some time to get the batteries juiced back up.

So here we find ourselves, with Christmas right on our heals. And this week has really been all about Christmas for us. Sunday night was our final Link of the semester so we had a Christmas party for our student ministry with lots of really tasty junk food and crazy gifts for one another.

And then Wednesday night was our final Well gathering of the semester so we used a Christmas theme and a Christmas message. The title for the evening was Light, and the message was really trying to communicate both the darkness that fills our lives all around, as well as the light that Christ is and brings in that darkness. We used a number of elements on stage to create sources of light as well as using candles all throughout the crowd of students at one point. It was really a powerful night just focusing on Christ as light and what that means in our lives.

It has been a privilege to serve students this semester and to share with you what God has been doing in and through us. Our prayer is that as this Christmas season is upon us, we would begin focusing our hearts toward this amazing invasion of God into our world, this incarnation of God in flesh that we call Jesus. We pray that God wrapping himself in our flesh, in our joys, in our pains, in our lives would never become ordinary, everyday or commonplace. The birth of Christ should be beautiful for us to believe but not easy, not routine.

Into a world consumed by darkness, there came light, Light. May this Christmas be about His Light in your life, His Light in our world.

Merry Christmas from everyone here at The Well!

The Well Staff

Men's Retreat

2006-11-13T11:22:00.000-05:00

It is such a good thing for men to spend time with one another, really engaging in one another's lives. It's a shame that we just don't do it that often. This weekend, we took a group of about 30 guys on a men's retreat at Doe River Gorge. This was our first of what we hope to be many future weekends like this where we provide young men with strong biblical teaching as well as opportunity for fun and fellowship with each other. We were blessed to have a strong group of male leaders with us for the weekend providing great teaching from God's Word and amazing times of worship through music and song.

The message for the weekend came from a couple of sources: the passage John 10:10 where Christ speaks to the abundant life that He desires to give us and also the lesser life that Satan wants us to settle for as well and the life and call of Gideon to step up and listen to God's call in his life. While we had a number of powerful times together learning from God's word, we also had some good old fashioned fun together playing an intense game of kickball as well as flag football in the pouring rain that almost became sleet. And of course it wouldn't have been a men's weekend without some video games as we even found a little time for some playstation.

Our hope is that this weekend was one of encouragement and challenge for these young men. We know that God desires for them to be men of integrity and men of His Word. Maybe some of these guys were already pursuing that. Maybe some were challenged by this call for the first time this weekend. I do know that this was a special group of guys for whom it was my privilege to serve. May God continue to transform them into leaders who stand and respond when the Lord calls them to a life of abundance.

by His grace,
Seth

Where will God take you?

2006-11-09T15:12:00.000-05:00

If you didn't know already, The Well had it's annual Missions Fair last night as part of our normal Wednesday worship gathering. Each Fall, we set aside one of our Wednesday nights to focus specifically on missions and our call to take the gospel to the nations.

The Missions Fair is great for so many reasons, but maybe the best part is watching students interact with representatives from different mission organizations and knowing that some of them are being impacted that very night for the rest of their lives. How cool is it to think that these students may be beginning an entire new chapter of their life, maybe leading them to a different people and a different culture and maybe even for the rest of their lives.

Each year, we have students whose hearts are deeply impacted on this night by God's call in their lives. For some it has been a stirring already deep within them that just needed a little catalyst. For others, they are blown away for the first time by the concept of going out into the world to serve God's Kingdom.

It is definitely our privilege to provide a place for students to be made aware of ways in which they might serve within God's global plan. It is always a blessing to meet the representatives of the different organizations and agencies that attend. They are so excited about the chance to meet students and share with them what God is doing in the world from their particular perspective.

Who will be impacted?
Where will they go?
How will God use them?

Maybe it's a week, a spring break. Maybe it's a summer. Maybe it's a lifetime. Only time will tell. We can only pray that God is calling each of us to accomplish His purpose right where we are, and that we will respond.

for His glory,
Seth

A Little Drive to Atlanta

2006-10-29T13:00:00.000-05:00

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?

2006-10-26T11:25:00.000-04:00

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

2006-10-19T13:43:00.000-04:00

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

2006-10-06T13:41:00.000-04:00

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

The Past Week

2006-09-21T10:18:00.001-04:00

We just want to reemphasize how excited we are to be able to communicate to you what God is doing in and through the ministry of The Well. It has been an exciting and busy week for us as we have had a number of different activities. Our apologies for not getting these posted more quickly, but we are still trying to get used to this whole blog thing. We trust that you will be forgiving for our tardiness as we improve our posting skills.
To give you a brief view of what the last several days have looked like, I can begin last Thursday evening when we had our freshman event here at The Well house. Although we had a small group of freshmen show up relative to what we have had the past few years, we still had a really good time as we played some fun group games, ate dinner together, and then sent out several teams around Johnson City on a scavenger hunt which brought back several, should I say, interesting items.
The following night, Friday, was the kick-off for The Women at The Well, a new ministry opportunity for young women. Around 70 young ladies gathered together for this first meeting, which began with a great time of worship, led by the Pierces and the Jolleys. This time was then followed by a time of teaching led by Lindsay Fooshee, teaching from a story from "The Silver Chair" by C.S. Lewis as well as the story of the woman at the well in John 4. Ladies then had some time for conversation and discussion around table in light of the teaching and then ice cream sundaes and further fellowship followed. Definitely a great first night to what is a very promising opportunity for young women to dive into the Word and into one another's lives.
On Saturday, The Well staff took a group of students down toward Chattanooga to go whitewater rafting on the Ocoee River. Our group of 18 had an amazing time as we enjoyed warm sunny weather, nice cool water and just a good time together. We definitely had a tremendous opportunity to spend some quality time with some students.

On Sunday night, we had our second meeting of The Link, for our ministry team volunteers. It was another good night as we talked about some practical issues of studying scripture and spending time in the Word. This time continues to be a great opportunity for further fellowship and deeper community with our student volunteers.
Thanks for joining us here on the blog. We should have more to share very soon.

for His glory,
Seth

The Well Has a Blog

2006-09-15T10:01:00.000-04:00

Welcome everyone to the first posting for The Well's new blog. We are excited to have this site, and we are excited that you are here reading it right now. That's the whole reason we even have a blog. Our heart is to use this space to provide you with a window into all of the things that are going on here within the ministry of The Well, whether or not you are here participating or maybe halfway across the country. So again, welcome.

We just finished our 3rd Wednesday night worship gathering continuing a series called No Mo Zeros touching the area of the empty unsatisfying things with which we fill our lives. It has been an exciting first few weeks of this fall semester so far, and we have only just begun. Just last night, we had a freshman event here at The Well house, our office on campus, comprised of some group games, dinner and then a massive scavenger hunt. Tonight, we are beginning a new opportunity for women called Women at The Well which will meet each month, providing young ladies an opportunity for fellowship and a deeper experience of the Word. Saturday, we are taking a group of students whitewater rafting on the Ocoee River, and then of course, Sunday night we have our weekly meeting of The Link, a discipleship and fellowship time for our student ministry volunteers. So if it sounds to you like we have a packed weekend, we do.

Please keep up with the blog as we hope to keep everything very up to date, providing good information, pictures, etc. It is a privilege to share with you in this ministry that God has so graciously provided. May His peace be Yours.

by His grace,
Seth