September-October

I forget the author, but I read one time that a proof that we are immortal souls is that mankind is always surprised at the passage of time; we have crazy aunts tell us they can't believe how much taller we are,  we notice people getting wrinkles where there used to be none, and we express wonder at how people have lost weight since the last time we saw them.

I can't believe it's November. We have six weeks before our students go on Christmas break, and the first semester of this grand adventure that God has led all of us on is completed. In the last two months we've gone on a rafting trip and hiking trip, we've completed community service hours, we've become involved in local church congregations, and we've met people within this community who have shown us a beautiful example of hospitality among the body of believers.

It has been a joy and challenge to be here, and I know I've grown as a result. The relational aspect with students has been leading a Bible study with the guys on Philippians with a curriculum that was assembled by my church in college, playing impromptu frisbee once or so a week, having conversations or study sessions with guys on the couch that is now in my room, catching a post-study session movie in our common area, and attending Thursday night church at the local E-Free congregation.

Most of that takes place in the evening though, as that is when students are most free (and I'm most stir-crazy). Days are primarily filled with administrative tasks right now, and preparing to teach economics next semester. Some of those tasks include contacting and coordinating schools that our students will be able to receive college credit from next year, coordinating visiting faculty members for this fall and next spring, researching federal student aid requirements so that our students can apply for financial aid next year, sending out marketing emails and answering any questions that parents or students have, and maintaining and improving our website.

As someone who enjoys entrepreneurship and new things, it has been a joy to be a part of all of this. There is a bit of anxiety that goes along with it, as there is no guarantee right now that there will be a program next year because we don't have students registered yet, but every time that thought creeps into my mind there is a voice that tell me that it isn't based on my work anyways. Whether we have the best marketing in the world or whether we just have a rudimentary website, it will be Christ who works in the hearts of families and students to be a part of our program, and all we can do is be faithful to what we know.

As we are looking forward, there are many big-picture questions that will need to be answered in the coming months: Do we need another faculty member? How many students will we be accepting next year? Do we need other administrative assistants? These are all questions that I would ask you to lift us up in prayer for; that we might have wisdom and that we would have divine appointments to fill these needs.

Please also be praying for my coworker Hannah and me. After being here since late August, we are just now finding a community of peers to be involved in, which we are extremely grateful for. Please pray that God would continue to bring people into our lives to mentor us and encourage us as we labor here.

Thank you for your time in reading this, and for your continued encouragement. It is always a joy to see my supporters and catch up on life. I miss you all and hope to see you soon.

Devotion: Gospel Centered Living

Here are some notes from the devotional I led to start out this semester. It is a relatively rough set of notes, but hopefully it is understandable! My hope was to give a clear and concise Gospel to our students, and call them to real Christian living with each other. More to come soon!
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Gospel-centered living

In the story of the Gospel we see everything that we call good, or should call good.

Discipline, self-control and Fear in proper perspective (Garden of Gethsemane Matthew 26:39-46)

Endurance of suffering (Hebrews 12:2)

Joy (Hebrews 12:2)

Sacrifice and Service (Philippians 2:1-8)

Justice (Colossians 2:13-14)

Value of Life (Life and life abundant – John 10:10)

We also see some very profound and simple truths about the world and our place in it: 

-       There is sin

-       Sin demands payment

-       God loves us enough to come get us

o   While we were yet sinners – Romans 5:8

o   For God so loved…John 3:16

-       There is nothing left for us to pay, we are saved by Grace in trusting Christ   

o   Ephesians 2:4-9

Because of these things that we see called good, and because of these truths that we see, there are ramifications on how we should live, specifically in Christian community:

1.     Acknowledgement of sin. Every person here had to be saved, which means that every person here has sin. And in order to have authentic Christian community, we have to understand and recognize that.

a.     Bonhoeffer, Life together:

                                               i.     “One who wants more than what Christ has established does not want Christian brotherhood. He is looking for some extraordinary social experience which he has not found elsewhere; he is bringing muddled and impure desires into Christian brotherhood. Just at this point Christian brotherhood is threatened most often at the very start by the greatest danger of all…the danger of confusing Christian brotherhood with some wishful idea of religious fellowship, of confounding the natural desire of the devout heart for community with the spiritual reality of Christian brotherhood. In Christian brotherhood everything depends upon its being clear right from the beginning… that Christian brotherhood is not an ideal, but must be centered in reality.”

2.     We are to bear each other’s burdens and sins(Galatians 6:2)

3.     We are to confess our sins and forgive each other (James 5:15-16)

4.     We are to help each other pursue what is good (Proverbs 27:17)

5.     We are to be renewed in our standards of what is good (Romans 12:2, Colossians 3:1-4)

Final thoughts and questions:

-       What does authentic Christian community look like to you?

-       What areas of your life are not surrendered to Gospel-living?

-       In your experience, does your church fall short of authentic Gospel-living in community? If so why? If not, how is it upheld?

The Beginning

We are 10 days into our new adventure in Canon City, Colorado. Last Tuesday parents from California, Oregon, Iowa, Illinois, Florida, Texas, Connecticut, and Zimbabwe dropped off students at the dorms of the Holy Cross Abbey, and a new chapter in the history of Worldview Academy began.

The previous week leading up to opening day was a hectic one - planning meetings with Jeff Baldwin, our women's director Hannah Hall, and myself were used to fill in time around outfitting the dorms, and evenings were spent adjusting to the town and fixing up our personal rooms.

Off of a modest budget we were able to transform a bland dorm that was build in the mid 1960s into a space that felt like a coffeeshop, and each of out student dorms was outfitted with a rug, drapes, full-length mirror, and reading lamp. Needless to say, much of that list was Hannah's choice, and I was the toolbelt manager.

I have loved being a part of this start-up stage. I hope that the excitement stays constant as the year wears on. Students now are filled with joy, self-consciousness, and an extended grace to each other that comes from everything being new. We are pushing them to be involved in local community so many of them are trying out ministries like Awanas and YoungLife, as well as looking into different churches on Sundays. And with only two cars among them it means that Hannah and I are often delegated to the position of chauffeur, which we're glad to do.

On top of that, I am loving being in Colorado. After having visited the state for many years on vacation with family, it is like an appointment with destiny for me to move here, and there is so much to do in the outdoors here I feel I could go or do something different every day of the year and never have to repeat myself. I'm especially excited about the prospects of outdoor and adventure photography here, as what I lacked in West Texas was proximity to outdoor recreation, whereas here beautiful scenery is literally a 10 minute drive in any direction.

There are definitely some tradeoffs though. The small town of Canon City (pronounced canyon) limits options of fellowship with peers, and Hannah and I (both in our mid-twenties) have noticed the lack of other people our age around, especially in the churches. We would definitely appreciate your prayers for finding Christ-centered people in similar stages of life here.

Please keep our students in your prayers too! They are great kids, but just like anyone who leaves home for the first time, there will be growing pains, both for parents and students. Hannah and I also have the task of guiding them into becoming more independent and mature Christians, and there is going to be a learning curve as we remember just what it is that they don't know about living on their own. So pray that there would be grace and wisdom on both sides. That we would understand what to teach them and when, and that more than anything else they would learn to pursue Christ well and in a sustainable way this year.

Thank you for your prayers and support. The excitement among these students is omnipresent and infectious, and I can't believe I have the opportunity to pursue an opportunity like this.

I will try to post some things on here more consistently as examples of what students are going through that will be more topical than informative, so check back in a week or so and there will be something new rather than my regular 6-8 weeks.

Please check out our facebook page for Worldview at the Abbey. I am the primary updater of that page and I am going to try to post updates and photos of what is happening as well as relevant Christian articles regarding Christian worldview so that it can be a source of content and growth for those who follow us.

I hope to see each of you soon.

Worldview at the Abbey

I am extremely excited to formally announce what my plans will be for this fall, beginning in September. Worldview Academy is starting a program for students who are either in their senior year of high school or who have just graduated, and it will consist of classes taught by me, Bill Jack, and Jeff Baldwin.

Students will be on our retired abbey in Canon City, Colorado for two semesters, and will take classes on Advanced Worldview and Apologetics, History, Literature and Rhetoric, and Political Science and Economics - all taught in a socratic style from a Biblical perspective. Along with the academics, students will participate in hands on learning scenarios to balance the head knowledge they are gaining. Some examples of this will be evangelism in downtown Colorado Springs, a trip to the capital building in Denver, outdoor adventure trips such as hiking or white water rafting, or mandatory community service hours to make a difference in the local city. 

We are in talks right now to be able to offer 18-24 hours of college credit for this program through Oklahoma Wesleyan University, a long time partner in our mission. We should know within the week exactly how many hours we will be able to offer through them. 

Students from the ages of 17-21 can participate in this program, and the cost this year for both semesters is $9800, which covers lodging, special events, and food except for breakfast. The only other expenses students would have on top of this are book costs and whatever else they would want for spending in their down time. 

For more information on this opportunity, check out our website at worldviewattheabbey.com. There you will be able to find our specific location, information about our faculty members, and syllabi for all our classes. You can comment here if you have any questions, or go to our website and go to the "Contact Us" tab, and your message will go directly to my inbox. 

My role within our bridge year program is extremely exciting for me. I will be handling the majority of the administrative tasks, intentionally discipling the guys who are a part of the program, and planning any special events we have. My family has been vacationing in Colorado or New Mexico since I was a small child, so for me the opportunity to move there to help start something like this is absolutely a dream come true. 

On top of that, from a professional point of view entrepreneurship has been my goal for the last several years, and for me this is a first project in terms of brick-and-mortar start-ups. Working at the Worldview office has been huge for me professionally because I had the opportunity to learn about marketing, recruiting, interviewing, sourcing, contracts, and professional relationships literally from the ground floor, but this new opportunity is gathering resources and creating something that was only an idea in our minds 18 months ago. Already from this experience I've been able to learn about web-design, incorporating a non-profit, and college accreditation processes, with much much more I'm sure to come. 

With this new target in our sights for this fall, we have huge needs that can only be met through God's prompting on his people. 

Practically, we need students. If you or someone you know might be interested in this program, please share this with them in any way you can. We don't want to guilt anyone into action, but the fact of the matter is that if students don't know about this program they won't participate in it, but by simply letting them know it opens the door to opportunity. Please help us in this way. 

Spiritually, we need your support as the body of Christ. Prayer for an initiative like this is a must, and I humbly ask that you remember us consistently! Please pray for Bill, Jeff, and me individually - that we would be faithful to the call ahead, whether students come to us or not. 

Also, any monetary support is greatly appreciated. I will continue raising support to be a part of this program, and thankfully my expenses will continue to be relatively low as they were this past year. My monetary supporters have been awesome and faithful over the past year, but I have lost a couple of them in the past couple months because of changing life seasons. If you would consider supporting me in this way, I would be glad to answer any questions you might have, or you can donate at the top right of the page or send cash or checks with my name on the memo line to Worldview Bridge Year, 148 Edinburg Road, San Angelo, TX 76901. All donations are tax deductible. 

Thank you so much. Your continued faithfulness, encouragement, and prayers are what keep me going in the tough times with the path that I am on, and I couldn't do it without you. 

January to February

The last couple months have been some of the best for me since my time in Midland. I have become very accustomed to how things work around here, how to best interact with my coworkers, and how to fix things when they are broken. I feel like I have basically come all the way up the learning curve of the details, but the ironing out of the mundane aspects of the job help the days pass much more smoothly as a whole.

It has often been said to me that the late winter and early spring are the busiest times of the year for the office, and I am beginning to understand why. We are receiving staff applications by the day, and along with that comes an endless line of interviews - each in need of specific, individual attention so that we can make the best decision possible as to who to take for what staff team. Brandon Booth, a camp director who will be moving to the office this fall, and I were in charge of overseeing the application process, and this year we are utilizing some new methods for interviewing that has helped lessen the workload on us in the office - which I am extremely thankful for because I am afraid we would otherwise be buried by the man-hours required to do an adequate job.

I have also been overseeing a sort of pet project that has a marketing emphasis - February 28th, Worldview will be doing a live stream video from one of our Christianity and Culture Conferences to anyone who wants to watch. I have seen a couple ministries use this to engage their customers and fans, and I am hoping that this can be a new type of tool for us as well. On February 28th we will be doing just one lecture, but in another month or so I am hoping to be able to live stream two or three in one evening, with the vision that staff, students, and parents would make an event out of it for their local community or church.

This has been exciting for me personally because, on top of the fact that we have never done it before, I have had the opportunity to learn all about the process behind live streaming an event, and what types of software, hardware, and capabilities are necessary to make it happen. It has been a little nerdy even for me to try to comprehend, but I feel like I've built some valuable skills in the process.

The month of March is honestly looking rather ominous. Our deadline for staff applications is March 1, and I am hoping to get in 30-40 more applications by that time. After this, we will be finishing interviews, selecting the three traveling summer teams (a process that I am also in charge of figuring out), coordinating our leadership staff training, carrying out background checks, mailing out packing lists to students, mailing out manuals to staff, and working through what types of apparel to sell at our resource table this summer. Whew! It makes me tired just thinking about it.

So as I look forward to the coming months, these are some of the tasks I would definitely appreciate prayer on: that God would give me sustaining energy to work efficiently, that I would have wisdom in the staff-selection process, and that He would be at the center of our plans for the summer.

Pray also for all of us in the office - that we would be creative, wise, and tenacious to prepare well for this summer; for the sake of the staff, students, and the name of the ministry that has such a great reputation among our students and their families.

Personally, I feel like I have been growing greatly. Mondays find me volunteering at an after-school elementary children's program and Young Life, Tuesdays going to Toastmaster's at 6:30am and a young professional's Bible study in the evening, and Wednesdays a men's Bible study, dinner with the office staff, and social time with friends from the Bible study! Thankfully, Thursdays and Fridays are unscheduled evenings, where I usually fill my time with one of the books I am reading,working on my photography, or brushing up on guitar in preparation for this summer. It has been extremely busy, but I love the people I have been able to build relationships with along the way, and the personal growth I have seen through being intentional with my time.

As always, thank you so much for your prayers and support. I couldn't be here without you, and am striving to represent you, this ministry, and my God well. Please send me a message or text if I can do anything to pray for you - it would be my joy! Take care, and I hope to see you soon!

December Update

Friends,

First, I owe you an apology. As people who are supporting me financially and in prayer during this time of ministry, I should be more regular on updating this and letting you know how things are going, and what is being accomplished regarding Worldview.

However, I have been encouraged to know that even in my lack of updates you have continued to pray for me, generally and specifically, and it is awesome and encouraging to hear these reports from you. So, thank you so much for remembering me!

Since October I have been able to travel near and far doing campus recruiting, as well as working on many of the technical details of the upcoming summer camp season. My college staff recruiting has taken me to Georgia, Idaho/Eastern Washington, and back to South Carolina, where I have been able to make over 100 direct, personal contacts with potential staffers for this upcoming year. While it can definitely be tiring to be on the road so much, it is always one of my greatest joys to see former staffers with whom I have had such great memories over the years. 

Staffers from Moscow, ID

Staffers in Clemson, South Carolina

The office side of my job has been filled with contacting campuses about coming for camp next summer – a job where I’ve been talking with campus events departments from all across the country, many of whom are great to work with and are excited about our coming back. I am always thankful when the quality of our program precedes me on a phone call to a campus, because the contacts I make are consistently encouraging toward our mission, and they are glad to be able to play a role in spreading the message that we have of empowering and equipping students to live and act in accord with a Biblical worldview.

We have also finalized our staff applications and interview process in the last two months, so we will be receiving applications and conducting interviews almost non-stop from now till the end of March. This is a huge part of office work over the next several months! We also just published a video promotional regarding staffing, so if you or someone you know may be interested in serving with us this summer, please use it for an idea of what staffing looks like! 

Personally, adjusting in Midland has continued to be a blessing. While I do not feel like I am plugged in to a church per se because I am gone so much on the weekends, I have been consistently attending a Bible study during the week that has provided a community of peers as well as older individuals who are willing to pour into my life, and that has been very encouraging.

Please continue to pray for me! Pray that I would be creative and effective in the use of Worldview’s resources for accomplishing our staff recruiting for the spring. Pray that I would have the stamina and diligence to interview staff well and fairly, and that God would work through that process to select the staff teams that He wants for this summer.

Lastly, help to me love well and be involved here. Sometimes uncertainty about the future of how long I will be with Worldview (or where I will be living while still with them) tempts me to not invest in the people around me as much as I could, so please pray for me in this way - that I can live life fully where I am – not in the future, the past, or in what might have been.

Thank you so much. Your encouragement is a huge part of what keeps me going every day, and I love hearing from you and seeing you on my travels.

Hello friends! I wanted to take a second to update. My last post ended with my asking for prayer regarding the upcoming camp that I was going to be directing, and I wanted to take a brief post to follow up with that.

The camp was great. Located at Camp Tejas in Giddings, Texas, we had 107 students come in from all across the state as well as a few from Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Fall camp is a special camp because while most students during the summer come for 2-3 summers, it isn’t uncommon to have a handful at Fall Camp who are on their 3-5^th year. This is both challenging and exciting: challenging because it means we have to think of new ways we can keep camp fresh for the alumni (which keeps things fresh for us too), and exciting because it means we get questions and are able to cover topics with those alumni that most students never get to.

As I said in my previous post, my job for the week was camp director. This consisted in coordinating the staff team for the entire week, handling parent interactions, interacting with the campus to make sure we were complying with our contract, and getting to lead Orientation, Graduation Ceremony, and one additional session for the alumni on God's will and wisdom from Proverbs. 

I absolutely enjoyed my job. I used to work for a wildlife biologist from San Angelo who gave a talk on success in life as learned from lessons gained from going on hunting trips with his favorite bird dog. Among points for success such as, “Hug your giants', 'Be afield whenever possible', and 'Sign your work,” was the lesson to “Hunt with good dogs.” The seed of wisdom in this last lesson was that life is most fulfilled when you are able to do what you love with others who love it as well. As a result, life is easier to be enjoyed and the work being done doesn’t feel like work anymore. I had the opportunity to lead 15 staff and leadership staff literally from Florida to Washington during Fall Camp - some of which took off a week from jobs or school to be there. I was so blessed to have them be a part of the team, and while I might have had my doubts in my own abilities to lead, knowing that I had great "dogs" in the field took away any doubt I had about whether or not it was going to be a good week.

Thank you so much for your prayers regarding camp last week. It means so much to me to receive messages of encouragement while I am here, and I really believe God works for the betterment of his kingdom and the protection of this ministry through the prayers of the saints. Please continue to remember me in yours!

If you want some first hand accounts of what happened at Fall Camp or want to see what a typical week of camp looks like, check out our camp connection website where we have the camp video for the week and daily updates of what students were learning.

Looking forward, I am traveling near Macon, GA this week to help lead worship and teach wilderness first aid skills to students taking part in Teenpact Survival – a wilderness survival and leadership program affiliated with Teenpact Leadership Schools. I worked for Teenpact in 2009-2010 as a staff and intern, so this will be my first experience taking part in one of their programs since college, so I am super excited to renew old friendships, lead worship, and represent Worldview there.

Please pray for me there this week. I haven’t led worship in a format like this for quite some time, so please pray that I would be diligent on the technical details, and that God would give me a right heart to lead the group well in a corporate worship setting. Thank you so much, and I hope to see you soon!