Hello Friends! What a lovely Thursday it was, wasn't it?! I mean, the weather was perfection, can you believe it's the middle of February?!
ALSO, I went out for my first outdoor run in a long time...planning on running a 4 mile loop, or what I thought was 4 miles, turns out once I ran it and came home and mapped it, it was really 5.82 miles. haha oh well.
ALSO today I had the title of my car transferred to me..woo...I am now the proud owner of a '98 civic haha, and I'll get to pay taxes on it ..woooo!!
Now for the real thing that I'd like to talk about. And I'm feeling super pumped about it. Tonight I went to Synergy (thursday night worship service at the Christian Student Fellowship)because it was a special, different night tonight. We (CSF) had the opportunity to Skype with THE Francis Chan and of course have awesome worship lead by Matt Edin. If you don't know who Francis Chan is, here's a little video of him preaching, but he's wonderful and funny too (Google him)! (Also, I got to go with some girlies: Miss Becca Colbert, Mrs Andrea Edin, and Mrs. Danielle Hughes)
Francis Chan was the founder and minister of a HUGE church in California, who recently left because he felt God needed him somewhere else. He is also the author of 2 books, "Crazy Love" and "Forgotten God" and has also written a few childrens books. The Skype session we had with him tonight was amazing. Brian, our campus minister, and some students had the opportunity to just ask him questions and his automatic responses were great! A lot of things he said were things I hadn't really thought about before..but here are some key points that I took down during the session:
-People in America base what church they attend and how they meet with God solely on the personality of the minister or the music style of the church and it's not about that. In his travels in China and India, where most of the population of the earth is, he was able to discuss with people there the church services in America and they thought it was comical. They couldn't believe we had meeting places like churches, where we could freely worship, or that we picked them based solely on music. He described their faith as intense, and he realized the shallowness of US christianity.
-He also talked a little about saving and how, in his opinion, it isn't necessary. That people in America are scared of not having the level of comfort we need. He said when we pick and save for a retirement home, it MUST have shuffleboard. But in countries like India and China, some of these people don't know if they will even survive a month, these people are starving, homeless, and even being raped, why must we live so selfishly? We can't do this, we must give everything we can.
-I found this interesting - he was discussing how some people have been trained to be missionaries in the US but they ignore the people around them here, he wondered what brings out that holiness in them when they go oversees if they can't witness to the people, friends, and family around them now?!
A question was asked as to what are the most important things for our generation to learn and he said:
#1 Discipleship - We cannot fall into the rut of believing that someone else will witness to our friends, it is up to you.
#2 Develop time alone with God - God may lead you to crazy things...don't let people talk you out of things because its not the norm, just do it and be strong, have others pray for your boldness and strength
-funny note: he mentioned that church people are socially awkward and they can't chill and make friends...I thought that was kinda true and kinda funny! :)
And the last and one of the most important things I thought he said was to ACT IMMEDIATELY --> do something with what you've learned. Don't just jump into the next lesson and let it become a pattern, to hear the word of God and not act. Yes, you hear a message and you understand the point, but is that all you're doing? Listening and not acting? You would probably be better off not even hearing it to begin with. We need to act immediately on these messages, there's a reason why we heard them. He said to focus on today, and tonight, not further on down the road. The present holds the things that matter the most.
Francis also talked about a lot of other things, but those were some things that stood out to me. And honestly, he seemed like a really cool guy. His gorgeous wife was cooking in the background while he was skyping and one of his 4 kids popped in the picture for a bit. He seemed so laid back and cracked jokes and even talked about Coach Cal. I must say, although I should have been studying, I am so glad I was able to hear him speak. Now I need to buy his books and read them!! haha...is that backwards?!
Well it's late and I have A TON of work to do tomorrow so I'm outta here. Sorry if the post is poorly written, I just needed to get this all down for you all to hear. Have any of you read Francis Chan books? What do you think of him?
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