Leaving for East Asia!

We're on the airplane!!! Ready to go!!! East Asia here we come! Pray for us!!! We're expecting big things!! See you all soon! Love yaa!!!!

Crazy days at briefing

Whew... Its been a crazy few days at Vanguard University for East Asia briefing. I'm pretty tired right now, but today has been pretty sweet. In spite of all that is going on right now, God is coninuing to remain faithful. Our team needs to raise $20,222 by midnight today. It seems like a pretty daunting task to us as humans. But today, we were reminded of God showing Ezekiel that he wants to breathe life into a valley of bones and raise up an army. God is increasing our faith right now, and it will be amazing to see how we respond as a team. We had some hardcore intercession time tonight as an Epic group, and we feel like it was a really powerful transformative moment for our group. At the end of the prayer time, the verse that came to mind was the one in James that states how "the prayers of the righteous avail much." I took as a confirmation that God truly is delighted in our prayers
and graciously desires to respond to His children. Tonight also marks the end our teams 21 day Daniel fast. It has been truly a remarkable experience, and I trust God is going to honor our committment. In comemoration of the end of the fast, I had my head shaved. I haven't cut my hair in like 7months so this was a really special moment to just consecrate myself to God and enter into this new season. It was also cool bc my brother and my friend zach shaved their heads as well.

Please continue to pray for us as we embark on a new journey. We are still in need of a lot more support as well. This next day is the beginning of a great miracle and display of God's great love. Stay tuned...

Divine insight

God really spoke to me through this prayer devotional this morning and really put into perspective His desire for us to know His heart.

" One of the main reasons so many Christians fail to pray or believe the wrong things about prayer is the seeming "hit or miss" aspect to much of our praying. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We develop a bad theology to cover our misses and turn prayer into something it was never meant to be. This problem happens when we look at prayer as a way of getting things from God. But prayer is not "my way of getting things from God." Prayer is God's chosen way of accomplishing His will on this planet! Our job in prayer is to draw near in intimacy. As we begin to understand a bit of the Lord's heart on a matter, then we begin to ask Him to accomplish what is already His will. It is at that point that prayer becomes a powerful change agent to achieve the Lord's purposes.

Prayer:
I thank You Lord, that You have not left us to our own devices to fight this battle. You have provided for us the powerful sword of Your Word, and the amazing gift of prayer. In Your holy name, Lord Jesus, we take up Your Word and ask You to make us more and more a people of Your Word. Show us how to effectively bring Your Word before You in prayer in such a way that the enemy is defeated.

Have a very bless day. Live A Praying Life!"

A very inspiring church planting story

Check out this amazing story of a church planting movement started by new believers in Ecuador! It is so inspiring. Imagine what could happen if we caught on to this vision on our campuses. It will happen one day! Praise God!

http://guymuse.blogspot.com/2009/05/when-can-we-be-church.html

The insightful words of Lydia Medill

Lately, God has been really teaching me a lot about what it means to be the church. Our Epic community has really been actively seeking what it looks like to be a community like that found in Acts 2:42-47. In that process of seeking God's heart, God has given us some amazing insight. Recently, God has given Lydia some pretty crazy insight into some of the underlying issues that are rooted in the misconceptions of the church. What do you think? Take a look:

Check this out. The American dream (as Tito Luigi so accurately stated) is to buy a house. That is the way immigrants become “American”, the way Americans establish themselves and acquire social respect. A house, a building is such an integral part of what has come to be defined as American. Therefore, it makes sense that the American Church would be so strongly wedded to the idea of Church=building. It just goes along with the way Americans have learned to form their identity. So when you ask Americans to think of Church as something different from a building, you are asking them to go completely against their culture, to let go of the way they have previously defined their worth, and step into a place where worth is defined by love received instead of property acquired. Which means that by changing the way the Church looks we’re changing the way American society looks. Okay, maybe you already thought of this, but it just came to me this morning :)