Saving Souls

We had a young man accept Christ last week!  PTL (praise the Lord)!  So stoked as I was able to talk with him and a young lady from our group led him to Christ!  I met him on campus.   Let's keep it rolling!

Ignite Conference

This week I had the amazing chance to go to a conference in Phoenix.  About a dozen leaders from my church went down to the Ignite Church Planting Conference for Converge Worldwide (a denomination).  It was sweet!

My favorite part was the camaraderie and relationship building of the staff.  I had great conversations with Stu Collins, the high school guy, Kyle, the Jr. High guy, and many others!  It was also awesome to see God working in the church planting movement of Converge.  They are in the middle of a five year push to plant 351 churches nationwide.  Imagine the souls that could have healing and hope if that many new churches were born!

It also speaks to all of us to keep living missionally, outside our comfort zone, working for the gospel of Christ!

Announcing...

To my stakeholders...

First, let me say thank you.  Thank you for reading these posts, for praying for resonate and all it's needs.  And thank you as well, to those that gave and continue to give to see life-change in college students.  It's been a great ministry for the past year, and will continue to be quite a wild ride for the next season of ministry.  

I wanted to write to you today to let you know of an important change that is coming in next few weeks!  Up to this point my family has been raising support for the college ministry at Bethany.  Starting the first of March, in addition to the college ministry at Bethany, I will also be leading all adult groups at Bethany.  To start with, this includes all adult Sunday School classes and community groups.  The church will also be raising the level of their support for me!  This means that there will be a change in the level of financial support that I will need!  Praise the Lord!

In the coming weeks (after I preach next week) I will be sending out an updated letter to all financial supporters letting them know the exactly what the changes are.

It's really exciting to use the college group as a rough draft for the new community groups that will be starting in the coming years!  It's also great to be able to help sunday school!  

Once again, thank you!  Keep on praying that God would work in the forgotten generation in Pierce County, Washington!

For His Glory,

Ian

Annual Report(s)

This past month I've had the opportunity to write up an annual for what I do here at Bethany.  It was a great time of reflection and reminiscing.  I've had an amazingly busy year!  I won't share the whole thing with you, but here are the highlights:

• Moved from Interim Jr. High and Sr. High Ministry Director, to College Director, joining 2 other new youth guys.  
• Went on 2 camps in January, leading worship at one, and speaking at another.
• Went on a staff prayer retreat in central Washington - it was amazing!
• Began a plan to implement a change in culture for Bethany Student Ministries
• Took several months to read about and study college ministry
• Launched new college ministry, Parched, over the summer
• Spent countless hours as a family having college students over to the house every week
• Built a fire pit in the backyard to accommodate the people!  Spent weeks going to the Chiropractor to recover!
• Started on the college campuses in the fall, being on campus 5-6 days a week
• Had a ton of spiritual conversations with my new friends
• Met and walked with my friend.
• Helped the church by doing parking duty for VBS, leading worship for church, leading worship for the youth, preaching, teaching small groups, etc.
• Added Interim Director of Whitewater Kids to my things to do in August!
• Moved resonate from the house to the church (we were out of room)
• Prayed, pleaded, and plodded along with God

As you can see, it's been a busy year!  And there is also a very important announcement coming in the next month as well!  Thanks for journeying alongside my family as we seek to see the grace of Christ in the lives of college students in the south sound!  

Thanks

Worship Leading

I led worship at High School camp two weeks back.  This is the first event that I've been at for the second time.  It was great to see the changes from last year (with just me running the entire department) to now, with three of us and lots of volunteers!

There were many things that went well, but here are a few that I appreciated the most:

• Godly leadership (the difference this makes can't be underestimated.  And thanks!)
• A full band (last year was me and a drummer)
• College leaders stepping up (One college student will be leading Jr. High's worship every week)
• Prayerful and intentional worship (things don't go well on accident very often!)

It was a great weekend, one full of life change and recommitment!  I'll share about the Jr. High camp that I spoke at later!

Ian

My Friend

Purpose is important.  Without remember that we are commanded by Christ in His Great Commission to share the gospel and teach Christians how to be Christ-followers,  we'd get lost in the thick layers of glitz, glamour, and glee.  Sometimes that means being purposeful in our mission.

Resonate is all about sharing the gospel with those that don't know the freeing love of Christ.  It's also about teaching others to do just that, and that means showing the college students what it means by walking in evangelism first, in my life.

Enter my friend Nathan.  Nathan is a great kid.  He's the kid that I sit next to in class on campus at Pierce College that looks a bit like a gangster.  He's rough around the edges.  He's seen the dark moments that this life has to offer, the kind of things that give you a permanent record.  He's defiantly non-Christian, but he's open to searching out religion.  If I'd have forgotten to beg God to bring him to me, if I'd have been to lazy, if my eyes weren't open to God's leading, I never would have expected him, of all the people I meet on campus, to move toward God.

He's not there yet.  More lunches and calls will follow, but with more prayer and purpose, by the grace of Jesus, I will one day see Nathan in paradise!

Keep praying.  Keep giving.  Through partners like you, lives are changing!

Mexication!

Emily, KJ and I had a wonderful time enjoying our vacation time this Christmas in Mexico with Emily's folks, David and Nancy Greer.  They were gracious enough to invite us to their wonderful condo on the ocean in Manzanillo Mexico.  We snorkeled, swam (Kyrianna wouldn't stop), and ate and drank a ton!  It was awesome to disconnect like that for the first time in about 9 years (honeymoon anyone?).  Here's to hoping it's not another 9 years before we vacation again!