CEx Again, Part Two

Man...so be careful what you pray for eh? Perhaps you pray that God's goodness and His presence would be manifest, and obvious with you at CEx, and then your system will go into complete shutdown mode, because you just can not compute how good God is...Thats what happened to me last night, for the second time in as many weeks.
Last night was on 'Why did Jesus die', it was powerful stuff obviously, and i think/pray it had an impact on Becki...but it certainly had an impact on me. Listening to a non-Christian explain the gospel is amazing; 'so its like, God gave us all this grace, and then we messed it up and He gave us more...' yep, that is amazing. And then again hearing Anna, and Nicola and Mandy and Hoops talk about the Gospel and it's power in their lives, and just how amazing it is, i'm loving CEx at the moment!

Anna and Nicola are both getting baptised on sunday, (woo!), and i'm so happy for them and blessed by them, its been an amazing privaledge to be a small part of their time with God recently. There's so much i want to talk about last night, about how powerfully God was moving while we were praying, how awesome it is that He's got Anna's sister to come, how great it is to see two of my friends persue Him, and grow in Him...i want to talk about all that, i want to shout about what an awesome God we worship, how much higher His ways are than ours. But there just aren't the words. There isn't a word to describe how i feel about sunday right now. There isn't a word to sum up last night, to do justice to God...just wow, just awestruck silence.

CEx (part two) Number One

Tonight, i was silenced by the gospel.
Anna, who's doing CEx again, having been saved last term, with a view to bringing her housemate was sharing her testimony about what had happened to her during CEx and Hope 2006 last term, and how much she was loving being a Christian, and how happy she was. And man, i nearly started crying, and then i started shivering, and then...nothing. Pretty much all the way through the discussion time i was sat in a bit of a daze, thinking about how powerful, wonderful and true the Gospel is. It was weird, but great. And also fortunate that there were four other Christians there really! But it was great, God is awesome, the Gospel is powerful and amazing!
So what of CEx this evening? It's a smaller group this time than last time, with only one unbeliever there tonight, but thats cool, God's purposes will not be thwarted by revision/sunshine. And Becki is very cool, and very open, and the Gospel is very powerful...so i am happy tonight. God's amazing, His peace is beautiful, His plan effective, His ways majestic, and far higher than ours.

Crenshaw Punch/I'll throw rocks at you

Rule Number 2) When Nicola asks you to read her coursework book to her as she washes up, DO THE WASHING UP INSTEAD...James Joyce will suck the life from you. But anyway, Nicola asked me to write 'nice things' about her this week...so [insert nice things here]

CEx part four eh? Two more to go, one person saved so far...lots of encouraging noises from other people. Lots of questions (mostly) lots of great food, lots of discovering again our desperate need for God's wonderful grace and mercy in our lives. What are you going to do about all the bad things you said and done in your life? Jesus Christ said that he died as a ransom for many. Please think about that, please explore it.

Cex was a bit different tonight. We only had two groups instead of three (mid way thru term, deadlines, early valentines stuff), but one of the girls who i've been really praying for this week came back, and bought someone else, these guys are seriously better evangelists than I am, so that was good. We were talking about grace, based on the Bible study of Mark 10:17-24. Good times. Good to be reminded of my personal need for God's mercy, great to share this challenging truth with others. I really got the fear of speaking tonight though. There were a couple of times when just no one in our group was speaking, and I dunno, it was like there was something stopping me. It was weird. But wise old Danutia always told me not to be afraid of silence, that God uses it and works though it. I pray He was tonight. And grace is wonderful, the best thing ever. Grace gives me the streaking to share the gospel with someone this afternoon over MSN after spending the morning worrying whether i'd got it right at all (i'm having far too many of those moments recently...whats wrong with me!?) Sarah's about the most liberal and open minded (i mean that in a good way) person i know. I'm sure i came off sounding like a crazed fundamentalist. To be fair, maybe that's what i am.

Ah so grace. My favourite thing. Praise the Lord for grace. Praise the Lord that He has ripped the curtain and given us access to the Father that we might live in a restored relationship with Him, that we might spend eternity with Him, and at this time be in the business of glorifying Him. Grace, the free, undeserved gift of life. We can never be good enough to inherit eternal life. It's an insult to God to think we can. Religion sucks, legalism sucks, the Law is Holy and perfect, but unobtainable. I just want to enjoy the light of God's grace. That grace will be sweeping our campus next week, it's going to be great!

Hooray for God

So Cex...Rule number one: When Nicola tells you that going to her house to do the washing up because her dishwasher is quick...DO NOT BELIEVE HER! Its that simple. Thats why me and Dave were leaving the chappy at gone midnight last night. But i digress.
ISSY BECAME A CHRISTIAN LAST NIGHT! Thats so cool. She's seen it! Christ wins! Christ wins! Yes! I can't really verbalise my feelings right now...but this is great. I am happy deep within myself because of this. Praise the Lord! Yes! And people seemed excited about the day away as well, )now all we need is a venue) so i am encouraged. And the continual realisation that the gospel is true and powerful and real and great! Its great to share it with unbelievers and amazing to see people grasp what the Bible really says for the first time in their lives. It's a priveledge i thank God for!
We eve managed to cut through people in our groups giving us the answers they thought we wanted to hear last night as well. Which is a big step forward. And easier now. Good.
God is so good, and that is so not reliant on me and on my feelings and on anything else except God. Praise Him for what He's doing in Issy's life, please pray for Kim who 'wishes she could be a Christian' (please pray for her!) Please pray that me and nicola and naomi and kat and dave would be filled with the Holy Spirit and with faith more and more as we do this course, that we would be strong in the face of attack, and always look to God for our security and joy. Cheers!

'if thats the way it is, then thats the way it is'

CEx...Part Two

So i love the gospel...i just love it! It's great. I also love evangelism. All the awkward silences are worth is when you tell someone that Jesus is the only way to God. I love being with non-Christians, looking at the Bible together. I love being able to tell people that if they believe in Jesus they'll be ok with God on judgement day. Hey, this gospel is GOOD NEWS! CEx is going quality scenes. There were fewer people there today than last week and a couple of new ones. But thats ok. It's not about numbers...man, this guys are so up for finding out about Jesus, for looking at His claims. Its an honour to be doing this with them. Please keep praying for them. It's no surprise to me at all that people involved in CEx are ill, and that some of the guests have had difficult weeks...but please keep praying.
And its been great for me doing it as well. Reawakening my passion for the gospel, for people's salvation. Thinking again about justification by faith, about what that means. Its amazing and exciting, and makes me feel warm inside. It reminds me what Paul means when he says that death is gain.
God is doing big things at Reading. Praise you Jesus!!

CEx...wow!

Amazing, amazing times in HumSS 125 tonight as the RUCU Christianity Explored course kicked off. I was thinking before that i'd probably never been this prepared for this sort of thing before, certainly in terms of experience, but i knew that if i didn't give it all up to God, and trust His sovereinty completly, it would all go wrong. We catered for between 12-15, me in my horrible, cynical unbelief never ever believing we'd get so many...
About 20 guests turned up...which may not sound like many from a field of around 13000, but wow! It was so exciting! Every time i left the room to get more food, or more plates i came back and there were more people arriving. Me and Nicola had to run to the Union shop to get more cutlery ( we still didn't have enough, about half of us had to eat with knives) and i called Annie who was there...and from the sound in the background it was clear there were loads of people there...then i got the FEAR! I was scared. But it was great, God took away all our self assurance, all our feelings of control and complacency over the evening and made it so we had to rely on Him. Cool stuff huh? So we had the group bible study, which was Mark 2:1-12 (Ceryn, thank you SO MUCH for helping out, you're a hero) and there were some good questions, like 'was the paralytic more of a sinner?, and some very random ones for example 'are there tigers in heaven? (why is it always guys that ask these questions!?) but it was good, and the people in our group were receptive and interested. Then Rico Tice on the DVD, and then a chat about that...and then no one really wante to leave. I am so encouraged. We have a God that answers prayers in such a serious manner, such a powerful God. Praise Him that we know Him and are known by Him, we're so blessed to be believers, and its so easy to lose sight of that. I've been praying that big numbers (and i mean big!) would come to Him during events week...after tonight, i really believe it, Praise the Lord.
Then back to the Chappy to wash up, where Bridge Cell are still in the quiet room, praying and studying together, it was great to chach up with them, and just be with them for a bit as we washed up, I was so encouraged. It was great, even though washing up took nearly an hour!
And so here we are. I am blown away, encouraged and so so thankful to God for all He's doing at the moment in these guys lives. Please please pray for them, for Emma, Fran, Sian, Ruth, James, Pierre, Jools, Izzy, Jo, Kim, and goodness me, the other ten whose names i can't remember. Coming week one is hard enough, sticking with it will be even harder, the enemies going to be trying every trick in the book to reel then back in. Lets wear out our knee pads for these guys, and for the glory of the Lord...What an awesome God we have! Praise Him!