I'm planning a lot lately. In fact, I spent most of May preparing for the coming semester. This means that I'm at home most of the time, putting into writing all the ideas I have for God's ministry in the dorms.
What preoccupied me today was my personal strategic plan for the coming academic year. It's done, praise God! Though I still have to polish some of the more specific programs, I'm happy to say that the most pressing ones are over.
I also updated my dormS page today. I added an entry on the Centennial Dorm as requested by one of my incoming freshmen friends. dormS is an idea that came out from my conversations with a Christian friend. It's closely linked with the concept of service evangelism. That is, you introduce Christ to people first through acts of service to gain their trust and confidence before grabbing the opportunity to have a meaningful conversations about Jesus and His Good News.
Come to think about it, this is also similar to relationship evangelism. It woks on a principle creatively summarized in this statement: "Before people care about what you say, they must first feel that you truly care."
After one and a half years in campus ministry, this is one difference I learned: Students now are highly relational. Because of all the distractions of media, the internet and urban life, it really takes strong relationship connections to get them to sit down and listen to what you have to say.
This doesn't mean that we have to throw away one-on-one or stranger evangelism. This, too, is extremely valuable in scattering seeds of the Gospel. But if we desire to journey with a friend, a relative or a classmate in their faith discoveries, investing on Christ-centered friendships is a must. One missionary friend put it this way, "When we walk with people until they come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior, we are actually discipling them into faith."
Of course all these are strategies and methods of men. I still strongly submit that they are useless apart from the grace and mercy of God touching the hearts of people to open up to Jesus.
dormS is my way of connecting to the incoming freshmen dormers in UP Diliman. I placed several useful articles on the Facebook page while interacting with the comments and questions of the viewers. I am praying that when I meet these students face to face, God will use the acts of service as our jump board in pointing them to Christ.
I have also started browsing our Bible Study material for tomorrow. I still need to answer it on my own, though, and make handouts for my companions. We are using a very old BS guide which was given to me by one of our church elders.
What I liked about the guide is its evangelistic thrust. It's really useful for seekers and new believers as it teaches them to engage with God's Word through thought-provoking questions. They are forced to think and speak because the material is full of questions. The session becomes a wonderful time of discussion and learning with everyone having the opportunity to voice our their minds.
We're going through a chapter of the material entitled, "A Call to Discipleship." It deals with the issue of true discipleship as seen in the New Testament. The chapter also challenges the readers to truly submit all areas of their lives to Christ as Lord, not just Savior. In this sense, the chapter also breaks the watered-down gospel's claims that Jesus can be our Savior without being Lord over our lives.
I'll finish my personal study in the morning and meet with my BS group in the afternoon. Pray with me for strength and wisdom as I wrap up my study. Pray also for healing, I'm not very well lately. I think it's the heat or simply because of stress.
This wraps up my day! Good night and God bless you all!
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