Common Ground: United

April 19th, 2009

Food: 6:00pm
Worship 6:30pm

Many different ministries around Georgia Tech will gather at the Kessler Campanile for Common Ground: United for a time of worship, fellowship and community.


This is a joint effort between Theta Xi (the Christian fraternity on campus) and Undivided (a ministry whose goal is to unite Christians on campus). My good friend (and future roomie) Michael Grasso is speaking, with the JCA worship band leading worship.
I'm actually on the planning team for this (being a part of Undivided), so hopefully everything goes well...

Sickness

I've been sick since monday night. With Everything... stomach, fever, headache... I got my first IV yesterday at the GA Tech Health Dept. Fortunately Im doing much better. Unfortunately I missed my first indoor game Tuesday night, we lost 12-5.

Life

This week has been influential in my life for many reasons.

1. One of my best friends is inching ever closer to Athens and I need to be happy for him, but I'm sad. I'm selfish.
   
2. I just got back from the BCM at UGA and it was so much cooler than ours. People were simpler and more open... and I mean that in the most awesomest way possible. Tech people are sometimes hard to relate to...
3. School isn't fun. I can do the work, but I don't like it at all. Engineering seems to be focused on clawing your way to the top. that's not me. I don't think I could make a living out of this. Would God call me to something I hate?
4. The BCM as a ministry is at a crossroads. The most influential person is leaving and there will be a power grab, and after the dust settles, things will be different. People will have to step up, Staff will have to step up... it makes me scared
5. One cool thing is that several people at the BCM have run with my idea of a cookout/chill-time with other freshmen christians (aka CCF) but we're a long ways from getting this off the ground.
   

Advance 2009

This weekend was the Georgia Tech BCM's annual retreat. The theme was leadership, the object: a slingshot. 9 freshmen (including me) led the small groups. It was a great experience being with great leaders in the BCM. Hopefully great things will happen because of this.

There were several things God revealed to me spiritually during my experiences at Advance:

1. Friday night I used my free time to lay down by the lake and stare at the stars. I started thinking about how intricate and unique every star was. This led me to wondering about God's infinite glory and how humans (and Satan) fit into the picture. The glory of God is something huge that we cannot fully comprehend, but we want it. We as humans desire our own glory, our own importance. When we grab glory, we yank it away from God and build ourselves up. Instead of reveling in His perfect glory, we fabricate an imperfect, broken substitute to empower us. This flawed, dim view of what glory is keeps us from growing closer to God because we are enticed by the idea that we can be self sufficient with our own glory... (I'm still working on this thought and its definitely got some holes...)
2. Waterfalls are amazing things to watch. The way the water pours out and swirls in endless circles at the bottom is mesmerizing. If I run out of little things that amuse/amaze me, it will truly be a sad day

What I learned about the BCM and where it needs to go:

1. We're on the verge of something: we can talk about it and let the opportunity pass, or we can buckle down and hit the trenches.
2. Christ is bigger than the BCM will ever be. It's merely one out of many ministries at Tech... we must see this bigger picture and how we fit
3. The BCM is divided, there are different people groups (even at Advance) where people are comfortable. One group has substantially more leaders than the others... This is bad, they should branch out and empower others. (i still don't know how to deal with the people who participate but show not interest in stepping out of their comfort zones and into leadership)
4. Leadership is a scary thought.
5. Listen to everyone. People bring new perspectives and much more wisdom.

tests

the first half of this week is/will be rough. i just took my first ECE2030 test which wasn't too bad. unfortunately i still have honors calculus 3 and cs1372 (basically a class where we make gameboy games in a language called "c"). honors calc 3 has been fun and ive enjoyed it since there's no mandatory homework (yes ive done really well on the little quizzes so far) and hes a really funny asian. however, his practice test was nothing like what we've seen, which scared me. thankfully it wasnt as hard as it looked, but we'll know after tomorrow...