Long Beach City College – And so it begins.

Today Rick and I printed up some rudimentary flyers inviting Long Beach City College students to the first of our weekly “gatherings”, the flier read; “Connect for thoughts and a brief discussion on; Jesus & Our Deepest Desires.” I quickly handed out the 100 or so flyers that we had xeroxed off in a short period of time. We weren’t sure how many people were going to come, but as I was passing them I felt encouraged that maybe like ten people would come, but at 12:30, our start time came, we had about 6 (not including Rick and I). The format was as such; sitting in a circle at a nook of grass on the campus near the library with Rick at the helm – Rick spoke for about 15 minutes with a few questions and responses here and there. Rick shared - and I know that even I was stirred as he was sharing, and so I know that any of those 6 who had ears to hear heard as well. When it was all finished, I felt like that little crew of us (by this time 3 people left) actually were, somehow at some level, kind of on the same page – like I feel that Ricks profitable exhortation was just that, both profitable and exhorting. Now theres so much I can say about todays experience at this point; about the subject matter of Ricks sharing, or the body language and responses from the hearers, or what I learned from it in regards to social interaction and evangelism, any myriad of things, but alas, I don’t want to build a mansion from todays comings and goings when it really was only a tree house – I don’t want to force “fruit/results” on you or speak in generalities, but I want to speak of the amazing exploits of God as we see them, and I trust we will. Also, kind of along those lines, in regards to my writing, by no means am I a steady and well spoken, but you need no wit or scholastic know-how to make the phrase “today 9 people got saved, we baptized so and so, and Joe Blow just moved in with us and we are getting him off drugs…” to sound good. I want the fruit to speak for itself, I want these lives we touch to be our “letters of recommendation”, most of all, I (and Rick), only want to speak out of what we have seen, heard, felt, and experienced ourselves without any spin or hype. Please pray for us that lives would be touched, joy and purpose would be found, and relationships restored, God glorified and that the harvesters would increase. Amen.