Month: February 2014

Are You Seeking God For Revival?

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We seek revival every fall with about 400 student leaders in SoCal.

We seek revival every fall with about 400 student leaders in SoCal.

In the Southern California Region of InterVarsity we have been talking about revival a bunch over the years. It is what we feel God has called us to seek Him for during this season of ministry. Our core work is to “plant and build multi-ethnic witnessing communities on colleges and universities in Southern California” and it is inside of this that we are asking God for revival on campus and in our lives.

Of course this brings up many questions. Revival is a scary word to some people. But I think it can help us become more of the Mystic Leader that Brian Sanders talked about last week.

Here is a definition from Tim Keller that I really like. He is one of the main people we follow in our understanding of revival.

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How to Identify an Evangelist in Your Ministry

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"How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" Rom 10:15

“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” Rom 10:15

If we are going to activate evangelistic people in our ministry, then we have to know what they look like! Sometimes this can be pretty easy if they are highly gifted and are more developed. But if they are a young person it may not be as clear from the surface. You will want to know what to look for. Here are six indicators I often am looking for.

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Money On The Street: Financial Planner Gives Back

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Profile Pic - AGSF

This is a guest post from Gina Hurford. My sister of all people! She is a Financial Planner and Investment Consultant in San Francisco. She is also an InterVarsity alumni and came to faith in college at the University of San Diego. I have seen her grow since the beginning of her faith and I couldn’t be more proud of what she is doing now. When she told me this story a few weeks ago, I knew she needed to share.

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The Love/Hate Relationship With Planting

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last year waiting to meet up with an interested student at USC...they were 30min late and it was me, the lemonade and a lot of awkward.

It’s awkward to wait for people alone and get stood up…Just me & the lemonade…cool

By Beau Crosetto

“I am lonely.”

“I can’t do this anymore.”

“I don’t know if I have what it takes.”

“I think I could be doing something better with my life.”

“I am sure there are other things that I am better at that I could spend my time doing.”

If you have ever said something like this, then keep reading!

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Sentness: Kim Hammond’s New Book

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41kEtWeeVCL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_Today is the launch day for Kim Hammond’s new book. I haven’t read it yet but I am sure it will kick butt. Kim is one of the funniest guys I know, so I am sure there are some laughs in here.

But beyond that, he lives “sentness”. He moved his family to America from Australia and they have taken it in the chops multiple times. One of his boys got cancer and they have had to battle that, and now Kim himself is battling cancer as you read this. But they will not turn back! He loves America and the church and God has sent him and his family here. They are committed to this country and helping us grow!

If anyone can write this book, Kim can. He has been living this call out to the extreme.

Buy his book

1) Its going to help you live into mission better

2) Kim is a great guy and you can support him tangibly in this tough time.

 

Do me a favor and support Kim by giving a tweet to his new book.

Get @kimhammond new book “Sentness”. It releases today!  http://www.releasetheape.com/sentness-kim-hammonds-new-book/

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Mentor or Mystic: Which Will You Be?

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This is a guest post by Brian Sanders. He leads an awesome church network in Tampa Bay called Underground. He is one of the most inspiring leaders I know. I love listening to him teach and I love the way he thinks about leadership, church planting, and missional communities. He is an apostolic leader through and through and you see this no better than in the way he is the chief architect for his network of churches. But he also comes hard with timely prophetic words. One of which lies here in this post. Buckle up for the ride and I hope you listen!

The Missing Component

Leadership is three dimensional. All our work on gifts, and even context, leave us still missing a third component to real transformative leadership. Intensity. I might be a gifted pastor or evangelist in the right place at the right time with the right people and the right gifts but I still have to wake up and go lay down my life. These variables are all (in my opinion) nothing without wholehearted, burning obedience. And that element is more a feature of our organizational culture perhaps than we realize. It is captured in the sometimes overlooked biblical exhortation from Romans 12 (one of the most relentless chapters in the bible) “Never be lacking in zeal…”

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The Five Habits of Highly Missional People

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The-5-Habits-Ebook-Cover-Michael-Frost-Square72This is a must read ebook! I really think this is a winner and I am going to make my staff read it and recommend it to all the students in our ministry. I love this book by Michael Frost because it gives a great hook about evangelism and why and how we should do it, but then it gives us very very practical ways to live out a Jesus-centered life. He gives us an acronym, BELLS, and each letter is a simple yet challenging habit that if you live into with community God is going to move.

In his ebook @michaelfrost6 gives us practices to live by not just simply ideas to think about. @releasetheape

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What you don’t transform, you will transmit

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Walking

By Beau Crosetto

Here is a great excerpt I read that I wanted to pass along. Any believer needs to be thinking about their shadow self and how they are bringing it into the light of Jesus. I hope this helps as you continue to press the edge of mission as an apostle, prophet or evangelist.

“It is really shocking how little Jesus is shocked by human failure and sin. In fact, it never appears that he is upset at sinners at all. He is only and consistently upset at people who do not think they are sinners. This momentous insight puts him centuries ahead of modern psychology and right at the center of rare but authentic religion. So much so, that most Christianity itself never notices or addresses this pattern. It is an inconvenient truth.

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