Meet the Freshers

It's been a pretty busy week in Accra. On Monday, the six of us that remain met at the Navs office to have a devotional time, pray, and talk about possibilities for the last two weeks. It was great to be with everybody again after a long weekend apart. Plans were still up in the air, though, after our meeting. So we prayed that we would not get frustrated and that opportunities to serve would come up. That evening, while Matt and I were hanging out at the house, James and Tom called us to let us know that we would be meeting with the University of Ghana Navs on Tuesday morning to make plans to help with the freshmen move-in. It was a good feeling to see plans coming together so quickly.

Tuesday morning, Matt and I took a taxi to the University of Ghana and found everybody else ok. For about two hours, we threw around ideas about what we could do this week on campus. The Navs have a ministry of about 60 people here, a pretty healthy size. But in a country where 70% of the people would call themselves Christians, there is plenty of room for growth. They wanted to reach out to the freshers, as they call them, and invite them to get involved with Navs. The Ghanaians were looking for creative suggestions as to how to do that, so we shared some of the things that we do to reach out to freshmen. We finally decided to make a brief survey that just gauges where people stand in their willingness to get involved with an on-campus ministry and gets their contact info. We don't use that method at UC, but a lot of other schools do it and it's a very helpful tool to get to know people.

On Wednesday morning, we all came back to the University, took some surveys, and broke up into groups to go welcome students at the different halls. My group was at Sabaah Hall, in the court yard. By the way, the campus is beautiful and all of the dorms have these great courtyards at the center of their facilities. As students waited in the long lines to get their keys and everything, we would just walk up and start chatting with them. Almost everyone was more than happy to talk with us and willingly filled out a survey. Sometimes, the Ghanaian Navs students would exchange numbers with them and offer to help with any registration issues that came up. It was a really great time to build friendships and just get the word about Navs out there.

When we all met afterwards, we had gotten about 80 surveys back from people after only two hours. Since follow-up with all these students would be a lot of work, we decided to take Thursday off and determine later whether we would come back on Friday to do it again. Despite the fact that not all 80 of those students surveyed will end up being in Navs most likely, even if just 30 of them got involved, that would already be a 50% increase in the number of people involved and we wanted to give them a chance to figure out what they would do about that. In the end, the Navs country leader, Uncle Joseph, asked us to do it again on Friday, because he didn't want resources to be a limiting factor in the number of people involved. He promised to recruit leaders from other branches of Navs in the country, if need be. So we went back today and did it again, and it went equally well. Please be praying for the Navs ministry on campus at the University of Ghana. It's a really great group of students and, with some of the fresh ideas that they've developed even just this week, God can do some pretty awesome stuff through them. We're going to meet with them one more time before we leave to help them brainstorm some more for the first semester.

On a personal level, the last week has been a really great thing for me. I re-read Crazy Love by Francis Chan this week, which was really a good kick in the rear. My time praying and reading the Bible has been rich, the result of being in an environment with a lot less of the typical distractions. And my conversations this week have been really encouraging, definitely some good talks with Matt, other all-stars on our team, and the Ghanaians. It's always cool to see that I go on trips like this expecting to be used to help others, but God always turns it around and works on me dramatically. It just makes me feel even more pumped about getting back to Cincinnati and keeping this going.

Lukewarm people are continually concerned with playing it safe; they are slaves to the god of control. This focus on safe living keeps them from sacrificing and risking for God.
-Francis Chan in Crazy Love

Speaking and Living the Gospel

Things have been pretty relaxed for the past several days here in Accra. We are in the middle of a shift in team dynamics and plans right now, since the first half of our team returned to the US on Friday. Between wrapping things up with them and taking a couple days to reorganize, not too much structured ministry stuff has been happening. Regardless, the rest is a welcomed thing right now, given the business of the last few weeks.

Matt and I had the privilege of a day at the beach yesterday with our family, Rich, Gina, and Rinna. We drove out to the Central Region, parked by the beach, and then took a little row boat over to a small island. I spent the day playing in the ocean, dominating Matt in Oware [a local board game (just kidding, Matt, if you're reading this)], and eating good food. It has been really cool to see how Rich and Gina incorporate their faith into their life so much. While we ate lunch, Rich and Gina invited us to be a part of their Bible study time. So, as we ate, we discussed a psalm and everybody shared their thoughts. Simple times like that are key in encouraging one another in our faith. After a few hours of sunny relaxation, we headed back home.

Today, we got to go to church with Rich. Gina stays home right now, because of the baby. Rich leads the youth service, for anyone in high school or college, which takes place during the main service. It was cool to connect with people our age again and to discuss the Bible with them. They break into Bible study groups for part of the time and some of the students are seasoned leaders and others are just getting started, so I picked one of the smaller groups and joined up with them. The Ghanaian Christians are really good at drawing the principles and truths out of the Bible and even better at retaining what they have learned. The number of verses and passages they have memorized is humbling. I can say for myself that I am weak in the area of memorization and knowing exactly where things are in the Bible. But one thing I have learned, especially through Navs, is application. So, as I participated in the discussion, I tried to add that application step to our conversation as much as possible. People opened up little by little and God did a lot with that. I'm excited to go back next week and see what happens next.

I keep being reminded of this one passage from 1 Thessalonians that I really love. I've been thinking about it ever since we were in Swedru, I spoke about it at the youth camp, and I think I should share it with you now.

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
You know, brothers, that our visit to you was not a failure. We had previously suffered and been insulted in Philippi, as you know, but with the help of our God we dared to tell you his gospel in spite of strong opposition. For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you. On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts. You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover greed - God is our witness. We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else. As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well, because you were so dear to us.

In the US, at least, there seem to be four camps for Christians in the area of sharing your faith with people.

Camp 1: Don't say anything; it's annoying.
Camp 2: Share the gospel, no matter what.
Camp 3: Just be around people and they'll figure it out.
Camp 4: Sharing your faith is both what you say and how you live it.

Camp 1 is right on one thing - if it's not done right, a Christian sharing his or her faith can be very annoying. But take a look at this video from Penn, a well known performer and atheist. He summarizes why sharing your faith is important very well. You should definitely check this out if you haven't seen it before.

Camp 2 is also partially correct. Jesus calls Christians to share their faith all over the world. But we have to be sensitive to the culture we're in. If somebody doesn't want to talk about God, you don't shove Him down their throat. That's disrespectful and they aren't going to listen anyway. It makes people angry. Case in point: Brother Micah. If you know who he is, enough said. If you don't, you can YouTube him with caution if you really want to know. Basically, he's an infamous "evangelist" that spends a lot of time on college campuses doing a lot of judging and relatively little preaching. This doesn't mean that we just quit at the first sign of opposition, either. Rather, we must earn the right to have a personal conversation like this with somebody. That's why the living aspect is so important, especially to Americans, who tend to be much more uncomfortable with religious talk in general.

Camp 3 is another one that has some good thoughts, but misses it. Yeah, Christianity is largely about how you live among others. And yes, what people see you do will dramatically affect their opinions on your faith. But look at the passage above. Verbally sharing the gospel is necessary for people to go from seeing a way of life that seems appealing to accepting a heart-changing God into their life. Christianity, after all, is not a call to morality. It's a rejection of the old way of life and a surrender to Jesus to lead you into a completely new one.

Camp 4 is where it's at. Christians are called to live in the world, put into practice what we know to be true from the Bible, and to share the gospel with others - "but not just the gospel of God, but our lives as well." That last verse is so key.

We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well, because you were so dear to us.

This means hanging out with your neighbors, talking about stuff that actually matters with co-workers, staying up until 4am to work through life issues with your roommate, dishing out soup and eating with people at the shelters. It looks different for everybody. The point is, if we're in a happy, safe Christian bubble, having little to no contact with the "outside," what are we really doing for God? People around us are not our projects. Nobody likes to be looked at that way, and with good reason! We should share our faith because we care about people, not because every person is part of some master conversion plan. But look at what Penn said in that clip above: How much do you have to hate someone to be unsure about where they will spend eternity and to say nothing? At least give people the chance to reject or accept Christianity!

I've been challenged the last couple weeks to figure out which camp I would really place myself in. In my head, I know which one is right, but is my life really reflecting that knowledge? If you're a Christian, I would urge you to think about that, too.