Tomorrow (Wednesday) we make the two hour trip south to Pittsburg State University. The school has its activity fair where all the clubs set up booths to promote themselves, so we will be giving away freshman survival kits, which consist of a laundry bag, a water bottle, a Bible, and an evangelistic book. Tomorrow night I (Kirk) will be speaking at the Cru weekly meeting on forgiveness. We always enjoy our time on campus, it’s great to see how God is a work in the lives of our students.

As I mentioned, this weekend we drive east to Freeburg, Missouri for Missouri Fall Getaway. All of our schools will be joining with Missouri State University and Missouri Southern State University. These retreats are always a great opportunity for our students to get away from the busyness of college and connect with the Lord.

The other big news around here is that Sarah is pregnant! I still don’t really know what we’ve gotten ourselves into, but it will mean a whole lot of change in the next year! Sarah feels pretty good, but is more tired than normal, though it seems like that’s been getting better recently.

For all you bullet point types, here are a few prayer requests:

• That we would gather a lot of contacts tomorrow and that God would speak through me tomorrow night.
• That students would meet with the Lord this weekend and go deeper in their walks with him.
• For Sarah’s health and for the baby’s.

Thank you so much for your prayers and the part you play in our ministry!

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We’re home!  After nearly three months of travel we’re finally home.  Actually we were home for three days last week, but then we picked up and flew to DC for the weekend to spend time with Sarah’s family.  We had a great time with them!

The school year starts up next week for some.  So we begin our staff meetings tomorrow.  It feels too fast, but the calendar says otherwise.  The first few weeks will be filled with meetings with students, outreach and lots of time on the road (I no longer count drives under three hours as traveling

One of the really encouraging things from the week happened today.  We received an email from someone in Coffeyville Kansas who indicated they want to help with Campus Crusade at Coffeyville Community College.  The only catch is that there is no Campus Crusade there yet.  Yet.

Coffeyville was one of the campuses Sarah and I visited last spring, but saw nothing happen because we didn’t have anyone local to partner with.  We’re very excited at the prospect of seeing something happen there though, and trusting God for direction and wisdom as follow His lead.

The other significant prayer need we have relates to our team.  We have three new interns joining our team this fall.  Two of them (a married couple) have completed their fundraising, but one still has a little way to go.  Please keep him in your prayers as his deadline is fast approaching.

For all you bullet point types, here are a few requests:

• Endurance at the beginning of the year, it’s typically pretty draining.
• Pray for Mike’s support so that he can join our team.
• For Coffeyville Community College and the other community colleges we will be working to reach this year.

TWJ focuses on common themes throughout stories and identifies the elements that are nearly universal in them (or at least universal in good stories).  This universal theme is summarized as “the hero’s journey.”  The book is fascinating on several levels.

Here are my thoughts on it in no particular order…

Christopher Vogler held up the Bible alongside Homer, Shakespeare, and The Wizard of Oz as examples to illustrate the hero’s journey.  Even before he brought up the Bible, I found myself wondering.  Wouldn’t God’s story in our lives be the only explanation for a single unifying theme that runs throughout 90% of art and literature?  It’s an interesting perspective to think about.  Sort of a right brain evidence for God.

It was interesting to see these principles illustrated in popular films throughout the book.  It helped me see why there are some films that captivate me and others that I couldn’t be less interested in.

I’m intrigued by how we see the journey in our own lives, and how the process of a person coming to Christ reflects this theme.

Check out The Writer’s Journey if you have a chance.  It’s a great read.

To summarize, Downs’ says that we’ve been harvesting (from an evangelism standpoint) with very little sowing for several decades (published in 1999, like I said, I’ve had it for a long time) and this is why our harvesting efforts seem to be bearing less fruit than they have in the past. To clarify terms (at the risk of over-simplification), an example of harvesting would be sharing some form of gospel presentation and bringing a person to a point of decision. An example of sowing would be asking a person what they thing about a spiritual theme or moral issue raised by a popular movie.

Downs isn’t advocating sowing to the exclusion of harvesting. Instead he contends that the reason that harvesting has become more difficult in our culture is that we have harvested almost to the exclusion of sowing. We need to find more balance in the process.

I think this lack of sowing is partially to blame for the increasing divide between evangelical culture and non-evangelical culture (for lack of a better term). I often find myself feeling unable to ask good questions and engage in the world of the people around me. I’m more comfortable meeting them on my terms. Remember that divide? Most people feel the same way about meeting me on my terms as I do on theirs. And therein lies the problem.

The bottom line is this. I spend way more time thinking about strategies, ideas, etc. than I do actually caring about people around me. I’m a task-oriented person, and intellectually evangelism feels like a task to me. If I spent as much time praying for people, as I spend reading books and talking about sharing my faith, I don’t think I’d be so hesitant to engage those around me. I also would see them as real people with real lives, real happiness, real sadness and real needs in their lives. I think sowing would come pretty naturally at that point.

I don’t remember many quotes, but eleven years ago at a men’s retreat I heard this, “Love is known by the action it prompts.” What kind of action is your love prompting?

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The day got off to a stressful start.  When I checked my phone after
getting up I had a voicemail from Rick saying his original flight had
been cancelled so he wouldn’t get in to Kansas City until 3:45.  This
wouldn’t leave time to get a rental car and make the drive to
Warrensburg by 6:30.  We had a friend pick him up at the airport and
bring him to UCM to save time.  Rick arrived at the event with 17
minutes to spare!

We gathered a few contacts that we will follow up on today and
tomorrow, please keep these appointments in your prayers.

Also keep Rick in your prayers as he travels.  Tonight he is speaking
at Butler County Community College in Eldorado, KS, tomorrow at
Emporia State in Emporia, KS and Thursday night at Kansas State in
Manhattan.