and they're off!

The race that I call my senior year of college is now underway. The finish line for me is just 9 short months away. On Monday night, as I was getting my room settled for the semester, I looked over my schedule of classes with a confidence that comes in having done this process for the last 3 years. I was ready for the year, excited about my new apartment, and ready to breeze through my classes. Well it only took me about 15 minutes into my Contemporary Apologetics class to come back down to earth. One question that the professor proposed for the class discussion was "what does one need to know to be saved?". After a half an hour of describing and re-describing the ABC's of Christianity (Accept, Believe, Confess), the question that I found most interesting and unsettling for me to think about was "what did people before Christ need to know to be saved?" This is an entirely different question than what one needs to "do" to be saved, but intellectually what do they really need to "know" to be saved?

So this is where I write to you from tonight, at my desk with a question and three blank pages in front of me to wrestle with my answer. Well, I guess I should get back to my paper...

you are the future...

I am currently at the General Council in Indianapolis. Today I attended a luncheon to discuss the new leadership that will change hands tomorrow as our movement known as the Assemblies of God elects a new General Superintendent. The purpose of this lunch was to discuss insights and shed light on shared visions of what the future of our movement could look like. It was very encouraging to see a group of almost 150 people that are interested in finding new and creative ways to do ministry. One of the many topics of discussion during our time together revolved around the idea of the leaders of today establishing mentoring relationships with the leaders of tomorrow. Looking for better ways to advance the kingdom of God is always great. I feel that this could play a vital role in the future of our movement. The saddest times, are those when a movement stops moving. Meetings like today give me great comfort in the fact that we are making progress.