Killing the Giants.

What up peeps?! I finally have some down time here in NMB to update you on the past week. I've been pretty busy the past week - I have a job at a grocery store 2 miles away in the bakery, and I fry and make donuts! I do some other random stuff as well...Anyway. I work at 5:30am 5 days a week and I'm done by 1pm, which is pretty sweet. But it's so early!

Last night at our weekly meeting was my first time leading worship for our project. We had practice as a band yesterday afternoon for a couple hours, and it was a really cool growing experience to just let God lead the way. It's gonna be stretching this summer as my co-leader Jeff and I lead the team in worship. Our team's goal is to encourage an environment of worship not just on Sunday nights, but every day by building each other up and making sure that everything we do is for the purpose of glorifying God (Romans 12:1).

Every week has a theme, and this week is called "Killing the Giants." Our biggest focus of the week is evangelism, and we were all to set individual goals of the number of spiritual conversations we initiate and presentations of the gospel. It's going to be a stressful and crazy week, as many people are still anxious about sharing the gospel with strangers. The point of the week is to get rid of as many of these anxieties as possible and for everyone to be totally comfortable with stepping out in faith, walking in the power of the Holy Spirit, and being willing to share the gospel with other people. Please pray for me this week as I'm still struggling with being willing to step out of my comfort zone!

Well...that's pretty much it for now. I'm actually about to go sharing right now! :)

I MADE IT!

Ok so....I just had to post this to update the previous post when I said I didn't know about the worship team audition results yet. WELL now I do, and I will be on one of the two worship bands for our weekly meetings and singing vocals. :) I can't wait to see how God will stretch me in this area of ministry!

Your Grace Is Enough.

Hi Everyone! I'm sorry I've been posting like a madwoman lately...but I feel like there's just soo much to share with everyone! There's been a ton going on and I've been learning so much. I guess first I can fill y'all in on what I've been up to the past couple days, and then I really want to share some of the content I've been learning in the group and in discipleship.

SO. Friday was job searching day. We had our morning session, and then some employers from the area came to offer jobs and fill us in on what those jobs would look like. Then we were sent out to find jobs!! A few of us headed straight for Boulineau's, a grocery store about two miles away from project property. I got a job there!! It was totally a God thing too, because the lady hiring us was filling specific positions and really wanted people who were experienced in the position. Get this! I have zero experience in a grocery store setting or bakery or anything, but she wanted to hire ME to fry and ice donuts!! WOOOO!! Ok but there's a downside to this....I have to work at 5:30am every morning. Ouch. I don't have a car or bike or anything, and walking 2 miles that early is kind of a beast and also semi-dangerous, so please pray that God will provide a safe way for me to get to work everyday!

Friday night was a super sweet time on the beach. Marissa led some worship and a good 40 of us just chilled by the water worshipping our Lord. What more could anyone ask for, seriously?? It was such an awesome experience and God just amazed me that night as I watched the waves and the stars and listened to all the voices praising His name. So cool. :) We did sweet worship on the beach last night too, but not before the Iron Chef competition! Yesterday, we were assigned to our "Impact Groups," a random group of 10ish guys and girls assigned for the summer to just get together every Sunday night and have dinner and fellowship. Our first meeting meant that we had 2 hrs to prepare a legit meal with a budget of $40 and the secret ingredient, pineapple. We got 2nd place out of 11 groups!!

Today we had auditions for the worship band for the summer. I actually just got done around 3pm and we're supposed to hear back by 6, it's almost 5, so I could hear back any minute and I'm kinda nervous!! I really am ok with whatever happens though because I know that God will put me exactly where He wants me. :)

So that's kinda what I've been up to the last couple days. Now I want to share with you what we've been going through and what has really impacted me. Here's a little overview on the things we learned:

• Practical steps to get into God's word. 1. We need to have a right heart (2 Cor. 5:17). 2. Spiritual breathing every single day (1 John 1:9, Psalm 139:23-24, Psalm 51:10, Gal. 5:24-25). 3. Delight in His Word (Psalm 1, Psalm 19, John 15:5-7).
• Evangelism. The Master, The Messengers, and The Message. Two pillars of a Biblical messenger are compassion (True need + true action) and listening. We got training in using the KGP (Knowing God Personally) booklet, which makes 4 basic points explaining the Gospel.
• Living a Spirit-Filled Life. 5 things the Spirit does when we accept Christ: Baptism, Sealed by the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30), Indwelled by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19), Regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and Filled with the Holy Spirit through faith.
• Identity in Christ. Ephesians 1:1-14 describes things that God says are true of someone in Christ. I'll talk more about this one in a minute!
• Sharing your story. We learned a step by step process of writing our testimony in a way that will be short, relatable, and shares the Gospel at the same time. We actually got assigned to literally write it and revise it by tomorrow!

Ok, so about this whole identity in Christ thing. It was really cool, because we had a worksheet with Ephesians 1:1-14 on it, and told to circle every reference of "in him," "in Jesus Christ," or the like. We then were told to write down all of the things God says are true of someone in Christ. Here's what we found: Faithful, spiritually blessed, chosen to be holy and blameless in God's sight, grace is lavished on us, redemption, forgiveness of sins, predestined according to God's will, adopted into His family, and marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit. That's a lot! But it was just so cool and encouraging to be able to look at these and know that these blessings are all true of ME. SWEEET!!

So after that, we had a quiet time with Jesus to process what we'd just learned (there was some other stuff too). One of the questions we were to ask ourselves was, "Which of these promises are hardest for you to believe are true of you?" and I only found one for me, and that was the one that says that we are chosen to be holy and blameless in God's sight. I just had such a hard time believing that He could see me that way, a sinner that doesn't deserve anything and not even anywhere near being worthy of being God's child. It's quite humbling actually. Well, it was a funny thing that that was my struggle, because it was totally addressed in discipleship that afternoon! It's kinda hard to explain because it involves a sweet graph-type visual, but it basically explains that once we accept Christ as our Savior, His grace makes our righteousness go up to 100% and it stays there, no matter what we do. It's eternal. Romans 5:1-2 says that because of His grace, we have peace with God, are forgiven, and that grace is eternal. That's our position. But our condition changes everyday, and is brought down by sin but brought up by spiritual disciplines such as quiet times, prayer, spiritual breathing, and worship. Even Paul practiced these spiritual disciplines, and we see this in Philippians 3:12-14. So, basically everything Laura went through with me perfectly addressed the ONE promise that I had a hard time believing! God is so good.

So yeah....sorry that was such a novel. I realized I like writing blogs a lot more than I thought...ooops. I hardly even shared half of everything, that's how much is going on here and I love it! I just have a couple prayer requests:

• Pray for those who still don't have jobs, there are about 20, and most of the easiest jobs to get are taken. I was so blessed to get a job right away, but some are still looking. Pray that they will continue to trust God to provide for them and put them exactly where He wants them!
• Please pray that I'll find a safe means of transportation to work at 5:30am every day.
• Continue to pray that God will prepare the hearts of people we will be having conversations with over the summer.

Ok, that's about it, FINALLY! Please send me mail, I LOVE MAIL. My address is wayyy back in the first post. Thanks again for your prayers and support, I love you all! :) Peace out.

Lauren

Oh, the Goodness of God.

Hey peeps! Guess what?? I'M HERE!! My road trip buddies (Lee and Aaron) and I rolled in at about 1pm yesterday afternoon, got checked in and settled, and I feel so at home already! I'll just fill you in on what I've been up to since getting here. Yesterday we were free to get settled in until dinner, where we had our welcome and introductions. We had some great worship time and went on a prayer walk, then everyone went to Walmart to stock up on supplies! I live in one small room with my roommate, Janelle. She's so great! :) Today was super packed and I learned so much. I feel like this morning was forever ago! Here's what we did:

• Had orientation meetings filled with logistics.
• Had a bit of an overview of Mark, the book we'll be going through this summer.
• Learned about how to spend time with God effectively.
• Learned how to evangelize effectively.
• Went sharing on the beach!! SO GOOD.
• Had Soul to Soul with our Bible Study groups. ALSO SO GOOD.

Sharing was such a great experience and such a blessing. We basically had two hours to go out on the beach and initiate conversations with people to share our faith. I was super nervous about the initiation part at the beginning, but now I feel so much more comfortable about it! One really strange thing was that nearly everyone we met on the beach were born-again Christians! In a way, I loved that because my main fear was initiation, and I got plenty of practice in that area, but I was so encouraged by the people we met and many of them were so excited about what we're doing here.

Soul to Soul was a time for our Bible Study group to get together and just totally be vulnerable and share our lives with each other. We shared our testimonies, our backgrounds, strengths and weaknesses, and were able to pray for each other. It lasted almost five hours!! I feel like I really know my group now, and I'm so excited to spend more time and grow with them this summer!

The rest of the week is more orientation stuff, finding jobs, getting settled in, and then Monday is when we start a regular weekly schedule. Tomorrow is job finding day!! We have the afternoon to find jobs, and I'm trusting the Lord to provide exactly what I need for a job for this summer.

I want so badly to go into detail about what I've learned from God today, and some of the scripture we went through today, but it's after 1:30am and I am TIRED. So I'm gonna have to peace out for now, get some sleep, and post less about me and more about Jesus later. ;) Please be praying that the Lord will provide the perfect jobs for everyone on project, that He will continue to bring in needed support, and that focus will stay on Him this summer. This is His work and He gets all the glory for it!

Until next time (hopefully soonsies).....

Lauren

Two Days. How Neat Is That?!

Hi again! I'm two days away from road-trippin' it up to NMB and I am PUMPED! These last few days home have been such a blessing, as I've been able to spend some quality time with my family and friends. They've all been such a huge encouragement to me as I'm getting ready for this next big adventure. The downside of having so much fun is that I've pretty much failed at packing so far, so that's pretty much what the rest of today and tomorrow are going to consist of! I'm pretty much just putting it off right now and felt like blogging would be more fun, but don't worry, this post isn't completely pointless!

As I said in my previous post, I'm not at full support yet. I'm still working on raising the rest of the funds I need, but seeing as I'm leaving in two days this is proving to be a bit difficult. While it isn't absolutely necessary that I have all of it before arrival, it definitely would be nice. ;) Please pray for me and the other students going on the trip who are not yet at full support. To those of you who have supported me already, thank you so much!! You are truly a blessing and I am so thankful for you. :)

If I haven't sent you a letter and you would like to support me, I recently found out about an easy way to do it online. You can go to www.give.ccci.org and on the right-hand side, there's a box that says "Give a Gift" and will ask you to type the name of a staff member - that's me! From there, it's pretty self-explanatory; you click my name and then the link to give the gift and fill out the information there.

Lastly, I just have a few prayer requests to keep in mind. Please pray...

• For safety on the trip down. Most people are driving the whole way, and some are flying.
• That God will bring in the remaining 25% of support I have to raise and that I will continually be trusting Him in that area.
• That I will be going into this with an open heart and a teachable spirit, ready to follow the Lord's will this summer!

Once again, thank you all so much for your prayers and support, it means so much to me! :) Next time I post, I'll be there.....

Here goes...

To all of you wonderful people who are reading this right now...greetings. Just a heads up - I've never attempted this whole blogging thing before, and I'm definitely not much of a writer, so bear with me!

So, my reasoning for putting myself through the torture of writing is this. (Dramatic...I actually am kind of enjoying this.) As you probably know by now if you're reading this, I'm going to North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina this summer! Pretty legit if I do say so myself. So for those of you who don't know, I'm going for Summer Project with Campus Crusade for Christ, a Christian organization for college students. The project is ten weeks long, May 25-August 6, which means I'm leaving in five days! I'm hoping to use this blog as my means of keeping my friends/family/supporters updated on how the Lord is working in my life over the summer.

My heart in going into this new and exciting time in my life is to grow closer to my Heavenly Father and to learn to effectively share His love with others. I know that this summer will be super stretching for me, in a good way!

As a little bit of an update so far, the Lord has been faithful and has provided for me like crazy! The cost of the project is $2700, and through support raising, I'm now at 75% of the total. He is so good! Also, here's my address for the summer - I LOVE MAIL!!!

‎205 2nd Ave. S
North Myrtle Beach, SC 29582

Well. I think that's pretty much for the introductory post...I survived!! Yeah buddy. More updates to come! :)