A change in American Christianity

I want to tell you a story of some believers on the other side of the world. This is another one of the many stories I got from block class (most things recently seem to be coming from there). My teacher tells of a group of believers who met together to pray, and when they were done and had no time left, they came to the conclusion that the had too much to pray for in the short time they had set aside. And so they came up with the idea of once a month, spending all of Friday night in prayer.

My teacher asked, "All night? And what time did they finish?" He was thinking that all night meant maybe till 12 - 2 A.M. or something.

The man responded, "9 the next morning."

My teacher had another question. "What happened then?"

The man: "When we finished at 9, we realized that we still had too much to pray for... so we decided to meet EVERY week and spend the whole night in prayer." And he went on to say that they had been doing this ever since.

This is one of those true stories that is so convicting. These people literally spend HOURS each week in prayer. And I spend how much??? How about the average American Christian? I wonder what would happen if I spent more time in prayer? If my whole campus spent more time in prayer? If my church and your church spent more time in prayer? If every American Christian would spend more time in prayer?

It seems that yet again there exists another aspect of the Christian life that some believers around the world have gotten right, and that we here in America have lost or never figured out. Maybe this is where it starts if we want a change in American Christianity?

Cross-Cultural Kismet

Hello, Humans (or should I say Hello again, fellow bipedal earthborn creature)!

Okay, so I'd never actually heard of the word 'kismet' before, but the online thesaurus says it means fate. But it's always good to learn new things, so you and I have just learned its meaning. And my fate for this semester is to be studying linguistics, ethics, and - you got it - cross-cultural classes (aka missions block class). That might also be a slight reason for the seemingly random introduction to this blog post. No, I haven't totally lost my marbles by becoming a second-semester senior about to graduate from college. I'm getting this from my teacher, actually. Our first day of class he welcomed us humans, and before today's daily quiz he addressed us as bipedal earthborn creatures. But what can you say. We are a small class of good friends that are excited about everything cross-cultural.

And let me tell you already, this is going to be one good semester. I love my classes. And the last two days in Practices of Cross-Cultural Ministry, our teacher has brought cross-cultural snacks for us to enjoy in between lectures (what else do you do with a small class and a 2 hour daily class). Yesterday we got Brilliant brand cakes from somewhere in Asia. And today we got Jelly sticks from China. They didn't taste too bad, but I had a hard time getting past the texture. My teacher introduced them to us as "flavored snot tubes" because that's the closest thing he could think of that described the texture. Think grape jelly put a bit more thick. Yeah. And my teacher is an interesting personality if you haven't guessed already.

Aside from the weird foods, I've actually been learning a lot of practical information that will be very helpful for me as I prepare to live in another culture for most if not the rest of my life. 

Christmas parties and costumes...

Our dorm had a Christmas party on Friday. I went as the Grinch, and my friend became Santa Claus... 

A Hymn by Watts

I was redoing my RA bulletin boards today, and I came across an old hymn text by Isaac Watts that I put up on my "serious" Christmas board. It's not a Christmas song by any means, but the words stuck out to me, and I wanted to pass them along to my girls who might read the board, and any of you who read my blog. May it be a blessing to you!

Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,

With all Thy quick’ning powers;

Kindle a flame of sacred love

In these cold hearts of ours.

Look how we grovel here below,

Fond of these trifling toys;

Our souls can neither fly nor go

To reach eternal joys.

In vain we tune our formal songs,

In vain we strive to rise;

Hosannas languish on our tongues,

And our devotion dies.

Dear Lord! and shall we ever live

At this poor dying rate?

Our love so faint, so cold to Thee,

And Thine to us so great?

Come, Holy Spirit, heav’nly Dove,

With all Thy quick’ning powers;

Come, shed abroad the Savior’s love

And that shall kindle ours.

Ready for Christmas

It's down to 1 1/2 weeks until Christmas break, and you can tell it. In the meantime, we resort to Christmas decorating when we don't feel like studying. 

Tonight is going to be the best ever - Christmas Lighting Ceremony and Carol Sing! Yes! So wonderful to dress up warmly and go stand out in the cold and sing Christmas songs, all the meanwhile wishing there was snow on the ground... 

Hymn Arranging

This semester I started arranging my second hymn solo for piano (with the help of my teacher to help me make it even better). Just this week I think have finally finished it, and I am excited to be playing it for an offertory at church tomorrow. The arrangement is Here is Love, originally by Robert Lowry. Feel free to get in touch with me if you would like to view a copy of it. :)

I am finding it very exciting to arrange my own songs... it makes it even more fun when you realize that there are two of me... Well, two pianists with the exact same name and at the same college. Only difference is that the other one is piano faculty, and I am just a senior with a music minor... I've started putting my middle initial on my arrangements to differentiate them, although that could still be problematic since we both have the same middle name too.

Well, happy day to you all.

Living is...

Today's chapel message today was very thought-provoking. Actually, all of the chapels this week have been. It's Missions Emphasis Week at school, so we have had one missionary speaking the whole week. Today Dr. Hunt spoke on Phil. 1:20-21 about a God-Exalting Philosophy of Life, and his premise was that our philosophy should not be materialistic or even religious. Life isn't all about satisfying every pleasure or a list of do's and don'ts. It's about Christ, or it should be. Yet Dr. Hunt said that so many times we live Phil. 1:21 as if it said "For me to live is gain and to die is Christ." We want to live life as we want and have Christ at the end. But that's not what Paul's life philosophy was, and it's not what ours should be. "For to me to LIVE is CHRIST and to DIE is GAIN." So the question is, what am I living for? Have I given up all my life and rights to God, so that I don't mind if God chooses to place the expense of ministry on my account? It was convicting to me. And so I pass the thought along to you to meditate on personally. Oh that you and I would believe and live in light of the reality that living is Christ, and dying is gain!