Thursday, April 16, 2009

This Moment

Ten out of ten people die.

It’s not necessarily a frightening statistic; just a fact of life... literally. I think that we often live as if we have all the time in the world. I don’t think it's a conscious notion that we pursue. I don’t wake up in the morning thinking, “I can do anything because I'm invincible.” It would be nice to think that we can take on anything and everything, but we, as humans, are frail.

As young people, I think we live as if we are unbreakable because we hold to the idea that we have 60 or 70 more years ahead of us. Is it a silly perception to have? Of course not. From personal experience, we see that most people will live to be 70 or 80 years old. Not only that, but we do not live in a spirit of fear that we may not take our next breath. Even so, we do not always have the awareness that we cannot control our next breath or keep our hearts beating.

I’m sure you’re thinking, “No kidding,” right? I teach about the concept of death while on the road with AXiS, yet I never fully grasped its full reality until recently. April 17, 2009 is a day I will not soon forget. A friend of mine was killed in a tragic accident in Colorado Springs. I have had friends die before, so why had this one hit me so hard? I think it was because she was only 18. She had just started college last semester. She was younger than me.

James says, “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.’” James 4:13-15

Our lives are just a vapor and we are never guaranteed tomorrow. Knowing this, how will we choose to live today?

By: Meghan

Are You Serious?

people comment that they think i am a serious person. and when i think about it ... it makes sense. i often walk around with a furrowed brow contemplating the inner workings of our culture and usually i forget to smile! and yet again, today, i am serious ...

call me naive but i cannot believe how many artists make a living by destroying other's lives.

point and case. asher roth has a single out called “i love college” that is number nine on itunes and has been viewed over five and a half million times on youtube.

i quote, “that party last night was awfully crazy i wish we taped it | i dance my face off and had this one girl completely naked | drink my beer and smoke my weed | my good friends is all i need | pass out at three wake up at ten | go out to eat then do it again | man, i love college.” below is the video.

* WARNING - PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE IS OBJECTIONABLE LANGUAGE AND IMAGES IN THIS VIDEO *


what furrows my brow and breaks my heart about it is that this is a life many people LIVE or ASPIRE for ... simply put ... a life of selfishness, irresponsibility, and abuse. to me, affirming the lifestyle of “i love college” is like affirming a father feeding poison to his young children ... in both cases people die.

why can’t people release singles that are about something bigger than this?

seriously, david

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Road Trip Diary - The Brookhill School - Tyler, TX



Written: April 8, 2009

Team: David, Chad, Lindsay, Terrie, Johanna, Missy

Tyler, Texas. I have to admit that I pictured dusty brown ground and lots of cattle and cowboys, as I told one of the students jokingly this week. Tyler was a pleasant surprise with its budding greenery and flourishing grass. It was quite a pleasure to experience a change of scenery from Colorado Springs this week as we ministered to middle school and high school students at The Brook Hill School.

The principal, staff, and the students were welcoming to our crew of six and they soaked in the information that we shared about media, music, and worldviews. Many of the students were challenged when we used their favorite artists and songs as examples of the basic worldviews: naturalism, spiritualism, and theism. From my perspective, it was a little frightening to address their questions at first, but we made a special effort to be responsive and very loving toward the students. I remember an encounter with a middle school student that seemed to be more than just chance. I was very tired and I decided to find a place to rest for a period. God had other plans and I ran into two boys in the hallway. We had a good conversation but one of the students was really struggling with some things that we had presented and he needed to vent a little bit. I was amazed at the timing of the encounter and I sensed that God was using me to encourage this young student to keep pursuing God. He expressed that he was mostly an atheist and was having trouble believing that God is there. It broke my heart to hear the edginess in his voice and I wondered what he had experienced that had made him so jaded about the Christian faith. After giving him a bear hug and walking away, however, I knew that God had done something to change his life in our brief encounter. I have continued to pray for him because it would be a shame for such a bright student to turn from the faith because his questions were not welcomed or addressed.

Later that same day a teacher asked us to speak in her classroom because one of her students was troubled that we seemed to be taking artists’ work out of context. After three of us attended the class for an open discussion, this student was relieved and had a genuine appreciation for what AXiS is doing. This was a prime example of why the relational focus of AXiS is so important. Unlike many other guest speakers that travel to schools, we spend the day in students’ classrooms to help them process what we presented and to build relationships with them. There were many opportunities for us to bond with the students during two and a half short days but some were deeply impacted. One student even had tears in her eyes when we were saying goodbye to her!

Many of the students were moved to greater openness or passion by our visit. One atheist student said that chapel for her is boring but she really enjoyed and learned from the AXiS presentation. She identified with the cartoons that we had presented and expressed that now she has a different perspective of God. Another student expressed that she has a renewed passion about her faith and she was even interested in working for AXiS someday! Other students asked us questions about how to more effectively share their faith, how to remove the fake identities that they wear in school, and some just needed to vent about things that they felt they couldn’t tell anyone else. We spoke with vibrant Christians, nominal Christians, Atheists, and Muslims. A team member was even able to dialogue with a student from Saudi Arabia.

The students and staff had such a positive response to our team and the material that we presented that the principal invited AXiS back for next year!

Right now we’re on our way back to Colorado Springs, exhausted but very content with our visit and the ministering that we were able to do. This part of Texas is flat and green and the sun is setting in a gorgeous orange and purple display on the horizon. There couldn’t be a more perfect way to wrap up a trip than with a team of friends, beautiful scenery, and the contentment of knowing that God used us during the past few days to touch lives deeply.
By: Missy1

Notes
  1. This was Missy's first trip with AXiS. Missy is currently a student at the Focus on the Family Institute (FFI) and an alum. of The University of Connecticut. Every semester, several FFI students are able to be interns with AXiS and travel all around the country with us ministering to students.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Now, That's How It's Done!

We first saw this on our good friend and AXiS board member, John Stonestreet's blog.

Sean McDowell (Josh McDowell's son) is a teacher at a high school in SoCal1. He is also a national speaker and author. Nice rep.

We absolutely love the idea of what he did with his students several weeks ago. He brought his students on a "missions trip" to the University of California at Berkeley (thought to be one of the most "liberal" colleges in the country). The one thing you need to know is that these students are trained very well by Sean and the other teachers at Capistrano Valley Christian School. You can check out more of the videos of Sean's teaching and subscribe to his blog at www.conversantlife.com/blogs/sean+mcdowell.



One of AXiS' goals is to fix the statistic that says, "Only one-fifth of twentysomethings (20%) have maintained a level of spiritual activity consistent with their high school experiences."2

AXiS' hope is that we can keep encouraging parents, high school administrators/teachers, and college ministry leaders to continue to challenge their students to think deeply about the reality of their faith. We are so glad that there are people like Sean out there who are making it a priority to teach young Christians to love God with their minds (Matt. 22:37).

Sidenote: Check out this other great blog post by JR Briggs, former pastor of Pierced @ Woodmen Valley Chapel here in Colorado Springs. It is especially pertinent before Easter, but can be used anytime.

Keep an eye out for more posts from David, Chad, and the first post from Meghan in the days to come. Happy Wednesday!

Notes
  1. That's southern California for all you non-cali folk. Back^
  2. George Barna, "Most Twenty-Somethings Put Christianity on the Shelf Following Spiritually Active Teen Years." You can find the article online here. Back^
By: Jeremiah