Telling the Story

A few weeks ago it just so happened that our people were telling the story of what God has been doing in Boone and at ASU in 5 different churches on the same morning. Anna and a student spoke at the church above and they responded by praying for us and our work. The other 4 churches has our students speaking.

Something is happening here.

Outside Affirmation

I got this text from a student I engaged last semester. He is a leader in another campus ministry and was really appreciative to meet us that first time (and then second and third). We prayed for him and showed him how we shared the gospel and ultimately followed up by training him in 411.

Our students are leading the work and they lead by example. I have gotten messages or calls like this from a number of leaders in a few campus ministries over the last year. Once, we almost never shared the gospel and we weren’t making disciples (or an impact for the kingdom) but now our reputation is preceding us. God has been so gracious to us.

Local Ownership

The working definition for #NoPlaceLeft is:

Local ownership of the core missionary task for all peoples and places.

For this place and these peoples, it sure seems like this is the beginning of the end. I can’t tell you how encouraged I am to see students taking ownership of planning our fall launch. We (staff) would normally start on this ourselves a little later in the spring.

Multiply it, Lord!

Reproducing Training

Jeff is a brother who serves as campus missionary at Eastern Kentucky University BCM. He and I serve on adjacent teams within the national committee called Baptist Collegiate Network, or BCNet.

Jeff reached out to me to ask some questions about 3 Circles because he had seen some of my updates here and on Twitter related to that tool and our process for disciple making. We talked for a while on that first video call and we set up a second video call to run through our 411 Training.

That following week, he trained his BCM leadership team and then they trained most of the rest of the ministry. He shared with me how he had led some other trainings as well – and was even asked by a state leader to train other BCM campus missionaries in 411.

We recently had a call to discuss how to train large groups. The pictures above are from that training.

Think about the implications of this. I trained Jeff and his intern in about an hour over a video call. Now he has trained hundreds of other believers to make disciples. This is a game changer.

If you’d like to be trained in 411, contact me.

Kingdom Partnership

Pictured above are 3 of our Appalachian State students surrounded by the #NoPlaceLeft team based in South Florida. One of our students has family in that area and the 3 of them were visiting them over Spring Break. During their in South Florida, they visited the SFL NPL team church. This team has blessed me in many ways, and this took it to another level. They welcomed our students in to their church, gave them responsibilities during the meeting, and laid hands on them and prayed over them.

One of the challenges and opportunities in doing #NoPlaceLeft movements work on a college campus is that we have a limited time with every student who comes our way. We have to have a vision for them that exists before they arrive and doesn’t end when we launch them off from graduation. One critical component in this vision is how we launch them when they leave. There are many #NoPlaceLeft teams across the U.S. and we want to mobilize kingdom laborers to embed in local strategies in cities all across the country.

We represent separate #NoPlaceLeft teams, but we are running after the same vision in different places. We are family and I’m so grateful for this family.