If you have been living under a rock for the last 10 years and have not yet seen this video, do yourself a favor and spend the next 3 minutes with Straight No Chaser and their rendition of The 12 Days of Christmas.

It will make your day.

This semester, at the Christian Campus House, we have been studying through the book of Nehemiah. Last night was our last “normal” TNT (Tuesday Nite Thing), and so we were wrapping up our study.

The book of Nehemiah is so much more than the re-building of the wall around Jerusalem. In fact, I resonated more with what happens after the building project than the building project itself. If you will read the entire book, you see that the people of Israel re-dedicated themselves to the reading and understanding of God’s word. That lead to repentance, which lead to obedience, which lead to confession, which lead to a full-blown revival.

In chapter 10, we see the culmination of this revival. The people of Israel draft a written covenant, a promise of faithfulness to God in the future. In the covenant, they make promises in regards to three major issues: 1) intermarriage 2) doing business on the Sabbath and 3) giving to God and the upkeep of His Temple.

These were three major issues in the lives of the Israelites. I challenged our college students to begin to identify major issues in their lives. Then I encouraged them to make a written covenant on a piece of paper that I had provided. I wanted them to write down the promises of faithfulness in those areas. After several minutes of writing, the students signed the covenants, folded them up, and sealed them in an envelope. We can see the Israelites did something similar with their covenant; wrote it, signed it, and sealed it.

If you read all of chapter 10, you will see also that the leaders of the community signed the covenant as well. At this point in the evening, I invited our ministry’s student leaders to the front. They each had a pen, and I asked everyone to bring his or her covenant and have each of our student leaders sign all the covenants as well. This was meant to be a sign that our student leaders would pledge themselves, as much as possible, to help each student keep his or her covenant with God.

In the picture above, you can see my covenant, signed and sealed by me, and also signed by each of my student leaders. It’s hanging in my office.

It was a touching way to end the semester and our study of Nehemiah. It was also a cool way to look forward and pledge our faithfulness to God for the road ahead.

(I will post the podcast from the message soon!)

A few weeks late, here is my latest message from our study at CCH through the book of Nehemiah.

I simply posed the question: What would happen if we opened the Book? And that led to another question: What would happen if we listened to the Book? And, deeper still: What would happen if we understood the Book? And, deeper: What would happen if we gave attention to the Book?

I answer all of those questions in this message.

To listen to the message, click below:
TNT Message Podcast :: Nehemiah 8:5-18

If you like, you can subscribe to our podcast via iTunes.

My dad sent me this lovely piece. The timing couldn’t be better as the campus ministry I serve is right in the middle of our massive, annual “H2O Project.”

Read this amazing story of a bartender who is serving beverages of a different kind in far away places.

I posted the simple opinion that it isn’t the best use of resources for ministries to “do their own thing.”

For example, if there are 4 organizations in a community that would like to do a canned food drive to help alleviate hunger in their space, that’s great. Most likely, each group will invest its time, energy and money and pull off a food drive.

My thought is, instead of four organizations investing four times the resources into the same kind of event, what if one invested its time, energy and money and the other three just joined in with that one? It would result in a more focused effort and it would free up the other three organizations to invest that time, energy and money in other places of need.

Here is an example of how we have done this. Just this last week I noticed a flier on a campus bulletin board promoting a drive to collect necessary items for the local women and family shelter. We have worked with this shelter before and love serving them. We could have just copied this organization and done our own necessity drive.

However, we simply asked our students to donated the needed items and then we took them to the organization running the drive. No need for a separate drive. This provides us with a couple of benefits:

• We get to bless the efforts of another group.
• We don’t waste our valuable resources by doing something another group is already doing.
• We have to be present on campus. We need to keep our eyes open for opportunities, and that means having our eyes and ears on campus.
• We have the opportunity to meet and serve alongside students we may never have had the chance to meet. We don’t just want to jump in with what other campus ministries are doing…we want to jump in and serve alongside groups like the Feminist Majority or the LGBT Alliances on campus.

This last point is extremely important to us and is worthy of its own post later this week.

This week was very different for us at TNT. I had the sense that God wanted to speak…for Himself. And so, much like Ezra reading out loud to the people from the Book of the Law of Moses, I simply read Bible over the room. That’s it.

It was different for us. But refreshing.

To listen to the message, click below:
TNT Message Podcast :: Nehemiah 8:1-6

If you like, you can subscribe to our podcast via iTunes.

Every year for the last several, our campus ministry has done what we simply call The H2O Project.

Our hearts are broken by the thought of 1.2 billion people in the world who do not have access to clean drinking water. Disease and poverty tear these lives apart, and the solution is so simple.

We need to get them some clean drinking water.

We challenge our college students to give up all beverages except for water for two weeks. No coffee, soda, juice, tea, milk or energy drinks. We ask them to save the money they would have spent on those drinks and divert those funds to The H2O Project. All of the money we raise goes to build clean water wells in Haiti.

That’s one aspect of our Project. The other aspect is our toilet. Allow me to explain.

For one week, we set a take a (clean) toilet on to campus and set it up right in front of the food court. As students are going in to eat their meals, we sit on our toilet and hold a sign that says, “$1 will give 1 person clean water for 1 year.” And we ask if they can share $1 to make a difference. Almost everyone has an extra buck.

We raise these funds, but we also want to raise awareness on campus. We hand out statistics and stickers with a picture of a toilet on them.

The purpose of the toilet is simple: to draw attention to the fact that everyday we pee in cleaner water than 1.2 billion people in the world drink.

Last year, our group raised over $1,000 from giving up beverages and another $1,000 from sitting on the toilet. This year, we hope to raise $3,000.

Please pray for all of our students involved in the Project and for the hearts of other students to be moved with compassion for those who are going without water.

The more who join us in the Project, the more impact we make. If you will give up your beverages for the next 2 weeks, and divert the funds to the Project, leave a comment so we know who you are and can pray for you. You can send your funds via online donation or by mail to:
CCH
PO Box 352
Maryville, MO 64468

(Please indicate H2O Project in the memo line.)

You can donate online by clicking this link.

See our Facebook event page here.

This week at TNT, we talked about Distractions. The idea is that “Distractions Destroy Your Great Work.”

Nehemiah faced Distractions that are common to us all. We would do well to learn to handle Distraction in the way Nehemiah did.

To listen to the message, click below:
TNT Message Podcast :: Nehemiah 6:1-16

If you like, you can subscribe to our podcast via iTunes.

Ministry leaders have been guilty, I think, of re-creating the wheel. We always insist on doing our own thing, even if that thing is the exact same thing someone else is already doing and doing well!

For example, let’s say some students involved in my campus ministry get the idea to do a food drive over the holidays. And so, we invest tons of time and energy in brainstorming for our food drive, promoting and publicizing our food drive, and then executing our food drive.

And this is a good thing…but is it the best use of our resources?

Let’s say that while we are doing all of this, there is another organization on campus doing their own food drive. And they are investing tons of time and energy as well.

My question is this: instead of our organizations investing twice as much energy and time and resources into the same thing, why shouldn’t our campus ministry simply jump in with what other organizations are already making happen on campus?

This is the model we are adopting at the Christian Campus House. Instead of constantly attempting to do our own thing, we are always on the lookout for what other organizations are already doing on campus. And then we join in the effort.

In the next few days, I hope to elaborate on what this could look like and how we are doing it. There are benefits and pitfalls, but I think the positives outweigh the negatives.

Stick around…would love for you to join in the conversation.

It’s taken a few days for me to get this posted, but here is my most recent message from TNT at the Christian Campus House.

We talked about our hearts; how God intended them to live, how sin has messed it all up, and how God has purchased our hearts back. We talk of how our Enemy wants our hearts for himself.

And most of all, we talk of how we are to battle for our hearts. And not just our own hearts, but for the hearts of our brothers and sisters.

To listen to the message, click below:
TNT Message Podcast :: Nehemiah 4:13-14

If you like, you can subscribe to our podcast via iTunes.