Archive for the ‘Jesus’ Category

On Mission in Haiti and Memphis

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Posted 21 Mar 2011 — by nick
Category Friends, Fun, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, Photos, Social Justice, Spirituality, Technology

As some of you may have noticed in our last update letter Illini Life sent off two different missions teams over Spring Break this week. Amy is currently in Memphis, TN with a team of 30 Students and 5 Adult leaders serving and sharing in the community there with SOS. They arrived on-sight Sunday afternoon.

Another small group of 15 headed to Haiti around 2:00AM CST today. They’re working with Mountain Top Ministries just outside Port-a-Prince. One of my ministry passions is helping engineering students find places to serve in the church and use their gifts. This trip allows quite a few of them to do just that. The 15 are divided into 3 groups:

  • One group will be helping to set up a school’s computer lab & provide training for the equipment.
  • One group will be working alongside a Haitian construction team to build a hospital.
  • One group will be partnering with a team from UIC-Chicago to run a medical clinic.

We’re excited to be providing 15 laptops and wireless internet in the computer lab. You can have a look at some pictures a few of my friends took as they prepared the computers for travel and lab installation. If you’d like to follow along with the Haiti trip subscribe to the trip blog.

March 2011 Update

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Posted 10 Mar 2011 — by nick
Category GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, Social Justice, Spirituality, Technology

Hello friends below you should find our update letter for March 2011.

Download (PDF, 370KB)

A Spirit of Unity

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Posted 24 Feb 2011 — by nick
Category GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, News, Spirituality

Not long ago I received word from the GCM office of an agreement made between the 17 dominate missions groups focusing on reaching college campuses (of which GCM is one). It’s being referred to as “The Chicago Agreement: Unity in Mission” you can read it here, or below.

It excites me knowing that the common ground we have in Christ can spur us on together to reach our campuses for Christ despite our theological, worship and stylistic differences. In matters of faith and Christian brotherhood, I find it more profitable to find the common ground we share rather than drawing lines and defining who is in the club and who is out. I find the spirit of this agreement to be the same.

Download (PDF, 76KB)

February 2011 Update

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Posted 10 Feb 2011 — by nick
Category GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, Photos, Scripture, Social Justice, Spirituality

Hello friends below you should find our update letter for February 2011.

Download (PDF, 264KB)

January 2011 Update

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Posted 05 Jan 2011 — by nick
Category Creation, Family, Friends, Fun, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, Photos, Spirituality, Winter

Hello friends below you should find our update letter for January 2011.

Download (PDF, 297KB)

For unto us a Savior is born

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Posted 25 Dec 2010 — by nick
Category Jesus, Scripture, Spirituality, Videos

Happy Christmas to all!

One of our traditions is to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas often during the advent season. It reminds me of being a kid, but also reminds us of the reason to be celebrating. The birth of our Savior.

I love hearing Linus tell the story, you can hear it here:

December 2010 Update

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Posted 16 Dec 2010 — by nick
Category Family, Friends, Fun, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, Spirituality, Winter

Hello friends below you should find our update letter for December 2010.

Download (PDF, 281KB)

Thinking about Grace

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Posted 24 Nov 2010 — by nick
Category Jesus, Ministry, Scripture, Spirituality

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9

Lately the topic of grace has been on my mind, in a different sense than usual though. In the past weeks I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking of God’s grace solely as undeserved forgiveness. It’s always been easy to see where I’m far from God – the times I lose sight of the Kingdom of God and embrace the kingdom of Nick. Grace is ever-present when I acknowledge my faults and turn back. I get that sort of grace.

The difference lately comes not in the distance from God in a classic “sinning” sense, but in a more crafty “sinning” sense. Somewhere in the past few weeks I’ve fallen into a mindset that God’s favor is won when I live a certain way, when I do certain ministry tasks, when I’m a good missionary. To which God says “Nope, it’s about Grace.”

I can find myself in this trap of thinking, I’m doing pretty good, God must be happy with me because of that. To which I hear “Nope, it’s about Grace.” He’s always happy with me, because when He sees me He sees a dearly loved son – not my past, present or future. Just a son washed clean.

So the grace goes both ways. Not just forgiveness of my sins, but forgiveness of my thinking that I earned any of my standing with God. Which you wise folks might point out is sin as well.

November 2010 Update

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Posted 07 Nov 2010 — by nick
Category Family, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, Spirituality

Hello friends below you should find our update letter for November 2010.

Download (PDF, 378KB)

Celebrating Baptism

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Posted 02 Nov 2010 — by nick
Category Creation, Friends, Fun, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, News, Spirituality, Technology

Summit Church Beach BaptismsI spent last week in Orlando, FL near the headquarters of GCM, as a stop along the support raising trail back to campus. My good friend Chris hosted me at his place for the week as I worked at finding times to meet with folks and share about the work I do and – during the off hours – spent much time working on upgrading the GCM network firewall with our IT department.

Shortly after arriving in Orlando I found myself standing on the beach facing the Atlantic Ocean. Chris’ church was holding their Baptism service – which is much more of a celebration than most churches I’ve attended. I loved the atmosphere and excitement as we celebrated brothers and sisters making a public display of the inward commitment they had made to follow Jesus.

Together in community we shared a meal, cheered as 113 folks were baptized in the waves of the Atlantic (including some more notable figures), worshiped together in music and voice and shared our lives. This church thinks about baptism much the way that Illini Life does – it’s an event we want to celebrate as a church community. It’s worthy of celebrating as we watch others make a public declaration to the church body that they belong to Jesus.

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