The Support Raising Process

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Posted 20 Jul 2010 — by nick
Category Fun, GCM, Illini Life, Ministry

Within GCM we refer to support raising as ministry team development – MTD. We really see partnership in ministry as the goal, people partner in several ways, finances being one but also in prayer, in getting us connected with others and in donating their time, abilities and resource. I love the idea that it takes a team of folks supporting a missionary for God’s work to be accomplished. What better picture of the Church?

Which explains some of what Amy and I are doing right now. We’re meeting with individuals who are interested in hearing about what God is doing through GCM and it’s missionaries and explaining my role in all of that. I thought it’d be fun to run some stats on all the people I’ve met with or tried to get in touch with over the past 2 months.

231 – the number of times we’ve tried to initiate with people to see if they’d like to meet. That could be anything from an email thread, a text message thread, facebook message thread, phone call or in person.

76 – the number of people committed to praying for us regularly.

46 – the number of appointments we’ve kept. Quite a few of those folks were couples so more specifically it is 71 individuals.

23 – the number of people interested in supporting us financially with a repeating gift. There are 3 additional people that have given special gifts with no commitment to repeat.

8 – the number of homes we’ve stayed in besides ours along this journey.

I can think of few things that force reliance on God more than this process, as an introverted engineer, at times I can feel like I’m in a foreign place watching myself dial the phone another time. Tiredness comes to mind and passes, excitement replaces it.

“Hi! this is Nick Modrzejewski campus missionary at University of Illinois…”

The Secret Powers of Time

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Posted 13 Jul 2010 — by nick
Category Friends, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, Scripture, Spirituality, Technology, Videos

This video has inspired a lot of dialogue between several close friends and colleagues in ministry. We’re asking questions of one another like “How do we change to meet this culture?” “Should we change to meet it?” “Are we called to stretch them out of a short attention span?”

Throughout my years of working with college-aged folks it’s become apparent that in order for me to get someone’s attention I need to be communicating in the medium they do. This is essential for the initial phase of getting to know someone but quickly dissipates as a relationship is formed.

I don’t think college-aged folks are hurting as far as relational interaction anymore today than they were 5 years ago. But the question this video raises for me is how do we get to a relational interaction? How do we move from strangers in the Starbucks to sanctified students of Christ?

I believe we continue adapting the way we communicate at SNG (our Saturday night large group gathering where we teach on topics relevant to college-aged folks), we hold their attention with story and interaction – bringing to life the Gospel in all it’s richness. We adapt the way we interact and exchange small talk and build our friendships. And in Home Fellowship (our community groups focused on sharing our lives together) and discipleship times we work to stretch their patience and teach them to be nourished spiritually apart from fast food and microwave spirituality. We teach them to slow down, we teach them to listen for a God who whispers in the silence.

I’ll end with an example that I think illustrates my point well. Several years ago the Home Fellowship I was apart of didn’t have any students willing or able to lead a dorm based outreach group, so I went back into the dorms to lead at 25 years old – noticeably out of place. As my fellow “old people” and I called through our list of students interested in attending we hardly reached anyone. Noticing that most were cell phones we decided to try texting to reach each person, in many cases we received immediate responses.

We adapted our communication medium and style to that of the natives and it was more fruitful. Several of those text messages resulted in friendships, none of which remained in a discipleing over text message medium, but rather patience-stretching one-on-one times. At our weekly times I watched as the semester progressed and they started to put away their cell phones and not answer text messages while we discussed. Still initiating a meeting or a ride to service was always best done over text message – their native language.

The last thought or question I have would be, do we sacrifice The Gospel, truth about sanctification, etc by adapting the WAY we communicate these truths? IE putting it in movable type for a printing press to be read by individuals instead of handwritten and orated to the people.

I’m sure readers familiar with Marshall McLuhan will have much to say on this topic.

July 2010 Update

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Posted 07 Jul 2010 — by nick
Category Friends, Fun, GCM, Illini Life, Jesus, Ministry, Photos, Spirituality

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

Download (PDF, 312KB)

A Changing Demographic?

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Posted 28 Jun 2010 — by nick
Category Blogs, GCM, Illini Life, Ministry, News

I scrolled across this article in my google reader this morning, admittedly I was behind on several of the key blogs I subscribe to. This post dates earlier this month from the ever insightful Chuck Bomar of College Ministry Thoughts.

What I find fascinating is how shocking these stats were to me. Maybe it’s the proximity to a major land grant university, complete with 40,000 students.

USA Today reports that nearly half of students at a four-year degree school don’t complete their degree within 6 years. Which translates to high drop our rates. And nearly half of college students attend a 2 year degree school such as a community college.

This got me thinking. I trust USA Today’s stats. The trends I’ve seen on campus are more students taking summer school classes at a community college where it’s cheaper, a higher pressure for students to maintain a part-time job while in school to offset the expense, more pressure for high paying internships in the summers. I’m sure the list goes on.

This demographic of college-aged students aren’t any different from you and I and our families. The economic downturn of the past few years has a lot of folks scared and we’ve tightened our belts in a lot of ways. I’m wondering how much of these changing stats are in reaction to such things.

Or maybe simply with the prevalence of online college programs and night school, our population of college students boomed overnight. Either way, I’m passionate about reaching college-aged people regardless of where they go to school (University of Illinois or otherwise).

I and Love and You

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Posted 22 Jun 2010 — by nick
Category music, Poetry, Social Justice, Spirituality, Videos

Changing mood, aiding worship, motivating – the power of music. For as long as I can remember music has been an integral part of my life. From the days of grade school freedom listening to The New Kids On The Block or the happiness and hope of the country Christmas music of my family and childhood to the depression struggles in college with Damien Rice and Jeff Tweedy singing my sorrows. There also was the teen-angst phase of loud punk rock. These days I find myself listening to a lot of creative lyrics and unique musical arrangements; the likes of The Avett Brothers, Derek Webb, Josh Ritter, Spoon and of course Sufjan Stevens streaming past my ears.

Some have said, and I tend to agree, musicians are the prophets of our times. They have the power to bring up social issues, draw our hearts and attention to injustice and call for a higher way to live.

Lately the song “I and Love and You” by The Avett Brothers moves me to think and reflect. The story I hear is one of a man looking back at his life, how easy it was to fight and be harsh with his words and how overtime it wore him down. Left chasing after empty things and seeking fulfillment in nightlife, he comes to the realization that Love has been what he’s after, yet the simple three words, the most powerful words we can speak are hard to say – I and Love and You.

The whole album is beautiful, I highly recommend it.

Warrior Dash

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Posted 20 Jun 2010 — by nick
Category Creation, Friends, Fun, GCM, Illini Life, Photos, Running

This weekend Amy and I met up for our good friend Alan (also a GCM missionary that we work with at U of I) and ran in the Warrior Dash, it was muddy goodtimes.

We ran 3.17 miles, through mud, over abandoned cars, wooden barriers, through a mud pit, over a 8 foot hay bail wall, cargo net, hills, fire, and under barbed-wire (to name a few obstacles). As you can see we were covered in mud at the end.

Running has grown to be a hobby Amy and I enjoy doing together and share with a lot of our friends and students here at U of I.

June 2010 Update

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Posted 17 Jun 2010 — by nick
Category GCM, Illini Life, Ministry, Photos

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

Download (PDF, 343KB)

www.nicknamy.net

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Posted 23 Mar 2009 — by nick
Category Blogs, Family, Friends, Fun, Technology

Well I sure haven’t posted here in a while! Allow me to offer a bit of an explanation for those of you faithful enough to return to a stale site:

You see, I have this whole wedding thing going on and I’ve been quite busy planning with Amy and in what time I can steal away from work, ministry, wedding planning, running, Amy and so on – I’ve spent building a website.

The majority of the content on the site is about the wedding, to provide an additional place for our guests to go when they can’t find the save-the-date or wedding invitation. More info will be added as I have time.

If you’d like to follow the blog devoted to our wedding click here, or if you’re not RSS savvy here.

New Nooma – 022 Tomato

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Posted 11 Nov 2008 — by nick
Category Jesus, Light, Scripture, Spirituality, Videos

In an attempt to stir the remaining embers of this blog, I thought I’d share the newest Nooma with you. Tomato is free on facebook until Wednesday November 13th at noon, your opportunity is slipping away, check it out now while you have a chance.

(click on the video to watch it on Facebook)

“Jesus invites us to die so that we can have life, Jesus invites us to lose our life so we can find it.” (paraphrased from Mathew 16:24-26 among other Jesus teachings)

These truths stopped me mid-sip of my morning coffee – truth I know, a reminder I needed. My idle state of life, living for myself and propping up the image I’ve constructed, dropped for a moment and the words of Jesus sank in. Today I choose to live as a Christ follower and die to myself, allowing me to forgive freely and love abundantly, to have life.

I hope God stirs your heart as well.

—————-
Now playing: Enter the Worship Circle – Put in Me
via FoxyTunes

Jedis in Indy

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Posted 08 Oct 2008 — by nick
Category Uncategorized

Sitting in the Indy airport, delayed on our way to Florida, I pulled
out my iPhone to show Amy my new lightsaber app.

Moments later a fellow Jedi emerged and we engaged in Jedi things –
showing off our lightsabers.

Sweet!

Sent from my iPhone

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