Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Save on postage!
If you want to support me this year in my internship but you really don't like writing checks or don't want to spend 41 cents on a stamp, Campus Crusade for Christ has a website where you can make an online donation.
https://give.ccci.org/give/0588137
Mail-in Donations:
If you prefer good old-fashioned mail please make any checks payable to "Campus Crusade for Christ" and not myself. The IRS will not allow me to accept checks that have my name anywhere on them. Checks can be mailed to me at:
Todd Isler
5899 Smeltzer Rd
Prospect, OH 43342
Thanks!
Friday, July 27, 2007
Ocean City Summer Project 2007
But back to
The staff team spent our first week there getting the carpets rolled back out and the furniture in place ready for the students’ arrival. We prepared activities for the students, got to know each other as a team, and prayed a
The students began to stream in one week after our arrival. It was strange to see so many people who we as a team didn’t know, and for the most part, who didn’t really know each other either. With Christ as our common denominator though, it wasn’t long before the whole group felt like one big family!
As I mentioned previously, Summer Projects last for about 10 weeks. We don’t really count the first week of the students’ time on project, as it’s mostly spent just with orientation and laying a foundation for what’s to come. After that though, each week has a title and specific goals that we aim for in order to: grow as a community of believers, grow in our relationship and desire for God, and grow in our influence within our target area… in our case
The titles of the weeks were: “Setting the Pace”, “Thirsting to Know HIM”, “Killing the Giants”, “All for One”, “World Vision”, and “Agape” week. After “Agape” week the staff left the project and it has continued under the leadership of student directors who now determine the subject matter for the project.
The weeks are largely structured the same with minor tweaks to compliment the topic of each week. To give you a better idea of what goes on, I’ll summarize my favorite week: “Killing the Giants” week.
The week started out June 16th with the unveiling of a 15 foot tall “giant”. The students had just been presented with a challenge to set a goal to share their faith more in the coming week than they had ever done before. Each student turned in their anonymous goal on a sheet of paper and we tallied them up. Together we set a goal to share the Gospel with 5,105 people that week! The 15 foot tall giant suddenly made sense as we faced such a HUGE goal! We knew that we would get frustrated during the week, that the goal of sharing with so many people would seem insurmountable, that we would have hard conversations that would leave us questioning whether sharing our faith was worthwhile, and even that we would question whether we were out there to glorify God or to satisfy some arbitrary number. But we challenged the giant and stepped forward in faith that God’s will would be done through our faithful persistence. That night we stormed the boardwalk and had conversations like none other!
The next day was a Sunday so we went to Sunday school and then to church at Ocean City Baptist, our host church in
Each staff member is assigned to 4 or 5 students in
But back to lunch. Each Action Group partners with one of the opposite gender for certain activities each week. We call those groups Impact groups. So to condense the last to paragraphs, my Impact Group went out to lunch after church. After lunch we headed out to the boardwalk and the beach for the afternoon for an outreach that lasted the duration of the day.
Monday is a “staff stuff” day each week so I met with the rest of the staff team for the day to debrief from the previous week, plan activities for the coming week, and break into smaller groups to work on individual projects. Monday the staff and students had dinner together at the Ambassador Inn and then we met for our weekly Monday evening message and then we headed out to do more evangelism on the boardwalk!
Tuesday morning the staff men met for our mandatory weekly basketball game from
Tuesday evening the students and staff picked up prepared sacked dinners and then spent
Wednesday morning we had a brief staff meeting with a Bible study and then we spent the afternoon meeting with disciples followed by a group dinner at the Ambassador Inn, and then an Action Group Bible study. At
Thursday morning the staff men met at
After practice I met with one of my disciples in the afternoon and then spent the rest of the afternoon sharing the Gospel with people on the boardwalk. At
Friday is always the staff’s day off and I flew home to
While I was gone the students took as many opportunities as they could to share the Good News whenever they weren’t eating, sleeping, or at work. Friday and Saturday were both kept completely open so students could take the initiative to share in their free time. Saturday after a group dinner everyone piled into cars and headed up the road about 30 minutes to the casino town of
A number of people were concerned at first, but the bottom line is that people are people, and the Gospel is for everyone! I didn’t return in time to help out with the outreach in
The last step of “Killing the Giants” week was rewarding. I got back to town just in time to run to the church basketball court and see 108 students pummel the 15 foot tall “giant” with softballs and then break it to pieces by charging the structure. The “giant” came down that week at the Ocean City Summer Project. People who have feared to share their faith for their entire life shared their faith that week 50 times or more. And God’s Word did not return void. 256 people prayed that they could enter into a lasting relationship with God.
Well, that’s how “Killing the Giants” week ended. I’d love to get to tell you about the other weeks I spent on Summer Project and how God has worked in the students’ lives, but just a brief overview of one week seems to have taken a good deal more words than I thought it would. Ask me sometime. I’d love to tell you. And please pray for the students still on Summer Project! They are growing, but they also face a lot of challenges. Pray that they can continue to spend every last ounce of their energy on furthering the