Upcoming Events and Prayer Request

Upcoming Events

• Vacation - July 1-24
• Alberta Trip - July 10-18
• 30th Birthday!! - July 7
• To Whom Shall We Go Interview - July 8

Students & Campus

• Pray for this summer as the students to apply what they have learned from the Servant Partners around Radical Hospitality.
• Pray that God empower the students to lead during my time away for vacation.
• Pray that the students will be able to continue to lead regular socials to better invite their Non-Christian friends into a loving community.
• Pray for perseverance for students as they are finishing midterms
• Pray for rest for the students that they will be able to set appropriate boundaries
• Pray specifically for Catherine and her family as they work through some challenges. 
• Pray for more Urbana registrations
• Pray for the logistics of travel and a fundraising event.
• Pray for my funding.  I will be raising an additional $12,000 ($1,000/month) this year of monthly donations.  Pray that God would place on the hearts of donors to come on as supporters
• Pray for Barron as he will be transitioning to Grad School this summer.
• Pray for Dave as he transitions into being the new Team Leader of the Van East Team
• Pray for the interns as they transition to life in Vancouver and ministry.
• Pray for the discernment of students as they are wrestling with the idea of a community house.

Personal

• Pray for my growth as a leader and mentor.
• Pray for me as I continue to network and connect with other Churches in the Lower Mainland.
• Pray for the Inter-Generational Dialogue between 1st and 2nd Generation Chinese Pastors.
• Pray for mine & April's relationship in our marriage and a deeper understanding of God's Love for each other.
• Pray for more opportunities and clients for April in her field of work.
• Pray for our general finances.  We are asking God to allow us to break even each month.
• Pray for me that I will rest well during my Sabbaths.
• Pray for me that I will rest well during my vacation.
• Pray for me that I will be exercising more regularly.
• Pray for the regular rhythms of time with God for both April and I

Praise Item

• Praise the Lord for being able to partner with Servant Partners and to learn about Radical Hospitality
• Praise the Lord that April and I are coming to a deeper understand of God's love for each other.

From Lament to Joy (Student Reflections)

Question for you:

Out of CCLI's top 100 used Christian songs in North America, which songs are songs of Lament?

Answer:

3 (and this is being VERY liberal)

When Soong-Chan Rah shared this fact at Missions Fest, I was completely floored.  If 40% of the Bible focuses on lamenting, why are we, as a North American Christian movement, only focusing 3% of our worship on lament?

The whole first half of the Gospel of Mark focuses on Jesus as good news and the coming messiah and is worth following.  Jesus is the healer, provider, care giver, listener.  He is indeed exciting to follow.  However, when you get into the second half, it talks all about the cost of following Jesus.  Denying yourself, leaving family, leaving households, servant of all, death.  When we get to this, we start to realize that following Jesus is not at all easy, but it is HARD and we don't like hard.  Part of counting the cost of Jesus is learning and knowing how to lament well.

This loss that we experience in following Jesus is indeed great and if we don't actually take the time to acknowledge it, we fail to see the reason why we follow Jesus in the first place.  We are then, only but shallow soil that receives the word, receives it with joy, but when trials and persecutions come, we fall away.

This 3% disturbs me quite a bit.  I feel that because of our inability to experience and navigate suffering well, it is stifling our passion and followship of Jesus.  I've been seeing this a lot and have noticed that this generation of SFU IVCF students are starting to experience the cost of following Jesus.  Most however, have not been equipped to deal with the cost and the loss associated with it.  So Anika and I started to spend some time in how to lament well with our community.  To our surprise, the passion of these students started to blossom and their followship of Jesus was starting to become more real to them.  As they continue to count the cost of following Jesus and as they lament well along the way, the joy associated with it has been growing and increasing.

Core Witness Team, songwriter, singer, student, Grace Swain shared some interesting thoughts on lament.

Serious question, when was the last time you heard your pastor preach on Lamentations? Seriously. It's not a book of the Bible that's commonly talked about and yet it's important to God because it's there in his Word. If we believe that all scripture is God-breathed then clearly lamenting is important to God. How much more should we be open to experiencing these emotions that are so dear to

the heart of our father.

At IVCF @ SFU, we have had the privilege of sharing in a short season of lamenting and mourning together. We lament the brokenness we see on our campus. We lament our inadequacies and fears of sharing this faith that we hold so dear with those who so desperately crave Him. We lament our own brokenness which reveals our vulnerabilities that we shelter so fiercely. 

Yet even in our season of lamenting, we rejoice because God is faithful to heal, save and restore. We rejoice in the stories we have heard of God softening the hearts of those around us. We rejoice in the healing of our weaknesses for we have made the inner parts of our hearts open to our Father, Who longs to lavish his love upon us. 

As a singer and songwriter, I have written many songs of lament.  I personally have lamented our children's loss of innocence, inequality and injustice towards the marginalized, and the celebration and glorification of lascivious living. I often have questioned why it is that I write these songs — largely rooted in the fact that songs of lament are not usually celebrated within societies and church communities. Many times this is done on my own and often remains between me and God. Yet it has truly been a privilege to lament with the IVCF community. It has been a privilege to hear each other's hearts and to be let into the innermost thoughts of my fellow students and brothers and sisters in Christ. I have rejoiced when others have rejoiced and I have mourned when others have mourned. I have able to come to know such a tender part of my Father's heart — and that brings me joy. 

Exec Team, prayer warrior, puddle jumper, Anika Barlow also has some insightful thoughts on lament.

“It’s all good.” This is our collective mantra. This is what we say to each other, what we try to convince ourselves of...even when the evidence is stacked up on the contrary.

As part of the collective Church, I believe we are especially guilty of this. It’s apparent in the truncated scope of our conversations, our sermons, and our gospel. We are happy to talk openly about the goodness of God and the grace of God, but our doubts in that same grace and that same goodness are better left unspoken. We’ve got a ‘GMO gospel’, as I heard someone say recently; in our words and our actions we’ve stripped the gospel of some of its core DNA - sacrifice, repentance, long-suffering, obedience - and replaced it with something a little more marketable and a little more palatable.

I long for a true taste of the gospel - as rich in joy as it is in lament. David, stringed instrument in hand, writes “cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you”, but not before crying out “my heart is in anguish within me”. I wonder if we’re doing ourselves a real disservice by neglecting the call to lament - if by circumventing the dark places we’re also sidestepping the heights of joy. Maybe our hallelujah choruses are drowning out that voice of one calling in the desert.

These are some thoughts that have come out of my experience with our little community of IVCF at SFU in the past few months. In our practices of prayer Jesus has been inviting us to take an honest inventory of our surroundings - to really get a handle on the burdens of our friends, to mourn over the lifelessness of our campus and the extent of our own sinfulness. Full stop.

When we allow ourselves to be in this place we give the Spirit freedom to be our one source of joy, and not the joy we conjure up with “it’s all good”. And how much more powerful, how much more hopeful, how much more credible of a witness to see a Church with eyes open, with hearts broken and yet...somehow…despite all the odds...hopeful.

On lament? ...lament on.

Legacy Building

When it comes to legacy, it can go both ways.  A person can, and often will, leave both good and bad legacies for the next generation.  Over these past few years, I have started to see the importance of building a legacy and passing off your knowledge.  Whether it is ministry, work, teaching, coaching, etc, one must not only look to train their students/employees but know that there needs to be a successor to carry on your legacy.

I have had many influential people and figures in my life around building a legacy.  I want to share 2 in particular.  The first one is my Judo coach.  As a student, I was being trained by him and started to grow in my own abilities as a coach.  He said one thing that I will never forget.

My job as a coach is not to only train you, but to train you in a way that you will eventually surpass me.  If I have done my job, you should be able to beat me in a match.  - Marty Sprecker - 

 I have held onto this as one of my fundamental perspectives when I coach/mentor my students.  But we have to ask, is this a biblical principle?  To answer that, I want to bring my second person who has greatly influenced me in legacy building.  Jesus.

Jesus' model of ministry I would have to say is incredible.  He was an incredible visionary, healer, leader, and miracle worker.  But as I read through Acts and the Letters of Paul, I am equally amazed at what his disciples and the following generations of were able to do.  What I realized is that with each generation of disciples, they did greater and greater things than the last.  Now when I say greater, I don't just mean doing more, I am actually thinking it more along the lines of the faith of each generation of disciples increased drastically.  Jesus didn't hold back and the model of mentorship was in a lot of ways similar to what my coach said around training his disciples so that they would surpass him in his works through a deeper faith in Him.  Jesus wasn't in the ministry to train partners in the ministry, he was in the ministry to train successors!

This is something that both Barron and I are really passionate about.  Especially students being in University.  We need to keep in mind that our students are not going to be there forever.  At most we might get them for 6 years.  We have to remember that we are not only training partners but successors.  It doesn't mean that they will take over the ministry, but it focuses more on training them in a way that they will be Extraordinary Kingdom Leaders not just on the SFU Campus but when they graduate and go into the world.

I have been here for a period of 4 years now and have seen a number of students graduate.  The thing that surprises me is that the faith of each passing generation of students increases from the last.  Not saying the earlier generations are not faithful but they have laid an incredible foundation and have successfully passed off their vision, passion, and faith to the upcoming generation of students.

Students like Lida, Esther, Donald, Daniel, Carrie, Mona, and Vanessa.  If I could spend time in each of these students and the legacy they left behind it would take you my readers hours to read.  If you would like to read a story of legacy, read Donald's Story here.  I would say though, without the faithful work of these few students we would not be where we are at with the SFU ministry in witness and evangelism.  Read more of what's happening at SFU today here!

Donald's Legacy

Coming into his second year, Donald was walking down the hallways of SFU thinking about what it means to be a witness on the SFU Campus.  He then looked up and saw a table set up in the hallway of the AQ and three guys sitting behind a table.  Looking at the sign, he realized that it was IVCF, an organization his friend from church was telling him about.  Without thinking he proceeds to sign up for this group.  Little did he know though that this was IVCF's Pioneering year on SFU and that he would end up starting a movement that continues to this day.

I remember sitting with Donald at Pearl Fever waiting to extend two fairly large invitations.  The first invitation was for him to fully invest in IVCF (he was jumping between two ministries at that time) and to be mentored by me, while the second one was for him to come on the China GP with me.  As I gave this first invitation, he sat there, looking down for a few seconds thinking.  He then raised his head and said a simple, "Ok".  I was surprised and excited at the same time at the quickness of his response.  But if the first invitation wasn't daunting enough, I'm sure the second one would scare him off.  So I went ahead and asked him the second invitation, "Come to China with me."  Now this one took a bit longer and was indeed more daunting but after months of prayer and discernment, he decided to come.

Since Donald was coming to China with me, he was also required to come to Mark West (in Alberta at this time).  Donald didn't want to go to Mark West by himself so he decided to ask his Brother Daniel to come with him.  To his surprise, Daniel said "Yes".  Daniel had never been a part of any IVCF stuff but he decided to come, spending $400 of his own money to study the bible for 40 hours.  By the end of Mark West, both Donald and Daniel were committed to the ministry of IVCF and they proceeded to invite their peers and friends.   After China, Donald decided to take a year break in Edmonton before transferring to BCIT for Engineering.  He is now finishing up his last semester and is engaged to be married in August.

The following year, Daniel continued to be a part of our leadership team and constantly invited his church friends and the people he met.  From Daniel, and his help in pioneering IVCF SFU Surrey, he connected with Esther, Catherine, and Andy.  From Daniel, he found and passed off an incredible vision of witness to his friends and peers.  To this day, Esther has been the source of incredible life and invitation in our community, Catherine is now leading as our student president in beginning of an incredible movement of evangelism and witness and Andy is witnessing on the Varsity Track team of SFU.

What will happen after Catherine and Andy move on?  I don't know, but what I do know is that they see the importance of building a legacy and I trust in God's work through them that they will train and empower the next generation of students to take their place in this ministry of SFU.

The Heart of Evangelism

At the beginning of December was a conference for all the IVCF Canada Staff.  The theme of this
conference was around developing a heart of Evangelism and Witness and to show us that it is possible for us to be doing this even without a particular "gifting".  Both Barron and I came away with a conviction that this needs to be true for the SFU ministry.  So we went ahead to prepare our students to receive the news of this direction for SFU.  Barron worked with Abraham in the small group leaders material and training around evangelism and I worked on communicating with the other exec around what the new direction is going to be like.  

As the student executive and small group leaders walked through my doors at the beginning of classes, all of them had differing ideas on what small groups looked like.  However, as Barron and Abraham have been planning and started sharing the vision, I could sense a tension of fear filling the air.  We were basically asking our small group and executive team to be stronger witnesses and to proclaim the Gospel to their non-believing friends.  A few of them expressed their concerns and reservations, but to our surprise, they all agreed that it needed to be done.

Them saying yes is a result of the faithfulness of the students who went before them.  They said "yes" even though they knew that they may be hated or labelled for it.  Despite that, they chose to step into this fear and discomfort which put their minds off of what they can do themselves to what God is capable of doing.

A couple of weeks later, we as a team went to Denman Island where Ian Elliot (Director of Evangelism) hosted our group.  Ian and his wife Naomi lead our team through the sending of the seventy disciples, got us to name our fears, and brought attention to the sin of tolerance in Canadian culture.  During all of these portions, he shared incredible stories of witness which revealed to our team the practical (and attainable) applications of Evangelism.  That week, we became inspired to be bathing this vision in prayer and to be fervently praying for the friends we are called to witness to.

As a result of that weekend, Anika our Spiritual Direction Coordinator lead us (the Core Witness Team) through an incredible prayer time of confession and repentance.  We were reminded of the truths of who God is and that if there are fears in us, it's because these truths were not active in us.  To help us with a deeper understanding of these truths, we started praying specific bold prayers.  Prayers of healing, prayers for God to intervene, prayers for God to create opportunities and open up doors to witness.  We saw God giving prophetic words and images for each other who were dealing with these fears.  The initial fears these students are having are starting to disappear as they come to know and believe the truths of God's character.

With the combination of fervent prayer and exceptional training for our leaders, one can only imagine what will happen this semester.  As a big bold prayer, we are praying for 20 students who aren't Christians to be coming out to the Ski Retreat.  We are praying that by the end of the semester that we will have 10 students who aren't Christians come and study the Gospel of Mark at Mark West Pacific.  But most of all, we are praying that our lost friends will be able to find Jesus this semester.  

Please join with IVCF SFU through intercession.  We are in desperate need of your prayers and know that your prayers are being heard and answered.

Pray for the continued breakdown of walls and fears that prevent us from witnessing to our peers and friends

Pray that God would open doors for them to explore deeper faith issues.

Pray that God would compel a large amount of students to say "yes" to the Ski Retreat

Pray for our current community of believers that they would receive the heart and passion for witness.

Pray that the Holy Spirit would penetrate deep into our hearts.

Upcoming Events and Prayer Requests

Upcoming Events

• Ski Retreat - Feb. 6-8
• Donor Visit (Regina) - Feb. 10-16
• Urbana & Mark West Pacific Registration Opens - Mar. 4
• GROW Training (Toronto) - Mar. 9-12

Students & Campus

• Pray for the continued breakdown of walls and fears that prevent us from witnessing to our peers and friends
• Pray that God would open doors for them to explore deeper faith issues.
• Pray that God would compel a large amount of students to say "yes" to the Ski Retreat
• Pray for our current community of believers that they would receive the heart and passion for witness.
• Pray that the Holy Spirit would penetrate deep into our hearts.
• Pray for my funding.  I am nearly fully funded in monthly donations.  Pray that God would place on the hearts of donors to come on as supporters
• Pray for Barron as this will be his last semester on Staff with IVCF.

Personal

• Pray for my growth as a leader and mentor.
• Pray for me as I continue to network and connect with other Churches in the Lower Mainland.
• Pray for the Inter-Generational Dialogue between 1st and 2nd Generation Chinese Pastors.
• Pray for mine & April's relationship in our marriage and a deeper understanding of God's Love for each other.
• Pray for more opportunities and clients for April in her field of work.
• Pray for our general finances.  We are asking God to allow us to break even each month.
• Pray for me that I will rest well during my Sabbaths.
• Pray for me that I will be exercising more regularly.
• Pray for the regular rhythms of time with God for both April and I

Praise Item

• Praise that Lord for his work in our students lives and the exciting opportunity to be strong witnesses to our friends
• Praise the Lord that my health has been greatly improving and energy levels have been increasing.
• Praise the Lord that April was able to get some more contracting work.

Eat

Cooking is somewhat of a passion of mine.  I tend to have favourites I often order at restaurants so what I often do is decided to learn how to make those foods at home via the internet.  Once I learn how to do it, I add my own twist or combine multiple recipes together often making my own unique creation.

A huge part of building community at IVCF @ SFU revolves around eating a meal together.  So when we came up with the idea of doing a Taco Fiesta Night for our Welcome Event.  There were no complaints.

However, as I started looking at the sheer amount of food to cook, the cleaning of my home, and all the other logistics, things became more and more daunting.  I started dreading the day of the Taco Fiesta Night and the memories of many failed Welcome Fall Events came back.  I began to even doubt if it was worth it and if anyone would come.  As these doubts were racing through my head, I decided to share some of my needs to the Executive team.  To my surprise, everyone volunteered to help out with the logistics.  Julianna became my assistant chef, Catherine made a delicious guacamole and did incredible presentation of all the food, Abraham came to help clean up the home and set up the sign, and Barron planned the small group structure and presentation of the night.  In an instant, all of my fears and concerns were addressed and I sat there blessed and deeply encouraged by the commitment of our Executive Team.

When the day of the event came, Julianna was doing all the cutting of the vegetables and the general prep of all the food while I proceeded with cooking the lime chicken, vegan bean mixture, and browning the ground beef.  Later, Abraham and Catherine came over to do their respective jobs.  All during this time, I kept looking at the clock and saw the minute hand click closer and closer to the 6:30 mark.  As it got closer, I kept peering out the window hoping to see more people come.  However, I could not see any and the fears of the previous failed Welcome Events came flooding back.  The last 5 minutes seemed to last and hour, until I saw out of the corner of my eye people walking past my window.  I looked up and saw more and more people.  They just kept coming!  Some of the faces I saw were familiar while the vast majority of them were brand new.  It became VERY clear to me that this wasn't going to be like any other Fall Welcome Event.  Within 30 minutes, we had 40 people crammed into my little basement suite.  Thank goodness for a beautiful day so we could eat outside.

Surrey Small Group:  SUSHI!!!

We are well into the Fall Semester now and with 7 small groups happening over a course of 4 days, every single one of them either happens during lunch break of in the evening for dinner.  Food is an extremely important thing when it comes to building community and for some reason, our students really get that. Please continue to pray that as we converge around the dinner table that we can grow deeper in our faith and invite others into deeper relationships.