Monday, January 25, 2016

Happenings from Altoona!

Greetings!

Hope this finds you warm, unburied, and great! This past weekend we've had a good snowstorm come through, giving us at least 13 inches here! Other locations in Altoona had measurements up towards 20 inches.

Of course it's still winter time, and so the cold, and the snow has been around, keeping things interesting for us.

Over the past couple weeks nothing too out of the ordinary has gone one. We've had our usual CSF meeting on Tuesday and talked about Christian maturity and what that looks like. The reason for this discussion was because of what the semester will (hopefully) be bringing. We're continuing with our theme of Religion as a verb, how to proper do a Christ centered religion. Last semester we looked at the life of Jesus through the book of Luke, and this semester we're taking what we learned through viewing his interactions with people, and applying those to real world situations. In order to do this we will need maturity. We plan on discussing other religions, terrorism, sexuality, capitalism, mental illness, divorce, substance abuse. We don't know who is dealing with what, and so because of that we have to be mindful and mature in our discussions. This week we're approaching the topic of "Why do bad things happen to good people." I'm looking forward to talking about this because of just how often we deal with this question.

Tomorrow we're getting a men's Bible study under way which I'm dubbing "Bearded Bosses of the Bible." This week we're going to be looking at Noah, his life, what went on around him, what he did that we should emulate, and what we should take note of and avoid.

This semester during our Wednesday night Bible study at Church we're beginning to go through Galatians. We'll go through that at whatever pace we go at, be it a chapter, a passage, or a verse a week, and keep going through the following Epistles.

Today I got to meet with the Campus Activities Board (CAB) to discuss how CSF can partner with them to help sponsor or host different events throughout the semester. I came with a few idea's that they seemed to like, and I'm looking forward to what we can do together for the campus.

Other than that not much has been going on here. This semester I'm taking a class on C.S. Lewis's theological works which has been great so far. Two weeks ago I got to read the Screwtape Letters, my first time reading through them, and it really showed some insight into my own life and temptations that I face. Last week and this week I have to read Mere Christianity which is awesome, but also very time consuming. This is my second read of it, and I feel that I've grown intellectually and theologically since the last time that I've read it, so that this reading is done in a whole new light, one where I begin to wrestle a lot more with what Lewis wrote. Since this is Lewis telling what Christianity is (for lack of a better term), I think it'll add a lot more to the teaching aspects of what we're talking about this semester. Reasons why things the way they are in the world, how we should approach different topics, answering questions like "Why would God allow this to happen?"

But that's what we got here. Thank you for all your support, and please keep the ministry in prayer for us! We appreciate all you do!

Monday, January 18, 2016

MLK Day 2K16

Today is Martin Luther King Day!

I apologize for the lack of posts the past few weeks, but with the holidays not much really went on, and last week was the first week of classes.

But last week had some major things go on, as did the week before!

For those of you that don't know I have recently moved, again. This time I stayed in the same city, but the church I am partnered with has offered me free housing right across the street from campus. So as of right now I am literally writing this from where I live, which is also the church office, which is awesome. God truly blessed this situation, because when I first talked to my original landlords about it, they said I wasn't able to get out of my lease. But just the day before I talked to them, they received a call from a transfer student looking for a place to rent. They took a look at the apartment, decided it would suit their needs, and took over my lease for me! This opened up my living situation and I was able to move! But I had to be out relatively quick, so Tuesday, the 5th, I ended up getting all of my big stuff out of my apartment. Luckily I'm a part of this fantastic church and was able to get some help pretty quick! Part of the bad news though was that I had to give away my first pet, my cat Altair. But there was a couple here in town that was willing to take him for me, and I think it was a good fit. I hope at least.

As I mentioned earlier, classes started at Penn State last week on Monday. So for most of the week I was on campus, meeting with students, getting ready for Bible studies, making plans, and that fun stuff. Thursday was the spring activities fair, which wasn't all that great. Very few students came through, though I did get to hang out with a couple of ours for a couple hours which was a great time.

Last Sunday I also go to do my first communion meditation ever in a church setting (I don't count communion talks in CSF). From the feed back that I got from people I guess it went pretty well!

This week already is looking pretty filled as well. Today the campus is doing a "Time of Service" for MLK Day which I need to be at. Afterwards some students want to get together and go bowling, which should be a great time! Tuesday of course we have CSF, where we'll be looking at Christian Maturity to prepare ourselves for the upcoming semester where we'll talk about how Christians should act and approach the different social issues which are so prevalent in our culture today. Some of the bigger topics that we'll be discussing of course include racism, sexuality and sexual orientation, and religious fanaticism. But we'll also be looking at topics such as mental illnesses and disabilities, capitalism, violence and self defense, and even attempt to answer the question, "Is America a Christian nation?" Looking forward to this semester and these discussions, I can't help but get excited at what God's going to do.

But that's all from Altoona for right now! Please keep us in your prayers as we go through this semester and try to impact campus in a way that no one else is.