Sam's Ocean City Summer Mission

[oceancitysam]

Can’t Touch This

(The amazingly talented Cora Jane Winfrey the 1st and I on stage July 9th, 2015 at Ocean City Baptist Church. S/O to Thomas Wagner for the candid shot.)

Here’s three stories that occurred within a year of each other that illustrate just how awesome God is:

Story #1 (September 2014): About a month of school had passed and I had joined the tech team for Cru’s weekly meeting. The leaders of the weekly meeting team, Morgan and Casey, invited all the freshmen who were involved with helping out at the weekly meeting to learn more about what it meant to volunteer in such a capacity. Another freshman who was also there was my friend, and now roommate, Nick. I wasn’t there for the entire meeting, but one conversation that I heard about later really stuck out to me. It goes something like this:

Morgan/Casey: (to freshmen) So who do you think would be good at emceeing?

Nick: Not Sam

Everyone Else: (laughs)

Let me say off the bat that the point of this story is not to throw Nick under the bus. I love Nick, he’s one of the funniest guys I know, and I’ll be living with him next year. I don’t even take offense to this story, because I considered it hilarious. The reason I’m bringing up this story is to highlight its honesty. I was always someone that hated talking to others, especially public speaking, and so emceeing seemed like the perfectly horrible fit. I was always content sitting in the back, where no one could see me, and do sound or slides. This story was always funny to me because I found it comical that other people recognized this weakness in me as well.

 Story #2 (June 2015): After campus time, at a diner where we were in line waiting to pay, Codye, a fellow Wildcat and member of MoCo, was checking GroupMe and remarked to all of us that she had been added to OCSM15 Emcees, the official group chat for the emcees of Ocean City Summer Missions 2015. I, being my curious self, asked her who else was in the group chat:

Codye: (To all of us Wildcats waiting in line) Wamp Wamp, me (her), Cora, Geoff, Hannah, Justin, Noah, you, Scott, Steph, Tommy.

Me: (Not knowing who she meant by “you”) Wait who do you mean by “you”?

Codye: (To me) You, Sam.

Me: Oh.

This interaction left me with a lot of disbelief and even more questions. Was this is a mistake? Who chose me for this? Can I say no? In the few weeks that I had been here, becoming an emcee had not been one of my goals. I was pretty resolute that at the first chance to say no, I would say no. Funny how that goes. At our first in person meeting the staff member in charge, Chaz, explained how being an emcee was not about being a personality, rather it was about being an empty vessel for God to flow through and it was also about being able to transition from element to element during the hour. The more he waxed on, the more I started to think I could do it and my fears subsided. Maybe I could emcee without actually talking! So I agreed to try things out.

Story #3 (July 2015): This is going to be the most disjointed and probably pointless story of the three, but here goes. So it was finally my week to emcee and my partner, Cora, fell sick. So I paired up with Hannah, who had emceed before but was gracious enough to go again on such short notice, for one of the two days during the week that I was supposed to emcee. There wasn’t anything surprising or crazy about the first meeting I emceed. I stuttered and messed up and turned my back to the audience and wasn’t, in my very pessimistic but usually more realistic than not opinion, great or anything, but I got through it, which if the first two stories should tell you anything, is an accomplishment in and of itself. The real star was Hannah, who made up for my mess-ups and did everything to a T. The next and last meeting of the week that I would emcee rolled around, and my original partner, Cora, regained her health, so we started prepping for the meeting. Cora is a rock star! She is full of hilarious ideas and boundless energy and is so easy to work with and off of. After having 1 emceeing experience under my belt, I felt a lot more prepared and had a realistic expectation of what it was like to be an emcee. And then it all fell to pieces when, at the start of the meeting, my mic wouldn’t turn on. As I was trying to figure out how to turn the mic on the mindset that I had during Story #1 and #2 about emceeing and all the fears and insecurities that I had about myself and public speaking flooded me and continued long after I turned the mic on and started the night. None of the funny bits or segments could pull me out of the internal funk that I felt and by the time Cora and I walked off the stage I had sweat through my t-shirt. I knew I needed prayer so I went up to Scott, one of the directors of the weekly meeting team, and I asked him to pray for me. I, with my single emcee experience under my belt, thought that I knew what I was doing and hadn’t relied on God, and in that prayer I just recognized my brokenness in something as seemingly trivial as emceeing. And so I asked God to speak through me when I was on stage. Not that the voice of God, what I would imagine is a low rumble that is still perfectly audible, would speak through me, but that God would strip away any goals or expectations from me. That I wouldn’t try to be the funniest guy in the room but that I would use the gifts and talents and environment that God gave me to glorify Him in return. And so I went up there feeling empty, but the type of empty that doesn’t have any negative connotations attached to it and instead is strictly just something filled with nothing. I don’t even remember most of what I said. I know I made joke about being the only Indian on project. I know I made a pun about needing a hand. And I know I made a joke about spilling liquids in the church, a big no-no. That last joke, in retrospect, has really hit me. Because I wasn’t even intending to make a joke, it just sort of spilled out of me. I didn’t even consider it funny (I didn’t even laugh at a joke which, in hindsight, was actually surprisingly creative and would have normally been a joke that I would have laughed at), but as I looked out at the crowd I just saw people laughing, and it was almost an out of body experience where it was like a voice was saying “look how little you tried, yet how much of an impact God can have when you let Him. Good job.” And then the meeting ended and people were congratulating me and I was thinking “does one joke compensate for the fact that I stuttered so much and messed up even more?” I’m left with more questions than answers and without someone giving me an accurate assessment of what I did and did not do well in my emceeing job on Thursday, but I know that God was at work in that and I’ve learned so much in what it means to give areas of my life up to Him and how to do so.

This experience has been a big part of a lesson that I’ve learned this summer, which is this: when God wants me to do something he will 1) give me the talents and abilities and His Spirit and 2) he will provide the situation and opportunities to do so. I don’t know what other area of my life God wants to work in, and I’m sure that it’ll be tough and challenging during the time, but I know that this is all part of His plan to grow me and help me.

Also the title of this blog is a song written by (e)MC(ee) Hammer and I’ll try to take credit for what has happened but I can’t because I “Can’t Touch This”.

[oceancitysam]

Approved

Workmen

Are

Not

Ashamed

AWANA was a really big part of my identity growing up. AWANA, if you don’t know, is a club that helps kids memorize and recite Bible verses and, as someone that grew up a Christian and was naturally good at memorizing things, it was naturally something that I gravitated to. By the time I finished 6th grade I had memorized around 500 Bible verses and earned my Timothy Award, what you get for basically doing 4 years of AWANA. Once I had done all that, from 7th grade to the end of my senior year of high school, I helped younger kids do the same.

When I was in AWANA, I wouldn’t call myself someone that understood what it meant to be a true follower of Christ, so memorizing Bible verses became a way to make myself look and feel good. It wasn’t until recently that 1) I realized how important it is to commit God’s Word to memory and 2) God cultivated in me a desire to equip myself with His word. The change required from seeing the Bible as a chore that made me look good to a way to allow myself to fight the temptations of the devil and build myself up in a holy way has been a really long and difficult process that I can only attribute to the graciousness of God.

I don’t really know how or where to end this. I haven’t yet hammered down a plan to memorize parts of the Bible but I am in the process of doing so and I feel like Bible memorization will be a big part of my sophomore year and beyond.

[oceancitysam]

Inside Out

I realize I haven’t blogged for some time and there’s a lot of information to cover that I don’t want to just throw in your face. On an unrelated note, I saw Inside Out on Saturday, which is totally a movie you should go see, and I decided to use the characters to help me write the blog post.

Joy: There’s been lots of happy moments here at Ocean City, but wow happiness is so fleeting and unfulfilling. Moments of God-given joy, on the other hand, stay with you forever. I’ve revisited joyous moments years later and a warm feeling washes over me. One of those moments happened to me this week. Staff is leaving, which means that I won’t be seeing my discipler Steve. In our last discipleship session he gave me a sheet which detailed what he saw in me and how I could use what he saw in me for the foreseeable future. One of the sections of the sheet listed off the strengths he saw in me. Below I’m going to write out the list that he wrote on the paper and I’m going to bold the strengths

 that I know I have because of what God is doing in my life. I would like to stress that I am not doing this to show off, because I know I can’t do anything without God, but rather to boast in Him, who can do all things. With that said, here goes:

Strategic

Maximizer

Efficient

Analytical

Ambitious

Good Storyteller

Asks Good Questions

Direct

Understands People

Teachable Heart

Wants to Grow

Unafraid to Lead

Futuristic

Lives Out Priorities

Mature Social Poise

Polite

Solid Speaking Skills

Responsible

Student of the Word

Disciplined

Vulnerable

Heart for Campus

Big Picture Mindset

Determined

Fun & Enjoyable

They’re all in bold, if you can’t tell, because they are all His doing. And it just hit me, during discipleship, just how crazy it is that I am here. If, when I was applying to colleges during senior year, you told me that I would go to school in Arizona and that I’d spend my summer in New Jersey, I wouldn’t have believed you. More importantly, it hit me that these none of these strengths were apparent in my life even a year ago. God, for no apparent reason, chose to grow and develop me in these specific areas and all I can do is thank Him and glorify Him by using them for His glory. He has brought me into the right situations, placed the right people, and taught me the right lessons to get me to where I am. And the best part of this is that it is none of my doing. If it were that’d mean that I could mess things up which would mean that I would mess things up. On the other hand, in realizing that this is all God, I can just enjoy where I am at right now and be grateful that whatever is up ahead is God’s way of growing me even more.

Sadness: Not everything is daisies and roses. All the staff will leave by Saturday, and I’ve heard that project gets a lot better when they do leave, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck when they do leave now. I really enjoyed having Steve as my discipler, he quickly became trust and talk with about anything and I’m just really going to miss him.

Anger: All the students were handed specific roles that were handled by staff that, now that the staff is leaving, would otherwise go undone. I got handed outreach team, which is something I’m super stoked about and is totally a God thing, but I hate how much I was judging and comparing myself to students that got handed other roles. I thought I had really worked on my pride, but it’s something that I now realize is going to be something I’m working on until the day I die.

Fear: The boardwalk is a very unique environment, one which allows for lots of spiritual conversations. There are new faces every single day, and lots of them. Many people also come from a Catholic background and are willing to talk about faith. In one week, with God working through our conversations, OCSM15 saw 128 new believers! That’s amazing! But it really got me thinking. Many of the people that we talk to are about the same age as me, and for those new Christians I would imagine that hearing the truth of the gospel and then going back to their old situations would make it very easy to fall away from their newfound faith. And while it is very hard to have followup meetings and help new Christians grow in their faith when they might only be here for a couple of days, an even harder thing to do is to ask how many of those 128 new Christians will fall away from the faith.

Disgust: The community here at OCSM15 is one that I doubt I’ll ever be immersed in ever again, which makes it very hard to pull myself away many times. It is so easy to prioritize the community over God and miss quiet times or prayer and I hate myself when I do, but usually after the day is done because I’m too busy having a good time in community.

That’s about it. Battery’s about to die so in conclusion 1) hope you enjoyed the blog and 2) go see Inside Out!

[oceancitysam]

Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them? For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Romans 11:33-36

[oceancitysam]

The best blog post you’ve ever read, for shore

Here’s a recap of my week:

I went out sharing with Nell, a friend from Miami, and we were able to survey and go through the KGP with 2 high school guys. The KGP (Knowing God Personally) is a 4 step booklet that helps the reader better understand what it means to have a relationship with God, and I was blessed to be able to lead the 2 high schoolers through it, the first time I had ever done that. Unfortunately they didn’t fully understand what it meant to be in a relationship with God, but we left our phone numbers with them in case they had questions.

I’m fully funded, which is great. All glory to God!

Things are still picking up here on the boardwalk so I’ve only been scheduled for 2 cashier shifts at the grocery store I work at. I’ve not had much to do this entire week which turned me into a beach bum.

It’s just been great getting to know people even better. Students on the quarter system are still arriving, and things are picking up, so I’m trying to enjoy the free time that I feel won’t be as plentiful in a couple weeks time.

[oceancitysam]

Faith makes a fool of what makes sense/ Grace found my heart where logic ends

Hillsong United: Here Now (Madness)

[oceancitysam]

I give what I can't keep/I gain what I can't lose I wear God's peace on my feet like new shoes

Dre Da Flame

[oceancitysam]

Real Talk

 It’s currently 2 AM on the day that I fly out to Ocean City for two and a half months. That’s weird. It’s weird writing this knowing that in a couple hours I’ll be headed to the east coast when just 10 days ago I had been on the west coast for the past 4 months. More than anything I’m just filled with gratitude that God has given me the opportunities and abilities to be able to grow and develop and explore and in it all just see Him more clearly. I just want to take this time to thank the people God has put in my life. Shoutout to my parents for understanding how bad Illinois schools are and paying that out of state tuition so I can go to such a great school. Shoutout to my freshman year roommate for being just about average and not subjecting me to the nightmares that so many Res Life kids have to go through. Shoutout to all my friends for being interesting and showing me God’s light in their own unique way. And shoutout to you, the reader of this blog, for making the conscious decision to read this blog and support me in this way, knowing full well that there’d be a pretty good chance that you’d be subjected to some pretty bad puns (of which there are none. Shocking, I know. It’s late.) 

While it’s obviously important to recognize the time and effort that people have poured into me, that is not the main point of this blog post. This post is about prayer. Of what seems the four main aspects of Christianity: prayer, community, Bible reading, and evangelism I have come to assess that prayer is what I’m worst at. Not that I’m great at the other 3, but I’m relatively better at the other 3 than at prayer. Prayer just seems so simple to me, even when I know that it’s not. Just like community is more than just hanging out with friends, Bible reading is more than just reading, and evangelism is just talking with others I know that prayer is so much more than just talking. Prayer is our way of talking to our almighty, amazing Creator. Especially when you realize the spiritual battlefield that you and I live in, John Piper’s assertion that “prayer is the walkie-talkie on the battlefield of the world” means that it’s that much more vital for us to have a firm grip on the state of our prayer lives and use it often and effectively. Prayer is definitely something that I feel like God is going to help me grow in during these upcoming two and a half months. With that being said, I WANT YOUR PRAYERS! Everyone needs prayer about something and not only would you have someone else lift up your requests and thanks to God, but you’d also help me grow in that area! So text, Facebook message, Groupme your prayer requests and then pat yourself on the back because you’ve killed two birds with one stone.

Now I have a request from you. I need you to pray for me and for the rest of the people at Ocean City. Pray for an effectiveness of our message, that God would stir up real change in the hearts of those we talk to and that they would come to recognize Him as Lord. And that if they didn’t respond to us that we would have planted a seed in them for someone else to nurture and develop. Pray that we would share without ceasing, recognizing the amazing opportunity we have and taking advantage of it to its fullest potential. Specifically, pray these two verses over us which my grandparents showed me (shoutout to my grandparents and grandparents in general):

Colossians 4:2-6

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace,seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. 

Ephesians 6:19-20

Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. 

When my grandparents showed me these verses they really hit home and affirmed that prayer was going to be a really big part of my time in Ocean City. These are just so relatable to what I’ll be doing. God’s word is so great!

Second and final prayer request: pray for humility for me. As I’ve seen the Lord peel away the layers and mold me into the man he has planned it’s been really easy to take credit for the change in my life and say that I did it when I know that it’s not true. If every time God does something in my life I interrupt and try to take the credit I’ll only be stunting my own growth. That would suck because I know that God has big plans for my life, just like He does for you! (Read this far and you’ll get a compliment too!) I don’t really have a super applicable verse but prayers would still be super appreciated nonetheless. 

It’s 3 AM CT and I have to leave at 4 to catch my flight at 6 so I should sign off. In case you didn’t read the in between stuff:

Thank you!

Let me pray for you.

Pray for open hearts on the boardwalk for all of us and for humility for me, specifically.

[oceancitysam]

Bearly a Month Away

Let me start off by saying that the Gregorian calendar annoys me. Christmas and New Year’s roll around, and the days are cold and slow, which in turn makes the weeks and months cold and slow. I keep on writing 2014 instead of 2015 because Mr. Gregory chose to stick the start of the new year partway through winter, and BOOM; it’s now May and you’re left beary worried that you just hibernated through all of January, February, March, and April because all you remember was curling up under your blanket in your den to keep from going outside.

That brings me to my freshman year. It’s now May, I leave for Ocean City in less than a month, and the pace at which this year has flew by has been both frightening and exciting. On one hand it’s scary thinking that I’m basically a quarter of the way through college with the real world is looming, but on the other hand I’ve been so blessed to have had such a great freshman year and these next three years are going to be some of the best of my life because they’re going to build on the experiences of this year.

Freshman year passing by so quickly has really turned my focus to the future; specifically to Ocean City and sophomore year. I know two things will be true about OC: 1) The two months I spend in OC will be the quickest two months of my life and 2) I know I’m already going to miss the people I meet there and after leaving OC life without my new friends will seem impawsible. Accepting these two facts has given me an urgency to make the most of my time there. I know I won’t be maximizing the full potential of going to OC if all I do is focus on relationships and my own spiritual growth. While those are both very important, these two months are a unique opportunity to learn. I’ll learn how others share the gospel, what other Cru movements do differently that I can bring back to Arizona, and what a community on fire for the Lord looks like. Answers to questions like these will be just as solid evidence that I went to OC on par with the relationships, the crazy Facebook photos, and the marked increase in my spikeball skills.

I already know that Ocean City is going to be great. Sharing on the boardwalk, immersing myself in such a God-centered community, and growing exponentially in my walk with the Lord will all be experiences that I’ll keep for the rest of my life. But the reality of the situation is that the two months that I spend there are going to go by in the blink of an eye. Soon I’ll be gearing up for my sophomore, junior, and senior years. And what will be far more important than the pounds I gained from eating so many dollar slice pizzas will be what I learned in OC. I’m not going to Ocean City to stay there, I’m going there to come back.

[oceancitysam]

I found this video on Youtube that promotes OCSM15. In it, voices give their opinion what they liked the most and why you should go. While I can’t validate that the people talking actually went to Ocean City, the video is very well made and is very convincing.