GYC 2009: unASHAMED

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Justin Kim, Amy Sheppard, and Nomthandazo Malambo:  GPA's and SDA's

Justin Kim

A Work That Must Be Done: The Prophecy of Public Campus Ministries

Gracious Father, it's easy to get pushed by a schedule.

Lord, we desire to be pushed by the Holy Spirit.

Lord, we ask that you see the sincerity in our hearts, And we declare to you we are sinners and we need the blood of Jesus to cover us at all times.

And Lord, we desire to aspire to be like Jesus only by your grace.

So Father, bless my brothers and sisters in this humble little room and ask that to drill open our hearts and our minds, to be open for what heaven would teach us today.

Second and fifth will be done by Amy Shepard.

Anyway, you'll find out if you sit around here.

The seminar is entitled, A Work That Must Be Done, A Prophecy of Public Campus Ministries.

And I am a program director for the Michigan Conference Public Campus Ministries Department in Michigan.

My name is Justin Kim, by the way, if you guys want to take notes.

You guys can tell who the public students are because you're writing down everything that I'm saying already.

That's only something that campus kids do.

It shows you that you're attentive and you're used to the seminar format.

What we're going to purport today is the need for campus ministries.

And for those of you, how many of you are in a campus ministry right now, either as a student or as a worker right now, please raise your hand nice and high, be unashamed of who you are, and show your armpit stains that you have.

We want to, at least for those of you listening in, we want to at least inspire and instruct on why we should do campus ministries.

This is not a stage in your life that while you're in campus that you do campus ministries, while you're on a university you do campus ministries.

This is a calling that we're trying to get the word out on.

Today, the first session will be a study in spirit of prophecy.

Ellen White has a lot to talk about public campus ministries and a lot of them are instructions and a lot of them are warnings.

And I think it's very fruitful for us to study.

So if in this first seminar is a lot of spirit of prophecy quotes here, the writings from Ellen White, Please don't be discouraged.

I don't believe the other seminar is going to be such, but this 1 is just because of the nature of it.

The subtitle is The Prophecy of Public Campus Ministries.

In the 2003 General Conference Commission Report on Higher Education, they're estimating that 75% of Adventist young people were currently enrolled in non-Avenist educational institutions.

Recent estimates have pushed up to 91 or 92%, okay?

The remaining percentage is either not going to college, which is popular in the southern or the midwestern states, or they're going to the avid institutions such as Andrews, I'm going blank, Southern, La Sierra, UC, PUC, whatever the UCs there are out there.

So what's happening, the rest of the youth are going to state schools because, 1, they're cheaper.

They're going to better schools academically because they're economically better, there's more opportunities.

There are majors that are being offered, etc.

What's happening is you have the most talented young people who are entering into a field where they can easily lose their faith.

That's a potential future tithe money that the church could be raking back in.

Okay, I'm not having a cynical, the church is after your money perspective, but this is a reality, yes?

And if we go and get a higher degree and we go into the world and make money and the Lord blesses us, shouldn't that money go back to the Lord's work?

But if they lose their faith on campus, what happens to that future potential?

And then the smartest Adventists, actually, if the opportunity is given to them, they're going to go to the Harvards and Yales, MITs and Stanfords.

The church is very scared to invest in secular education because, 1, they don't believe in it.

They shouldn't believe in secular education.

But if 75% to 92% of the young people are leaving, shouldn't they invest in a ministry for students in that field?

Yes, okay, does that mean we endorse people who are going to prison?

We're ministering to them because they're there anyway.

2003, you can find that, you can go to, the link is there, that was Access 2005.

Next year in the 2010 GC session, there will be another report and we'll get you an update if that happens.

By the way, this is to kind of blast some of you.

Education is not a degree, and I know you know that, but what is education?

Education is not a bachelor's degree, it's not knowing more stuff.

It's not using high vocabulary just because you know it and use it in a public setting and pretend you're smarter than everyone else.

Ellen White writes, It starts from birth.

You are educated since you were in your mother's tummy.

It continues throughout life and throughout eternity.

It's in the context of the great controversy.

I'm going to go fast here because this stuff is just for you.

Just wash it over your brain and later we're going to go into the main stuff.

I'll tell you when it is and you can start writing that.

The great controversy were character development for humanity and the ministry of Jesus.

Character development is the main point of education.

Is character development the main focus on public universities right now?

Does the professor care less about your moral and ethical foundation outside of philosophy professors?

Okay, and the majority of those philosophy professors have a different agenda altogether.

Education should lead individuals to be like Jesus in character and also to be what?

And that's the primary focus of education, to be useful.

University students after they graduate, are they useful?

You're not answering because you feel guilty in saying no.

I mean, What function do you have in society?

You just mooch off of a democratic system that we have today.

And can you be useful in the public university?

And hopefully that GYC students and Avenis students who are converted can get that.

Nomthandazo Malambo-Amankwah

Led and Taught of God: The Methodology of Public Campus Ministries

Our gracious Father, Lord, we come before you this morning seeking that you would teach us and instruct us again.

And Father, I ask at this time that you would put your words in my mouth and let this time be a blessing and encouragement to each 1 of our hearts.

Let each of us hear exactly what we need to hear and prepare us, dear Lord, to be missionaries that you can use on these campuses to further your work.

Now this will be a little bit hard with the mic, but we'll make it work.

So 1 of the things that I hope you guys are realizing by now is that campus ministry is not easy.

It's 1 of the hardest mission fields ever.

And as a result, because it's so hard, because there's such dangers of being on a secular campus, campus ministry calls for the highest caliber of missionaries, the very best, the most excellent type of missionaries.

And 1 of the things that I hope you saw in the quotations that Pastor Kim read was that those who enter these campuses as missionaries need to have the truth wrought into their very beings, right?

In other words, they need to be living, breathing, moving manifestos of the truth.

And in John 17 3 Jesus says that, Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth.

So we talk about the truth being wrought into our being, we're talking about the word of God being wrought into, being worked into our very beings.

So we need to be living, breathing, moving manifestos of the Word of God.

Because unless we have that experience, we cannot be campus missionaries.

It calls for the highest caliber of people who just have the Word of God living in them.

And they are testimonies, living testimonies of the power of the gospel, right?

So if I could give this session an alternate title, I'll call it Simply the Word.

I'm just going to take us through the methodology of Campus Ministries and the way we put it at Campus is we say biblical simplicity, that's it, just simply the Word of God.

And we're gonna look at this on 2 different levels.

First, how it is that when we get into doing ministry, all we need is just the Word.

And secondly, that we cannot preach the Word until we've had our own living experience with it.

So first of all, take your Bibles with me.

We're going to go through the book of Acts quickly.

And I just want to use this to highlight a couple of themes that are prevalent in the book of Acts.

So that's what we say in Boston, have mercy.

Okay, we're going to do this quickly, I'm going to ask you guys to just follow with me and we're going to read through and I just want to pick out a couple of important things that we're going to identify here in the book of Acts.

So reading from verse 13, we find Paul and his companion, Luis from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem.

But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch and Pisidia and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down." Okay?

And when you read the rest of the verses, Paul gets up to preach Jesus to them in that synagogue, right?

So we see Paul and his companion, here they are in, call this Perga, how am I gonna use this?

We find them in Perga, they enter the synagogue, and what they begin to do is they begin to preach Jesus as the risen Christ, right?

Still in chapter 13, let's go to verse 42.

It says, when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath, right?

And so the Gentiles had been teaching Paul to come and preach what?

You guys can talk to me, this is going to be interactive.

They're saying that these words might be preached to them again the next Sabbath.

And so what Paul is preaching is just simply the word.

These words, we're preaching them again the next Sabbath.

When you come down to verse 44, it says, The next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.

All right, So what are they coming to hear?

So follow, you're going to see this repeated time and time again in the journeys of Paul.

They're coming to hear the Word of God, nothing else but the Word.

We're going to jump now, skip with me to chapter 14.

And again, I'm just going to show us this to make a point.

There's, "'The unbelieving Jews stir up the Gentiles, "'and they cause chaos, "'and Paul and his companion flee.'" And this is in verse 6.

"'They fled to Lystra and to Derb, cities of Lyconia, and unto the region that lieth Rhondabat.

So they're preaching the word, they're preaching the gospel, right?

They flee from Perger to Lystra and Derb, and when they get there, they just preach the gospel.

Chapter 17, I've skipped over 15 and 16 because I just want to get to my point here.

Chapter 17, reading verses 1 and 2, Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews.

And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and 3 Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, okay?

And so Paul is reasoning here out of the word of God out of the scriptures and I love the phrase it uses the word Reasoning sometimes we think that we need philosophies and human, you know All kinds of intelligences out there Paul just reasons how from the scriptures and that's isn't that the Word of God is reasonable, you get what I'm saying?

And all you need when you're preaching the gospel on campus, reason from the Word of God.

Thessalonica, Deribus, everywhere he goes, reasoning from the Scriptures.

But when the Jews of Thessalonica, and so just to give you guys a little bit of background, Paul's preaching in Thessalonica, there's chaos, there's uproar, he flees to Berea.

And he's in Berea again preaching the Word, and he says in verse 13, when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was preached of Paul at Berea, they came thither also and stirred up the people.

So what is being preached by Paul at Berea?

And you see another theme that will come up over and over again is what I'll call resistance or persecution or conflict.

Every time Paul preaches, there's resistance, there's people opposing him, coming up with all kinds of schemes to probably even kill him.

But Paul just flees, next city, what is he doing?

You can persecute me, try to kill me, doesn't matter, I'm just gonna keep on preaching.

And that's all he does, reasoning from the scriptures, preaching the word, even in Berea, right?

Now, something I absolutely love, verses 16 and 17.

Now, Paul flees from Berea to Athens, right?

Derib, Thessalonica, Berea and then now he finds himself in Athens.

And verse 16 says, now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.

And I love that because it says that Paul is walking around in Athens and he sees the whole city given to idolatry.

Amy Sheppard

The Strongest Argument: The Adventist Life as a Witness on Campus

Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for the break that we just had, for the meal that has filled our bellies, and we just pray now that it will help us to think that as we look at your word and we look at what Ellen White has to say about how our lifestyle should be an argument in favor for you that we will understand, Lord.

But even more, we pray that we may come to know you better, so that our lives may reflect you to those we come in contact with, so that they may desire to come to know you too.

We ask these things humbly in Jesus' name, amen.

Okay, so as you can see, the title of this seminar is The Strongest Argument.

And as Pastor Kim said, I am currently a student in law school.

And law is all about making the strongest argument.

We have to get up in front of panels of 3 judges at a time in this extracurricular activity called MOOC Court.

And what happens is you have a nice little presentation, kind of like what I have here, and there's 3 people there watching you make it.

But if they don't understand something you say, they're not polite and just sit there, and they don't even raise their hand if they have a question.

They interrupt you and they're like, counselor, now isn't it true that, and they start bugging you with different types of questions and you have to stop for your presentation, you have to answer their question, and you're always hoping that you have the best argument for it, Because after your presentation is done, the lawyer for the other side of the case has to make their presentation, and you want the argument that's most consistent that the judges will adopt so that your client wins.

So a strong argument is something that we know in general is important.

But especially in faith, we want the strongest argument for people to know why they should believe in Jesus.

And what we're gonna look at today, that the strongest argument we can ever present is not 1 that is doctrinal necessarily.

It does result as, It does come as a result of studying God's word, but it's something that you don't necessarily show in a book.

It's not something you necessarily preach in a sermon.

Rather, it's something that people see in you and in me every single day.

What we're gonna be talking about at first is gonna overlap a little bit with what Tondo said.

So if you weren't here in the last session you get some review and if you were here you get some review too.

But what I call this is authentic Christianity.

Now I like Macs and how do you guys know that this computer is a Mac?

There's an Apple on it and some of you ladies maybe not here I don't know you carried like certain types of purses Like if there's a big C on the purse, what kind of purse is that?

Those are like the only 2 logos I can think of off the top of my head right now.

And with these brands, we know that they are authentic.

Now, if you go into a big city, they might try to make like a Prada purse into like a Prado purse, and they'll like, you know, stick the tiny logo.

And so it almost looks real, but if you look close enough, you see the mark is not authentic.

And what happened was, when I was doing campus ministry as a student, I was in charge of Bible study.

And I had a student who came out named Delilah.

And actually, she was a friend of a student who was coming to the Bible study, and she would always be sitting in the room, We were having the Bible study in her friend's room.

And we would always invite her, Delilah, do you wanna join us for Bible study?

And she'd be like, what I don't understand about Christians is, if they love Jesus, how come they're so hypocritical?

How come they're so, like not even saying yes or no to the Bible study.

She starts like going against Christians.

I'm like, I just asked if you wanted to study the Bible.

But she wasn't ready to open the Bible because she had had bad experiences with Christians in the past.

And so what we just started to do was develop a friendship with her.

We would include her in our conversation at the beginning of the Bible study.

She'd always stay in the room for the Bible study, but she'd sit at her computer.

So she'd see who we were before, and then she'd kind of listen to us having the Bible study.

And as time continued to go on, she left that computer screen that she would usually be at during the Bible study, and she would come closer and closer to our meeting, and she finally started getting engaged in the Bible studies.

But The question that she had at the beginning that I didn't know how to answer at the time was, because my response to her the first time that she said, what about these Christians?

That they're not saying, or they're not doing what Christians say that they should do.

And I said, well, maybe they're not real Christians.

And she's like, well, how can you tell the difference between a real Christian and an unreal Christian?

And so I started asking people and I started studying and that's what we came across.

So how do you know what a real Christian is?

What's the brand of authenticity on a Christian where people can look at and be like, if I follow Jesus, that's what I will be like.

Not if I look at, if I follow Jesus, I'm gonna be just like everyone else or I'm gonna be the same as I am right now.

And So, her question was similar to some other famous people.

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians.

Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

There's this problem that Christians don't seem to follow in the same footsteps that Jesus did.

Put another way, more simply, it says this.

If all Christians acted like Christ, the whole world would be Christian.

Like, this is Gandhi, you know, a great peace guy.

He won the Nobel Prize, And he was a very intelligent man.

And he said, if all Christians actually acted like Christ, they would all be Christians.

And when I read this quote, I stopped and I thought about it.

I don't know if I've ever actually heard, and I'm sure I have, but I had to really rack my brain.

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