Our Sneaky God

God brings us together with a Stanford student.

God is sneaky. I’m pretty sure that’s not in the Bible (unless you read a very loose translation), but I’m convinced of the fact. He tells us to be wise as serpents, and He models that for us.

For example, today Paula and I shared at a church in Burlingame, CA called Three Cities Assembly. The San Francisco Forty-Niners had a playoff game today, so I was expecting the attendance to be a little bit down. Other than that, I wasn’t expecting anything unusual.

God had other plans, though.

After the service, it’s customary for a missionary guest speaker to be available to shake hands and chat with people. I met the head of anthropology for Wycliffe Bible Translators after the service today–that was pretty cool. I also met a guy who used to be in a Chi Alpha group led by some friends of mine in Stockton, CA. That was also pretty cool. It’s not unusual to meet very cool people after the service.

I also met one of my upstairs neighbors, which was pretty surprising (and cool).

The best was yet to come, however.

Towards the end of the goodbyes, I met a young man named Charles who was visiting the church for the first time. Charles is a first-year Stanford grad student, and even though Burlingame is a good 25 miles away from Stanford he decided to visit the church today because he used to know Pastor Herndon back when they both lived in Las Vegas (Charles was actually in Jay’s youth group).

Charles has been trying to find a church that can accomodate his crazy student schedule: every third or fourth Sunday he won’t be able to go to church. Today he learned about Chi Alpha @ Stanford and he was able to hear me preach.

I guess he liked what he heard, because he’s planning to join us for worship on campus this Tuesday!

How providential of God–to bring us to the same church at the same time and arrange a connection. He’s sneaky I tell you…

International Students at Stanford

Students from around the world come to study at Stanford.

I came across this information regarding international student enrollment at Stanford. Some of the information is a year or two out-of-date (which surprised me–it seems like this could be dynamically generated from a database and be 100% accurate at all times).

1/3 of all grad students are international, as are 1/20 of all undergrads. That works out to something like 20–25% of all Stanford students hail from another country.

The Top Ten Foreign Nations (among graduate students)

  • China
  • Korea
  • India
  • Canada
  • Taiwan
  • France
  • Japan
  • Singapore
  • Turkey
  • Mexico

Talk about potential for global impact!

Minor Site Tweak

I get even more Flash-ified.

I just redesigned the site navigational system using Flash. It should degrade gracefully (meaning that if you can’t run Flash, you should still be able to use the site).

Now that the site navigational system is in Flash, I can do some pretty cool things with it. I’ll try to restrain myself from doing anything too obnoxious (but I’d like to do some cool stuff that still loads quickly… feel free to post links to sites that you think use Flash well in the comments).

I’m still hoping to post some book musings soon. We’ll see…

Whew–one long day

driving to churches all day long

Yesterday Paula and I got up at 5:30am to drive to a church in Salida to share with them about our ministry, and then we drove to Sonora to share at that church.

We didn’t get home until 11:30 at night!

Still, we had a great day. Both the churches were swell (although very different).

I’ve been meaning to post some reflections on books I’ve read lately. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to do that sometime tonight…

Happy New Year!

Woohoo–we’re back!

salt2002.jpgWe just got back from Chi Alpha’s Winter Conference yesterday. Wow!

It’s hard to summarize a multi-day conference in a such a brief posting, so I’ll content myself with observing that the worship and the teaching were both top-notch, and the campground itself was stunningly beautiful. The overwhelming majority of students that we talked with were having significant spiritual experiences. It was very cool.

Also, I had the opportunity to teach a workshop called “Reasonable Answers to Honest Questions” (in which we talked very frankly about handling doubts and intellectual challenges to the faith) and I was also able to facilitate a seminar called “the Idea Exchange” (in which we just shared neat ideas from one campus to another).

Although the drive back was nearly eight hours and we were quite tired, we decided to have a joint New Year’s celebration. We met in one of the student’s apartments and had a jolly old time!

P.S. Expect website updates to return to their usual frequency (once or twice a week).

A Student’s Guide To Liberal Learning

I just read a marvelous essay by James Schall (a priest and professor at Georgetown) called A Student’s Guide to Liberal Learning (link found from the author’s homepage, which I ran across courtesy of the Claremont Institute). It’s simply outstanding (although I found the style a little odd at times).

Schall argues that students must take responsibility for their own learning. Two passages serve as a decent introduction:

When a student arrives at a university, especially a prestige [sic] one, he will probably think that what he is about to study will be the best that he can possibly come by. He naturally expects that what he is getting is, in fact, his “money’s worth”, as they say.… This particular essay is not written for students who have no problems with the system or who, even less, do not want to find any. They will never know the difference. They will never doubt that what they are being taught is anything but the high quality stuff that it is touted to be in the brochures and media or, apparently, confirmed by the high cost of their tuition. Often however, from one’s religious or philosophical background, from one’s family, perhaps from a friend or a teacher or from something that one chanced to read or see, a young man or woman will be at least alert and, hopefully, begin to suspect that all is not well in academia, or in the culture, or, for that matter, in one’s own soul.

and also

E. F. Schumacher, in his great book, A Guide for the Perplexed, tells of going to Oxford as a young man, that is, of going to what was thought to be the greatest university of his time. He discovered that what was taught and discussed there bore little meaning and truth to him. Schumacher was forced to look elsewhere for some semblance of an education that dealt with the highest things, that took seriously what the great philosophical and religious minds really were talking about, issues that he already felt pressing in his own soul but were never addressed in the great university.

And one last observation which I found particularly interesting: In spite of most of what a student will read on the topic, revelation seeks reason, is addressed to mind and fosters it. The Bible simply has profound things to tell us, things we clearly ought to know. We now have students in class, moreover, even those who have gone to church or synagogue all their lives, who have not the faintest accurate idea about what is said in Scripture, a work that almost every generation before this era has read carefully either to understand or to dispute or to live by.

If you find Schall’s essay helpful, you might also want to read my earlier posting on Becoming Wise In College.

the rush continues

just an update on our holidays, and an request to pray for our students at SALT

There’s been a paucity of postings lately, and so I thought I should explain: we’ve been on our annual Christmas visit to Louisiana, so it’s been very difficult to get significant internet time.

Actually, I probably won’t post again until next year. We got in last night and in less than two hours we’ll be on the road again!

We’ve got to turn around and head down to the Chi Alpha Winter Conference (called SALT) held near LA. Looks like the car will be receiving another 1,000 miles or so…

We have around 10 people heading down to SALT. SALT is usually a very significant time in students’ lives: people are transformed, filled with the Holy Spirit, receive specific vocational guidance, and are generally touched by God in some pretty significant ways. Please pray for our time there!

See you next year.