Realization After the 6 Week Evangelism Training

   A lot has happened since I last posted (before yesterday's post).  Tonight was the last Evangelism Training of the 6 week class taught by my friend Milly.  Tonight was all about debriefing about what had happened during those 6 weeks, and things to make the class better, as Milly is going to take the Evangelism class to the other cities with the other Living Lights as well.  (Kenosha, Pleasant Prairie, Cadillac, Taughton, Wellington, and Germany).  A flood of realizations came to my head that I thought I would share.

   During the summer as stated in a previous blogpost, God told me to get more involved with my church, and the people of the church.  I asked God for an opportunity to do this, and on the second week I went to church after summer break, Milly's Evangelism Training class was introduced,  I knew this is what God wanted me to do.  That day was the first time I officially met Milly, after I had heard so much about her.  Now being that the class is now over, I realized I have gotten to know a group from the church so much better, and they have been so encouraging to me.

    It was so great to be taught about genuine evangelism.  On the first night Milly taught us that Evangelism shouldn't be boxed in.  There are so many ways to do Evangelism, and you shouldn't follow a certain technique.  Evangelism should be lead by the Holy Spirit.  The way we had been taught to do Evangelism with Cru (Christian group on campus) is to do spiritual surveys, or to share a a booklet called a KGP (Getting to Know God Personally).  I feel like the use of the KGP and surveys are more like forced Evangelism rather than genuine Evangelism, all though they are easier to use if you don't really know how to start an evangelistic conversation.  I just think it's more fruitful to have the Holy Spirit lead you in the conversation, and gives you away to talk about God.  In the class it was kind of also taught that  God will lead you to who you should talk to, you shouldn't go up to people randomly.  In Cru we were taught to just walk up to random strangers and start talking to them.  Of course God wants everyone in his kingdom, but he also knows when they're ready to hear it.

   Through these 6 weeks there has also been an immense growth in my walk with God, even being baptized in the Holy Spirit. I used to have an open-mind about all the Christian topics, but I feel like God has given me a strong opinion on things so I can talk to other people confidently without doubt that I'm saying something wrong to others, and has just made me way more bold as a person.  If I feel lead to do something, I just do it.   I without hesitation share my testimony, and my faith.  I can talk about things that usually I'd feel uncomfortable talking about with people, and was given knowledge to be able to answer other people's questions that they may have.  Through having such a strong opinion on faith though I have been discouraged.  A few people have definitely disagreed with me, and thought that by me having such a strong opinion that I was actually putting myself above them.  They thought that I thought that I was more spiritually strong then them.  This doesn't matter though.  We are all children of God, therefore equal, but all of us are in varying stages of our faith with God.

   I have been also exercising my faith muscle.  I've been praying over people, and trusting that the images I see or the words I am given are prophetic.  You won't always be right of course, but you need to keep trying, because God "is" talking to you!  I asked God to show me the world differently and he sure did in such a wonderful way.  I thought this post would be longer.  I was inspired to write it last night but got discouraged so I don't know if this is all I wanted to say, but I'll add to it if I think of anything.

Things I've Learned This Semester so far

1) Don't rely on one person too much, this will keep you from growing.

2) Being alone is comfortable, I don't need to be with someone 24/7 (I can eat meals alone comfortably)

3) There's no need for me to feel insecure

4) I can easily befriend cute guys, and they'll like hanging out with me too.  (This isn't high school)

5) Prayer is so powerful.

6) Take my problems to God first instead of other people.  

7) Yik Yak should never be downloaded ( I didn't gain anything from it, except for one day when someone let me in the dorm when I forgot my keys.) Everything is so negative on there. 

8)  Since being alone is comfortable to me, so is me being single

9) Making goals is helpful.  I made a goal to get more involved with my church, and I have met so many wonderful people this year through it.  

10) I like talking about God, I could keep talking about him, and my life for hours.  

11) Things might be awkward when you first meet someone, but you'll get through it

12) Don't do too much 

13) It's impossible to eat healthy on campus, and I'll probably gain 10 pounds.

14) I'm glad I chose Parkside.

What happened in September?

September 1st-4th:  Read my first week of school summary blogs.

September 5th:  Went to Buffalo Wild Wings with Laurette, and hung out at Regency Mall.

September 6th: Joint Church meetings.  (All three Living Lights in the area met at one place for a message and worship)

September 7th: Went to Waukesha with Chris and Robert to pick up supplies for the Freshman Kits we were making for the Org Fair.  Stopped and got lunch at the Soup Depot, the later put the kits together.

September 8th: First Cru Meeting of the year.  Met up with Aly for our first Discipleship time, and caught up over dinner at a stir fry place.  Only a few new people.  Talked to Mike and Jeremy for a long time.

September 9th: The Org Fair took place under the bridge on campus.  The Cru stand was placed by the icecream stand, which provided more traffic but also attracted bees.  A lot of surveys were filled out, and "Jesus Without Religion" books were taken.  I walked around myself, and got a ton of free stuff including like 7 CDs.  That night we sorted all the people into piles by if they were interested in a bible study or not, and who to follow up with.  Snoopwhale was reborn.

September 10th:  Went and did a survey followup in the dorms, was only able to meet up with three people.  There had been a fraternity/sorority gathering/party in the Den that night.

September 11th:  A day filled with nothing and relaxing?

September 12th:  Got frozen yogurt and talked with Christina.

September 13th: Went to church, and got to meet two of Trae's friends.  We met up at Starbucks afterward where we had spiritual discussions.

September 14th:  Went to an Advising Meeting for Cru with Jeremy.

September 15th: Had Discipleship with Aly where we went through part of the Cru Doctrine.  A lot of people showed up to Cru this week, my roommate Christina being one of them.  We all went to Varsitea Flatts afterwards where we were provided free food and drinks, and got to know each other.

September 16th: After classes I went swimming with Kelsey and a few other Intervarsity people.  We played a game where we through a water bottle in the pool, and had to go find it. (The water bottle was completely invisible under the water).  We also played Sharks and Minnows, and just hang out in the water.  Afterwards I met up with Felicia at a pizza restaurant in Racine before our first Living Light Evangelism Training which took place afterwards.

September  17th:  Met another one of  Trae's friends, and hung out with a few Living Light people in the morning.  That night saw the "War Room" with Nicole, Jared, Mike, and Jeremy.  Which is almost the exact people that were in my car on the way to the Brewers Game.  After seeing the War Room went to Culvers for icecream where it began to downpour, so much so there was a Flash Flood Warning.  We eventually got back to campus after deciding to bear the rain after it wouldn't slow down.  Once we got back to campus hung out with Jeremy and Mike for a little bit.

September 18th:  I went home for the weekend,

September 19th;  Relaxed at home, mom took me to Walmart.

September 20th:  Circumstances brought Amber back to Allenton so I was able to hang out with her.  We went to a pumpkin farm, got icecream at Dairy Queen, and painted pumpkins.  :)

September 21st: Got my blood drawn, then went to my first IV meeting.  Jeremy decided to make it his first IV meeting too.  After the IV meeting they were giving out Liquid Nitrogen icecream.  It really good. Door got jammed so I had to wait out in my apartment living room, drained after giving blood and 5 hours of classes. Did tie-dye that night with Jeremy at the Art Club tie-dye event.

September 22nd: Another Cruesday.  I felt super overwhelmed with all the work I needed to do, so I canceled discipleship.  Turned out it wasn't as bad as I thought, and I was able to work on most of it and get things done.  Only a small amount of people came to Cru, including my friend Felicia from church who seemed skeptical about the whole message.  I honestly think Trae did an immensely better job describing Grace last year then the speaker did tonight.  Hung out in the den afterwards.

September 23rd: Had another Evangelism Training.  Before I went to that I washed the tie-dye shirts, and worked on homework.  At the Evangelism Training we discussed cool things that had happened during the week, then watched Holy Ghost.  Holy Ghost is a documentary about Evangelistic Miracles.

September 24th: I was suppose to meet up with Milly today, the leader of the Evangelism trainings today, but my door decided to be jammed again right before I needed to get my keys to head out so we had to cancel.  My roommate bought us a pet fish.  He is a pure white Beta fish with an orange mark on his head and bright blue eyes.  Went to the first bible study of the year.  The bible studies are divided by genders now.  Only one other girl showed up at the girls bible study, and I guess the guys had 6.  Made myself Orange Chicken.

September 25th:  Had an interview at 9am for a Spanish tutoring position at the tutoring center.  Then went to Kelsey's bible study at 2pm.

September 26th:  Went to Milwaukee with Tyler and Jeremy to meet up with Lizzy and Anna, (I have a separate blogpost of details of that adventure.)

September 27th:  A bunch of my friends came to Living Light with me today.  We all hung out after church: going to Applebees, a corn maze, and making caramel apples.  (Also have a separate blogpost for this one to.)

September 28th: Went to my 2nd Intervarsity meeting (the other Christian group on campus) Met up with my friend Milly at Starbucks after my classes were done to get to know each other better and discuss spiritual things.  Trae ended up going to Starbucks that day too even though it was his day off and creeped/took pictures of us from inside.  Once I got back to campus Nicole did my makeup.  Too bad like no one got to see it. :P

September 29th: Tuesday Crusday: Had a small breakdown after the busyness of the last 3 days, I was overly tired,  Tuesday nights always seem to be overwhelmed with homework.  Cru's message tonight was about joy and God's promises.   Hung out in the den afterwards, I basically had a whole meal there.  No one able to stay in the den the full time, which is good because I don't really like missing out on anything, but had to study for a test.  Jeremy has the same problem, Kyle basically had to drag him away to do homework tonight.

September 30th:  Another Evangelism class, this time everyone was split into two groups and we went out to dinner.  This would give us the tools to evangelize in a realistic setting if the opportunity arose.  My group talked to a lot of people, but weren't really given any opportunities to share our faith.  The other group got to share their testimony, and relate one of the girl's tattoos to the Bible.