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Christian Challenge (For Campus Ministries blog)

Over the past two years my life has completely transformed and I can honestly say that a lot of it has to do with Christian Challenge.  Christian Challenge is a place where CBU students meet up weekly to hear the Word, learn how to apply the Word, and teach the Word in practical ways. Christian Challenge really is there to challenge us, I was challenged in many ways over the past two years, but I would say that I was challenged the most to grow in my faith. Challenge had organized a few opportunities to really help you grow in your faith and thankfully I took advantage of them.

One of the opportunities we had was called “Retreat to Advance”; it was an evangelism retreat where we shared the Gospel to random people on the streets of San Francisco. It was the first time I had ever really shared the Gospel and I probably learned more in that one day about the Gospel than in my fifteen year of going to church.  Another opportunity we had was a spring break discipleship conference in Colorado. We were blessed to hear from some great speakers such as Jerry Bridges and Max Barnett. In that week I learned so much about discipleship, prayer, and being a man of God that I will remember it for the rest my life. It was awesome to see thirty students invest their spring break in learning instead of sleeping. I am very thankful for Christian Challenge and I think if you don’t take advantage of coming to it you are definitely missing out! 

What to Expect. (For the Smith Hall website)

College is an exciting time for everyone, especially freshmen. Coming into college you’re not exactly sure what to expect, it’s a new place with new people and you have no idea where all your classes are so you carry around a map. In your mind you may have some idea of what your life will be like at CBU.  For me, I had this idea that this was an opportunity to live my life any way I wanted, especially since I was away from my parents. I thought CBU was going to be all about girls, staying up late, and my own rules.  I quickly learned that it may be easy to find a girlfriend, but chances are you should wait more than just the first week of school to ask a girl out (hint: it never lasts). Secondly I remember the first day I moved into college, I was expecting everyone to be awake excited for college, hanging out and staying up late. Little did I know that everyone would be dead asleep by nine o’clock.  Lastly the lame idea that the rules didn’t apply to me was probably the biggest wake up call, I was written up twice during orientation week for breaking the rules.

I learned early on in my college life that it was going to be nothing like I had expected. Sometimes in life things don’t work out how we want them to but when you trust in God things work out how he wants them to.  Proverbs 16:9 says, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps”.  In my mind I had everything figured out, but God changed that and decided that His plans were better than my own.  Over the next few months I sought after God and really started to dedicate my life to him. I became heavily involved in Christian Challenge and now I am an RA. My freshmen year was definitely a challenging and a life changing experience. I want to challenge you to seek after God and his plans and trust that God has better plans for you than you could ever imagine.

The Happiest Place on Earth!

What is the happiest place on earth? Well take a stroll with me to a little place called Disneyland. Disneyland is located in Anaheim, California which just happens to have perfect weather.  Disneyland is one of many theme parks in Southern California so what makes Disneyland so great?  Maybe it’s because Disneyland reminds us of when we were kids. I know, I know I’m only twenty years old but still it reminds me of what life was like fifteen years ago, but then again maybe I’m being a little bias because as long as I can remember I’ve had an annual pass to Disneyland(one of the many perks of living in Southern California).

Often I take it for granted but man do I love this place. In a span of ten days I went five times!  Maybe everyone loves Disneyland because of waiting in line so that they can have forty-five minute conversations with there closest friends. Maybe people love Disneyland because of the rides, shows and carnival games or maybe it’s the expensive prices of parking or food. I know those last few were a tad crazy, but what I’ve realized we all have our own reasons for thinking Disneyland is The Happiest Place on Earth and that’s what makes it so great! I think it’s The Happiest Place on Earth because of a few things. I think it’s because it gives adults an excuse to be free and act like kids, it’s a great time to just plain hang out with you’re friends and last but not least is the cinnamon rolls, SO AMAZING!  Lastly if this is The Happiest Place on Earth then I can’t even imagine what heaven is going to be like!

Terrible Picture of me but great picture of the cinnamon roll which is pretty much all that matters

1980’s

I think I was born in the wrong generation!  I love literally everything about the 80’s minus the high waisted jeans (those are just awful). The 1980’s had some of the most unique styles and movies. Unfortunately they only existed during that short time but I hope it all comes back. The 1980’s was a time when cell phones were the size of suit cases and iPod’s were called Walkman and used some contraption called a cassette tape.  X-box didn’t exist people actually had to leave there house to play video games at a place called an arcade which had every game imaginable. The clothing styles were amazing, all the bright colored clothes with the Nike hi-tops and Sperry Top Siders and having Ray Ban wayfarer sunglasses became a necessity.   The hair styles were even better with the sideways ponytails and the flock of seagulls. 

Life was influenced heavily by music and movies.  Movies we’re all aimed at teens. No one did a better job of capturing the teen life better than John Hughes who wrote such movies as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, and my favorite Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Some of my other favorites are E.T. and Back to the Future.  E.T. came out and made people fall in love with a little alien that could only say about 3 words and ate Reese’s pieces. Michael J. Fox was the biggest actors making two of the greatest movies of all time Back to the Future 1 & 2 which was about time travel and how one small change in the past could lead to a very dramatic change in the future, there was a third movie but I like to pretend that it never happened.

Music of the 1980’s was just plain fantastic but what really shot music to the next level was MTV which actually used to play music videos all the time. There were a lot of great artist’s in the 80’s but no one was bigger than Michael Jackson who was famous as a child in the Jackson 5 but now blossomed into the King of Pop. Michael could sing, dance and act? Well he couldn’t act very well but he does have some of the best music videos of all time. Micheal Jackson had an album called Thriller which is to date the most selling album of all time with 110 million albums sold, which is more than twice as much as the second most sold album. Now we’re in 2010 and the best thing we can come up with is Miley Cyrus, to say the least I hope in heaven there is a VHS of everything that happened in the 80’s!