Thankful

It's easy to focus on things we need or long for. I often see this when I pray or when I prepare newsletters and updates. Considering this, I've been striving to cultivate within myself a deeper sense of gratitude for all that God has blessed me with in life. Here are a few things that I'll be thanking Him for this Thanksgiving:

• Education: I am loving my time at seminary and God is using it to enlarge my understanding of Him.
• Family: I have a great and loving family, and we have had many developments in the past year to celebrate
• Lindsay: I am grateful for a thriving relationship with an amazing woman. I look forward to seeing where the Lord takes us in the coming months.
• Chi Alpha: I just moved to New England a few months ago, and already I have meaningful relationships in a vibrant Christian community. It's wonderful to be ministering to students who are eager to see God work on their campus.
• YOU! You make all that I do possible through your generosity. Thanks!

On the Personal Side

I'd like to ask for prayer for myself and my family. My father is going into surgery in an hour for a non-complex yet emotionally difficult procedure. At the same time, my mother's uncle passed away on Sunday, and there is a pending police investigation surrounding the circumstances of his death. Please pray that the Lord would comfort my family during this difficult time, particularly giving strength to my mom. She's got a lot to take in and deal with. Thanks guys.

Please pass along anything that I can be praying for on your account as well. After all, it's all part of being a team, and part of the body of Christ.

Up and Running

As I look back on my first several weeks here Chi Alpha at the University of New Hampshire and at Gordon-Conwell, things seem to be going quite well. On the seminary side of things, after much deliberation I'm taking Systematic Theology I, Biblical Greek I, Church History I, and Biblical Global Justice (I'm actually hoping to use the material from this with UNH students next semester).

On the Chi Alpha end things are also great. As I type this I'm on my way to teach my third class on the core beliefs of Christianity. This week I expect to see Christians who know their faith and want to go deeper, grad students and undergrads, a Hindu, Americans, Christians who know nothing of their own faith, Chinese atheists... It's amazing the scope of people that this is impacting! Please take a minute to thank the Lord for all He's done, and ask Him to continue blessing these ventures. Thanks for being part of this with me!

Update and Prayer Requests

The fall semester has officially begun, and can I just say that we are off to a great start. Last night was the first of our bi-monthly Chi Alpha dinners. We had several new students, and many nations represented in the room. I spent the night talking to a grad student from India, and a girl I met at the Chip and Putt night. All in all it was a lot of fun, and I'm left with an intense sense of eagerness to see what the Lord will do next.

Here are some things to pray for in the coming days:

• Sunday- Welcome Barbecue: This is a very important event for us in connecting with new students.
  
• Pray for the incoming students we are meeting: Margo, Dani, Pam, Monica, Jennifer, Heather, Guarav... those are the only names I can remember off the top of my head.
• Small groups and leaders. They just started.
• The class I'm teaching that starts next week.
• SEMINARY! My classes start next Friday. Pray the Lord will help me learn how to maintain a healthy balance of all my responsibilities.
  

Running, Beta Fish, and a Glimpse of the Kingdom

Yesterday I thought it would be fun to run out to the coast and try to get a look at the elusive Atlantic Ocean. Though I live only 3 miles from it, I have yet to get a good look. As I set out heading east I found my small town quickly fading out and I was soon running along a bland country road with little that would appeal to the imagination. If you have done much running, you will immediately understand that I feed on having something to keep me moving. I need some sort of motivation to keep me from thinking too much about the difficulty of the run. This time the Atlantic was that motivation.

As I drew closer to the place that I had chosen to turn around, I began to realize that my objective was going to prove more difficult than I realized as the view was obstructed by dozens of structures blocking out the sea. It didn't help that I was running uphill at this point, either. Suddenly, just as I was beginning to question if I'd be able to handle the run home, my perseverance was rewarded. I crested a hill surrounded by modest homes and I beheld the sight I had longed to see. Between a large home on the left and a run down boat shed to the right there was just enough space to see the ocean stretched out to the distant eastern horizon. It was a beautiful sight that provided more than enough inspiration for the long trek home.

The life of faith can be a lot like that. We run, plodding along as best we can, trying to convince ourselves to just keep moving, all the time hoping to lay eyes on the source of our inspiration, if only for a moment. But then just a moment spent taking in the sight of the Kingdom is all it takes to find courage to face many more difficult roads.

Saturday night I got just such a glimpse. Freshman Jukebox is UNH's annual event to welcome the incoming class. Student groups of every kind come out to meet the class and set up interesting booths and games for the night. This year Chi Alpha did a Chip and Putt Challenge giving away a beta fish to contenders that could make three out of three shots. Perhaps a little cheesy, but students came out in droves and it provided a great opportunity to make a few friends.

Monica stood in the back timidly looking at the information table that held Chi Alpha literature. Seeing the familiar look that I know so well from my own past, I made my way from the prize table to met her. "So is this just for people from a certain denomination?" When I explained that we welcome people from all backgrounds, and that we sought to be a safe place for students who don't know where they are on faith, her eyes perked up and she smiled a relieved smile. That was my little glimpse of the Kingdom, and I think it was for Monica too...

Pray for Monica, that she finds that glimpse enough to keep her running, and that we at Chi Alpha could be part of her finding the answers she needs. Pray also for the class that I'm going to teach that will help students explore the foundations of faith in Christ. Monica plans to attend.

What I’ve Learned Since Moving to Gordon-Conwell:

• GCTS takes great care of its students! So far I've gotten a gym membership for $13 a month and managed to not have to transfer my car to MA, saving me $300!
• A good book is priceless. I’ll be teaching a class this semester on the core aspects of Christianity working from the Apostles’ Creed. This will be based on a book I read several years ago and this will be the 3rd time I’ve used the material in three years.
• My role at UNH Chi Alpha will include all the things I love: teaching, discipling students one on one, outreach to the un/de-churched, & strategic planning.
• Ipswich, MA (the town where I now live) is 375 years old!
• I missed small town service more than I realized. I had a problem with my mail and when I told the post office clerk he gave me the name and number of the postmaster who was "happy to help". This does not happen in DC.
• There is a lot to be said for seeking God with the stillness of a quiet mind.
  

The Class of 2013

There are few hard, fast rules in campus ministry that are absolutes to never be tampered with, but there are a few. One that has made this short list is always prioritize ministry to freshmen. Freshmen are more in need of a helping hand and a friendly conversation, are eager to make new friends, and on a very practical level, will be around for four years so they have time to grow in the group, and hopefully to play a role in the life of it as well.

As I was reading up to try to better understand the class of 2013, I came across this list from Beloit College and thought you might find it interesting.


Mindset List for the Class of 2013

If the entering college class of 2013 had been more alert back in 1991 when most of them were born, they would now be experiencing a severe case of déjà vu. The headlines that year railed about government interventions, bailouts, bad loans, unemployment and greater regulation of the finance industry. The Tonight Show changed hosts for the first time in decades, and the nation asked “was Iraq worth a war?”

Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college. It is the creation of Beloit’s Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and Emeritus Public Affairs Director Ron Nief. It is used around the world as the school year begins, as a reminder of the rapidly changing frame of reference for this new generation. It is widely reprinted and the Mindset List website at http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/ receives more than 300,000 hits annually.

As millions of students head off to college this fall, most will continue to experience the economic anxiety that marked their first two years of life just as it has marked their last two years of high school. Fears of the middle class--including their parents--about retirement and health care have been a part of their lives. Now however, they can turn to technology and text a friend: "Momdad still worried bout stocks. urs 2? PAW PCM".

Members of the class of 2013 won't be surprised when they can charge a latté on their cell phone and curl up in the corner to read a textbook on an electronic screen. The migration of once independent media—radio, TV, videos and CDs—to the computer has never amazed them. They have grown up in a politically correct universe in which multi-culturalism has been a given. It is a world organized around globalization, with McDonald's everywhere on the planet. Carter and Reagan are as distant to them as Truman and Eisenhower were to their parents. Tattoos, once thought "lower class," are, to them, quite chic. Everybody knows the news before the evening news comes on.

Thus the class of 2013 heads off to college as tolerant, global, and technologically hip…and with another new host of The Tonight Show.

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The Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2013

Most students entering college for the first time this fall were born in 1991.

1. For these students, Martha Graham, Pan American Airways, Michael Landon, Dr. Seuss, Miles Davis, The Dallas Times Herald, Gene Roddenberry, and Freddie Mercury have always been dead.
2. Dan Rostenkowski, Jack Kevorkian, and Mike Tyson have always been felons.
3. The Green Giant has always been Shrek, not the big guy picking vegetables.
4. They have never used a card catalog to find a book.
5. Margaret Thatcher has always been a former prime minister.
6. Salsa has always outsold ketchup.
7. Earvin "Magic" Johnson has always been HIV-positive.
8. Tattoos have always been very chic and highly visible.
9. They have been preparing for the arrival of HDTV all their lives.
10. Rap music has always been main stream.
11. Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream has always been a flavor choice.
12. Someone has always been building something taller than the Willis (née Sears) Tower in Chicago.
13. The KGB has never officially existed.
14. Text has always been hyper.
15. They never saw the “Scud Stud” (but there have always been electromagnetic stud finders.)
16. Babies have always had a Social Security Number.
17. They have never had to “shake down” an oral thermometer.
18. Bungee jumping has always been socially acceptable.
19. They have never understood the meaning of R.S.V.P.
20. American students have always lived anxiously with high-stakes educational testing.
21. Except for the present incumbent, the President has never inhaled.
22. State abbreviations in addresses have never had periods.
23. The European Union has always existed.
24. McDonald's has always been serving Happy Meals in China.
25. Condoms have always been advertised on television.
26. Cable television systems have always offered telephone service and vice versa.
27. Christopher Columbus has always been getting a bad rap.
28. The American health care system has always been in critical condition.
29. Bobby Cox has always managed the Atlanta Braves.
30. Desperate smokers have always been able to turn to Nicoderm skin patches.
31. There has always been a Cartoon Network.
32. The nation’s key economic indicator has always been the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
33. Their folks could always reach for a Zoloft.
34. They have always been able to read books on an electronic screen.
35. Women have always outnumbered men in college.
36. We have always watched wars, coups, and police arrests unfold on television in real time.
37. Amateur radio operators have never needed to know Morse code.
38. Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Latvia, Georgia, Lithuania, and Estonia have always been independent nations.
39. It's always been official: President Zachary Taylor did not die of arsenic poisoning.
40. Madonna’s perspective on Sex has always been well documented.
41. Phil Jackson has always been coaching championship basketball.
42. Ozzy Osbourne has always been coming back.
43. Kevin Costner has always been Dancing with Wolves, especially on cable.
44. There have always been flat screen televisions.
45. They have always eaten Berry Berry Kix.
46. Disney’s Fantasia has always been available on video, and It’s a Wonderful Life has always been on Moscow television.
47. Smokers have never been promoted as an economic force that deserves respect.
48. Elite American colleges have never been able to fix the price of tuition.
49. Nobody has been able to make a deposit in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).
50. Everyone has always known what the evening news was before the Evening News came on.
51. Britney Spears has always been heard on classic rock stations.
52. They have never been Saved by the Bell
53. Someone has always been asking: “Was Iraq worth a war?”
54. Most communities have always had a mega-church.
55. Natalie Cole has always been singing with her father.
56. The status of gays in the military has always been a topic of political debate.
57. Elizabeth Taylor has always reeked of White Diamonds.
58. There has always been a Planet Hollywood.
59. For one reason or another, California’s future has always been in doubt.
60. Agent Starling has always feared the Silence of the Lambs.
61. “Womyn” and “waitperson” have always been in the dictionary.
62. Members of Congress have always had to keep their checkbooks balanced since the closing of the House Bank.
63. There has always been a computer in the Oval Office.
64. CDs have never been sold in cardboard packaging.
65. Avon has always been “calling” in a catalog.
66. NATO has always been looking for a role.
67. Two Koreas have always been members of the UN.
68. Official racial classifications in South Africa have always been outlawed.
69. The NBC Today Show has always been seen on weekends.
70. Vice presidents of the United States have always had real power.
71. Conflict in Northern Ireland has always been slowly winding down.
72. Migration of once independent media like radio, TV, videos and compact discs to the computer has never amazed them.
73. Nobody has ever responded to “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
74. Congress could never give itself a mid-term raise.
75. There has always been blue Jell-O.

Pre-Fall Prayer Requests

If you've been part of this team long then you know that the first few weeks before and during Fall semester is the Christmas season of University life. There is a buzz in air, and excitement that sets the tone of every conversation, and many big and exciting plans to be made. As we apprach the threshold of a new year of ministry, here are some things to remember in prayer:

• Welcome Barbecue (9/6)- this is a time of welcoming new students to campus, initiating and renewing friendships with students, and getting the word out about the ministry on campus. Many students come to know Christ every year and can trace it back to attending an event just like this.
• Small Groups (starting 9/8)- Small groups Bible studies will be starting up and are a great place for student leaders that have been trained through Chi Alpha to share their faith with their peers. With out a doubt small groups are one of the most impacting things that happen on campus.
• Discipleship Relationships- As part of my ministry at UNH I'll be meeting with students regularly as a guide and mentor in their faith. Pray that the Lord will connect me with the right students and use me in this context.
• Financial Support- I'm still trying to get the last of what is needed for the ministry budget raised. Please pray that new supporters will join with us in our cause.
  
• New Friendships- Moving again has proven emotionally and relationally taxing. Pray for me that I'll settle into this new region well, adjust to the culture, and make meaningful friendships with fellow seminarians and others I meet.

Thanks for all of your prayers! They are deeply appreciated.

Arrival

I'm here! After what seems like ages of talking about it, praying about it, driving to it, and let's not forget the endless stream of toll booths, I've arrived in Massachusetts! So far, things are off to a great start. I'm still unpacking and trying to get settled into my new apartment, but I'm making good progress and glad to be here.

Sunday morning (just twelve hours after arriving in MA) I attended a leadership meeting at UNH and the weekly campus worship service. I can see already that this is a great group of students and I'm going to love ministering to them!

Some FAQs about next year

I’ve gotten quite a few questions about this coming year, so I thought I’d take a minute to cover a few of the more common ones. If I miss anything you’re wondering about, let me know and I’ll add it to the list:

Why Gordon-Conwell?

Gordon-Conwell (GCTS) is a great seminary with an excellent reputation for equipping those called to ministry. They also offer EXCELLENT financial aide, which is something I can definitely use!

What’s the Partnership (matching) Grant?

I’ve been accepted to Gordon-Conwell’s largest grant! The Partnership Program provides students with $9,000 per year for school in order to help people enter Christian leadership less burdened by debt- a good thing since the field doesn’t pay much. I will also receive training in stewardship and other ministry skills as a result of being in the program.

I’m asked to build a team of supporters who will receive monthly updates from me and commit to pray for and/or financially support me. Since I only have to raise about half of the money, donations are virtually doubled! That being the case, even a very small pledge is a huge blessing. If you are interested, email me (randydemary@gmail.com) and I’ll send you some information.

What will your role be with Chi Alpha?

While I’m in seminary I’ll be ministering at the University of New Hampshire! There is a growing ministry and I’ll be discipling students and potentially teaching some advanced classes for those who are ready to go deeper in their faith.

Since I will be a full time student myself, I have chosen not to take the lead on a ministry since that would be… ambitious (or insane!). Instead I’ll be taking on a reduced load and working alongside some friends that are already established on the campus.

Will you have time for all this?

Yes! I have already found several creative ways to get double the value out of my time and I’m looking for more. One example is a seminary class I am taking that requires me to lead a small group on spiritual disciplines that I will be able to do with students at UNH. I love getting two for one!

Does the way I send you financial support for Chi Alpha change?

No. It’s all exactly the same. If you would like to start supporting me on the matching grant (which would be appreciated!), that’s completely separate and you would just need to fill out a pledge card.


I hope that answers anything you may have been wondering about. Please keep me in prayer during this time of transition.

More Than Words Can Express

I want to say thanks to all of you who made it out last night to "Fettuccine Festivities", the thank you dinner I held for supporters in Lafayette, LA. We had a great time catching up and sharing a good meal, and I was glad for the chance to answer your questions regarding what next year will look like. Fun all around.

For those who couldn't make it, I'm sorry you missed it! We'll have to do it again. It was far too much fun to only have once.

As I was thinking about it all this morning, I was overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude toward all you. The ministry that we are part of only happens because you have chosen to join me making it possible. Your selfless monetary gifts release me to invest my time in ministering to students. Thank you for caring enough about them to make all that we've accomplished together possible, and thank you for believing in my dreams of doing something meaningful God's Kingdom. You are appreciated more than words can express.

Prayer Requests

There are a lot of things that I love about what God has called me to, but right up at the top of the list has to be knowing that there are so many people praying for me and the work I'm involved in on a daily basis. It's a huge blessing, so thanks for that! Here are a few things that are current needs:

• The Move- Things are coming together nicely! Pray that the drive up will be uneventful.
• Finances- Please pray that God will provide for all of my needs, and provide new supporters to join our team during these difficult economic times.
• Church & Small Group- I've been blessed with a great church family and small group here in DC and hate to leave them! Please pray that the Lord will provide the same in Boston.
• Thanks- Take a minute to thank the Lord for new members of this team that are joining every week, a great deal on a place to live in Boston (half my current rent!), and a very successful small group ministry among DC students this summer!

Please email me your prayer requests so I know how to pray for you as well. This ministry is a team, and lifting each other up in prayer is part of what we do.

Welcome!

Welcome to Team Connect! It's my hope that this will become a connection point for me to communicate with all of you who are part of this ministry team. I'll be posting prayer requests, photos, and stories of how God is working on campus to help keep you connected with the mission. I plan to post every Monday (my first prayer request is to live up to that!) to make sure things stay current.

Please feel free to shoot me an email with any feedback you may have!