Wow. The last 48 hours have been pretty incredible and completely packed. It’s amazing. I woke up this morning wondering how two days of life had flown by so quickly. A couple of highlights from the last 48 hours:

- Sharing God’s heart for worship with the Christian Legal Society. A college pastor and a room full of lawyers – interesting combination, but I loved it. And I loved the way God used that time to call all of us to a deeper level of worship – in song and in the action of our lives.
- “Office Hours” at AU. (By the way, I think I’m going to offer a reward for anyone who can come up with a better name than “office hours”!) Thank you to each of you who came to share the story of what God is doing in your life. Your stories encourage me more than you know and I love walking this life with you guys.
- GatheringNW. A story of the Kingdom growing. New life in Christ dawning. I felt like it was one of our most intentional and integrated service in a long time.
- Gathering703. I love the Cinema! I love the environment in there. Our connect, promo and production teams stepped up big time this week and the result was pretty amazing. That room just feels like us and I was walking out of The Cinema last night, I had the definite sense that God was going to use this new location in amazing ways.
- Gathering703′s prayer team. Three days a week (Monday, Wednesday and Thursday) students are getting together to pray for their campus. I can’t tell you how much that fires me up. God hears our prayers and those times are the key to the revival we’re longing for on campus.
- Gathering Georgetown’s Leadership meeting. You people are insane, but I love you and I can’t help but think God might just be crazy enough to use you to change a campus.

All of that and UMD is on the horizon tonight. I can’t wait for that!

By the way, all of that is a really long way of saying our God is pretty amazing. He’s doing things in this generation that are unreal and you and I get to be a part of it. Amazing.

Every Monday, The Gathering staff team gets together to pray. It’s one of my favorite times of the week – maybe because it always looks different depending on what God is stirring in our hearts. Today’s focus was so long in coming and way overdue, in my opinion. It had been so long since we just thanked God for everything He is doing in The Gathering and in our lives.

It is so easy to fall into the trap of bringing requests and needs and problems to God. Don’t get me wrong, He’s good with that and it honors Him when He sees His children leaning on Him as our only hope. But it’s also good to pull back and be reminded of how much He has done already and how much we have to be grateful for.

We thanked Him for so many of you by name. We thanked him for students who have come to Christ. We thanked Him for mercy. For the cross. For everything we are and have.

I just want to encourage you to find the time to do the same. Do it privately or use the comments section. But live in the reality of Psalm 106:1-2:
“Praise the LORD!
Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good;
For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
Who can speak of the mighty deeds of the LORD,
Or can show forth all His praise?”

Take a minute to go read John 21: 4-14. For most of us, it’s a familiar story – Jesus appearing at the Sea of Galilee after His resurrection to confirm once more that death had no power over this King. Even if you know the story, go read it again.

Here’s what stood out to me:

“Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore…Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast’…They knew it was the Lord” – John 21:4, 12

They were with Jesus on an ordinary morning and His presence completely changed their experience. The stress of the day was forgotten. The pressures of life melted away. Despair and anxiety were replaced in an instant by hope and joy. All because Jesus was there.

It would have seemed a little strange to be freaking out in the presence of the One who stills the storms, the One who defeated death and the One who made the universe. I say all of that because we can all get so swept up in the pressures of life. Classes, jobs, papers, internships, laundry, conflict with friends, spring break planning – all of it can add up and leave us feeling pretty overwhelmed.

But Christ is here. Christ is in us.

You walk today with the Ruler of humanity. All creation bows to Him and He calls you friend. Allow Him to change your experience today. Will today still be busy? Probably – but it can be a different kind of busy. All because of Christ.

I was running pretty full out on Friday, so tomorrow is going to be my rest day for the week. It’s funny – I almost never get to take Sundays off. But tomorrow (or today, by now) is going to be a rare Sunday off. I’ll be checking back in with the world on Monday morning.

But I just had to post something before that to celebrate the power of today’s Passion Conference. Absolutely amazing. If you were there, I would love to hear the story of how God used the weekend in your life. You can email me if you want to share privately or you can post on the comments section here.

The point of sharing those stories isn’t to hype Passion – it’s to celebrate a great God who just did amazing things right here in our city. I can’t wait to see what that God is going to do with all of us this week!

I’m at Passion’s DC Regional this weekend and even though we’re only just getting underway now, I’m already filled with the sense that God is up to something big in these 27 hours. If you were one of the many Gathering students who were there tonight, you know what I’m talking about. If you weren’t able to make it, know that God’s heart is still every bit as much for you as for the students in the Patriot Center.

As we were worshiping together tonight, I was filled with a sense of God’s ability to use us to change the tide on our campuses. There’s enough of us in this movement that we can make more than ripples on our campus. But it’s not really about us – it’s about our God. He’s massive. He’s all powerful and He’s ruling the world. He’s big enough to change our campuses. He can do it. And He can use us.

I’m praying for you tonight – that you would believe God for more. Believe Him to use you. Take leaps of faith. Carry the light of Christ. Shine for the Son of God. Greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.

We have so much in store for us as we follow after the God who carved out everything we’ll ever know.

I’m still on a spiritual high from this week and I’m already looking forward to what God is going to do next week through The Gathering. We’re going to be starting a short, 2 week series called “What Now?” and I can’t wait to see how God is going to use it.

“What Now?” is the question so many of us ask when we find ourselves stuck in sin or having fallen back into the same old trap one more time. We feel terrible but we don’t know what to do to get ourselves back in the game with God so we flounder spiritually. We’re going to be answering that question over the next two weeks. By the way, the answers will be so encouraging to you – “What Now?” is an amazing story of forgiveness and God’s ability to change even the most broken.

Part of me is just excited to be sharing the same talk Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights! UMD has been out of sync these last three weeks, but starting next week we’re all moving together and that’s going to be such a relief. Just one talk per week – I can’t wait!

But here’s why I really care about the series: all of us need this one! It’s for people so far from God they can’t believe He could love them. It’s for Christians struggling with sin. It’s for the believer who (wrongly!) thinks he’s got it all figured out. It’s for all of us.

I can’t wait to dive into this one with all of you next week!

For the last two nights “How Great Is Our God” has been the anthem that’s carried The Gathering.  Both our AU and 703 services were held together by that amazing truth.  Our God is indeed great and His story outshines every other story kicking around planet earth today.  I’m sitting at UMD right now knowing that in a few short hours, The Armory will be packed with students celebrating the greatness of God one more time this week.  

When we choose to obey the commands of God, we find the most unbelievable reward imaginable. See if it leaps out at you from the passage:

“He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him…If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”

Many students from The Gathering have already registered for Passion’s DC Regional Conference being held this weekend right at The Patriot Center on George Mason’s Campus. Those students are on a collision course with a life changing weekend. They are going to meet God there in a way that is beyond powerful. They’re going to roll back onto campus next week with an uncontainable desire to transform the culture on campus with the message of Jesus.

I don’t want you to run into them next week and think, “Man, I so wish I had been there.” So, don’t let that happen. Get registered today. You can still get in and prices haven’t gone up yet.

So, please – register now.

I’ll see you Friday night in Patriot Center.

I had a great meeting this afternoon with the student leaders from Georgetown. Such a cool group and such genuine hearts to reach their campus for Christ. We’re closing in on a date for a spring Gathering at Georgetown and I can’t wait to see how it’s all going to come together.

But our biggest need right now is for people to lead small groups on that campus. We have students right now wanting to be in small groups, but we just don’t have enough leaders. If you’re interested in leading a group there, please email Kate McNeill – she’ll get you all the info. you need.

Here’s the question for the week: What do you think God dreams of for the next five days? Do you think His heart is stirred by a complacent week of spiritual mediocrity? Or do you think He longs for something amazing to break free this week? Before you answer, remember – He’s the God of the impossible. He’s the Creator of Heaven and Earth. He’s the Miracle Worker and He’s the Power to transform the world. I’m thinking if we could see what He dreams of for this week, it would drop us to our faces in worship. It would be so like God to take an average week in February and cause His church to shine like never before.

Would you pray into that with me?

If you’re on board, here’s how you can aim your prayers at each of our five campuses:

Georgetown: Pray for wisdom as I meet with our student leadership team tomorrow afternoon. God is stirring a passion to reach that campus in the hearts of these students and we want to be faithful to His leading. Pray for great favor with the school as we work towards a date for The Gathering to be on campus this semester.

George Washington: Pray that small groups would burst to life on that campus. Pray that students would grab hold of a vision to make Jesus famous on their campus. Pray that leaders will emerge.

American University: Pray for the rapid formation of intenCITY teams. We’re trusting God to pull a team together for spring break. Pray that the leadership of that team will emerge, that students will connect to the vision and the Lord will supply the resources needed.

George Mason University: Pray that our students would be bold in inviting their friends to Wednesday night’s Gathering. We’re riding a huge wave of momentum on Mason’s campus and I’m praying that will cause us to reach out with even more urgency to our friends on that campus who are not yet walking with Jesus.

The University of Maryland: Pray that the Holy Spirit would breath vision, creativity and desire for Christ into our student leadership team. Pray they will come up with amazing ideas for how to reach UMD for Christ. God has been so gracious on Thursday nights. I pray that will stir a movement that transforms UMD and doesn’t just fill rooms!

Father, to You alone be the glory. You are the Almighty and all we’re asking is that you would take our lives and use them to make the name of Jesus famous. We love You. We believe in the power of your Gospel to change universities right here in DC and to that end we pray. In the name of Jesus, Father, remember mercy and stir your church to even greater things.

God is stirring something incredibly powerful on the campuses of our city. You can see His fingerprints on AU, Georgetown, GW, Mason and UMD in ways I haven’t seen before. You can see Him stirring things in the hearts and minds of our students. And He’s been stirring things in my heart and in my mind as well.

I want to call all of us, myself included, to more. I want to stretch us. I want to challenge us to embrace the vision of making the name of Jesus famous on our campuses. The Gathering has never been about worship events. We’re about worship – and there’s a huge difference. Worship is multifaceted: song and the Word of God, yes, but it also embraces service to the world, it embraces biblical community, it goes to the nations with the story of God. God designed you to be a fully engaged worshiper.

Please don’t limit your worship to an event once a week. Live for Christ every moment of your life. Live to make His name known. You be the one that leads your small group deeper into the Word of God. You be the one who challenges your campus to make a real difference in the lives of people desperate to know Him. You be the one who sets a culture of prayer on your campus. Be the one God uses to make the name of Jesus famous.

The best days of The Gathering are still ahead of us. The Lord wants to do so much in and through us – individually and corporately. But it’s going to take all of us running to that goal together. I can’t think of another group of people I would rather run with and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the semester looks like.

Any one with me?