The frenzy of papers, projects and exams that’s setting the tone on campuses these days is just one more sign that summer will be here soon.  Although The Gathering goes into a different mode over the summer, we definitely don’t go dormant.  We’re going to be sharing a lot more information about our summer Bible studies next week, but I wanted to give you the basics now.

Our summer Bible studies start on Tuesday, May 26th and run for a total of 10 weeks.  We meet every Tuesday at 7.30 PM and offer the same study in five different locations: AU, Georgetown, Mason, UMD and McLean Bible Church’s Tyson’s campus.  So, just pick the location nearest you and make plans to be there on Tuesday nights.

There’s a lot more information coming but for now, the best thing you can do is join our summer mailing list or Facebook group.  We don’t use our regular mailing lists for the summer so as not to annoy all of you headed out of town – so, even if you’re on our regular list, please join these special, summer only lists.

We talk so often about the power, sovereignty, goodness and faithfulness of God.  And well we should.  Those strands are woven throughout the Psalms and all of the Scriptures, if we just look for them.  Take just one example from Psalm 145:

“They will tell of the power of your awesome works, and I will proclaim your great deeds.” (Psalm 145:6)

The trick is remember that the same power that made the psalmist sing is alive and well today.  God hasn’t changed, weakened or faded.  Jesus is the King of kings today and He is very much running the world.  He still bears His mighty arm to save His people and provide for His church.

For the past four years, The Gathering has been meeting on university campuses in the DC area.  During those four years we have never had to cancel a worship experience for lack of a venue, or any other reason for that matter!  Given the set-up time we need, the size of the rooms we need and the volume of our services (yes, I mean it gets really loud!), that is a miracle that I can hardly put into words.  Most of our semesters are planned out well in advance, rooms are secured and all is comfortable.  But there are weeks when it looks like there’s not a single space available on a campus – nothing!

This has been one of those weeks at UMD.  We’ve been asking God all week to make a way, to open a door and to give His children a place to worship.  Praise Him that we figured out yesterday afternoon how to make tonight come together in the Charles Carroll Room in The Stamp Center!!!  It’s just one more example of God’s amazing faithfulness.

But we also need your help to spread the word.  Text your friends, update your Facebook status, do whatever you do…  But help us invite UMD to join us in the Charles Carroll Room tonight at 9PM.

See you there,

John

This coming January, Passion Conferences is hosting an international, 4 day gathering of university students called Passion2010 in Atlanta, Georgia.  You can get all the information on this experience at the Passion2010 website.  You might have noticed The Gathering isn’t a big “push conferences” kind of ministry.  Nothing against conferences, we just know how valuable your time and resources are and don’t want to bombard you with constant conferences.  But this is different.  You really want to be in Atlanta for this one.

I’m mentioning it today because the last few weeks of this semester are a great time to make your plans.  You can work out all the carpool/flight/hotel logistics with everyone in the same room before we shoot around the country for the summer.  So, grab some friends, get registered together and start planning for January in Atlanta.

God’s going to do some amazing things there and I really don’t want you to miss out.

Earlier this week, a friend of mine said something to the effect of “life must be slowing down for you now that the semester is almost over.”  It took everything in me not to laugh out loud at that one.  

Take today for example.  

Eight students from The University of Maryland are serving on a weekend long intenCITY trip.  They’re going to be holding an evangelistic community event later today and then visiting incarcerated teenagers at one of the city’s youth detention facilities.  I love their willingness to invest a weekend’s worth of time and energy into what God is doing in the city.  

While they’re doing that, students from Mason are enjoying a spring retreat.  They got out of town for the weekend to connect with each other and God.  We’re all praying God uses that time to solidify so much of what He has brought to life on that campus this semester.

I say all of that for two reasons.  One, I would love it if you would take some time today to pray  for these students.  Two, I hope it inspires all of us to believe that God still has things He wants to do in the next three weeks.  He’s not done with the semester. 

My prayer these days is that we’ll all finish strong.  It’s been an amazing journey this year.  But it’s not over yet!

This has already been a pretty amazing week for The Gathering.  And it’s only Wednesday morning!!

These last 48 sleep deprived hours have shown all of us what The Gathering looks like when we’re at our best.  Just think about this with me for a minute.  On Monday afternoon, Gathering students at UMD sponsored a major outreach on campus seeking to raise awareness about child slavery issues in West Africa.  At noon on Monday, American University kicked off their SeeSaws Against Slavery marathon.  AU wasn’t going to be limited to a 24 hour marathon; 30 hours seemed to work better for them!  Mason got into the SeeSaws action at 8PM on Monday and went for 24 hours.  By the way, in case you think Mason wimped out, I would like to point out they had multiple SeeSaws in motion at all times!

That’s pretty amazing, if you ask me.  In the last 48 hours, God used us to raise thousands of dollars to fight the commercial sex trade, raise significant amounts of awareness on campus and, best of all, have dozens if not hundreds of conversations with university students answering the question “why are you doing this?” We were able to tell them we do it all because our God loves the poor, the broken, the widow, the orphan, “the least of these.”  And, oh by the way, He loves you too and that’s what we want you to know.

That’s us at our best.

I love being on campuses for nights of worship.  Last night in the Kay Center was amazing and I’m believing God for the same tonight at Mason and tomorrow at UMD.  But God smiled every bit as much, if not more, watching us stand for Him in the middle of the Quad.

Oh, and just one last, small thought, if I could – go get some sleep!!

On this quiet day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, I wanted all of us to be reminded one more time of the amazing goodness and power of our God.  He showed it to us last week.  And He showed it to the world 2,000 years ago in the goodness of a cross and the power of a resurrection.

All week long, I’ve been riding this wave of momentum that God breathed into all of us last Friday night.  It’s been amazing to celebrate that at AU, Georgetown and Mason so far this week.  Can’t wait for UMD tonight.  But in the mean time, I wanted to share some of the beautiful images from Friday night.  We’ll post more in the days to come, but for right now, I hope these draw your heart and your mind back to what God did in the Smith Center.

Once a semester, we head outdoors to worship in the amphitheater at American University.  It’s one of my favorite nights of the spring and last night proved to be no exception despite the freezing temperatures!  It was great to see so many students huddled together, gripping coffee for warmth but still making a really big noise for the fame of Jesus on that campus.  It didn’t matter where you were on campus last night – people heard the sounds of the church celebrating their King and drawing near to His plan for our lives.

I love what Matt said at one point last night, “If God is glorified by us getting together to worship in a warm building, how much more so when we’re outside on a freezing cold night.”

God was celebrated last night.  Lives were changed.  And that’s all that counts.  I’ve heard the story of at least one student who embraced the mercy of Jesus for the first time last night.  The headline in heaven this morning isn’t that a bunch of college students were a little chilly last night.  The headline in heaven is that the church expanded, a life was saved and the Kingdom moves forward.

It really was great to be under that cold sky with all of you last night.

Every time we do baptisms, the question always comes….what’s with the horse trough?!?

That’s a fair question – I mean, it’s not every day you see an undergrad dunked in a device designed to keep a herd of horses well watered.  Let me give you two answers.

One.  Baptismal fonts are hard to come by on campus.  We could go to a pool but the band would get crazy nervous if we asked them to play on the diving board.  Horse troughs are portable and as it turns out the average undergrad fits quite nicely in one.  We dunked a basketball player in one once and the geometry of that one was challenging, but other than future pro ball players, we seem to be good.

Two – and, I promise you, this one is better.  It’s a little piece of our culture at The Gathering.  Every single student ever baptized through The Gathering has been in that trough.  It sits at my house all year long and it’s such a tangible reminder of the power of God.  Traditions like that are good in the life of a ministry or church.  You’ve got to find little things that add flavor, character and continuity to your ministry.  So, yeah – we probably could figure out another way of doing baptisms.  But there’s no chance.

I love that horse trough because I love what it reminds us all of – God is changing the campuses of DC!!

I’m not sure I have the words to express everything God did last night in the Smith Center.  To say it was an amazing night seems like a massive understatement.  He fused five university campuses into one movement.  He ignited a spirit of worship, expectation and hope that was tangible.  I think we all left feeling like we had experienced something supernatural.  I loved our times of prayer.  I loved hearing all of our voices joined in worship.  I loved the reminder that we can trust God because He is always good and always powerful.

The question that’s been in my mind since I drove home at the end of last night is “what do we all do now with what we just experienced?”  The answer is simple – go, be BOLD for God.  It’s one thing to talk about a bold life that reshapes culture.  But the living of that starts today.  It starts now.  There’s so much to come in the next few weeks.  Get everything you can out of it and give everything you can to it.

This week’s Gathering services are designed to be massive outreaches to our campuses. We’re bringing a small band to our Bible study at Georgetown.  American University is meeting outside in the amphitheater for worship.  Mason is inviting a campus to the Cinema and UMD is back where we got started in the Nyumburu Center.  We’re talking about the compassion and cleansing of God this week.  So, if there’s ever been a time to invite your friends, this is it.

Last night wasn’t the end of something.  It’s the beginning of a month where God is going to do much.

Be Bold.  Trust.  Love.  Celebrate.

I love moments like this when you’re about to step into something you’ve been praying over for a really long time.  I’m filled with this incredible sense of expectation for what God is going to do in all of our hearts tomorrow night in the Smith Center at McLean Bible Church.  Tomorrow is more than one “really big” service.  It’s more than a “family reunion.”  It’s more than “a cool thing to do on a Friday.”  It’s about joining together and asking God to do some really significant things in all of our lives.  He’s going to meet us in that room tomorrow night in ways that change all of us.

Reach out to your friends today and tomorrow.  See if they need a ride.  Remind them why this matters.  Please help us spread the word about tomorrow night.

I’ll see you in the Smith Center.

John

Hopefully, we all know this is a big week in the life of The Gathering.  So many of us are spending so much time getting our hearts ready for everything God is going to do in the Smith Center on Friday night as we come together as a ministry to worship, celebrate and pray.  If you haven’t yet gotten all of the details on Friday night, it’s definitely not too late to join us.  Just click here to get the basic info.

But the celebration has already started.  It came to life at American University last night and will work it’s way around other universities in DC this week before we all join together on Friday.

If you were at AU last night, you know what I’m talking about already.  If you missed it, let me fill you in.  We came together last night to celebrate the baptism of 5 students on that campus.  We worshiped together and reflected on God’s Word.  But mainly we listened.  We listened to the stories of 5 college students whose lives are forever changed by Christ.  We heard stories of the church growing in Nigeria.  We heard stories of people far from God finally understanding what grace meant to them.  We heard stories of people who grew up around the church but only recently found a relationship with Jesus.  And we heard stories of college students brought to faith by friends who sat with us last night celebrating it all.

The five of you who were baptised last night inspired us all.  You filled my heart with hope and joy and faith.  You reminded all of us what what’s really worth celebrating in life – Jesus is alive.  He’s changing lives today.  He’s doing it on the campuses of our nation’s capital and He’s allowing us to play a small part in His global story.  You five are everything The  Gathering is about.  Thanks for last night.  Thanks for getting the party started in such a beautiful way.

We’re trusting God for more of the same tonight and at UMD on Thursday.  And I can’t wait to see all of you on Friday.

Celebrating much,

John