This past month has been a blur and it’s hard to believe the semester is already coming to a close. The students are currently preparing for finals and soon classes will be over. The community has grown much closer together and real relationships are developing as the students themselves continue to grow. As of late, we have been focusing on challenging students to step out of their newly developed comfort zones.

Leadership

Discipleship has been one of the primary practices we have been encouraging our students to consider. Discipleship can look like a lot of different things but to put it simply, we say it is walking alongside a brother/sister and doing life with them. An example in scripture that we see is the relationship Paul and Timothy have. With this picture in mind, it is easy to see why my hope is for students to have a friendship like this with someone. From the very beginning of the year, we have pushed our leaders to prayerfully pursue someone to disciple them. As of this past month, we have now been urging our leaders to begin considering discipling some of the students in the ministry. Walking through this process with the leaders has been an encouragement and opportunity to learn for myself as well.

One amazing part of discipleship is the natural multiplicative property of it. If I disciple two other brothers, and they each go on to do the same, the amount of people reached is infinitely greater than if I were to do it alone. However, during the years of ministry during the pandemic, the chain of discipleship in our ministry was broken. Out of all of our students only 3 or 4 have been or are being discipled. The majority of them are unfamiliar with the concept and stepping into it for the first time. As a result, the students have for the most part been understandably fearful and hesitant about stepping into discipleship. The biggest reason for hesitation has been feelings of inadequacy. They understand why discipleship is beneficial and important to our ministry, but don’t believe in themselves as the ones to take the first steps. The funny thing is from my perspective many of them have already been doing all of the work of discipling, just without the title. I see them taking out underclassmen to get to know each other, walking through trials together, and ultimately pointing one another upwards.

The task I have been wrestling with has been how to encourage them while being careful not to minimize or overlook their reservations. In my prayers, God pointed me toward my own past fears and doubts when stepping into student leadership and ultimately ministry with Epic. God used the people around me to give me confidence that He would use me. People around me displayed trust that God would work through me, and invested in me before I had anything to give or show my worth. I was given freedom to make mistakes and grace as I learned. The realities of my inadequacies did not change but they paled in comparison to who I was made and called to be. The conclusion I came to in my desire to shepherd the leaders has been to remind them in full faith of who they are in God’s eyes. I ask that you would pray for our students hearts, with the hope and desire that they would grow in their identity as children of God.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
-Ephesians 2:10

Thanksmas

Thanksmas is a large social event we have around the holiday season. It’s an easy event to invite friends and classmates to as we celebrate with food and a gift exchange! I am extremely proud of our student leaders as they planned and organized the entire night virtually by themselves. Oftentimes, I find myself underestimating the importance of surface level events and admittedly used to feel this way about holiday parties like Thanksmas when I was a student. However, on this night, I was so happy to see even some of our more introverted or newer students begin to open up and express themselves more freely. It may not have been an extremely eventful night but from what I saw, I think the night was a joyful and memorable time for many of the students.

Prayer Requests

• That our students (and I) would be encouraged and emboldened to take steps of faith out of who we are in Christ
• That our ministry would continue to be a place where newcomers and unbelievers would be welcomed and experience the love of God for them
• That our students would continue to seek the Lord over the break and would not be discouraged by the change of environment or their surrounding community
• For our upcoming Winter Conference, that the Lord would use the conference to meet our students and that our non-believing students could meet Christ as their savior there

This Month

• Outreach Banquet
• Fall Retreat
• Shifting Direction
• Prayer Requests

Outreach Banquet

To close out the month of September, during our general meetings we went through a series called ‘Pray, Care, Share’. The hope was that students would learn why we are called to be messengers of the gospel to those around us, as well as be equipped and emboldened to do so. To conclude this series, we held a banquet to present an opportunity for our students to apply what they heard, while reaching the campus. We challenged our students to invite at least one person to this event where we would provide food, boba, and an opportunity to step into community. I was so encouraged by the courage of many of our students who took such large steps of faith out of their comfort zone. In addition, I was reminded of how so many students are still longing for community. God had clearly been preparing the hearts of those who came and I’m sure there are more whom I have yet to meet.

Fall Retreat

Fall retreat is a yearly joint retreat between a handful of Epic ministries in SoCal. This year we had around 60 students with the majority being from Cal Poly Pomona. The hope for this retreat was for students to be able to rest in the Lord. While they didn’t get the most physical rest from staying up late, from what I saw, the students were able to grow closer with one another and are learning how to point each other upwards to God.

Personally, I was very encouraged and refreshed during the retreat. Although there was still work to be done during the retreat, I was able to spend a lot of uninterrupted time with God. During this time he opened my eyes to the ways I was beginning to grow numb and ungrateful regarding my work. I was taking the blessing of being in ministry for granted and losing sight of Him amidst the day to day. When interacting with students and hearing them open up about ways they were struggling and ways they were seeing God present in their lives, I saw a glimpse of myself in them,

Shifting Direction

Currently, we are shifting into a more inward focus. To put it into percentages we started the year with a 90/10 balance of outreach/inreach. Now we are closer to a 50/50. Students have slowly been getting plugged into churches and discipling other students. Our goal is to continue to equip them and the hope is that they would begin to outreach with one another. My personal heart is that Epic would be a place where the afflicted would find comfort and where the comfortable would be pushed into discomfort.

Prayer Requests

• That the students would get plugged into local churches
• For physical health for all our students and staff
• For Jamie and I, that we would have a Godly wisdom and discernment in caring for our leaders
• For the hearts of the leaders, that they would continue to love because of the love God shows them

CPP

This month of ministry has been such an enjoyable time! The school year is in full swing and we have settled into a more structured period of time. There are still new students coming out every week, and our community continues to grow and expand. I am continually learning and being reminded of how much God loves this community.

Our general meetings and bible studies have been such an encouragement to me this past month. We’ve been consistently meeting every Tuesday for bible study, and every Thursday for our general meeting. We have around 30-35 students coming to our bible studies and close to 55 students attending our general meetings! Despite the extremely busy schedules of many of the students I’ve been speaking to, they continue to commit their time and even invite the people around them into the movement! What has been made evident is that there is a clear desire in the hearts of so many students for community, belonging, and hope. Students have been socializing together outside of our structured times and some are stepping into deeper, God glorifying friendships with each other. There is a culture of Godly love developing and growing, not as a result of planned and organized events or forced accountability but as a result of God shifting hearts and moving people. My prayer is that God would continue to guide us towards those who are without hope and that our community would be a place that points them upwards.

One highlight of this past month has been my one on one times with the students I’ve been meeting up with. I’ve been able to hear their stories and walk along side them amidst the many things they have going on. A common trend I’ve noticed in most of the student leaders I’ve met with has been a general feeling of business. Some of these students are spread so thin with school, work, church, and their personal lives, that I’m amazed they’re able to show up and be present in Epic. So many of them have been silently and faithfully serving their fellow brothers and sisters, some in ways I wasn’t even aware of. They consistently drive students around, treat underclassmen to meals, and are displaying love even when sacrifice is required. Hearing about these things served as an uplifting but also humbling time. Despite the growth and maturity that they were displaying, I realized I was and still am lacking in my care for these leaders. I’m still learning how to best pour into them and how to serve them well. What has become clear is that there is a very real danger of burning out these leaders for the sake of the community as a whole and that I can so quickly take for granted the precious hearts of service that God has placed on our leaders. I ask that you would join me in prayer first for the hearts of the leaders, that they would continue to love because of the love God shows them. Secondly, that you would pray for Jamie and I, that we would have a Godly wisdom and discernment in caring for our leaders.

Fall Retreat

Next weekend we will be having our annual Fall Retreat. This is a weekend long retreat up in Big Bear with students from all the different SoCal Epic campuses. This has often been a turning point in which students find a sense of deeper belonging in the community and are able to gain a bigger picture of what Epic is. From my perspective as a staffer, I see so much potential to learn and grow in the times we have planned and in the speaker who will teach and my hope is that God would work in them through these things. However; as a freshmen I don’t remember much about the speaker or the small groups or the worship. What I do remember is realizing I really wanted to be surrounded by people of the faith and that I wanted the friends around me to be my brothers. In light of my personal experience as a student, I am striving to be faithful and responsible in my planning, but I am deeply in prayer that God would work in the hearts of the students. I am doing my best not to obsess over the planning and the results but instead, to simply be obedient and leave the results to Him. Please pray for this coming retreat as our hope is that lives would be changed!

Prayer Requests

• That God would continue to guide us towards those who are without hope and that our community would be a place that points them upwards
• For the hearts of the leaders, that they would continue to love because of the love God shows them
• For Jamie and I, that we would have a Godly wisdom and discernment in caring for our leaders
• For our upcoming Fall Retreat!