A little write-up from the Veritas Forum

How do you get a crowd of nearly 1,500 people together at Tulane University to consider the reality of the God of the Bible?

You engage the students and professors on a level they relate to on a topic they want to delve into with a speaker they respect. That’s how we did it this February.

Working together with several other campus ministries, we were able to host The Veritas Forum at Tulane with special guest, Dr. Francis Collins. Dr. Collins is the world-renowned geneticist who led the Human Genome Project to its completion: mapping the mystery of human DNA. He is also a devout follower of Jesus, a relationship he found as a medical student. In his recent book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, he details his story and his reasons for following Christ, and uniting the often incompatible fields of faith and biology.

Over the past couple of years, Dr. Collins has been the guest at several universities sharing his reasons for engaging in a living relationship with God, and how he sees the handiwork of God at the microscopic levels. He is a remarkably humble and personable servant of Christ, and engaged our audience with a message some of them had never seriously considered before: that the God of the Bible is alive and active in the world today.

Our local Assemblies of God churches underwrote nearly a third of the cost of this massive endeavor - thank you! Light for the Lost bought 120 copies of Mere Christianity, and more, that we gladly distributed after the talk - thank you!

This is just the beginning of an amazing work of God at Tulane that is building credibility for the Gospel, uniting God’s people from many traditions and organizations for His glory, emboldening students and faculty who follow Christ with the reality of the message they have to share, and opening exciting new doors for witness! Praise the Lord for this great work, and please pray for its completion!

Veritas

March/April 09 Newsletter

for a printable version - download here

Call to Prayer: against rape

Link to article

Back in Sep/Oct there was a rash of late night rapes on/near Tulane's campus of female students out by themselves and inebriated. These were horrible crimes, but not particularly scary for a couple of reasons: they were committed by one man who was caught, and they could have been avoided by the victims with a couple actions of simple wisdom; i.e., don't be out at 2am, drunk and alone.

However, the recent rapes last month have opened the door to a whole new level of aggression and potential fear: daylight abductions. The simple wisdom factor is not in play, anymore; Tulane/Loyola females are becoming prey. I'll let you describe the situation with your own emotions and adjectives; it is obviously evil.

Will you pray with us for the health and healing of the victims, for the capture of the new perps, and the safety of students and community members?

good words at Tulane

Sunday night, we had our monthly leadership dinner with the Tulane Chi Alpha Servant Corps. We call this gathering Grubfluence: we get grub, and we develop our influence for Christ.

I've been doing the cooking this semester: baked rosemary chicken with steak fries (store was out of sweet potato fries) and steamed veggies, and extra gooey brownies to cap it off. Yum!

After dinner and some fun, I led an investigation into why Chi Alpha exists on campus, and Jen followed up with an exhortation to persevere through the tough times, to persevere through the rest of a busy semester - continuing to serve, to love, to speak the truth and proclaim the Gospel, and to mentor new students.

The investigation I led addressed why Chi Alpha matters. We encountered our vision again, and I encouraged the students that this work is worthwhile. The best part of the night was sharing testimonies, as students shared how Chi Alpha has played vital roles in their faith development, and how they have seen Chi Alpha introduce other students to Jesus and/or deepen their relationship with Christ. These stories are so exciting and invigorating!

Our March/April newsletter is on the way later this week - get ready for some of those exciting stories!

New Video on my Youtube Channel

Veritas Photos, Finally