Thursday, October 30, 2014

October... it came.... it went...

In case you didn't get my newsletter that I sent out earlier this month, October was a very eventful month complete with our annual CSF Fall Retreat, which went extremely well! But instead of rewriting what I already wrote in the newsletter, I'll just leave the fall retreat talk to that. =)

The semester series is continuing to go well. Last night we talked about prayer. It's so interesting and sad to me that while prayer could be considered the easiest and most powerful thing to do, we often times have a hard time getting ourselves to spend any amount of time in it, aside from the ritual of 'blessing our meal'. I just completed a book by Stanley Grenz (Prayer: The Cry for the Kingdom) that I HIGHLY recommend to anyone who would like to read something about prayer and grow in that area of their life. Instead of turning Wednesday night into a Sunday School class, I instead too the time to help the students look at practical ways to improve their prayer life, in addition to encouraging them with passages of Scripture emphasizing the importance and power of prayer. One of the practical hints that I suggested was to join me and a small group of people who are going up to Hyner's View State Park area next Tuesday to just have a simple retreat away from campus and the stresses of life and school. There isn't any cell phone reception up there, and the view is breathtaking, being able to see over some of the mountain tops and down into valleys of the surrounding area. Here's a glimpse for you to picture a little bit of what it's like.



Another practical suggestion that I gave to the students to help with their devotional and prayer life, is to utilize a tool called examen.me. It's an awesome website that helps give you structure in your prayer life, utilizing Scripture reading, prayer, journalist, and meditation. I really recommend this website to ANYONE who is looking to revitalize or maybe even try something new in their personal devotional life!

Well, I'm off to continue reading for next week and do other important things! Thanks for reading! =)

Patrick