Dear saints,
Last Thursday was the first college student meeting of the semester, with 7 students, and one new one we met at the club table. Reading The All-Inclusive Christ was very rich, ushering the students into practical fellowship of entering into the enjoyment of the Lord.
We have been spending time with the students each day, and spending much time in the homes with the saints entering into the church life here in a sweet way. We visited the campus at Yale in New Haven with two students and one new brother who was just saved on Friday night, and saw the Gutenberg Bible together.
Prayer Burdens:
1. The next three Lord’s Days are structured differently with welcome meetings for the saints to invite friends and for new students to come. Please pray that the Lord would bless these meetings and bring many new ones.
2. That more students would be added this semester as remaining fruit, and the students that are not as solid would be vitalized to meet regularly and be companionized.
3. Strengthen the young families and saints, especially in the Bible reading schedule the whole church began together, that they would be nourished to feed the students and newer ones. Testimony from one teammate: During our time sight-seeing, I was eating with one brother who is joining the FTTA this term and the other who has only heard of the training in passing. He had
several questions, such as if the training is a place to train you for eldership or a role of responsibility in service, and regarding the purpose of the training.
After addressing these two questions I was led to share on several concepts that I have noticed among brothers and sisters among all ages concerning the training, that it is only for those who are ‘serious’ or ‘zealous’ for the Lord, or that going to the training will somehow make you some type of person for the Lord.
Two points that really resonated with me as I shared are:
– The training to me has not been a school but a place of healing and growing.
– God is training all of us, regardless of if we are in the training or not; what matters is if we are inwardly a trainee.
Consecration
The meaning of consecration is not our telling the Lord that we will do something, but to hand over ourselves and everything to God; this includes our going to the training. The purpose of consecration is to give Him the consent to work in us as He pleases to conform us to the image of His Son (Rom. 8:29).
Each one of us needs to become a person of consecration. This means that we are open to the Lord in every little detail of our life, be it the training, work, grad school, or getting a PhD. One of the biggest things that I have been exposed of in training is that I am not open enough, but that with a small opening, God can do a lot.
Source: http://beseeching.org/page/2/
