March Update on Life in Ames
The Rock on Friday nights has been getting full. We’ve been averaging close to 150 people in attendance and the puts us really short on chairs. It’s exciting to see so many new faces every week! Please pray that we can be faithful in following them up. During the month of February we did a series on relationships from roommate conflicts, into what purity in a Christian dating relationship looks like and finally what God calls us to eventually in marriage.
This semester Christie and I asked all of the college freshman in the Rock to come on over to our house for dinner. We had a lot of fun hanging out with them and building relationships with those we don’t know as well. It was also a great opportunity to cast the vision of what the Rock is about and how they can be involved.
Over spring break (here in the middle of March) Christie and helped lead a small team up to Duluth, MN to reach out in the frigid north. From our research there isn’t much of a Christian influence on the 15,000 college students. It was exciting to head to a new and unique area for the gospel. We enjoyed our time and learned a lot about the area.
Leadership Training in Colorado!
Christie and I are heading out to the GCM Leadership Training Program (LT) this summer in Estes Park, CO.
The LT program has been very instrumental in furthering my personal walk with God and helping me grow as a leader. My first LT was in 1998 when I had just graduated from high school. I moved away from home for the first time and stepped out in faith trusting God to take care of me. It was an amazing summer of new relationships, learning to serve others and practicing being accountable to other men.
I went back in ’99, 2002 and 2003 and took significant steps of faith each time. I had many opportunities to try out new leadership skills at different levels enabling me to attend as a full time intern with the program in 2003. These experiences dramatically affected my heart and were instrumental in my decision to pursue ministry full time. God has used the LT program to catalyze my faith and ultimately make me more like him!
Another very significant effect that the LT program has had on my life is God introduced me to my future wife through the program. Summer 2002 I was asked to lead music and she was assigned as my backup singer. Our friendship slowly grew over the next year and God brought us both back to LT the next summer and that is when romance blossomed. For obvious reasons students are discouraged from pursuing such relationships during the program, so we took it slow and asked for lots of counsel and God has obviously blessed us!
Both Christie and I are excited about returning and spending a summer in the place that we met six years before.
An overview of Leadership Training at http://www.gcmlt.org! »
Love,
Paul + Christie Johnson
424 Stanton Ave
Ames, IA 50014
515.231.7838
If you would like to receive our newsletter by email please ask me at
paul_at_rockisu.com
You can find a printable version here
Past Newsletters
You can find our November newsletter here
You can find our July newsletter here
You can find our March, Special Edition newsletter here
You can find our August newsletter here
You can find our April newsletter here
You can find our February newsletter here