Columbus State Community College, Columbus, OH: Day 1

i need to preface this by stating that monday was spent at ohio state all by myself, preaching solo, trying to get a crowd. for some reason i felt i had absolutely nothing to say, coming up with nothing to preach on and having a very hard time getting anything resembling decent interaction with the students. as the day progressed and i continually processed the days events, i wound up feeling discouraged to a certain degree, thoughts of complete deficiency overcame me as twilight arrived. the roof over our porch proved to be a much needed location of discussion and prayer with tim as we worked through my frustrations and fears.

this morning i woke up in anxiety, the first thoughts of the day swamped with doubts of abilities and the fear of men. as i progressed through breakfast, showering and time with the Lord, i became overwhelmingly desperate for His intervention, constantly dwelling on the fact that if He doesn't show up today, i fail. show up He did.

right from the get-go, within sixty seconds perhaps, there was a student probing me on whether or not he would go to hell for being gay. people immediately gathered, the crowd began to get louder and louder. as things began to build, one black student stepped out and kept circling me in silence (as if somehow that would deter me from my mission) and ignored my requests to back off and show respect. at some point someone asked me my political affiliation to which my response set off this circling mocker. he went absolutely livid, screaming, literally, about how i'm voting for four more years of bush, how we are in a recession and increasing the tension in the crowd by ten fold. once this mocker was a few sentences into his spiel, the crowd swelled to easily 150 souls, the largest i have ever been in front of before! i couldn't believe what i saw! at first they laughed at this mocker but i gave him just enough slack to hang himself with for within a few more minutes, the rest of the black students turned on him, shouting at him to back down because he's making a fool out of the rest of the black students. it's always a pleasure to see a heckler eaten publicly by his own kind. he left.

i continued to preach as loud as i could without screaming, in which we kept at it for about two hours total! this by far was my largest and longest time ever! sure, there were plenty of mistakes i made, some i am still thinking over and need to discuss with tom on the phone tonight, but all in all i am incredibly thankful for how the Lord showed up, how His name was proclaimed and even the chance to exhort the nearby saints to think of themselves as just that, saints, not sinners. one heckler recorded a large portion of today on his camera, i'm waiting for that video in which i will post on facebook! tomorrow is another day at columbus state, may i approach it with the same level of desperation and eagerness to see Him show up again.

there is no life like the one truly lost, we find it where we pick up our cross.