500+ Came out to Wheeler Auditorium Wednesday, August 25th to Celebrate Life in Berkeley!

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Looking for the Supernatural On Campus

God's Spirit is on me; he's chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor, Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, To set the burdened and battered free, to announce, "This is God's year to act!" He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the place was on him, intent. Then he started in, "You've just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place." -Jesus of Nazareth (Luke 4:18-20 - Isaiah 61:1,2)

There's all this clamoring for attention on campus. Everyone wants a piece of the universities soul. Myriads of leaders, clubs and causes all vying for position and power. If they really thought about it, ...who they are really looking for is Jesus. Most don't know who He is. Most have never encountered him. Most looking for Him all the wrong places. Most miss Him by a mile, even most Christian groups. All this whirlwind of activity, ...much of which will not last or matter much in in this life or the Next.

There's a hunger and thirst in the souls of today's college students that is off-the-charts. They are searching for Jesus, but they are not aware it's Jesus they are looking for. This quiet desperation is fueled by intellectual angst, cultural emptiness, and father-mother-hunger . These days are an uprecidented time for the Gospel (on campus and off). So, it's not business as usual for campus ministers. I've been pulling out and dusting off the basics ("the radicals") again. I've experimenting lately with fully letting Him live His live in and through me in the power of the Holy Spirit and I've been humbled. I'm beginning to see stuff happen in me and on campus that can only be explained as supernatural.

So this April, I've asking myself, "Where are Jesus and His followers "making history" on campus these days?" "Where are Jesus' disciples on campus breaking out their churches and campus ministries and manifesting Jesus' attractiveness, Jesus' holiness, and Jesus' supernatural good works?" Pay attention, the Spirit of the Living God is upon us and we've been sent by the Holy Spirit to preach, free, heal, and announce "This is God's year to act!" I feel like I've been holding back during my past career as a campus minister ----I feel like now is the time to pull out the stops. I feel like we are on the verge of something extraordinary happening in our day and age. Let's lean into it.

Amazing April --- Walk Around Campus Eyes Wide Open

"April is Amazing" - There's a powerful spiritual convergence that happens on college campuses in April like no other month of the year. April is beautiful and memorable. Don't miss it. Jesus comes to campus in April!

April is post spring break and Easter season. It's boys and girls walking around in full bloom in every way imaginable. College community is at it's peak, campus clubs and living groups are in their prime, ...and everyone is strutting their stuff. It's sweet month to go-for-it relationally and socially. April is a rich season because Jesus weaves college memories for you that will last a lifetime.

It's a month to say all you've been wanting to say. It's a month to love with all your heart those you've been yearning to love. It's a month to allow Jesus of Nazareth to walk around campus in you and through you ---in the power of His beautiful Holy Spirit. April is a time to live it out and risk it all. Don't miss it! Everything unravells during finals. Everything dissapates over summer break. Walk around campus with eyes wide open. Jesus is on campus! Jesus is inside. Jesus is what makes April so Amazing.

"It's a Wonderful-Full Life" (Eugene Peterson writes beautifully about the Savior's Birth!)

It's a Wonder-Full Life
It takes a special kind of birth to grab the world's attention.

Eugene Peterson posted 12/21/2007 10:11AM. 2 of 2, ...For full article visit: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/december/28.34.html?start=1

So how did it happen that this birth, this Jesus birth, managed to set so many of us back on our heels in astonishment and gratitude and wonder? And continues to do so century after century, at least at this time of year?

The brief answer is that this wasn't just any birth. The baby's parents and first witnesses were convinced that God was entering human history in human form. Their conviction was confirmed in angel and Magi and shepherds' visitations; eventually an extraordinary life came into being before their eyes, right in their neighborhood. More and more people became convinced. Men, women, and children from all over the world continue to be convinced right up to the present moment.

Birth, every human birth, is an occasion for local wonder. In Jesus' birth the wonder is extrapolated across the screen of all creation and all history as a God-birth. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us"—moved into the neighborhood, so to speak. And for thirty years or so, men and women saw God in speech and action in the entirely human person of Jesus as he was subject, along with them, to the common historical conditions of, as Charles Williams once put it, "Jewish religion, Roman order, and Greek intellect." These were not credulous people and it was not easy for them to believe, but they did. That God was made incarnate as a human baby is still not easy to believe, but people continue to do so. Many, even those who don't "believe," find themselves happy to participate in the giving and receiving, singing and celebrating of those who do.

Incarnation, in-flesh-ment, God in human form in Jesus entering our history: this is what started Christmas. This is what keeps Christmas going.

Eugene Peterson is the author of many books, most recently of The Jesus Way (Eerdmans, 2007). This essay is reprinted from God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas (Paraclete Press, 2007).
Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information Related Elsewhere:
God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas is available from ChristianBook.com and other retailers.

Peterson's other articles on Christmas are in our special section: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/special/adventandchristmas.html