In View of God's Mercy...

So I had a long, but very awesome day yesterday. I met with the amazing Tori Lane in the morning at the Crosspoint House on George Mason's campus. We were meeting to walk around the campus and try to get a feel of the people there. First off, I have to say the campus "feel" is quite different from JMU. When one walks around JMU's campus, you can't help but notice that about 8/10 people wear some sort of JMU clothing: hoodie, shirt, pants, hats, jersey, bracelet, backpack, etc. As Tori and I walked around the campus, we would have be lucky to see more than maybe 7 out of the 500 students we must have passed by wearing some sort of GMU apparel. Part of the reason for that is the sheer amount of student who don't live on campus. There are 34,714 students who attend the school, but a very large amount do not live on campus. Another contributing factor to the seeming lack of identity that the students have with GMU is it's location in Fairfax. Fairfax is a hustle and bustle and it's identity overrides the GMU presence. In a place like JMU, Harrsionburg IS JMU. H-burg becomes a virtual ghost town when the students leave in the summer. Not Fairfax though. Another thing that caught us was the very high diversity of ethnicities present on campus. This made us pretty excited, because we both came from schools that seemed pretty whit bread. Diversity is a great thing!

Now, with all of this in mind, why were we there? Both Tori and I have caught the vision of God brought to us by Mike Bradley to reach the George Mason Campus for our Savior. We want to disciple, create community, serve and give students the tools necessary to be a thriving participant in the body of Christ through local churches both in college and after college. Romans 12 says this:

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

In view of our saving, loving, just, mighty, patient, incomparable God and all that He has done, we cannot help but go out telling and teaching others of Him. I will keep all of you updated on this thing as it gets moving and going. I'm pumped, aren't you?